My brothers machine is for mindless entertainment. There’s one in the garage that I use to record and mix demos for bands that I’m in. Sometimes I’ll build web-sites if I’ve got any personal work on, be it for cash or my own perverted projects. This machine only get’s updated once a year though, because I won’t use it during winter. There isn’t any heating in the garage and I live in England.

Here’s a little fact, I’ve named them after Pokémon. Not just because I’m sad or I have a compulsion to name inanimate objects, but because they need to be referenced as separate machines when I’m setting the network up. Okay, I’ll admit, it’s a pure geek indulgence. Please don’t judge me.

My brother’s machine took all of five-minutes to install, followed by about a month to configure. Without the exaggeration, that’s about 3 hours to install and two-days of back-and-forth headless-ness to get it to work the way I like it to be.

The garage machine was a different kettle of fish. On my brothers machine I install a desktop version of Ubuntu, because it’s a desktop computer. On the other one, a version called Ubuntu Studio, for reasons I won’t patronise you with. For a start my DVD disc didn’t work, so I tried to install the desktop version and upgrade. Stupidest decision ever. It took about a week of messing around for me to give up (I’m not even joking here). I’ll put a brief geek synopsis under the graphic explaining why.

I burnt another copy and it installed fine. I say fine, it wasn’t what I expected, because it was supposed to install a “real-time” version of Linux, not a “generic” version. Why do I need it to be real-time? Because I’m recording audio, and this has to happen first and fast when the computer does it’s thing. The machine isn’t allowed to mess around prioritising YouTube videos or Chris Moyles’ whining from Radio 1 on the BBC iPlayer. It needs to be focused on capturing and recording all the audio I pump into it without jittering and jolting, all because someone sent me a message on Facebook for example. So to sumarise, Linux generic: good for being kept entertained by The Sims; Linux real-time: good for recording without Facebook notification alerts ruining a take.

There’s a messy reason why the latest Lucid Lynx version of Ubuntu Studio doesn’t come in real-time. I’m not really sure what it is, but it’s something to with the release schedule of Ubuntu being out of sync with the guys that make the real-time kernel. Okay, this post has claimed too many geek points now…

So… I’ve spent a lot of time staring at a blue screen with a progress bar on it. Because it takes so long, I have to do things to keep me alive, like move away and eat and drink occasionally, and sometimes sleep. Occasionally I pop back to check on the progress. To call it tedious is being very kind. Words can’t express the joy when it all ends.

So onto the geek list. I encountered a lot of problems. There are always niggles and the like that I can easily live without fixing. The issues were problematic. They either got side-stepped or conquered.

1. I couldn’t upgrade the repos off of the DVD when I wanted to update Ubuntu with the ubuntustudio-desktop package. It wouldn’t happen. I ended up reluctantly downloading gigabytes of data I already had because it wanted to use the Internet.
2. The drivers did work (I’m using nVidia). The monitor didn’t. I assume this is a problem with the drivers or the kernel. Windows was kind enough to lend be a raw EDID file, and I pointed X.org at that instead, thanks to the help of this Ubuntu Forums thread. Worked nicely.
3. I still have to use Windows NDIS drivers and a tedious unnecessary tutorial demonstrating how to get my Broadcom wireless card working under the NDIS-wrapper. The tutorial is very good. Without it I don’t think I’d have ever gotten online with Ubuntu.
4. Once I’d downloaded and installed ubuntustudio-desktop, ubuntustudio-audio and linux-rt I couldn’t get any of my audio applications, like Ardour and JACK, working. They crashed the entire desktop. It was infuriating.
5. After wiping and starting again with another disc of Ubuntu Studio, I bricked it by trying to install the RT kernel. So I had to do it AGAIN!

I’m now left with Ubuntu Studio Lucid Lynx, without a real-time kernel, quite bare and not configured because I haven’t had enough counseling to take another shot at it. I’ve read around about low-latency kernels and the like with the latest version of Linux that apparently work. I may give these a go. But when I see things like “incompatible with nVidia” or “compile from source” I start cutting my wrists with razor blades.

Well, I’ve spent all my money this month and all my close friends are away on holiday. I need this machine working because I’ve got some demos to finish for a band. All I have to do now is take a deep breath, start again and get on with it. Okay, here goes…

I’ve never had a problem with Windows at all and I absolutley love it, but I’m really taken by the ideas behind Linux. If I can also legally run an OS and a DAW for free how could I not? Another factor is the element of control. At first the thought of building an OS from various components seemed bollocks to me but after adding bits on and taking bits off it gives a sense of control you just can’t get in Windows.

A while back I tried out openSUSE 10.3 with KDE and Debian Etch with GNOME and wanted to fall in love so badly. I found the compatability a big problem as drivers very rarley “just worked”. I had to give up because I couldn’t get it to connect to the Internet without lugging my PC upstairs and plugging it into the router and sound and graphics just weren’t working.

This time around I had an idea of what I wanted an OS to do – music recording and production and web design. I had a more educated surf around and through my good mate Joe Barker was encouraged to use Ubuntu. This was around the time that Jaunty, versions 9.04 was about to make a release.

I’ve always had reservations about Ubuntu. Isn’t it just Debian for children? It’s always come across and whiney and too easy to use. But now with my previous Linux experience I knew this couldn’t be :-P

So I tested Jaunty in VirtualBox, got all impressed and decided I was gonna do it. Another quick surf around brought me to Ubuntu Studio. The distribution looked ideal for my wants. I got as far as 800×600 with no wireless. I persisted.

Within a week I had my wireless working and resolution back. The resolution looked at the monitors EDID and I was using an old LCD TV that reported it’s native was 800×600. In Windows it’s just a matter of un-ticking “Hide modes that this monitor cannot display” and I tried hard to get the same thing here. It didn’t happen so I found a 1280×1024 TFT lying around. The Nvidia graphics driver wasn’t working and I tried hard again to fix it with no sucess.

My first thoughts are this – man it’s ugly! I have to dedicate a good proportion of my life to getting it working and it looks like this? :-? It’s free so I shouldn’t expect professional artwork or a consistent GUI. It does not compare asthetically or ergenomically to Windows in the slightest. The fonts are hideous beyond words.

One thing has to be said though – the community support is beyond emense. It’s honestly breath-taking. I’m able to diagnose my problems sometimes down to the exact detail using Google. The Ubuntu forums is full of litterally thousands of enthusiasts helping each other out. Ubuntu has a lot to boast about here and it’s inspired me to keep going.

I’ve persisted since and here’s a list of issues I’ve solved:

• Understanding NDIS wireless connection
• Coming to terms with EDID
• Making the fonts look a lot better
• Working with websites
• Recording and mastering
• Getting nVidia drivers working

I’m glad I’ve persisted. Now that everything works I couldn’t be happier. Compiz makes me smile a lot. I’m happily running it day to day without much to gripe about. It does what I wanted. I’ve even contributed back to the community :-)

I can’t recommend Linux if you’re not tech savvy or not looking to put a lot of effort into getting things working. It’s made me appreciate Windows a hell of a lot more. If you want astonishing results for relativley small effort and you know your PHP from your KDE then you should be using Linux today. Damn it’s so good.