Note: As of July 2018, Gentoo Studio is out of beta and simply… is.
Gentoo Studio’s latest installation is now in open beta. This means I am asking people to install and use Gentoo Studio and let me know how it goes. Your feedback will be used to improve Gentoo Studio.
To participate in the beta, simply go to the Installation page linked above and follow the instructions there.
Please provide feedback as comments to this post.
If you encounter issues, you are also welcome to create bug reports at bugs.gentoostudio.org. You will need to create a Mantis account.
Live Iso ?
No current plans to make a Gentoo Studio live DVD, but I like the idea.
me too… live iso … its good idea
more people will joying us…
“minimal” and “basic” will be dropped
why???
it seemed like an interesting thing to be able to have a minimal system
I know, and I agree. I like the idea very much, but I’m just one guy here, and there’s a lot on my plate. I need to make sure maintenance is manageable. Before I build an updated install tarball, I actually emerge the updates on a VM, and any issues that arise have to be handled manually and then duplicated by catalyst. So I’ll have to admit to being human.
It should be easy to customize whatever you want to from a “Complete” install, though. Also, there’s not a whole lot that’s actually usable for mix/mastering engineers and musicians without a DE, so going with one (user-customizeable) install makes sense for a one-man distro op.
That said, if anyone wants to create and maintain other flavors of Gentoo Studio, I will happily host those tarballs once I do an install test for them and verify with the maintainer what they’re supposed to do.
However, the script works fine!
installation seems ok.
the only thing that would be useful would be the configuration of the keyboard while executing the script.
Yes! I will add that to my to-do list. Thanks!
Hey man–I wanted to say thank you for your work setting this up!
I’m most of the way through the install process now. After learning gentoo this summer, I have been thinking about setting up an audio system with gentoo ever since. I’m glad there are others who think that it is a great idea 🙂
Any thoughts on Bitwig studio integration?
You’re welcome!
Bitwig: I believe you can unpack .deb files on Gentoo, so you should be okay to install outside of Portage it if you own it. I’ve made a feature suggestion to look into writing an ebuild and installing it in demo mode: https://bugs.gentoostudio.org/view.php?id=57
cool! I’m going to have a go at setting that up. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes if you want. Btw I’m using the minimal Gentoo Studio. Setting up xmonad over the next day or so and am then going to try to integrate Bitwig into the workflow.
I would love to hear how it went, along with any suggestions you have.
Installation went smoothly–one thing I had to change though was the kernel commandline (CONFIG_CMDLINE). I needed to set it to
root=/dev/sda6
because that is where my rootfs was located on my machine.
I also needed to set CONFIG_CMDLINE_OVERRIDE because otherwise CONFIG_CMDLINE was not being read for some reason.
This required emerging the rt sources so that I could recompile the kernel.
Otherwise, everything else with installation went well (my system is UEFI, btw)
Today, I am going to work on getting some of the other software I use up and running. I have not yet tested any of the audio related functionality. I’ll update here occasionally in case it helps any other users.
visionlogic, I’m very glad to hear that. Thank you for the feedback – knowing about CONFIG_CMDLINE is very helpful.
Hi again,
Everything had been working pretty well, but I ran into some trouble with the graphics drivers a day or two ago. I don’t think this whole situation is entirely related to Gentoo Studio, but I think in order to fix it, I’m going to need to compile a fresh, minimal kernel, so I can appropriately debug. I’m having trouble getting to the root of the issue because I am not familiar with many of the kernel options enabled by genkernel. The .config I have been using was adapted from the original genkernel install (as mentioned in my previous post)
I went through the following page in order to enable the appropriate graphics drivers for my hardware. I have an R9 380X video card, and configured the kernel accordingly. https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/AMDGPU
After building and installing the kernel, several modules seemed to break. Most notably, nfsd no longer shows up, even though I compiled the kernel with the related modules built in. Thus, my network file system won’t mount.
Checking dmesg, it seems that many modules now “disagree about version of symbol module_layout”
My intent in presenting the previous situation is not to ask you to help me debug, but rather to provide the background for the following questions. I think that my best bet is to start with a fresh RT kernel and only add the functionality specifically required by my hardware. With that in mind, I am hopeful you will be able to answer the following:
If I:
-start from the rt14 sources
-go through the list of software your have provided for the minimal install, add the requisite kernel options
-go through the functionalities I need custom to my setup (nfs for example), appropriately configure kernel for these
-go through the hardware in and around my machine, add the requisite options
-rebuild and reinstall the kernel and modules
-rebuild world
will there be any significant piece of my understanding/procedure missing in order to achieve the level of functionality you have created with Gentoo Studio? In other words, is there anything I need to set in the kernel specifically to allow rt audio processing that wouldn’t show up in the gentoo wiki pages for your list of Minimal Installation software packages? I’d likely perform this procedure from within the current installation. The system configuration files you have put in place would remain, other than the kernel configuration.
