Some questions regarding music production and KDE (Help!)

[junkman]

Hi !

Just a little notice before you read anything, if you don't want to read my whole post, I have bolded all my questions and so it is easier for you to find them and maybe answering them without reading everything.

I decided to buy a new computer and my nearest computer store allows you to "build" your own computer at the internet. So I have built one and thought of using Debian on it.

I have always used Gnome and IceWM, but I think it's time to tryout KDE, especially after I found out that there is a wonderful music creation app (like Cubase) for linux which is Rosegarden. Rosegarden is made for KDE and so I want to ask, is it possible to run a KDE/Gnome app in IceWM ? Because I love IceWM so much, it's the best desktop environment I have ever seen.

Thank you very very much! Any kind of help is very highly appreciated.

[jahvascriptmaniac]

KDE/Gnome apps in icewm -> no problem. :-)
But they are slower to start than in their native environement.

I'm not an audio specialist, can't help you for the rest. Sory.

[bluesdog]

if you follow this guide: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=5484
Does it install stuff like asound (ALSA Sound library) ?

Whatever method you follow, probably best to install etch/testing.
Personally, I'd go for the new graphical installer, if only to see how well it works.

Code: Select all

installgui

at the welcome screen..

After that, you might want to build a new kernel patched and optimized for audio, more-or-less following the guide here

Note: some of the information on Emmanuel's site, including that regarding the realtime patch, may be out of date, so check out the procedure here
Taliesin's how-to also has more details on kernel building.

is it possible to rip the soundfont from Windows XP? And if yes, how?

I just copied the soundfont file from my Audigy cd to a suitable location on my hard disk. There are also soundfonts available here

[junkman]

Thank you for your answers! You won't believe how much that helped me. However, jahvascriptmaniac, your post led me to a puzzle that I can't solve:

... But they are slower to start ...

Do the KDE/Gnome apps only start slower or do they also run slower? If they just open up slower, then that's no problem but if they run slower then that might be a problem.

EDIT: This custom audio kernel thing let me to think very much.. And I found out that the AGNULA project has a Debian distro with that custom kernel. I think you know what I mean, namely DeMuDi. Taking a quote from AGNULA's website, I think that I don't need to make my own kernel, but to install DeMuDi:

AGNULA's Linux kernel has been optimized for low-latency. The patches that have been applied can dramatically reduce latency in multimedia systems to well within professionally acceptable ranges, demonstrating another powerful aspect of the GNU/Linux system. In addition to the low-latency patches we have applied the preemptive kernel patch to ensure low-latency over extended periods of time (e.g., more than 24 hours continuous performance). The realtime clock driver has been compiled into the kernel to provide high-accuracy timing for RTC-aware applications. Finally, kernel support for optimized hard-disk usage has been enabled and the hdparm utility is invoked during system start-up to ensure peak disk I/O.

All what I read in the above quote is mentioned in Emmanuel's custom kernel guide. Would you prefer DeMuDi?

Thank you very much for your help!

[bluesdog]

Agnula/DeMuDi is basically Debian anyway, so it would probably be a good initial setup.

I investigated DeMuDi originally, but at the time I was putting my box together, I was having problems finding an easy way to install to a SATA drive, so chose Libranet, and started hacking away...

Since Libranet went buh-bye, I have gradually altered my box to pure Debian, learning along the way how to customize the kernel and add the modules and capabilities I wanted -- so now it has the same or similar capabilities as DeMuDi: realtime patched, preemtive kernel, RTC, various audio apps etc.

Note if you go the DeMuDi route, when/if you want to compile a newer kernel you'll have to obtain the various patches as applied to the DeMuDi customized kernel.

btw, I think KDE/Gnome apps under icewm will run just fine, but will be a bit slower to start

[junkman]

Thanks for the help!
Downloading the DeMuDi ISO-image now, can't wait to see it
BTW, you said you have already investigated DeMuDi, right? Do you know if it has an option to just install the base system (commandline, basic apps like nano and then the ALSA stuff) ?
It would be a big bonus if I could just install the DeMuDi base system and then apt-get icewm and rosegarden

Thanks!