News thread

[audiojunkie]

Linus Torvalds predicts Linux Kernel 6.0 debut next week, dispels fear of delays

https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/26/linux_6_rc7/

Linus Torvalds predicts Linux Kernel 6.0 debut next week, dispels fear of delays

Hails unusually smooth development process despite travel complications

Simon Sharwood

Mon 26 Sep 2022 // 03:45 UTC

Linux kernel boss Linus Torvalds has offered the community an optimistic prediction that version 6.0 of the project will debut next week.

Last week Torvalds felt that might not be the case.

In his September 18 State of the Kernel update, Torvalds announced release candidate six and mentioned that the 2022 Maintainers' Summit in Dublin had seen a lot of influential penguinistas spend time away from their desks.

"I am expecting rc7 to be larger than usual due to pull requests having shifted one week later, and in the worst case that might mean that I might feel like we need an extra rc8," he wrote, adding "but for now I'm going to assume it's not going to be _that_ noticeable and hope we'll just keep to the regular schedule."


His assumption has proven correct.

"So I was thinking rc7 might end up larger than usual due to travel hitting rc6, but it doesn't really seem to have happened," Torvalds wrote in this week's kernel update post.

"Yeah, maybe it's marginally bigger than the historical average for this time of the release cycle, but it definitely isn't some outlier, and it looks fairly normal. Which is all good, and makes me think that the final release will happen right on schedule next weekend, unless something unexpected happens."

"Incidentally, rc7 is also (I think) the first time we have a clean 'make allmodconfig' build with no warnings from clang, since the patches for frame size problems in the amd display code got merged," he wrote. "The stack frame size is still pretty big (and the code isn't exactly pretty), but now it's below the level we warn about."

All of which points to next week being a fun time for Linux admirers, because as we have chronicled, version 6.0 of the kernel includes interesting things like more support for RISC-V and Intel's Gaudi accelerators, plus work to improve performance of Server Message Block 3 that should improve storage I/O to networked file shares.

Torvalds wrapped his post with a call to "give this one (hopefully) final week of testing, but it all looks pretty good." ®

[audiojunkie]

Linux 6.1 Cleans Up More Code For PREEMPT_RT

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-...EEMPT_RT-Clean

real-time "RT" mainlining effort for the Linux kernel remains ongoing. While the finish line is coming near, PREEMPT_RT support for mainline still isn't over the last hurdle -- seemingly the main blocker it's still held up by are the printk changes with threaded console printing. But for the Linux 6.1 merge window there is at least more kernel code clean-ups.

Thomas Gleixner of Linutronix, which is owned by Intel since earlier this year, sent in a set of sched/rt patches this morning for Linux 6.1. For this cycle there are more PREEMPT_RT code clean-ups:
Introduce preempt_[dis|enable_nested() and use it to clean up various places which have open coded PREEMPT_RT conditionals.

On PREEMPT_RT enabled kernels, spinlocks and rwlocks are neither disabling preemption nor interrupts. Though there are a few places which depend on the implicit preemption/interrupt disable of those locks, e.g. seqcount write sections, per CPU statistics updates etc.

PREEMPT_RT added open coded CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT conditionals to disable/enable preemption in the related code parts all over the place. That's hard to read and does not really explain why this is necessary.

Linus suggested to use helper functions (preempt_disable_nested() and preempt_enable_nested()) and use those in the affected places. On !RT enabled kernels these functions are NOPs, but contain a lockdep assert to validate that preemption is actually disabled to catch call sites which do not have preemption disabled.

Clean up the affected code paths in mm, dentry and lib.

See this pull request for the full list of RT patches for Linux 6.1. Maybe by 6.2 the rest of the RT patch series will be ready for mainlining? It sure would make for a nice way of ringing in 2023.

[audiojunkie]

Debian Chooses A Reasonable, Common Sense Solution To Dealing With Non-Free Firmware


https://www.phoronix.com/news/Debian...irmware-Result



Written by Michael Larabel in Debian on 2 October 2022 at 05:26 AM EDT. 47 Comments
DEBIAN -- Debian developers have been figuring out an updated stance to take on non-free firmware considering the increasing number of devices now having open-source Linux drivers but requiring closed-source firmware for any level of functionality. The voting on the non-free firmware matter has now concluded and the votes tallied...

The debian votes option 5 as winning: "Change SC for non-free firmware in installer, one installer"

Per the Debian Wiki, that option amounts to:
The Debian Social Contract is replaced with a new version that is identical to the current version in all respects except that it adds the following sentence to the end of point 5:

"The Debian official media may include firmware that is otherwise not part of the Debian system to enable use of Debian with hardware that requires such firmware."

The Debian Project also makes the following statement on an issue of the day:

We will include non-free firmware packages from the "non-free-firmware" section of the Debian archive on our official media (installer images and live images). The included firmware binaries will normally be enabled by default where the system determines that they are required, but where possible we will include ways for users to disable this at boot (boot menu option, kernel command line etc.).

When the installer/live system is running we will provide information to the user about what firmware has been loaded (both free and non-free), and we will also store that information on the target system such that users will be able to find it later. Where non-free firmware is found to be necessary, the target system will also be configured to use the non-free-firmware component by default in the apt sources.list file. Our users should receive security updates and important fixes to firmware binaries just like any other installed software.

We will publish these images as official Debian media, replacing the current media sets that do not include non-free firmware packages.

