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.), 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 <a
55 href="http://ardour.org/download">ardour.org</a> (or in the packages
56 released by other distributions)
61 Ardour starts up and basically runs, but you encounter subtle
62 problems (for example, with plugin GUIs or with export, or with the
63 use of certain specific plugins), or are missing functionality, or
70 Download the ready-to-run version
71 from <a href="http://ardour.org/download">ardour.org</a>. Ardour's
72 lead developer (and many of the most active members of our user
73 community) will not provide support for, and will not investigate
74 bugs reported for, Ubuntu's own packages of Ardour. The ardour.org
75 packages install along side your distribution versions, and do not
76 interfere or interact in anyway other than sharing your own personal
77 Ardour settings and configuration choices.
82 <h2>Problems with the interaction between PulseAudio and JACK</h2>
85 <dt>Background Info</dt>
88 Like many distributions, Ubuntu has decide to use PulseAudio as the
89 default audio system. PulseAudio is a rich and capable system that
90 provides excellent services for typical users of Linux on the
91 desktop. However, it is not capable of the type of performance that
92 tools like Ardour require and in particular does not offer the
93 possibility of sending audio between applications that can makes the
94 Linux audio environment a very interesting one.
97 This would not a problem if it were not for the fact that JACK will
98 not run correctly (if at all) if it needs to use the same
99 soundcard/audio interface that PulseAudio is using. And since on
100 Ubuntu, PulseAudio is configured by default to always use the
101 (typically single) audio interface on your computer, this is a bit
105 The developers of JACK and PulseAudio got together in 2009 and
106 agreed upon a mechanism by which PulseAudio and JACK could cooperate
107 in their use of a single soundcard. Whether or not PulseAudio is running by
108 default, when JACK starts up it sends out a request to use the
109 soundcard. If PulseAudio is running, it will give up its use of the
110 soundcard to allow JACK to take over (and can optionally be told to
111 route its own audio through JACK). When JACK finishes, it sends out
112 another message, and PulseAudio can once again use the soundcard
116 <dt>What is the problem?</dt>
119 This relatively simple system ought to be the basis for excellent
120 cooperation between PulseAudio and JACK. Unfortunately, it relies on
121 everything being correctly configured for it to work, and Ubuntu
122 have repeatedly failed to get this configuration correct.
125 The specific issues known at this time (spring 2013) are:
127 <li>a bug in PulseAudio that causes it not to give up the
128 soundcard when JACK asks</li>
129 <li>bad package dependency information that causes a critical
130 package to be missing even when JACK and PulseAudio are
132 <li>a bug that causes JACK to freeze up when told to stop,
133 causing issues with restarting</li>
140 <li>Cannot start JACK (though see the next section for other
142 <li>JACK starts but there is no sound coming from Ardour or other
143 applications that use JACK.</li>
152 <h2>Problems with JACK configuration</h2>
155 <dt>What is the problem?</dt>
158 To function as intended, JACK needs to run with access to two
159 operating system facilities called "realtime scheduling" and "memory
160 locking". This means that you, the user who starts JACK, must be
161 allowed access to these facilities. By default, Ubuntu does create a
162 user group that has this permission but ... it does not put new
163 users into this group by default. Consequently, you will not have
164 permission to run JACK in the way you should.
170 A message like "Cannot lock down memory" in the output from JACK as
171 it starts up. This output may be "hidden" in the Messages window of
172 QJackctrl (aka JACK Control), so you should check there.
178 Run the command <code>sudo usermod -a -G
179 audio <em>YOUR-LOGIN-NAME</em></code>. Then logout and login again.