Welcome to the newbie page of the LinuxMusicians wiki. This part of the wiki is meant to help you make a successfull start with Linux as your audio workstation and musician's tool. We will use some external links for further information. On the right site of this page you see a table of contents so you can go to the chapters which you're interested in and skip those which are less interesting for you. There's also a search function above it. If this page does not provide all the answers to your questions, you can always ask a specific question on our forum. For more support options (e.g. IRC and mailinglists) check this page. Don't hesitate to ask!

1. Linux is safe, stable, easy to work with and free! There's a great deal of high quality software you may be familiar with, like OpenOffice.Org and Firefox.
2. Great professional grade, free audio software for recording, editing, midi, sampling, drumming and much more!
3. Great support by the Linux community and other audio/music focused Linux groups, in many different languages!

Quick examples of some great pieces of free audio software on Linux:

• Ardour Digital Audio Workstation.
• LMMS 'FruityLoops/FL Studio' for Linux.
• Audacity sound editor
• Hydrogen drummachine
• Rosegarden audio and MIDI sequencer and score editor
• Lilypond music engraving software
• Jamin professional audio mastering.
• LinuxSampler sampling with *.gig files.
• Mixxx Professional DJ tool.
• MuseScore Music notation and composition software comparable to Sibelius or Finale.
• Tuxguitar 'Guitar Pro' for Linux.
• Qtractor Audio/MIDI multi-track sequencer.
• Zynaddsubfx Great synth
• GNU Solfege Free ear-training software

Screenshots of some audio applications running on Linux: here and here.

Many people wonder if their (audio) hardware is supported by Linux. The quick answer is that there's a good chance that it does. When you start working with Linux it's always good to do a little Googling (or Scroogling), and that'll likely tell you if it is supported. Most hardware is actually supported by Linux, because of lots of work from the Linux community. In addition, more and more companies are making hardware drivers for Linux and selling computers with Linux as the default operating system (e.g.Dell, Asus, HP, IBM, Novell, Sun and interesting for a audio pc eracks/STUDIO and more.)

Here You can see which soundcard, firewire device or other audio hardware is supported by Linux. Your hardware not on the list? Then you can ask at our forum or post a message on the LAU mailinglist.

Next to the many free open source audio software on Linux, there is also commercial audio software available for Linux. Some examples are: Renoise, EnergyXT. Others like Reaper and Finale can run with help of WINEHQ software. More information about commercial audio software on Linux you can find here.

Are VST-plugins fully supported by Linux? No, because of some licence issues and cross-platform problems. Is it possible to get VST-plugins working on Linux? Yes, there is a list of VST-plugins which can work with the use of a emulator. Also applications like Ardour, Qtractor and LMMS provide solutions to run Windows VST plugins. Check this page of this wiki for more information about VST-support.

Before installing Linux, there are a lot of possibilities to try it first. There are Live cd's (for example: Ubuntu live cd) available, which makes it possible to boot Linux without installing it on a hard disk drive. Another option is to use Wubi, which makes it possible to install Linux (Ubuntu) as a Windows application (be aware of the fact that a live-cd and a Wubi installation is only good for a 'preview' of Linux. If you really want to test it, consider to make a dualboot!)

Another option, and this is recommend for newbies who have used Windows or Mac for many years, is to make a dualboot. Then you've time to get used to the Linux way of working, cause it's normal that you have to acclimate to another operating system. Here you can find tutorials to install a dualboot. It's also possible to install only Linux on your hard drive of course …

There are a lot of Linux distro's. Which one is the best? Hard to say, for every individual there is a best distro… When you start with Linux the best thing you could do is to choose a distro with a large community (for support). UbuntuStudio is popular these days and has a large community, but other good options are for example: openSUSE, Debian or Fedora and a lot more!

If you just want to record little pieces of music and want a few options to edit it, you can just install a Linux distro and use for example Audacity sound editor, for the little job. But when you want to use Linux as a audio workstation, and want to be able to use applications like Ardour DAW and Rosegarden, it's recommend (for newbies at least) to install a distro which is special made for audio or multimedia usage. These distro's have the most important linux audio applications installed by default and you doesn't have to do a lot work by yourself to the get a well configured system. Although the audio/ multimedia distro'a are special made for digital recording and composition, they contain all the 'normal' software for personal computer use like an office suit, webbrowser, instant messaging etc. too. A list of the available Linux multimedia distro's you can find at this page of this wiki.

Which one is best? Again, it depends… If you are already used to an specific Linux distro, try to find an multimedia distro based on that. If you're totally new I think 64studio 3.0 or higher (Ubuntu LTS specifically made for multimedia usage) is a good choice to start with. Ubuntu is easy to configure and has a great community for support. There is also Ubuntu Studio, which delivers a recent version of Ubuntu optimized for multimedia production. Another good option is Planet CCRMA which offers multimedia packages for Fedora. But so many people so many opinions, so the best way to find out is to test it yourself! Other good options you can find here! Check this page for support for installing Linux.

Screenshots: Ubuntu Studio, 64Studio.

Reviews: Ubuntu Studio, 64Studio.
_{(*note: most reviews are talking about older versions, so things are even better now…)}

If you're already working on Ubuntu it's easy to install the ubuntu studio packages, more info here.

As mentioned before, you can start using Linux audio software like Audacity, Tuxguitar, LMMS, Mixxx and MuseScore, right after you have installed Linux and the necessary software. But, for some applications like Ardour or Rosegarden, you need to use JACK. So if you want to use ALL the great audio applications on Linux and want to be able to connect and synchronize the different applications with eachother and want to have the lowest latency as possible, you need to meet JACK.

