/srv/irclogs.ubuntu.com/2012/11/30/#ubuntustudio.txt

DR01D-Engineeranyone know how to record whats coming out of my computer, no mic or anything, just directly recording to a file the audio my computer sends to the speakers02:36
DR01D-Engineeri cant see anything relevant on qjack02:38
sabHi - can anyone tell me how to configure two GPU's thanks10:38
jussisab: is it optimus?11:12
jussiif so: http://geek.co.il/wp/2012/02/19/nvidia-optimus-on-ubuntu-12-0411:12
jussiI havent tried that, but Im told it works11:12
=== conor is now known as Guest29069
Guest29069so how about that low latency kernel?15:16
holstein?15:16
holsteinyou mean, how is the performance?15:16
holsteini find it still depends on the hardware support to a large degree15:17
holsteinGuest29069: grab the live iso, fire it up and try it15:17
Guest29069Yeah. I just started using studio. I haven't noticed much a difference in its ability to process audio15:17
holsteini find most folks dont need low latency anyways15:17
holsteinGuest29069: well, thats not what hte kernel is intended for15:18
Guest29069what is it intended for?15:18
holsteinits quite specifically designed to provide lower latency15:18
holsteinwithout a compromise on the system such as the older realtime kernels did.. with laptops for example15:18
Guest29069In order to allow to more powerful processing right?15:18
holsteinthe lowlatency is a nice compromise for everyone15:18
holsteinGuest29069: nope15:18
holsteinGuest29069: just lower latency15:18
holsteinGuest29069: the "power" will come from the machine15:19
Guest29069Well its certainly not intended to speed up the system. thatd be a real time kernel. or am i wrong?15:19
holsteinGuest29069: i did a LUG presentation called "linux is not magic".. it will not make the machine "better" or "faster"15:19
holsteinGuest29069: nothing will make the system "faster"15:19
holsteinsomething might utilize the hardware better.. or be more appropriate for an inteded purpose15:20
Guest29069Except a better gpu, a ssd, and optimum ram15:20
holsteinsuch as, *if* you need lowlatency.. and most people dont15:20
holsteinthere are 2 specific cases where latency matters.. realtime effects processing and software synthesisers15:20
holsteinother than that.. it really is not needed15:21
Guest29069Before giving studio a shot, I tried researching it. and my conclusion was that a low latency kernel basically gives the process time to finish (causing lag on intensive processes) and that extra allows software like jack to add effects (in real time) to the audio in a more efficient manner.15:21
Guest29069the result is a slower system15:22
holsteinif you need low latency, you'll figure out what it is and how to get it15:22
holsteinif you dont, i say, dont bother15:22
holsteinmost folks dont need JACK.. but if you do, its handy15:22
Guest29069I'm not trolling lol  but the whole thing confuses me.  am I right about the above though>15:22
Guest29069?15:23
holsteinits tricky15:23
Guest29069Okay, gotcha15:23
holsteinbut, not.. its not a slower system necessarily15:23
holsteinGuest29069: think of it this way15:23
holsteinif i press play... how long does it take for that audio to come form the speakers?15:23
holsteinhalf a second?15:23
holsteindoes it matter?15:24
Guest29069Nope15:24
holsteinwhay if it happened almost instantly?15:24
holsteinwould that be a faster system?15:24
Guest29069I couldnt tell15:24
Guest29069lol15:24
holsteinnot necessarily.. arguably better configured for realtime audio15:24
holsteinif i wanted to play a keyboard, and have the computer create a sound and play that sound.. then the timing becomes more important15:25
Guest29069Right.  So a low latency kernel is obviously useless for functions like audio playback.  But it would give processing software more power, not speed! but power?15:25
holsteini want that sound to happen as close to when i push that button as possible15:25
holsteini want it to seem like a keyboard15:26
holsteinrealtime15:26
holsteini did that with some software on a celeron 900mhz without JACK... just alsa... with pianoteq.. as pretty much a piano appliance15:26
holsteinthe configuration of that machine gave me quite low latency15:26
holsteindoesnt matter that its "old" or "slow"15:27