Basically the Debian Installer media will now be allowed to include non-free firmware and to automatically load/use it where necessary while informing the user of it, etc. Considering the state of the hardware ecosystem these days, it's reasonable and common sense since at least users will be able to easily make use of their graphics cards, network adapters, and more. Plus a number of modern CPU security mitigations also requiring the updated closed-source microcode. So all in, I am personally happy with this decision as it will allow for a more pleasant experience for Debian on modern systems and one akin to what is found with other Linux distributions.

[audiojunkie]

Debian 12 Switches To PipeWire & WirePlumber By Default With The GNOME Deskto

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Debian-12-PipeWire

Written by Michael Larabel in Debian on 1 October 2022 at 08:56 AM EDT. 41 Comments
DEBIAN -- In addition to Ubuntu 22.10 switching to PipeWire as the default audio server replacement to PulseAudio, upstream Debian has done the same ahead of their Debian GNU/Linux 12 release next year.

Jeremy Bicha of Canonical ushered through the change for switching Debian's upstream default when using the GNOME desktop to PipeWire along with the WirePlumber manager.


Since mid-September has been this Debian bug report over changing to PipeWire by default for gnome-core with Debian Sid and the Debian 12 "Bookworm" release. At the moment this only affects GNOME users on Debian moving forward.

Debian and Ubuntu join the likes of Fedora Workstation, openSUSE Tumbleweed, Pop!_OS, and many other Linux distributions already using PipeWire and WirePlubmer by default on the desktop as a modern and robust alternative to the likes of PulseAudio and JACK.

Separately, yesterday also marked the release of PipeWire 0.3.59 with Bluetooth LE support, improvements to the ALSA plug-in, Pulse server tweaks, and a variety of fixes throughout.

Debian 12 as the next major Debian GNU/Linux release will likely debut around mid-2023.

[audiojunkie]

Btrfs Brings Some Great Performance Improvements With Linux 6.1

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.1-Btrfs

Written by Michael Larabel in Linux Kernel on 4 October 2022 at 07:30 AM EDT. 25 Comments
LINUX KERNEL -- I always love pull requests that start off with "there's a bunch of performance improvements..." as is the case with the new Btrfs feature pull for Linux 6.1.

Btrfs with Linux 6.1 brings async buffered writes for a possible ~2x or more throughput improvement.


The Btrfs async buffered writes and with IO_uring is quite promising.


There is also a significant FIEMAP speed improvement. There is a change to the algorithm for how extents are enumerated and "leads to orders of magnitude speed boost".

There is also improved inode logging that can lead to around a 25% throughput improvement and with a maximum latency lower by about 21% with Dbench, improved buffer I/O, and a variety of other smaller performance improvements.

Plus there is initial fs-verity support in the Btrfs send code, more effective memory use in the Btrfs scrub code, various fixes, and other improvements.

Basically, lots of great improvements for Btrfs with Linux 6.1, especially in the performance department. See the complete list of Btrfs patches for Linux 6.1 via this pull request.

[audiojunkie]

EXT4 Rolls Up Some Fixes & Performance Optimizations For Linux 6.1


https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.1-EXT4-Changes



Written by Michael Larabel in Linux Storage on 5 October 2022 at 04:43 AM EDT. 1 Comment
LINUX STORAGE -- Ted Ts'o has submitted the EXT4 file-system updates for the Linux 6.1 kernel.

While there is a lot of Btrfs performance work for Linux 6.1, over on the EXT4 side it's a relatively quiet cycle. There are some bug fixes as well as some performance optimization tuning but overall nothing dramatic with EXT4 continuing to prove itself as a reliable and robust Linux file-system.

Some of the EXT4 highlights for Linux 6.1 include:
Performance:

- Always enable i_version counter (as btrfs and xfs already do). Remove some uneeded i_version bumps to avoid unnecessary nfs cache invalidations.

- Wake up journal waters in FIFO order, to avoid some journal users from not getting a journal handle for an unfairly long time.

- In ext4_write_begin() allocate any necessary buffer heads before starting the journal handle.

- Don't try to prefetch the block allocation bitmaps for a read-only file system.

Bug Fixes:

- Fix a number of fast commit bugs, including resources leaks and out of bound references in various error handling paths and/or if the fast commit log is corrupted.

- Avoid stopping the online resize early when expanding a file system which is less than 16TiB to a size greater than 16TiB.

- Fix apparent metadata corruption caused by a race with a metadata buffer head getting migrated while it was trying to be read.

- Mark the lazy initialization thread freezable to prevent suspend failures.

More details on the EXT4 changes for Linux 6.1 via this pull request.

[audiojunkie]

Apisonic Labs has updated Speedrum to version 1.4.0.

https://www.kvraudio.com/news/apison...o-v1-4-0-55956

Main Changes since v1.3.1:

Added: Time/pitch stretching.
Added: Geist and SFZ import.
Added: Import/export Pad.
Added: New GUI controls.
And lot more improvements and fixes.

Read more at
www.apisoniclabs.com

[/AND/]

Originally Posted by audiojunkie

Apisonic Labs has updated Speedrum to version 1.4.0.

Interesting.

BTW,

Originally Posted by audiojunkie

Debian 12 Switches To PipeWire & WirePlumber By Default With The GNOME Deskto

From personal experience PipeWire works better than expected, I really can't believe low-latency audio on Linux is this freakin' easy. Just pure plug-n-play in >95% of cases.

[audiojunkie]

Originally Posted by /AND/

Interesting.

BTW,



From personal experience PipeWire works better than expected, I really can't believe low-latency audio on Linux is this freakin' easy. Just pure plug-n-play in >95% of cases.

