This resources section will be expanding with more links and information. If you would like to suggest or request a link or topic that is not covered, please leave a comment.

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Driver Makers

ALSA

FreeBoB

FFADO

Other Linux Audio Websites

Linux Audio.org

Linux Audio Users Guide

Linux Audio Users Portal

Linux Audio Users Mailing List

Linux Musicians Forum

Linux Distributions for Multimedia

64studio

Ubuntu Studio

dynebolic

JackLab

Hardware Resources

M-Audio FireWire Solo Setup in Ubuntu

Presonus Firepod Setup in Ubuntu

- Setup HOWTO and miscellaneous troubleshooting.



HeadRoom

- Headphones frequency response graphs and comparisons. Very enlightening.



Studio Monitor Tests

Software Resources

Ubuntu Studio Preparation

- Everything from installing "must have" packages, setting up pci, usb, firewire, installing the real time kernel and more.



Tuning Your FireWire Latency - Ubuntu Studio

JACK Quick Start Guide (Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04)

Install VST Support

- Finally use your prized VST plugins with your Linux studio.



Linux VST Compatibility

- A listing of VSTs that work in Linux using WineASIO and dssi-vst.



Free Audio Plugin Database

- Mostly VST plugins.



Calf Audio Plugin Library

- Cool plugin suite that comes as LADSPA, DSSI or a standalone gui.



LV2 Audio Plugin Standard

- Likely to replace LADSPA plugins in the future, this new standard promises greater flexibility.



Minicomputer

- Industrial Grade Digital Synthesizer for Linux



Yellow Tools - Independence Free 2.0

- 2GB sound library and VST sample player that works with WineASIO and dssi-vst!



Learjeff's Soundfonts

- Fender Rhodes soundfonts.



Greg Sullivan's Electric Pianos

- Three electric piano .gig files.



The Freesound Project

Fun Stuff

Foam Plate Speaker

- Has anyone tried this? It looks like a fun project.



The Wonderful World of Linux 2.6

- A recent history of the Linux Kernel.



Linux and Music

- A dated Sound on Sound article, but a nice piece of history!




Troubleshooting Common Problems

FireWire Permissions

If you get an error like this in JACK:

Ieee1394Service::initialize: Could not get 1394 handle: Permission denied
Is ieee1394 and raw1394 driver loaded?
Fatal (devicemanager.cpp)[68] initialize: Could not initialize Ieee1349Service object
Fatal (freebob.cpp)[69] freebob_new_handle: Could not initialize device manager

Use your terminal to open /ect/udev/rules.d/40-permissions.rules...

$ sudo gedit /ect/udev/rules.d/40-permissions.rules

...and find the following line:

KERNEL=="raw1394", GROUP="disk"

...and make it read:

KERNEL=="raw1394", GROUP="audio"

make your user a part of the audio group and you will have access to your FireWire devices.

Memory Lock

If you are using a real time kernel you will need to give your user the permissions to use real time capabilities. If Ardour is nagging you about memory access, modifying the config file below should make it happy. Having these properties set correctly will improve performance.

First make sure you have a group named audio (or whatever you want, really) and that your user is a member. Then open up /etc/security/limits.conf from the command line.

gksudo gedit /etc/security/limits.conf

...and add the following lines at the bottom of the file:

@audio - rtprio 99
@audio - memlock unlimited
@audio - nice -10

Note that some guides, such as the Ubuntu Studio Preparation sets some percentage of your memory for the audio group, such as 250000. My present system will crash and freeze if I don't set the memlock to unlimited.

Also note that if you are using Ubuntu Studio 8.04 there is a control panel in System >> Administration >> Ubuntu Studio Controls that you can use to set the percentage of locked memory and enable raw1394 access. I still needed to manually set my memlock to limited.