Audio Production on Linux

[abarbarian]

On 9/23/2024 at 3:32 PM, securitybreach said:

 

Yeah, as it depends on drive speed and such. I only clone my installation drive as the other 8 drives are for storage. Cloning an ssd takes about 20 minutes or so and same to restore. You just have to make sure the drive you clone to has at least as much storage as you cloned from. It's all ncurses driven. I would clone the partition as image as its faster to do so. It only clones the data in use so if you only used 600gb on a terabyte drive, then it would make a 600gb clone.

 

Clonezilla is good but Foxclone is better in my opinion.

 

I used to use clonezilla but it has a limitation on use.

 

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Why Clonezilla can _NOT_ restore an image which is saved from a large drive to a smaller drive? Any workaround? It's not easy to implement such a feature, since Clonezilla now is a partition "imaging" tool, by "imaging", it means clonezilla actually does not know the files themselves, clonezilla just knows where the used blocks are. Because of this reason, the target partition size must be equal or larger than the original one so that clonezilla can restore the used blocks on that partition. If the target partition size is smaller, then it will go wrong.

 

So for clonezilla you have to have exactly the same amount of useable space or larger on the same sized  drive or a larger drive to clone to. This is problematic as not all 500 GB or any sized drive  have the same amount of useable space as I found out a long time ago.

 

With Foxclone you can use a smaller drive with some small caveats.

 

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· GPT and MBR/legacy/MSDOS
partition tables.
· ext4, btrfs, ntfs, exfat and fat
partitions.
· Unknown partition types*.
Clone:
· Direct drive to drive.
· To drive from a full backup.
· From a larger drive to a
smaller drive**.

 

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Limitations:
· 64 bit systems only.
· Local drives only
· RAID – no.
· LVM – no.
· Mac filesystems – no.
· English only.

 

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* e.g. the MS reserved partition in a windows 10 installation or a LUKS encrypted
partition. foxclone does a byte-by-byte copy of the whole partition as it is unable to
determine the used blocks. So, dependent on the size of the partition, it can take a
long time
** as long as the total size of partitions on the source drive is less than the size of the
new drive and all the unallocated space is at the end of the drive.

 

Foxclone runs just fine from a Ventoy stick. It is pretty quick in use, at least on my ssd/nvme set up. An it works well as I tested it out several times on different drives when I built my new rig. ;-)

 

[securitybreach]

57 minutes ago, abarbarian said:

So for clonezilla you have to have exactly the same amount of useable space or larger on the same sized  drive or a larger drive to clone to. This is problematic as not all 500 GB or any sized drive  have the same amount of useable space as I found out a long time ago.

 

You can but its not advisable https://hatchjs.com/clonezilla-clone-to-a-smaller-disk/

 

Plus Clonezilla handles encryption (Luks and LVM) unlike Fox and you can do whole disk or just partitions if you want (I do whole disk as I use Luks+LVM).

[Hedon James]

21 hours ago, sunrat said:

Different kernels are compiled with different governors. You can check available ones, this is for my current Liquorix kernel:

$ cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_governors
ondemand userspace performance

IIRC the default Debian kernel doesn't have ondemand but has schedutil instead which I've heard is OK.

 

I'm not using Pipewire daily yet, I'll reboot to my test Trixie and check if I can play multiple sources.

 

Had a quick listen to your song. Sounds good, better separation and distinction of the parts. It's late so I'll have to PM you tomorrow.

 

15 minutes later - I checked playing Ardour and DeadBeef together, don't have Audacious installed. If Ardour is set to ALSA out I can't play DeadBeef. However using Ardour JACK/Pipewire output and either JACK output or Pipewire output of DeadBeef, both will play at the same time.

 

BTW, Ardour 8.8.0 came out yesterday. I upgraded already.
 

Aha....my OLD setup was Debian 12, but with Liquorix kernel.  Liquorix defaulted to ondemand, which I manually switched to performance at each boot.

 

I'm now on Lubuntu 24.04.1, but Ubuntu Studio installer pulls in low-latency kernel.  According to Ubuntu Studio installer package, this is the last version of Ubuntu Studio that will use the low-latency kernel, as from 24.10 forward it will use the default kernel.  (I presume this is related to real-time being merged into the kernel recently?).  I really wanted the low-latency kernel, for comparison's sake with Liquorix, as the low-latency kernel was in my FIRST audio machine (with ZERO xruns) and I suspected there was something in the low-latency kernel responsible for that.  I was wrong...but I'm still glad I got the kernel, as I can revert to that if I choose or use the newer kernel if it's an improvement.  I like options!