Yep! And now even the LTS distros are moving to it by default. It's getting easier for everyone!

[audiojunkie]

Integrate — Subtractive Synthesizer [CLAP, FL Studio]...Now supporting Linux!

https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewt...28321#p8528321

https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=581588

Nakst at KVR Audio writes:

Today I'm very excited to announce that Integrate version 1.1 has been released! Also, I have started a Halloween sale running until 1st November with 30% off. During the sale Integrate costs $38.49 USD.

If you already own a copy of Integrate, this is free update. The old version will remain available to download.

Changelog:
- 8 new distortion/filter saturator algorithms: 4 waveshapers closely modeled off the Virus C, 3 asymmetric modes to add even harmonics, "teeth" algorithm.
- Added support for the Linux platform.
- Windows support has been extended to also include Windows 7 and 8. (Vista might also work, but I haven't tried it.)
- New note glide modes. You can select between always glide, glide between adjacent notes, and glide between overlapping notes.
- Both Amp A and Amp B now have a note velocity to amp option (previously this was always enabled).
- After installing Integrate, my free audio plugins will no longer automatically display the about screen when opened.
- Improved installer to reduce download size (roughly 5x smaller).
- Dark theme has been added.
- General user interface improvements.
- Installer performs consistency check to ensure the plugin is installed correctly
- Support for the note choke event in the CLAP format.
- Various additional features from the CLAP API.
- Improved security when loading patches.
- Bugfix: For hosts using very large buffer sizes, the trance gate will now function correctly.
- Additionally, the new IntegrateFX plugin is bundled.

[audiojunkie]

MXDE-EFL 21.1 Released (aka next AV Linux in development)

https://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=24839

by GMaq » Wed Aug 24, 2022 10:27 am

Hi LM friends!

I haven't been able to participate in my favorite 'Original Scores and Recordings' forum section much lately as I have been busy with this new project 'MXDE-EFL' which in a nutshell is an independent custom build of my home Distro (MX Linux) with the Enlightenment Desktop Environment. It has been several months in development and I like how it's turned out so in addition to it being useful as-is it is also going to be a template for the next AV Linux... To be clear the current XFCE4/Openbox AV Linux based on MX 21 (Debian Bullseye) is still the current active release and will be supported and updated until the next official full release of MX Linux when it moves to Debian Bookworm which is not until next year sometime.. On top of that MX Linux does an excellent job of supporting 'oldstable' releases so users of AV Linux MX Edition 21.X will literally be supported for years so to be abundantly clear 'MXDE-EFL' is not a new version of the existing AV Linux MX Edition! It is it's own thing and is a glimpse into the future of what the NEXT AV Linux will look like with regard to the Desktop Environment..

I'm not going to lie I'm personally extremely disenchanted with the situation of Linux Desktop Environments... (what follows is opinion, not empirical science) The light ones require constant futzing and reams of customized configuration scripting to pretend they are full-featured, this is great fun if you are a constant tweaker and end-user but not viable as a Distributor... The middle ones have ballooned the same-old bland features with extra needless RAM consumption and very generally Gnome/GTK strives to out-Apple MacOS and KDE strives to be Windows+ which may understandably be very appealing to some people but I want Linux to be an alternative unique and different experience like it was when I tried it all those years ago not just another blue-based business enterprise Desktop so my gaze turned to becoming Enlightened...

I would be remiss to not mention we have seen an Enlightenment-based Audio distro before: http://io.gnu.linux.free.fr/ so I don't pretend to have come up with a new idea nor do I have anything to do with that project which always looked interesting but sadly seems to have ceased development... To be honest with a few months of testing Enlightenment under my belt it addresses some of my concerns but is also incomplete and as a project independent of GTK/QT it still needs to function in a world of Applications coded in GTK/QT so some issues are solved and some new ones are created... What I DO like about it is IRC access to the developer (who is himself your typical iconoclastic genius), it's longevity, it's uniqueness, it's actual efficiency with the system resources and of course the compositing features. It is constantly being worked on and improved and the developer is pretty open to user suggestions and bug reports so it is an attractive alternative to me since I'm also working on a unique and niche product within Linuxdom..

In my long time here at LM's a few things have become clear... AV Linux will never be a mainstream standard-bearing candidate for Linux Audio, it has nothing to do with it's actual usefulness or functionality nor do I take it personally.. It has a stigma as a 'one-person' project regardless of how many years the one person has been around, many people here are equally (or indeed more) capable to build their own Linux Audio system and in the freedom-of-choice Linux world a working system is no match for the wide-open boundless world of other shiny options.. There is an alarmingly large tendency for people to throw away a cast iron core of a system for an ephemeral single new Plugin or a different Desktop Environment at the drop of the hat and that is the beauty of freedom but I also embrace the freedom to think that is crazy.. :wink: This tendency carries into things like PipeWire; as of this writing a literal 0.3.X beta-level Audio server being embraced and deployed by major Distributions and displacing 2 admittedly imperfect veteran Audio servers that despite their flaws still provide superior performance for actual Pro Audio Production (well as it exists on Linux anyway..). What's the point of this screed? The point is I'm not out to do anything but what I've always done which is share my working system with anyone who may find it useful and I will do it in whatever way I interpret to make sense and work to the best of my knowledge and experience. If moving to Enlightenment is yet another thing that 'puts people off' about AV Linux so be it.. To reiterate the current AV Linux MX Edition release will continue with XFCE4/Openbox and will see updates and maintenance until the end of Debian Bullseye/MX 21 as Stable Releases and the NEXT full release will move to Enlightenment. MXDE-EFL is a current side project that also serves as a glimpse into the future and a testing bed for the next AV Linux..

