Ubuntu Studio Review: My Favourite DM, Compositor, Workflow, Latency… Part 1

So recently I have been using Ubuntu Studio as my primary OS, mostly to benefit from its support for creating MIDI music, and also its support for the myriad of devices I own, some of which not even Windows easily supports anymore.

Now, back when Ubuntu Studio first came onto the scene, it used Xubuntu (or the XFCE desktop environment) as its base. This made sense; it offered virtually everything that Gnome did, just a bit flashier. So that hardware power could be devoted to music making. Or photo-editing. Or whatever floats your boat. It was also seen as the “lightweight” desktop environment at the time.

Since then, however, things have changed. The “lightweight” monicker has now been taken by Lubuntu/LXDE… which has in turn moved over to QT, now being called LXQT. This also makes sense; I have always found QT very lightweight when I have used it on Windows. Meanwhile, there have been constant wars over the direction of Gnome and KDE for the last 5 or 6 years, with Gnome fragmenting more it appears… With Mate, Cinnamon, Gnome-Shell and now Gnome-Flashback on the scene.

Just to complicate matters… I personally loved the Gnome-Shell environment. I loved swiping to the top left corner to find my apps and windows; I loved the removal of the minimise button; I loved the translation of the mobile metaphor to a desktop environment. I acknowledge not everyone liked this… And admit I used Cinnamon rather than the official Gnome-Shell in the past, only because it was the first to receive extensions and meant I could customise it just that little bit more. In this environment, XFCE feels a bit homeless.

So, I decided today: I would install, and try out every sensible combination I can think of, in order to decide which one works the best. There won’t be any scientific basis to my conclusions, so please accept them merely as a hobbyist music maker. I don’t intend on doing clean installs or going the whole way. Just go with the combination that feels right.

Despite not being scientific, I aim to evaluate each interface/environment combination based on these headers:

• Performance: How does it run? Are there many slowdowns? Am I still able to do what I need from the software?
• Ease-of-Use: This will be rated based on how much setup is required after booting up. Potentially, I may include how hard it was to get the system into the state I wanted to as well.
• Graphics: This overlaps with the previous two a little bit. Does the interface look nice and consistent, across GTK and QT/KDE apps? Even if it requires some extra initial setup. Also, does it just look… nice? Here, I compare with MacOS… Or at least, how people describe it. I have only owned one Mac in my life, and I’ve never liked the Apple fetishism. Really, here, I want to be able to show that Linux/Ubuntu can be a decent alternative to a Mac.

So, that is my basis. I think to begin with I will be using SDDM + KDE as my starting point. Additionally, I am using the kxstudio repository, as I prefer using Cadence for managing my JACK/ALSA audio.

Finally, I wish to repeat, there is nothing scientific about this. It is likely you may be more technically minded than myself, or alternatively more audiophile than myself. This is an experiment for me as much as you, the reader! Enjoy!

Thank you for being my voice. #RIPCHESTER

The thing that hits me as I grow older is that people keep dying. When you're a kid, it's maybe the famous people you faintly know on TV, or a great-grandparent you are too young to really remember (my heart goes out to anyone who had a traumatic loss as a child). The older I get, the more I find it's the celebrities that I listened to and grew up with... The deaths in our own communities become people we had closer relationships, closer members of our family and friends.

In terms of celebrity, no death has hit me quite as hard as that of Chester Bennington. For so many reasons... some of which I will try to get down here.

It is such an odd feeling, as I haven't really followed them for a long time... More than that, they are so deeply ingrained in the 00s nu-metal scene... I can't be the only person that loved them as a teen, then "grew out" of them... Thinking they were the heaviest metal I ever heard in my youth, whilst thinking of those songs more like pop music really as an adult. This isn't me trying to slate the band, I'm trying to explain my honest thoughts before Chester's death... And what I would probably think still were he still with us.

The honest truth is, despite these thoughts... I fucking love Linkin Park. It's so easy, with hindsight, to see them as that poppy, teeny band with baggy trousers pretending to be rockers. But the reality is they were a huge influence... There is no one quite like them. And I'd argue, without Linkin Park, there would be fewer fans of rock music in the world.

