Linux Software Reviews, Discussion and Articles
XBT is a program that makes keeping all of your user data safely backed up on a dedicated External USB drive easy. XBT works with Ubuntu 16.04 onward and the Linux Mint 18.x series.
Download XBT from Guthub: https://codeload.github.com/
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Control Your cursor With Your Webcam using eViacam. It’s easy and in this episode I’ll show how I can control my mouse cursor with the power of my mind; er, I meant head. Using an application called eViacam, you can make the Linux desktop accessible even if you’re unable to use your arms or hands.
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After a year of development, we are proud to announce the new Linux system backup and recovery utility, Cover Your Ass(ets)! We discuss how you can download, install and use CYA on your Linux system in this video.
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In the world of home studio recording, the digital audio workstation is one of the most important tools of the trade. Digital audio workstations are used to record audio and MIDI data into patterns or tracks. This information is then typically mixed down into songs or albums. In the Linux ecosystem, there is no shortage of Digital audio workstations to chose from. Whether you wish to create minimalist techno or full orchestral pieces, chances are there is an application that has you covered.
In this article, we will take a brief look into several of these applications and discuss their strengths and weaknesses. I will try to provide a fair evaluation of the DAWs presented here but at the end of the day, I urge you to try a few of these applications and to form an opinion of your own.
Ardour is one of the best known digital audio workstations to be released as open source software. It is also one of the most professional and full featured applications of its class. Ardour’s features include audio and MIDI recording, an intuitive single window interface, and excellent support for LADSPA, LV2, DSSI and Linux VST plugins. Ardour’s only weakness is that it does not feature clip or pattern-based recording, which may be a nonstarter for those looking to migrate from FL Studio or Ableton Live. But for those who prefer a more traditional work flow based on tracks and timelines, Ardour is an excellent choice.
Ardour is freely available for download in most Linux repositories. Its source code can also be obtained from its project website along with Windows and Mac versions.
Audacity is a powerful cross-platform audio editor for Windows, Mac and Linux. While it is not, strictly speaking, a digital audio workstation, it supports an extensible collection of effect plugins, and tools that make editing audio a snap. Audacity can be used as an application on its own to produce podcasts or as a way to create and edit audio clips that can be used by a sampler or another DAW.
Audacity is freely available for download in most Linux repositories. Windows and Mac versions can be obtained from the project website.
Bitwig Studio is one of two proprietary DAWs that is available for Linux that I will mention in this article. Like Ardour, Bitwig features audio and MIDI recording and a single window interface but it was designed so a user could effortlessly move between clip and timeline-based recording. In addition to having excellent support for LADSPA, LV2, DSSI and Linux VST plugins, Bitwig also brings its own toys to the party in the form of 62 additional instrument and effect plugins. With this being said, Bitwig is not cheap. At the time of this writing, version 1 retails for $299, but for those coming from a Windows or Mac-based production environment, tools like Bitwig provide an additional impetus to make the switch.
Versions of Bitwig Studio for Windows Mac and Linux can be purchased from Bitwig’s company website.
Linux Multimedia Studio (LMMS) is a pattern-based sequencer, designed for modern music production. Out of the box, LMMS features several of its own native synthesizers in addition to supporting numerous LADSPA, LV2, DSSI and Linux VST effect plugins. One thing that separates LMMS from the other DAWs covered here is its support of some Windows-based instruments through the use of wine, Carla Patchbay and Vestige plugins. Additional Linux instrument VSTs can also be brought into an LMMS environment using the Carla Rack plugin. Although LMMS does not support live instrument recording, the application is downright fun to use. For best results download it from the KXStudio repositories.
LMMS is freely available for download in most Linux repositories. Windows and Mac versions can be obtained from the project website.
Qtractor is a timeline-based MIDI and Audio recorder and sequencer that features support for LADSPA, LV2, DSSI and Linux VST plugins. Although its feature set is quite similar to Ardour’s, Qtractor uses a simple multi-window interface which is very familiar to those who used Cubase back in the day. The one thing that makes Qtractor stand apart from other DAWs is how the application can easily connect to external midi instruments and audio effects with its own internal jack connection. For those who want a full-featured DAW without dealing with a complex learning curve, Qtractor is a sure win.