Why might you be interested?

- No docs or Videos yet, sorry just haven't got the time right now.
- 64bit features Liquorix Kernel 5.19; 32bit features a non-PAE 5.10
- IRQ-threading by default *64bit only
- Usual 'pajackconnect' AV Linux JACK/Pulse setup (credit to @tramp )
- Full yabridge/WineASIO/Wine-Staging setup
- Many essential Audio Plugins included in base.
- Fully-functional official Ardour bundle included
- Reaper Demo included
- Only English locale by default, others can be added post-install as usual.
- Custom additional MXDE-EFL utilities (Wine Utils, YADbridge, Desktop Apps etc..) are English-only for now.
- EFM (Enlightenment File Manager) is nice but not feature complete, zzzFM is provided as an auxiliary/alternative.
- AV Linux Audio-specific 'Open With' functions available in both File Managers
- Special Ardour focused udev rules included by default
- Neither File Manager has trash support! Deleted means deleted!
- This ISO uses Connman instead of Network Manager, if you have WiFi issues consult the Connman PDF on the Desktop.
- Enlightenment's menu appears on Desktop with right-click to emulate Openbox.
- An alternate searchable 'Appfinder' menu based on jgmenu has been provided with a Win+m hotkey.
- Enlightenment's 'terminology' Terminal has a Win+t hotkey.
- Enlightenment isn't terribly 'icons on the Desktop' friendly... A kludgy 'Desktop Apps' utility has been provided to help..
- Enlightenment uses it's own Packagekit frontend for Package updates.
- Enlightenment is best run with systemd, sysvinit doesn't support all functions (ie PackageKit)
- At this time I DO NOT suggest installing other Desktop Environments with Enlightenment, if you do you're on your own..
- Don't forget the MX Test Repo Tab within MX Package Installer has newer versions of many Audio Applications!!
- More to come as you ask me I suppose..

Before downloading and trying this I need to caution people that this project is very new, I'm still learning myself about EFL/Enlightenment and I'm also in the midst of a very busy work period in my offline life so if you have issues or questions please post them in the MX Respins forum and be patient as I'm spread pretty thin and TBH still catching up and recovering from a pretty nasty bout of Covid-19 I picked up a couple of weeks ago..

Please read carefully and download from the MXDE-EFL Webpage here:
http://www.bandshed.net/mxde-efl-build/

Best, Glen

[audiojunkie]

Kx as a distrib is over - what next for ubuntu users?

https://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic...684a4e#p148929

There's some interesting conversation going on in this thread right now.

[audiojunkie]

Linux 6.1 Brings New Sound Drivers For AMD & Apple

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.1-Sound

Written by Michael Larabel in Multimedia on 6 October 2022 at 05:03 AM EDT. Add A Comment
MULTIMEDIA -- Linux sound subsystem maintainer Takashi Iwai on Wednesday submitted all of the sound driver updates for Linux 6.1.

There is a lot of new sound hardware support with Linux 6.1, including for AMD devices, early sound support for Apple Silicon with the M1 and M2, improvements to existing Intel hardware support, and a lot of mobile hardware work.

Highlights for the sound changes in Linux 6.1 include:

- Support for AMD Rembrandt with the Sound Open Firmware code, complementing the existing AMD Cezanne platform support in SOF. Great seeing AMD continuing to embrace SOF, presumably as part of their Chromebook play.

- AMD's Pink Sardine Audio Co-Processor 6.2 (ACP 6.2) is now supported. This Pink Sardine audio driver appeared back in August and is now being mainlined. It's not clear what Pink Sardine correlates to on AMD's roadmap but may be for the "Phoenix" mobile APUs or perhaps the Mendocino budget APUs.

- The new "SOC_APPLE_MCA" driver for enabling the ASoC platform driver for MCA peripherals found with Apple Silicon SoCs. This Apple Silicon sound driver was started by the Asahi Linux developers and successfully tested with both the Apple M1 and M2 hardware.

- Improvements to the Sound Open Firmware (SOF) IPC4 code.

- Mediatek MT8186 audio support.

- Support for the NXP i.MX8ULP DSPs.

- Qualcomm SC8280XP / SM8250 / SM8450 support.

More details on these sound changes, which have already been merged, via the pull request.

[audiojunkie]

For those of you who are using, or interested in using Btrfs, here's a quick primer article:

Working with Btrfs – General Concepts

https://fedoramagazine.org/working-w...eral-concepts/

[audiojunkie]

http://planet.linuxaudio.org/

Qtractor 0.9.29 - An Early-Autumn'22 Release batch #3
QtractorQtractor
Hello there, one third and last time,

Qtractor 0.9.29 (early-autumn'22) is released!
Change-log:

