[PlanetCCRMA] Questions that might be able to be added to the FAQs

Robert Vogel vogelrl at ct.metrocast.net
Mon Feb 22 18:42:06 PST 2010


On Tue, 2010-01-26 at 08:52 -0800, Fernando Lopez-Lezcano wrote:


> > Looking at the CCRMA website a couple of months ago, it appeared that
> > Fedora 10 was the bet initial install for CCRMA. That's how I installed
> > it on my quad core AMD 64 machine. But now it keeps reminding me that
> > Fedora 11 upgrades are available. Should I let it do the upgrade ? or
> > would it be better to do a fresh install ? 
> 
> I have done both. If you do an upgrade you can either use preupgrade or
> upgrade from a dvd. There will be some left over packages after the
> upgrade, you should use package-cleanup --problems and package-cleanup
> --orphans for help on that (there are guides online for upgrades and
> their gotchas). It is not as hard as it used to be. A clean install is
> of course, well, cleaner :-)
> 
> > I'm about to try assembling a new machine and I am having trouble
> > figuring out which soundcard would be best for a PlanetCCRMA install. It
> > seems like the ones best supported by alsa are no longer available
> > readily. Do you have a preference ?
> 
> I can only tell you about the ones we have at ccrma. The Midiman Delta
> PCI line is good (most of our workstations use the Delta 66 + OmniIO
> combination but those are no longer manufactured). I also have had good
> experiences with the Echo Layla 3G and Gina 3G. In the studios we have
> the RME line of cards, expensive but very nice. 
> 
> > Your paper on 'noiseless computers' is excellent. Could you recommend a
> > parts list that you would prefer to use if you were configuring a new
> > machine today ?
> 
> Sigh, no, not really. Things change way too fast for me to have a list I
> could share. Out last upgrade was at the end of 2008[*] so anything I
> might have chosen at the time is now officially obsolete :-)
> 
> -- Fernando
> 
> [*] hmmm, I'd stay away from Gigabyte mobos, the specs are usually great
> but we've had long term problems twice. 

Hi Fernando,

Thankyou for the upgrade advice. It worked well up until a few days ago
when I got a notice for a 'security update'. I was surprised that some
of the updating was for firmware. After that, I began to have problems.

* The hardware identification has changed. It doesn't seem to recognize
the on-board facility any more.

* Ardour no longer will record.

* It appears that PulseAudio is now an option. It wasn't before.


So here's some additional questions for your FAQ's

1. Have you tried building CCRMA in distributions other than Fedora ?

2. How do you feel about PulseAudio ?

3. Do you favor Creative's Soundblaster cards at all ?

4. I no longer find modprobe.conf. Do I need to add it back ? 

5. Am I missing a configuration step, perhaps for PulseAudio, that I
should know about ?

Bob Vogel



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