Qtractor is freely available for download in most Linux repositories. For details, visit the project website.
If you want truly granular control of MIDI file creation, you cannot go wrong with Rosegarden. Like Qtractor, Ardour uses a time-line interface that is reminiscent of Cubase, but allows users to edit MIDI data through the use of a piano roll editor, a musical notation editor, and for those who take their MIDI seriously, an events-list editor. Rosegarden does provide facilities for audio recording and supports LADSPA, LV2 and DSSI effect plugins, but does not have its own features for any in-depth audio editing. Instead, it lets Audacity do the heavy lifting. With this being said, Rosegarden is an excellent choice for those who largely rely on MIDI sequencing to get their work done.
Rosegarden is freely available for download in most Linux repositories. For details, visit the project website.
Seq24 does only one thing, but it does it well. The thing is pattern-based MIDI sequencing. Unlike the other DAWs covered here, Seq24 features a truly minimalist user interface. It does not support audio recording, and does not support any plugins. Instead, it sends MIDI data to software synths already installed on your system. Audio is then recorded from these instruments using another DAW, like Ardour, Audacity or Qtractor. For those who wish to begin and end music production in the same application, Seq24 is a bit of non-starter. But for those who prefer a more modular workflow, Seq24 is definitely worth looking into.
Seq24 is freely available for download in most Linux repositories. For details, visit the project website.
Tracktion T7 is yet another time-line based MIDI and Audio recorder and sequencer that features support for LADSPA, LV2, DSSI and Linux VST plugins. However, like Bitwig Studio, Tracktion T7 brings some of its own effect and instrument plugins to the party. Of the DAWs I have looked at thus far, Tracktion T7 has some innovative features that I have not seen in any other digital workstation. Although it does not fully support pattern / clip-based sequencing, it features a way to preview audio samples simultaneously for easy arrangement. Tracktion T7 also features non-destructive wave editing, and track automation features that are not to be missed. Prices for Tracktion T7 start at $60 for the base DAW and can go as high as $200 for a bundle that includes Tracktion T7 and various plugins. Alternately, a slightly less-featured, free version of Tracktion T5 is also available from the company website.
Tracktion T7 is available for purchase from Tracktion’s company website.
The Linux ecosystem is rich in options for recording your musical ideas into a solid, professional product. In this article we looked at several choices for recording music and audio under Linux. Some of these offerings, like Audacity, LMMS, Rosegarden and Seq24, lend themselves well to specific tasks like wave editing and MIDI Sequencing, while other solutions like Ardour, Bitwig Studio, Qtractor and Tracktion are full featured visigoths, ready to take your next project from start to finish.
What is your favorite Linux-based DAW? Leave a comment below.
After the article was published, I noticed that I made a few factual errors. My apologies to those who may have been misled, and a special thanks to those who pointed out these inaccuracies. A list of corrections follow.
Okay, so perhaps Synapse is still around and kicking. And when it’s not segfault(ing) for no reason whatsoever, it’s a great keyboard launcher! Unfortunately, my patience has run thin enough with it that I’ve decided it was time to part ways – for good.
Over the past week or so, I spent a fair amount of time looking at alternatives. I tried Kupfer, GnomeDo, among a few others. None of them really hit home for me personally. All I wanted to do was launch applications and find documents easily. Then I discovered Albert!
In this piece, I’m going to be reviewing a very simple, but highly colorful keyboard launcher called Albert.
In my humble opinion, a keyboard launcher is the single best invention for the PC since the introduction of the mouse. Instead of spending lots of time bouncing through menus looking for documents, applications, pictures and other related items, a keyboard launcher allows you to access all of these things with a few keystrokes.
My discovery of Albert was basically happenstance. I just found it one day as I was browsing Github. What impressed me the most about Albert was how it uses triggers with its plugins to provide different end results.
The plugins provided include:
Applications – activated by using your keyboard to type in the first few letters of an applications.