Capture same time(stamp) note-off tracking and postponing is now on trial, hopefully mitigating a legato issue, reported to MIDI wind instruments (EWI). (EXPERIMENTAL)
Fixed an old window parenting (aka z-level) issue, related to the Add Track and Track Properties dialogs and whether called from the main or mixer menus.
Fixed the out-of-process plugin scanner terminating too soon and sometimes miss some very last results.
Fixed another old bug in MIDI note-off messages not being sent while playing after a loop region.
Fixed a pretty ancient bug in the VST(2.x) plug-in program names inventory, present when building to the VeSTige header (which is still the default).
Description:
Qtractor is an audio/MIDI multi-track sequencer application written in C++ with the Qt framework. Target platform is Linux, where the Jack Audio Connection Kit (JACK) for audio and the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) for MIDI are the main infrastructures to evolve as a fairly-featured Linux desktop audio workstation GUI, specially dedicated to the personal home-studio.
Website:
https://qtractor.org
Project page:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/qtractor
Downloads:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/qtractor/files
source tarball:
qtractor-0.9.29.tar.gz
source package (openSUSE Tumbleweed):
qtractor-0.9.29-72.1.rncbc.suse.src.rpm
binary package (openSUSE Tumbleweed):
qtractor-0.9.29-72.1.rncbc.suse.x86_64.rpm
AppImage packages:
qtractor-0.9.29-72.1.x86_64.AppImage
Flatpak package (thanks to Hubert Figuière)
https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.rncbc.qtractor
Git repos:
https://git.code.sf.net/p/qtractor/code
https://github.com/rncbc/qtractor.git
https://gitlab.com/rncbc/qtractor.git
https://bitbucket.org/rncbc/qtractor.git
Wiki (outdated; help wanted!):
https://sourceforge.net/p/qtractor/wiki/
static rendering:
https://qtractor.org/doc
user manual & how-to's:
qtractor-manual-and-howtos.epub
qtractor-manual-and-howtos.pdf
License:
Qtractor is free, open-source Linux Audio software, distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2 or later.
Make some noise, have fun or else, make some music!

Donate to rncbc.org using PayPal Donate to rncbc.org using Liberapay

by rncbc at October 05, 2022 11:00 AM

[audiojunkie]

http://planet.linuxaudio.org/

Vee One Suite 0.9.27 - An Early-Autumn'22 Release batch #2
Vee One Suite
Hello there, one second time,

The Vee One Suite of old-school software instruments,

synthv1 as a polyphonic subtractive synthesizer;
samplv1 a polyphonic sampler synthesizer;
drumkv1 as yet another drum-kit sampler;
padthv1 a polyphonic additive synthesizer.
Are here, once again released for this (northern) Early-Autumn'22 season.

All delivered in dual form:

a pure stand-alone JACK client with JACK-session, NSM (Non Session Management) and both JACK MIDI and ALSA MIDI input support;
a LV2 instrument plug-in.
Common change-log:

Fixed MIDI Controller... modeless dialog (de)instantiation.
Custom color/style themes applies only to main widget only.
Fixed typos and updated some old MIDI GM2 Controller names.
The Vee One Suite are free, open-source Linux Audio software, distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2 or later.



synthv1synthv1 - an old-school polyphonic synthesizer
synthv1

synthv1 0.9.27 (early-autumn'22) is out!

synthv1 is an old-school all-digital 4-oscillator subtractive polyphonic synthesizer with stereo fx.

LV2 URI: http://synthv1.sourceforge.net/lv2
website:
https://synthv1.sourceforge.io
http://synthv1.sourceforge.net
project page:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/synthv1
downloads:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/synthv1/files
source tarball:
synthv1-0.9.27.tar.gz
source package:
synthv1-0.9.27-68.1.rncbc.suse.src.rpm
binary packages (openSUSE Tumbleweed):
synthv1-jack-0.9.27-68.1.rncbc.suse.x86_64.rpm
synthv1-lv2-0.9.27-68.1.rncbc.suse.x86_64.rpm
AppImage package (JACK stand-alone only):
synthv1-jack-0.9.27-68.1.x86_64.AppImage
git repos:
https://git.code.sf.net/p/synthv1/code
https://github.com/rncbc/synthv1.git
https://gitlab.com/rncbc/synthv1.git
https://bitbucket.org/rncbc/synthv1.git


samplv1samplv1 - an old-school polyphonic sampler
samplv1

samplv1 0.9.27 (early-autumn'22) is out!

samplv1 is an old-school polyphonic sampler synthesizer with stereo fx.

LV2 URI: http://samplv1.sourceforge.net/lv2
website:
https://samplv1.sourceforge.io
http://samplv1.sourceforge.net
project page:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/samplv1
downloads:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/samplv1/files
source tarball:
samplv1-0.9.27.tar.gz
source package:
samplv1-0.9.27-68.1.rncbc.suse.src.rpm
binary packages (openSUSE Tumbleweed):
samplv1-jack-0.9.27-68.1.rncbc.suse.x86_4.rpm
samplv1-lv2-0.9.27-68.1.rncbc.suse.x86_4.rpm
AppImage package (JACK stand-alone only):
samplv1-jack-0.9.27-68.1.x86_64.AppImage
git repos:
https://git.code.sf.net/p/samplv1/code
https://github.com/rncbc/samplv1.git
https://gitlab.com/rncbc/samplv1.git
https://bitbucket.org/rncbc/samplv1.git


drumkv1drumkv1 - an old-school drum-kit sampler
drumkv1

drumkv1 0.9.27 (early-autumn'22) is out!

drumkv1 is an old-school drum-kit sampler synthesizer with stereo fx.

