[PlanetCCRMA] [PlanetCCRMANews] the Planet lands on Fedora 10

[Fernando Lopez-Lezcano]

On Tue, 2008-12-02 at 12:42 -0700, David Nielson wrote:
> First off, Windows or a Mac will probably not perform better than a 
> Linux machine.
> 
> Second, do you really *NEED* the NVidia drivers? Can you get by with the 
> NV drivers? They do not accelerate anything, but they do work, and they 
> don't cause any problem with the -rt kernel.
> 
> Third, which kernels have you tried? Right now, the "stable" solution 
> seems to be Fedora 8, with the 2.6.24-series -rt kernel from CCRMA. 
> Fedora 9 and 10, and the newer -rt kernels, have stability issues.
> 
> Fourth, I've never used the Tranzport, so you'll probably have to find 
> information on that from the Ardour home page.
> 
> Lastly, you **CAN** use Jack without a -rt kernel, by turning off the -R 
> option if you start from the command line, or un-checking the "realtime" 
> box in the settings dialog in qjackctl. However, you will probably have 
> to use very large latencies in order to get it to work without xruns.

Nope, that is a common misconception. 

Realtime scheduling has _nothing_ to do with the realtime preemption
patches. If you run a kernel that has not been patched with the realtime
preemption patches you can (and must) still run jack with the "-R"
option. Otherwise you _will_ have xruns. 

The difference is that the kernel will have higher latency peaks and
then you will have to run jack with bigger buffers to compensate for
that. If your work is just recording with ardour you should not be
concerned with the latency too much. 

-- Fernando


> JOHN LYON wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I've been struggling looking for a solution to this problem:
> >
> > I have an NVidia GeForce 9500 GT video card
> >     (so I need to use nvidia drivers)
> > I want to use Ardour to do some multitrack recording.  
> > I'd like to use a realtime kernel
> > I need to use X (obviously)
> > I need to use jack (obviously).
> > I'd like to be able to use my Frontier Tranzport (my recording area and control booth are in two different rooms).
> >
> > Right now I'm running CentOS, but I can re-install Fedora or any other Linux distro if need be.
> >
> > My problem is that I can't seem to find a combination of realtime kernel, nvidia driver, and X that works without hanging.  This has put me a couple of weeks behind schedule, and I just don't seem to have an answer.  I don't seem to have a problem when I don't use the realtime kernels.  But I see lots of xruns with jack. Which brings up another question.  Can I make some decent multitrack recordings WITHOUT using the realtime kernel (I"m using a Pentium D dual-core CPU running at roughly .2.8 gigahertz, 2 gig of RAM).   Or do I HAVE to have the realtime kernel.  
> >
> > Has anyone solved this riddle already?  Or do I just have to bite the bullet and buy a Mac?  Or use Windows?
> >
> > I'm getting very tired to tweaking and experimenting, and I need to get back to playing music.
> >
> > Any help would be deeply appreciated.
> >
> > John