Files – From the settings area, you can assign the directories you wish to grant Albert access to. After that, simply start typing out what the name of the doc/image/directory happens to be.
System - From the settings area, you can assign different system commands ranging from powering off, rebooting to locking the screen.
Calculator – With Albert open, simply start typing the mathematical equation you want, Albert will use the calculator to figure out the math for you.
Terminal – Once you’ve give Albert the command path to your preferred terminal application, you can access it anytime by typing ! Then the command you want to execute. For example:
! ip address
Unfortunately, I did not have much luck getting it to work with MATE-terminal. I had the same result with other terminal applications I tried. Perhaps this will be fixed in an upcoming update.
Web search – If you’re interested in using different search engines from the Albert launcher, you can activate different options using asigned triggers. Google for example would look like this:
gg Freedom Penguin
ChromeBookmarks – I personally disabled this as I just filled my Albert query results with stuff I didn’t need when looking for applications, docs and so forth.
Honestly, I can’t say that Albert is genuinely a great fit for everyone. While it’s fast and stable, it’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. The single biggest issue I have is that I find that Application results occasionally end up on the end of the query list.
The simplest solution would be to introduce triggers for applications, docs and images. For example:
ap Gimp
or
doc mytodolist
By simply introducing these types of triggers to activate a more selective list of queried items, Albert would instantly be a smashing success.
If you’re looking for a new keyboard launcher and are not happy with the alternatives mentioned at the start of this article, then yes, you should try Albert. However I must warn you – this is a beta application. It’s not as fully-baked as say, Synapse or GnomeDO. That said, it’s under heavy development and unlike Synapse, it’s not crashing every time I go to use it.
Over the years, I have been collecting DVDs, backing up the movies to a desktop computer for playback on its big screen. Recently, projects like Kodi and Plex media server came along and promised to not only offer those same movies in a pleasing GUI, but to gather metadata about the movies and to save my place when I access them from different places. I would love to have a dedicated server so I don’t need to continuously run my desktop computer, but I’m too cheap to spring for a dedicated NAS. The Raspberry PI 2 promises an easy way to accomplish this goal without first having to earn a degree in computer science.
(Video syncs out with the audio at the end, but it’s all there otherwise)
Spirited googling took me to a rather detailed walkthrough by Richard Smith on YouTube. I used ‘dd’ in Ubuntu 15.10 on my laptop to create the Debian Wheezy microSD card. Then, I used wget to pull down the latest Plex Media Server package and used dpkg -i to build and install it. Then, I installed a few extra packages (mkvtoolnix, libexpat1 and ffmpeg). Then I restarted the server.
sudo service plexmediaserver restart
Lastly, I launched the gui (using ‘startx’), launched the default iceweasel browser and pointed it to the newly-launched plex server (http://localhost:32400/web/index.html). This brings the user to the standard Plex interface, where you can connect your server to your Plex account, if you have one. This makes the server visible to Plex clients using the same account (assuming port forwarding and firewalls are configured correctly).
Performance was surprisingly good. Movies launch after a short delay, the video and audio quality are excellent and there is no stuttering or lag. Streaming video from subscribed channels in Plex, such as Vimeo, seem to play just fine. Playback works well on the Chrome web app in Linux and on the Nexus 7 2014. The Plex clients for iOS refuse to connect, stating that the server needs to upgrade to the latest version. I got the same error on the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV 2.
Another disappointment is that the Pi2 is unable to transcode video. This makes it unable to play other videos I have accumulated over the years. For example, I have a number of .mp4 videos of television recordings I made for myself using EyeTV that just won’t play.
Notwithstanding these small shortcomings, the Raspberry Pi 2 does an admirable job playing video server, especially with hardware whose cost is scarcely more than a tank of gas.
Richard Smith’s YouTube guide to running the Plex Media Server on the Raspberry Pi 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OVEmTPZomI
Powered USB Hub: Belkin F5U404-BLK
Hard drive: Western Digital My Passport P/N: WD8Y8L0020BBL-01
Raspberry Pi 2 + kit on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MV6TAJI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Raspberry Pi 2 - http://amzn.to/1TYCfEh