LV2 URI: http://drumkv1.sourceforge.net/lv2
website:
https://drumkv1.sourceforge.io
http://drumkv1.sourceforge.net
project page:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/drumkv1
downloads:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/drumkv1/files
source tarball:
drumkv1-0.9.27.tar.gz
source package:
drumkv1-0.9.27-68.1.rncbc.suse.src.rpm
binary packages (openSUSE Tumbleweed):
drumkv1-jack-0.9.27-68.1.rncbc.suse.x86_64.rpm
drumkv1-lv2-0.9.27-68.1.rncbc.suse.x86_64.rpm
AppImage package (JACK stand-alone only):
drumkv1-jack-0.9.27-68.1.x86_64.AppImage
git repos:
https://git.code.sf.net/p/drumkv1/code
https://github.com/rncbc/drumkv1.git
https://gitlab.com/rncbc/drumkv1.git
https://bitbucket.org/rncbc/drumkv1.git


padthv1padthv1 - an old-school polyphonic additive synthesizer
padthv1

padthv1 0.9.27 (early-autumn'22) is out!

padthv1 is an old-school polyphonic additive synthesizer with stereo fx

padthv1 is based on the PADsynth algorithm by Paul Nasca, as a special variant of additive synthesis.

LV2 URI: http://padthv1.sourceforge.net/lv2
website:
https://padthv1.sourceforge.io
http://padthv1.sourceforge.net
project page:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/padthv1
downloads:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/padthv1/files
source tarball:
padthv1-0.9.27.tar.gz
source package:
padthv1-0.9.27-68.1.rncbc.suse.src.rpm
binary packages (openSUSE Tumbleweed):
padthv1-jack-0.9.27-68.1.rncbc.suse.x86_64.rpm
padthv1-lv2-0.9.27-68.1.rncbc.suse.x86_64.rpm
AppImage package (JACK stand-alone only):
padthv1-jack-0.9.27-68.1.x86_64.AppImage
git repos:
https://git.code.sf.net/p/padthv1/code
https://github.com/rncbc/padthv1.git
https://gitlab.com/rncbc/padthv1.git
https://bitbucket.org/rncbc/padthv1.git


As always, keep having (lots of) fun!

Donate to rncbc.org using PayPal Donate to rncbc.org using Liberapay

by rncbc at October 04, 2022 11:00 AM

[audiojunkie]

http://planet.linuxaudio.org/

Carla 2.5.1 released
Hello again everyone, a new Carla release is here, v2.5.1 which brings a couple of fixes to the v2.5 series.

Carla is an audio plugin host, with support for many audio drivers and plugin formats.
It has some nice features like automation of parameters via MIDI CC (and send output back as MIDI too) and full OSC control.

Changelog
Do not set scale factor for LV2 plugin UIs on macOS
Fix external MIDI connections for JUCE engine driver
Fix a few memory leaks and runtime issues
Fix several race conditions
Fix logic around engine driver listings
Fix position of external patchbay graph nodes not being restored when switching from internal to external
Fix RISC-V builds
Fix win32 bridge builds on win64 systems (forcing usage of i686-w64-mingw32 if needed)
Ignore some compiler warnings from Qt side
Use an outer frame for carla-lv2 outgoing events
Downloads
To download Carla binaries or source code, jump on over to the KXStudio downloads section.
If you're using the KXStudio repositories, you can simply install "carla".
Bug reports and feature requests are welcome! Jump on over to the Carla's Github project page for those.

by falkTX at September 30, 2022 09:44 PM

[audiojunkie]

Note: There are lots of pictures. You may find it useful to read the article from the actual page.

Pros and Cons of Using Btrfs Filesystem in Linux

https://itsfoss.com/btrfs/

By
Anuj Sharma
Updated on
October 7, 2022
7 Comments
Reading Time: 6 minutes

Whenever you install Linux, you get to choose a file system, especially when you are manually partitioning your disk.

The most common option is Ext4, which is used as default in many desktop Linux distributions. But, after Fedora took the plunge to use Btrfs as its default file system, many desktop Linux users switched to Btrfs.

If you are one of them who want to switch to Btrfs, let me help you by listing the Pros and Cons of Btrfs as a file system. This will help you to decide whether to switch or not.

What is Btrfs?
For starters, Btrfs is a modern copy-on-write file system for Linux with advanced features for fault tolerance, repair and easy administration. Btrfs uses copy-on-write for all files, which means if a file is modified/written to the storage, the file is not replaced but a copy of the file is created. This mechanism helps to create snapshots with minimum size as the unmodified files need not be copied for creating the snapshot.

Btrfs is licensed under the GPL and is open source.

Advantages of Btrfs over Ext4
Let’s talk about the advantages Btrfs boasts over the traditional and more popular ext4 filesystem.

Snapshots
This is the most desired feature of Btrfs. As I have mentioned earlier, snapshots are created with minimal size due to the use of copy-on-write.



These snapshots can be used to restore the state of our system to a particular one without using more storage. Switching to a Btrfs snapshot is very quick.

This makes system recovery seamless which is desired by Linux users especially the ones using rolling release distros (which support newer packages making the system unstable).

Btrfs Assistant showing a list of snapshots
Btrfs Assistant showing a list of snapshots
As you see, whenever I remove or install a package, a snapshot is created. This way, I can restore the system to a previous state if something goes wrong. These snapshots are also available at boot time.

Btrfs Assistant can be used for the same. If I restore my system to the highlighted snapshot (in the image above), it will restore my system to the state before I installed VLC Media Player.

Alternatively, if you are not able to login into your system, then a project called grub-btrfs can be used to boot into snapshots directly from GRUB bootloader as you can see in the screenshot below.

GRUB menu with snapshots listed
GRUB menu with snapshots listed
Compression
Btrfs also supports data compression, reducing the file size so you can store more data in less space. This also increases the lifespan of flash-based media storage devices (e.g., SSD, eMMC) as less data is written to disk.

It also increases performance for a process which do not load many files from your HDD. However, if a process needs to access more files from the HDD it can cause some slow down as decompression is done to access files.