holsteinand the configuration didnt make it faster.. just more appropriately configured for the taks i wanted to use it for15:27
holsteinin one hardware scenario i have, i have a USB device that performs better and with lower latency with a generic kernel rather than a realtime one15:28
holsteinthe kernel version matters in that case.. the generic one supports that device better15:28
holsteinstill... no change to the computer in any way... its still the same speed.. its just about hardware support and software configuration15:29
Guest29069Okay15:30
Guest29069I think I understand better.15:30
holsteinGuest29069: its tricky... and im not a kernel dev.. i just use the software/hardware15:30
Guest29069So the kernel doesnt affect how much software uses the CPU, like throughput?15:31
holsteinGuest29069: sure.. it can.. its software and its open.. it can effect whatever you want it to effect15:31
holsteinbut, its not magical15:31
holsteinthe realtime kernel isnt something that makes the machine faster15:31
holsteinjust helps hopefully give priority to things to faciliate low latency15:32
holsteinthings that would cause a drastic drain of a laptop battery for example15:32
holsteinOR overheat a machine15:32
holsteinits a trade off... if you are wondering why its not like that "out of the box"15:33
holsteinor, why we dont ship with this setting optimally set for audio out of the box15:33
Guest29069Okay! So a low latency kernel would be beneficial if I wanted to process audio in real time.  Recording audio I know hardly uses any cpu, but processing that audio (as in adding effects in real time) can be really intensive.  The kernel would slow that processing software15:33
Guest29069down to the point where15:33
Guest29069all of its inputs find an output15:34
Guest29069no matter how long it takes15:34
holsteinthats more like it..15:34
holsteinkind of like a hard coded priority to the audio processing15:34
holsteinwhen something says "lets not give priority to the audio because of x" maybe the kernel says.. "nah, we're ok with that risk, keep it rolling"15:35
Guest29069Thats mostly what I want to do with studio.15:35
holsteinwell, this is what i do professionally.. and i seldom need low latency15:36
holsteini have several jack profiles.. and rarely need the lower latency one15:36
holsteinbut, if you are doing software synths live, you'll want it15:36
holsteinat least something like 8ms or so15:36
holsteinif i can get close to 5ms stable, i feel good about it.. but when mixing down, i bump it up to 80+ms or so15:37
holsteini dont feel i need to unecessarily tax the machine when applying plugins or whatever when the timing isnt crucial at mixing/mastering15:37
holsteinalso depends on the rig15:37
Guest29069Well thank you a lot! It makes sense now, and my conclusion is that I don't really need the kernel either for most situations.15:38
holsteinGuest29069: i still have a 10.04 install on my main audio production rig. i have several kernels that i boot for different reasons.. kind of like dual booting15:38
holsteinback then, the differences were more drastic though15:39
Guest29069I'll keep it though, just in case.  and I understand, considering now most computers ship with dual core processors and at least 2 gigs of ram15:39
holsteini find i can do most everything i need with the current low-latency kernel, though i do get lower latency with the older realtime one in 10.04.. not that that is why im keeping 10.04 around15:39
Guest29069Did they switch to Gnome after 10.04?15:40
holsteinwell.. thats a different story15:40
Guest29069Why do you keep 10.04 around then? haha15:40
holsteinin 10.04, ubuntu and ubuntustudio shipped gnome2 as default15:41
holsteinwhen main ubuntu went unity, we (ubuntustudio) went xfce15:41
holsteinthat was around 11.0415:41
Guest29069Oh yeah, I meant unity, not gnome15:41
holsteinnah.. i keep 10.04 around for stability.. and because i just havent taken the time to migrate fully15:42
holsteinGuest29069: i do work on that rig occasionally.. its mission critical15:42
holsteinnot that i dont trust 12.04.. i just havent taken the time to migrate.. i have a 12.10 install on a hard drive in that machine and it tested OK for the time i had to test15:42