_{From: http://jackaudio.org/}

JACK is a low-latency audio server, written for GNU/Linux and Apple's OS X. It can connect a number of different applications to an audio device, as well as allowing them to share audio between themselves. Its clients (a Media Player, DAW and/or a drummachine for example) can run in their own processes (ie. as normal applications), or they can run within the JACK server (ie. as a “plugin”). JACK was designed from the ground up for professional audio work, and its design focuses on two key areas:

1. low latency operation, and
2. synchronous execution of all clients.

For now it's enough to know what JACK does (see paragraph above). It's more important for now to learn to work with QjackCtl - a gui for JACK (works also on OS X and Windows). When you use a Linux audio distro, QjackCtl is installed by default. If you you don't have such a distro, make sure your system is configured correctly and that you have installed QjackCtl.

_{Figure 1: QjackCtl}

When you've installed QjackCtl, it's important to get the settings right. More information about the QjackCtl settings you can find here:

• QjackCtl settings 1 (Ubuntu)
• QjackCtl settings 2 (Ubuntu)
• QjackCtl - first steps (Jacklab)
• QjackCtl Quickstart Guide (64studio)
• QjackCtl settings (64studio)

When QjackCtl is set up properly and running (which makes it able to work with a low latency), you can use QjackCtl for it's second important function: connecting and synchronizing JACK clients.

_{From www.64studio.com}

All internal Audio and MIDI connections and routing are controlled by QjackCtl. These are flexible connections that can be made between all Audio/MIDI software programs, which are known as JACK clients. The connections can be viewed by pressing the Connect button. All being well you'll see the word Started come up in the window with 0 (0) below it (see figure 1). The Connections panel should show alsa_pcm in both the input and output windows. If so, you're ready to make some music. This panel shows all Audio or MIDI signal sources in the left pane (Readable Clients / Output Ports) and all possible Audio or MIDI signal destinations in the right pane (Writable Clients / Input Ports).

_{Figure 2: QjackCtl - connect}

Actual connections are established between source (Output Ports) and destination (Input Ports) by selecting one item in either side and pressing the Connect button at the bottom-left of the Connections window (see figure 2).

It is also possible to establish a connection by dragging an item and dropping it on to the other side (Note: it doesn't matter which side you start dragging from). If it hass not all gone so smoothly, click on Messages (see figure 1), if you see anything much more complicated than:

• 20:19:41.579 Client activated.
• 20:19:41.583 Audio connection change.
• 20:19:41.617 Audio connection graph change.

then you're going to need to do some work to get the best out of this. If you only want to use one application at a time, you may not need to worry about JACK too much right now. However, if you want the full power of a Linux Audio system then it's worth taking the time to figure this out. The Status button (see figure 1) also provides some slightly less verbose information.

To disconnect a currently established connection you proceed in similar manner: select each item on either side and press the Disconnect button. Actual and established connections are shown as coloured lines in between the two panes of the Connections window. Each color indicates a single and distinct source module (client) that is currently connected. It is possible to route all Audio and MIDI signals wherever you want this way.

• More information about QjackCtl Connections you can find in this Howto QjackCtl Connections (Ubuntu) and at the QjackCtl Quickstart Guide.

The patchbay (see figure 1) of QjackCtl works almost the same as the QjackCtl connect. The patchbay makes it possible to safe a specific set of connections between jack clients. This makes it easy to restart a particular session.

In the sound and music software world, synchronization typically refers to the precise timing of audio events with video, MIDI, and other event streams (Philips, 2007). You can use JACK/QjackCtl for synchronize a song in your midi sequencer with a drum pattern in your drummachine for example.

• More information and explanation of this great feature of Jack/QjackCtl you can find in this article by Dave Philips for Linuxjournal.
• Here you can find an example of HowTo Sync Hydrogen with Ardour.

When you use QjackCtl, make sure you start QjackCtl before you start JACK clients like Ardour or Rosegarden.

Another important thing is that when you have QjackCtl running, you can, in general, only use audio application which have JACK support (which can work as a JACK client). So you won't get sound out of the flash player in YouTube when QjackCtl is running, because it lacks JACK support, but you can run JACK clients like Ardour and VLC mediaplayer for example. Many Linux audio applications (like Audacity) work with the different sound systems on Linux (like JACK and Alsa), there are applications which only work with JACK (like Ardour) and there are apps which don't work with JACK, but only with other sound systems. In general it is better to close not needed processes on your system as much as possible for the best JACK performance.
_{* (At this page you can check if an audio application has JACK support ) * (It's possible to download the YouTube video and play it with JACK)}

If QjackCtl is running fine, we can start making music!

As mentioned before, there is many great professional grade, free audio software available on Linux for recording, editing, midi, mixing, filters and effects, sampling, drums, synths and audio programming software, notation editors and more!

• See for a list and descriptions of the available audio software this page of our Wiki.
• Check this page for Linux audio software tutorials.
• Still have some questions? Don't hesitate to ask it on our forum
• Check this page for more support.
• http://lievenmoors.github.com

• Article Audio Production Tools for Linux (Nice article for newbies!)
• Website for Linux audio
• Top 10 Linux Distributions for Audio Production in the eyes of softpedia.org.
• An introduction article by Dave Philips about JACK.

1. Linuxaudio.org
2. 64studio.com
3. jackaudio.org
4. Dave Philips writing for Linuxjournal.com