Subvolumes

Subvolumes behave like a partition but are not the real disk partition. They can be compared to something like Volumes used in LVM (Logical Volume Manager).

Subvolumes make resizing quick and flexible as compared to real partitions. Interestingly, a Btrfs snapshot is also a subvolume that shares its data with another subvolume.

For example, to get a list of subvolumes, you can enter the following command and it also lists the snapshots as subvolumes.

sudo btrfs subvolume list -p /
Btrfs Subvolumes' list in GNOME Terminal
Btrfs Subvolumes’ list in GNOME Terminal
The best use case of subvolumes is creating root and home as separate subvolumes which will allocate space automatically as per requirement. This eliminates the dilemma of choosing root and home partition sizes while installing Linux.

Having the Home directory on a separate subvolume has another advantage. The system snapshots will get quite large if you have the Home directory included in the snapshot.

This is also true for Windows System Restore as it also does not take backup all the files. Only system files are included to keep storage requirements for the restore points to a minimum.

As you can see in the screenshot below listing the Subvolumes in Btrfs Assistant.

Btrfs Assistant showing list of subvolumes
Btrfs Assistant showing list of subvolumes
Disadvantages of Btrfs

Nothing in this world has only positives. Btrfs is no exception.

You have seen what it does better than Ext4. Let’s have a look at things it is not good at.

RAID
RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is a storage technology that combines multiple disk drive components into a logical unit. It is beneficial in servers mainly for the performance and data loss prevention it provides.

Btrfs supports RAID however RAID 5 and RAID 6 modes are deemed unstable as of now. As RAID 5 is one of the best choices for RAID, it can deter the adoption of Btrfs on servers.

Fragmentation
File fragmentation might not be an issue for SSDs but there are many people still using rotational drives. This will hamper performance over time in those cases, also defragmenting a file will create a separate copy of that file.

Therefore, the size of the snapshot also increases due to defragmentation. You can deduplicate the file but that creates more hassle for the user.

You will be surprised to know XFS or Ext4 do not require defragmentation.

Encryption

Unlike Ext4, Btrfs does not support encryption on the file system level. However, you can use third-party methods to encrypt a Btrfs filesystem.

Corruption recovery
File system check is not possible on a mounted Btrfs file system but can be used to check or repair an unmounted Btrfs filesystem. However, this may not able to repair filesystem errors (even minor ones).

This is due to heavy development being done on the Btrfs file system check tool.

Conclusion
Btrfs may seem like a work in progress and you can check out the stability status from the official site anytime. However, it is under heavy, active development and is improving at a greater pace which gets me excited.

My recommendation is that if you have an SSD and use a rolling release distribution then go for it for the seamless recovery using snapshots. Otherwise, use the good old Ext4 for stability and performance.

Please do not take my word for it as this article is just my opinion and the pros and cons listed may not be the same for all the use cases.

I hope I was able to clear some air around using Btrfs of Linux. If you notice any technical errors, do let me know in the comment section.



Of course, a few points might be debatable. Feel free to express it in the comments.

[audiojunkie]

Sononym updates Sononym to v1.4 for Mac, Windows, and Linux

https://www.kvraudio.com/news/sonony...nd-linux-56007

Sononym has updated Sononym to version 1.4.

The release includes features that are aimed at streamlining sample collections. Most notably, this includes the ability to:

Search Across Libraries.
Find Duplicate Samples.
Improved Category Filter.
Edit BPM & Note Properties.
Hide From Search Results.
The update also includes bug fixes and stability improvements.

The full details are available in the release notes :
https://www.sononym.net/blog/new-release-1.4.0/

Read more at
www.sononym.net

[audiojunkie]

It finally happened!

Note: Not enabled by default is the standard approach for significant replacement functionality (with the notable exception of security updates).

MGLRU Merged For Linux 6.1

https://www.phoronix.com/news/MGLRU-In-Linux-6.1

Written by Michael Larabel in Linux Kernel on 11 October 2022 at 04:43 AM EDT. 7 Comments
LINUX KERNEL -- MGLRU has successfully landed in Linux 6.1 as one of the best kernel innovations of the year to be mainlined. Along with that the new Maple Tree data structure was also merged.

As a follow-up to mentioning this weekend that MGLRU and Maple Tree were submitted for inclusion in Linux 6.1 by way of Andrew Morton's MM pull, overnight Linus Torvalds merged it!



MGLRU support is now available on the mainline Linux kernel. Well, assuming you enable the LRU_GEN Kconfig bits for Linux 6.1 (not yet flipped on by default). MGLRU seeks to address Linux's poor page reclamation behavior with this new high performance LRU implementation to over-commit memory. MGLRU has shown to be beneficial in a variety of benchmarks especially on memory constrained systems. Google engineered Multi-Gen LRU and is already using this kernel feature on Chrome OS and Android.

MGLRU benchmarks are looking great and I will have many Linux 6.1 kernel benchmarks once the merge window is over and 6.1-rc1 tagged at the end of the week. It's great to see MGLRU and the Maple Tree data structure finally merged after both features have been worked on for quite a while.

[audiojunkie]

Here’s some very cool news that some of you can get involved in!!!

AudioThing is looking for volunteers to test Linux versions of their plugins! This company has a lot of cool products!!

https://twitter.com/audiothing/statu...29408467030016

[audiojunkie]

PipeWire 0.3.60 Released With Many Fixes, Improvements

https://www.phoronix.com/news/PipeWire-0.3.60-Released

Written by Michael Larabel in PipeWire on 10 November 2022 at 08:14 AM EST. 24

PIPEWIRE -- PipeWire 0.3.60 is out today as the newest update to this software used for managing audio and video streams on Linux. With modern Linux distributions PipeWire is increasingly used now as the replacement to PulseAudio in addition to its video capabilities.