 

Appreciate the tip on available governors!  I thought the options were limited to powersave, ondemand, and performance.  I'll see what I've got and make some decisions from there.  Thinking about switching ALL cpus to performance, recording some tracks with heavy plugin draws, such as Audio Assault virtual amps....or using DrumGizmo or Ugritone to pull up some drum tones and then switch them.....that always causes xruns for me.  I'm curious if performance mode on this beastly 6-core will resolve that?  Performance mode on the 1st core, doesn't resolve, but thinking about turning on performance for ALL cores to see what happens.....then switch back before it gets a chance to overheat.  Call it a matter of curiousity, LOL!

 

I can live with my current experiences, as it doesn't seem to be affecting my recordings (knock on wood).  I'm already more confident in my CURRENT setup than the OLD setup; but if I can duplicate the xruns of my FIRST setup, with some simple tweaks, why not consider it?  At this point, I've switched back to Lubuntu from Debian; I've switched to a 3rd version of Ardour (8.4?) from Debian's default (7.x) and my installed version from Ardour (8.6?); and my kernels have changed from Liquorix to Ubuntu's low-latency.  The only constants still in play are the LXQt desktop and the plugins.  The LXQt desktop is a different version (newer in Lubuntu) and I don't know if the plugins are or not; I've used the default versions supplied by KX Studio (primarily LSP plugins).  While the CURRENT and OLD systems are LXQT, the FIRST system was LXDE.  While LXQT is definitely heavier than LXDE, it is still one of the lightest weight options available....certainly on-par with the default XFCE offering in Ubuntu Studio.  That leaves my CURRENT and OLD primary plugins (LSP) as a major source of difference from FIRST system, using Calf plugins.  I'm glad I switched, as I learned that the newest versions of Ardour (8.x series) no longer have GUIs for Calf....that would've forced me to switch if I hadn't done it voluntarily.  But it's still a potential source of the xruns.  At this point, I'm still willing to run down a few "loose ends" out of curiousity.  But I'm not willing to make any serious changes in pursuit of ZERO xruns.  For now, it's "good enough" unless something stupidly simple is discovered.

 

Lastly, Ubuntu Studio version of Ardour seems to require ALSA as a backend, rather than Pulse or JACK.  I'm guessing this is because Pipewire is dictating something.  ALSA is the only backend that works for me with Ardour....switching to the others loses sound...but I must use PulseAudio controls for sound settings.  It seems "weird" to me, but maybe just because I can't "see" the configuration.  That's what I liked about Cadence from KX Studio...I could visualize the soundstack and wire it accordingly.  With Pipewire in place, I'm reluctant to install Cadence and break something.  I can live with the "1 sound source at a time" configuration" for now....even though it's a PITA.  For now, I just want to focus on USING my system and getting better at that, and not be distracted with FIXING my system or making it more "like it used to be".  Like I said above....I'll make minor changes, flip some switches, and maybe try to peak behind the curtain....but I'm done with the major surgeries, for now.  FWIW...

[abarbarian]

3 hours ago, securitybreach said:

 

You can but its not advisable https://hatchjs.com/clonezilla-clone-to-a-smaller-disk/

 

Plus Clonezilla handles encryption (Luks and LVM) unlike Fox and you can do whole disk or just partitions if you want (I do whole disk as I use Luks+LVM).

 

Horses for courses. Foxclone would not be of use to you as it does not handle LVM. I find it a bit easier to use than clonezilla which I did use and found very useful.

 

 

[abarbarian]

1 hour ago, Hedon James said:

but I'm done with the major surgeries, for now.  FWIW...

 

Thank goodness for that. Been fair worn out just reading your tale.

[sunrat]

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(I presume this is related to real-time being merged into the kernel recently?)

The full RT patches will be in 6.11 or 6.12 IIRC. There was a huge update a while back which enables all kernels to run with full pre-emption by using the kernel option preempt=full which is a major improvement.

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I've used the default versions supplied by KX Studio (primarily LSP plugins)

LSP plugins keep improving rapidly so I like to download them from https://lsp-plug.in/?page=download as soon as they are released. Current is 1.2.17, KX has 1.2.12 . Just need to copy them over to the correct folders.

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Lastly, Ubuntu Studio version of Ardour seems to require ALSA as a backend, rather than Pulse or JACK.

That's weird, Ardour supports Pipewire/Jack. Try starting Ardour with

pw-jack /opt/Ardour-8.8.0/bin/ardour8

or use the correct path for the version you have installed. I recall having to do this in one setup I have although I've read it shouldn't be necessary. I think it was discussed on LM forums.
 

[Hedon James]

21 minutes ago, abarbarian said:

 

Thank goodness for that. Been fair worn out just reading your tale.

LMAO!  if that wore you out, try being ME! 

 

[Hedon James]

On 10/5/2024 at 11:44 AM, securitybreach said:

Nice tune Hedon, I like the guitar riffs.

Thanks SB!  If that's to your liking, keep listening....I've got about 50-60 tunes of original music on that page.  VT said I sounded like a throwback to 70s/80s rock & roll.  I said "that sounds like a compliment, I'll take it!"  His reply...."Yep!"