holsteini try and test the 64bit versions on that machine15:43
holsteinwe have more 32bit testers15:43
Guest29069I had a lot of problems with 12.04 on my rig with my video card.15:43
holsteinthat can happen15:43
holsteinwe dont have any control over those drivers15:44
holsteinGuest29069: keep in mind, ubuntustudio *is* ubuntu.. for generic things like that, you can sometimes get better support searching "ubuntu" instead of "ubuntustudio"15:44
holsteinGuest29069: not that im kicking you out of here.. its just that it can be slow here, if you are not finding help for things like graphics and other non-audio specific things15:45
Guest29069I understand15:45
holsteini got dual head configured in 12.10 easily enough with the proprietary nvidia driver15:45
holsteinthat was one of the things i needed to learn to implement in xfce since i was used to gnome215:46
Guest29069Well thanks for your help. I must get going.15:47
=== karl is now known as Guest8545
peccmy audio dies randomly when connected to dock, disconnect/reconnect helps every time but only until the next time, audio worked 40 min perfectly when disconnected from dock, after reconnecting failed in 10 min -- anyone have any ideas?21:24
peccvisited #ubuntu but they're having a shortage of audio-knowing peeps21:27
len-dtwhats "dock"?21:32
peccdocking station for my laptop21:36
len-dtAh, so the audio doesn't go through the dock then?21:36
pecc(also known as "the thing that has all the connections and jacks I lost when my lappy blew up)21:36
peccapparently it doesn't... which is hugely annoying because I don't have an integrated audio jack these days21:37
peccI need to get my dock and my Quantal playing nicely together because no dock = no music, no Net21:38
peccany ideas? :/21:38
len-dtDoes the dock have much in the way of circuitry? or is it mostly like a "breakout box"? That takes a big connector and breaks it down to smaller plaugs?21:39
pecc(this also happened when I had Precise... I updated the system in hopes of fixing this specific problem)21:39
len-dtI guess I am asking if there are any changes to the kernel modules that are loaded with the unit docked or not.21:39
peccuh.... it's pretty much just a glorified USB hub with a bit of board, a LAN card, and some additional connections for audio in/out, serial, parallel, and old type keyboard and mouse21:41
peccplus a fan21:41
peccgiffen 4675321:42
peccand I have no idea whether there's anything affecting kernel modules or not21:42
len-dtbut you are using the onboard sound card?21:43
peccI'm not entirely sure21:43
peccI think it's possible the original sound card went with the power button board21:43
pecc= dead21:43
len-dtDoes the dock just plug into a USB port or is it a bigger connector?21:43
peccUSB21:43
len-dtNot internal sound then.21:44
pecco.o21:44
pecccat /proc/asound/cards21:44
pecc 1 [Set            ]: USB-Audio - C-Media USB Headphone Set21:44
pecc                      C-Media USB Headphone Set at usb-0000:00:1d.7-1.4.5, full speed21:44
len-dtI would guess you are not trying to do low latency sound stuff, just listening to whatever sound there is.21:45
peccyeah21:45
len-dtI have not had problems using a USB audio interface.21:46
len-dtBut I am very careful to make sure I use a USB connector that is not used for anything else. That is not a hub. But the only problem I have had when I had other things using the same port was xruns.21:47
len-dt(pops and clicks some times)21:48
len-dtMy netbook wireless interferes with the audio :P21:48
peccI'll try switching the dock directly to my lappy (it's now connected via hub)... I might drop off the channel but will be back21:49
len-dtk21:49
peccyay no disconnect21:49
peccnow... have to wait21:50
peccto see if the audio starts acting up again.21:50
len-dtI figured21:51
pecc*sigh*22:05
peccit acted up again22:05
peccmore ideas?22:05
len-dtwhen it acted up did it add anything to dmesg?22:16
len-dtor syslog?22:16
pecchow do I check?22:29
peccfound syslog22:40
pecccannot submit urb (err = -27) seems to happen consistently before disconnect-usb messages22:40
peccoch dem, some googling and an audio dev say this is not a simple issue :I22:52

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