PipeWire 0.3.60 contains various fixes and improvements, including around PipeWire camera support for OBS Studio for those doing any screencasting/capturing from the Linux desktop.



PipeWire 0.3.60 also has many Bluetooth improvements, the ALSA plugin will only start playback when there is data, many libcamera and V4L2 improvements, enhancements to various other modules, pw-top has seen enhancements on the tooling front, and a few additions on the JACK side.
Highlights

- The filter-chain now handles errors better and has fixes for many crasher bugs.

- A new RTP module was added with a sender and receiver. It uses SAP to announce and consume RTP streams and is compatible with the PulseAudio RTP modules.

- Many small bluetooth improvements and fixes.

- The alsa plugin will now only start playback when there is data. This results in better sync and lower latency between capture and playback.

- The v4l2 and libcamera plugins have seen a lot of improvements. They support control properties now. Also pw-v4l2 has seen many improvements and mostly passes the v4l2-compliance test now.

- Many more bugfixes and improvements.

See the full list of PipeWire 0.3.60 changes over on the FreeDesktop.org GitLab.

[fruen]

https://www.audiothing.net/effects/t...eid=ed174599c0

[audiojunkie]

We've got "official" CLAP support now!

https://www.reaper.fm/download.php

REAPER 6.71: Old in the Body, Not in the Mind
Changelog items below may include • links to more information.
CLAP
add support for CLAP plugins
support "cockos.reaper_extension", which returns a reaper_plugin_info_t structure for REAPER API access (see reaper_plugin.h)
FX
add project setting to auto-bypass plug-ins that report tail length, with user-defined silence threshold
add per-instance setting to auto-bypass plug-in (uses automatic tail detection if plug-in does not report tail length)
add compatibility setting to force automatic tail detection, allowing plug-ins to opt-in to project auto-bypass
Media explorer
greatly improve search speed with large databases •
ReaScript
improve get_action_context() (see documentation)
add GetEnvelopeUIState()
add GetSetProjectInfo_String MARKER_INDEX_FROM_GUID: support •
add param.X.[learn|lfo|acs|plink|mod] to [Track|Take]FX_[Get|Set]NamedConfigParm capabilities
add VIDEO_CODE and vst_chunk/vst_chunk_program/clap_chunk to [Track|Take]FX_[Get|Set]NamedConfigParm capabilities
add SetTrackUI[Volume/Pan/Width/Mute/Solo/RecArm/InputMonitor/Polarity] with grouping options and fewer side effects than their CSurf_ equivalents
add support for numerous keyboard/action-related APIs that were previously C-only
allow accessing envelopes for FX parameters that have modulation but no envelope points
extend SetProjectMarkerByIndex2 to allow deferred re-sort of project markers •
update InsertMedia/InsertMediaSection to support modifying RS5k on arbitrary track index, improve docs
Metadata
fix possible mislabeling of generic metadata in source properties dialog and media explorer
optionally include metadata in render and batch converter presets
support embedding ID3 tags in .aiff files
support displaying embedded metadata images (cover art, etc) in MP3, FLAC, WAV, AIFF source properties dialog
Batch converter
attempt to preserve original image metadata if possible
do not override user-added metadata when preserving source metadata
maintain converter-specific metadata rather than using project metadata
FX browser
improve configuration for hiding duplicate plug-ins of different types
when hiding duplicates, ignore trailing channel counts
JSFX
add ext_tail_size in order to support auto-bypass
update many built-in FX to support auto-bypass
Localization
support localizing layout category names, wiring diagram labels, etc •
support longer action names in action dialog/custom actions editor
fix UTF-8 in time-signature marker editor combo box on Windows
ReaVerb
fix deconvolution tail trimming
support deconvolution of more than 2 channels • •
Video
fix resource leak in WMF colorspace conversion •
make action to clear cache/re-render frames asynchronous from decoding •
restore 6.69 and earlier behavior of _0 in gfx_evalrect() •
VST
do not use VST3 bus silenceFlags if buggy compatibility mode is set
activate/deactivate VST3 busses on the fly in response to pin mapper changes
move more of PDC buffer initialization to playback start
WAV
prioritize displaying higher-confidence text from embedded cue data •
support reading/writing BW64 files (ADM metadata is ignored)
FLAC
fix occasional failure when embedding image metadata in rendered FLAC file
Linux
improve keyboard handling for plug-ins
macOS
fix various incorrectly displayed keyboard shortcuts in menus •
Media import
ignore numbers that look like sample rates (e.g. "48k") when attempting to interpret tempo from filename
Media items
arrange overlapping items by the order the items were added to the track •
MIDI
fix recording of multiple takes via retroactive record •
Preferences
add rendering option to disable auto-bypass when using offline render/apply FX/etc
Project bay
add FX menu item to toggle auto-bypass
ReaPlugs
support silence-processing optimizations
Render
do not automatically set render source to render matrix when opening region manager •
RS5k
fix undo state issues via RS5k manager script •
Sends
optimize processing when sends are effectively inactive
Web interface
fix fancier.html record armed track detection with a single track •
API
process hook functions for actions that are executed via WM_COMMAND or KBD_OnMainActionEx

[fabio77]

Originally Posted by audiojunkie

We've got "official" CLAP support now!

This is great I just tested the clap version of the ElephantDSP.