Up to the moment that they came onto the scene, even nu-metal had that feeling of sweary, screaming, sex-obsessed rocky stoners. Linkin Park crossed that divide with more melodic vocals, more personal emotions and a unique innocence that is incredibly rare in any form of popular music these days (highlighted by the fact their first two albums, as far as I'm aware, had no swearing). Few of those listening would even realise these lyrics were written by a guy who suffered child abuse; they spoke to anyone and everyone going through school and feeling their voice wasn't being. They spoke to anyone that ever felt they weren't being listened to (which, really, at some points is all of us). And they literally crossed genres, between hip-hop and metal, between rapping, screaming and singing. I remember the "Numb/Encore" mash-up being on the charts forever, and it's easy to see why... It could appeal to such a massive audience.

The band used this to grow into other genres... To a certain extent, trying to disown their previous work. I can understand why. There are some that could describe Hybrid Theory and Meteora as a smear on their career... There are others that probably felt like me, feeling a bit too old to enjoy their older work, but not really being a huge fan of their newer work. The reality is every album they released had sales most artists could only dream of. And, arguably, they had earned the right to put out whatever they wanted to create.

Despite some reports to the contrary, I had never, ever, gotten the impression they were "sell-outs", or that they were just trying to gain sales. In fact, the only time I had ever considered this was when Meteora was released (sounding like a continuation of Hybrid Theory). I still loved that album, however.

I'm realising I'm actually spending very little time on the man himself, but rather the band he was the lead singer of. All of my emotions seem tied to the work of the band itself... It was through this band that Chester spoke to me in tracks like In The End and Numb when I was suicidal, depressed, lonely. Part of me feels it's an exaggeration to put them on par with The Beetles, Michael Jackson, or David Bowie. But My honest opinion is that they had the same worldwide impact all these other artists had. And as a listener, you felt a certain, anonymous, intimacy with Chester. Without knowing his situation, you felt and empathised with the fact he was drowning in his skin... That, in the end, it didn't even matter.

This isn't more obvious than the recent music video to the track One More Light. It's a song I may never have listened to were it not for recent events. As the video went on, it was like watching a montage of my youth. With one event, that song now has such a powerful meaning for me... Like the band's own epitaph. You listen and, along with its music video, feel like maybe he is talking about himself, or suicide in general... when in actuality it was written in memory of a friend who died of cancer.

The reality is he seemed to have a tortured youth, which led to substance misuse, self-loathing. Despite that (maybe because of his experience?) he became the lead singer of one of the biggest bands in the world. He always felt like a beacon of hope; an example of how you can't choose the hand you are dealt, but you can still follow your dreams. To hear of his death breaks down that construct in my head. I had the same experience with one of my closest friends... Another person who had been through the worst of life and seemed to pull through and find success/happiness... But ended up ending his own life. The meaning of their songs feels, in some ways, forever changed... Maybe even more intimate, and sincere, than we had ever imagined cranking up the volume after a day at school.

The war still rages within

The only way out of the cycle/Is to strike out and pave your own way

We will fight our own fight/will you fuel the desire to win?/Always struggling with the truth/of the life that might have been

When the dust of battle settles/The war still rages within

Mega Content Taken Down

Kim Dotcom, former owner of MegaUpload and also owner of the newly created file locker website Mega, has revealed that the recent flurry of DCMA takedown notices originated from non other than the Mega site itself.  This was the result of an independent search engine for the site not having a valid takedown procedure for rights holders claiming ownership of files aggregated on the search page.

As a safety measure, the many hundreds of files already indexed by the search engine have been taken down on the Mega site, including many that are legally hosted. It looks like Dotcom is taking legal issues far more seriously in order to prevent a repeat of the shutdown of his MegaUpload site last year.

Full Article on TorrentFreak: https://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcom-mega-search-engines-have-to-play-by-the-rules-130201/