7 Ubuntu Linux is the most popular variety of Linux in use on desktop
8 and laptop systems. It has the backing of a for-profit corporation
9 (Canonical Inc.) behind it, a defined philosophy and a huge and
10 worldwide user base. As a result, it is a common platform for people
11 who want to use Ardour and other tools for music creation and
15 Unfortunately, Ubuntu has repeatedly caused major headaches for
16 people who want to use Ardour. These problems have arisen from a
17 combination of two basic issues:
20 <li>Badly built packages of Ardour</li>
21 <li>Poor system configuration related to JACK, which Ardour (and
22 most other pro-audio tools on Linux) uses for audio and MIDI I/O.
27 <h2>High Level Recommendations for Ubuntu Users</h2>
30 If you are really committed to using Ubuntu for pro-audio or music
31 creation work, you should ....
34 If you not yet committed to using Ubuntu for pro-audio or music
35 creation work, you should probably consider using a different
36 distribution that has a demonstrated history of not making life for
37 users like you more complex than it needs to be. In particular you
38 might want to consider a distribution such
39 as <a href="http://www.bandshed.net/AVLinux.html">AVLinux</a>
40 or <a href="http://www.dickmacinnis.com/dreamstudio/">Dreamstudio</a>
41 that is specifically focused on media creation work.
44 <h2>Problems with Ardour Packages</h2>
47 <dt>What is the problem?</dt>
50 It is not possible to know whether the current package of Ardour
51 released by Ubuntu has been correctly built or not. Ubuntu has a
52 history of making packaging errors that lead to crashes, missing
53 functionality and odd behaviour that is not present in the
54 ready-to-run version of the program that you can get from ardour.org
55 (or in the packages released by other distributions)
60 Ardour starts up and basically runs, but you encounter subtle
61 problems (for example, with plugin GUIs or with export, or with the
62 use of certain specific plugins), or are missing functionality, or
69 Download the ready-to-run version from ardour.org. Ardour's lead
70 developer (and many of the most active members of our user
71 community) will not provide support for, and will not investigate
72 bugs reported for, Ubuntu's own packages of Ardour. The ardour.org
73 packages install along side your distribution versions, and do not
74 interfere or interact in anyway other than sharing your own personal
75 Ardour settings and configuration choices.
80 <h2>Problems with the interaction between PulseAudio and JACK</h2>
83 <dt>Background Info</dt>
86 Like many distributions, Ubuntu has decide to use PulseAudio as the
87 default audio system. PulseAudio is a rich and capable system that
88 provides excellent services for typical users of Linux on the
89 desktop. However, it is not capable of the type of performance that
90 tools like Ardour require and in particular does not offer the
91 possibility of sending audio between applications that can makes the
92 Linux audio environment a very interesting one.
95 This would not a problem if it were not for the fact that JACK will
96 not run correctly (if at all) if it needs to use the same
97 soundcard/audio interface that PulseAudio is using. And since on
98 Ubuntu, PulseAudio is configured by default to always use the
99 (typically single) audio interface on your computer, this is a bit
103 The developers of JACK and PulseAudio got together in 2009 and
104 agreed upon a mechanism by which PulseAudio and JACK could cooperate
105 in their use of a single soundcard. Whether or not PulseAudio is running by
106 default, when JACK starts up it sends out a request to use the
107 soundcard. If PulseAudio is running, it will give up its use of the
108 soundcard to allow JACK to take over (and can optionally be told to
109 route its own audio through JACK). When JACK finishes, it sends out
110 another message, and PulseAudio can once again use the soundcard
114 <dt>What is the problem?</dt>
117 This relatively simple system ought to be the basis for excellent
118 cooperation between PulseAudio and JACK. Unfortunately, it relies on
119 everything being correctly configured for it to work, and Ubuntu
120 have repeatedly failed to get this configuration correct.
123 The specific issues known at this time (spring 2013) are:
125 <li>a bug in PulseAudio that causes it not to give up the
126 soundcard when JACK asks</li>
127 <li>bad package dependency information that causes a critical
128 package to be missing even when JACK and PulseAudio are
130 <li>a bug that causes JACK to freeze up when told to stop,
131 causing issues with restarting</li>
138 <li>Cannot start JACK (though see the next section for other
140 <li>JACK starts but there is no sound coming from Ardour or other
141 applications that use JACK.</li>
150 <h2>Problems with JACK configuration</h2>
153 <dt>What is the problem?</dt>
156 To function as intended, JACK needs to run with access to two
157 operating system facilities called "realtime scheduling" and "memory
158 locking". This means that you, the user who starts JACK, must be
159 allowed access to these facilities. By default, Ubuntu does create a
160 user group that has this permission but ... it does not put new
161 users into this group by default. Consequently, you will not have
162 permission to run JACK in the way you should.
168 A message like "Cannot lock down memory" in the output from JACK as
169 it starts up. This output may be "hidden" in the Messages window of
170 QJackctrl (aka JACK Control), so you should check there.
176 Run the command <code>sudo usermod -a -G
177 audio <em>YOUR-LOGIN-NAME</em></code>. Then logout and login again.