Is there anything about this procedure that jumps out at you as insufficient?
I truly appreciate the time you’ve put into this so far. Maybe when this is all said and done we can share some music made with GS!
I apologize for the late reply. I was on vacation with the missus. 🙂
You should be fine. The only thing you want to make sure is enabled in the kernel is the fully preemptible option.
If you can, please let me know how this goes, so I can make a note of anything I might need to change to make sure nfs (and anything else that broke for you) works for others.
I hope you two had a nice time 🙂
And of course, I’ll keep you posted as to my progress.
I’m using kernel 4.11.12-rt-rt14 and starting from make defconfig
Going to see how much progress I can make tonight.
I’ll post back here when I’m far enough along to have useful information for you.
I want to start by saying thank you for maintaining this. Been using gentoostudio for a long time and I really appreciate the amount of work it must take. Stage 4 set up went without error once I realized I had to select XFCE session on login. A small request. I am trying to install fmit (free music instrument tuner) and I get blocking message “media-sound/jack-audio-connection-kit:0 (“media-sound/jack-audio-connection-kit:0″ is blocking media-sound/jack2-1.9.11_rc1-r1)”. Any thoughts? I tried adding package.use entry with jack2, but no luck.
You’re welcome – and thank you for saying that. It means a lot.
There was no tuner of any kind in the tarball, so I went ahead and added it to the compile scripts. I also updated the ebuild to use jack2 instead of jack-audio-connection-kit. If you eix-sync, it should pick up the updated overlay and you should be able to compile fmit without running into a jack-audio-connection-kit conflict. Let me know how it goes.
You are awesome. Worked like a charm. I’ve been using gentoo for ages, but I’m dangerous when it comes to portage. Need to get off my lazy butt and study up. Thanks again. You’ve removed the last of my excuses….
You’re welcome. 🙂
Hi! I ‘ve spend about 3 weeks for testing your studio. Nice work, keep going. I have more linux questions, because stucked on situation with nvidia problems green screen and also alsa: no such file or directory. The same with cd /usr/src/linux and etc. 🙂
:-)Greetings from Siberia:-) Earthman
I will definitely keep going. Thank you.
Nvidia: I’ve given up on trying to use nvidia-drivers. It’s just not compatible with rt-sources, which you need for audio. Try using nv instead, in make.conf. VIDEO_DRIVERS=”nv”
/usr/src/linux doesn’t exist because the rt-sources sources are removed prior to creating the install tarball. Otherwise the tarball would be much bigger. You can upgrade the kernel if there is an update by emerging rt-sources and running eselect kernel to make sure the /usr/src/linux symlink exists.
What’s the exact command you were using when you got the ALSA error? What’s the exact error output?
Thank’s. I’m booting to 4.13.10-rt-rt3 from grub advanced options.
4.13.13-rt-rt5 return to green screen while activating mdev , Loading modules
I’ve made changes in make.conf VIDEO_DRIVERS=”nv” and VIDEO_CARDS=”nv”
no luck 🙁
/usr/src/linux symlink exists, but is broken
#eselect kernel show
!!! Warning: Symlink targed doesn’t appear to be valid!
#alsamixer
cannot open mixer: No such file or directory
also in make.conf
ALSA_CARDS=”*”
in my case i’ve got
lsusb | grep -i audio
Bus 007 Device 002: ID 0763:2012 Midiman M-Audio Fast Track Pro
i did automated Install “complete” flavour
Before the kernel symlink will work, you need to emerge rt-sources. rt-sources is up to 4.14.6, so you should be seeing that version.
After putting VIDEO_CARDS=”nv” in make.conf, you need to run emerge -uDN world. Come to think of it, though, the nouveau driver should be present and should be handling it – not sure why it’s not.
What is the output of aplay -l and lsusb? I’m curious to see if the Midiman shows up.
Thank you. Getting better. rt-sourses emerged. symlink ls -l /usr/src/linux working. I ‘m checking ‘make menuconfig’ now, The will be alsa time 🙂
Or you could use genkernel – -menuconfig all, which will compile the kernel and modules for you and let you inspect menuconfig before it proceeds. Make sure you mount /dev/sda2 /boot first.
(- -menuconfig is a double-dash. The software for this site mangles it.)
Thanks a lot! I can start recording music now. nvidia works, kernel is updated.
lsusb:
Bus 007 Device 002: ID 0763:2012 Midiman M-Audio Fast Track Pro
aplay -l:
(don’t install web client yet, hands typing) 🙂
****List of PLAYBACK HArdware devices ****
card0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD1988B Analog [AD1988B Analog]
Subdevices:1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: AD1988B Digital [AD1988B Digital]
Subdevices:1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 2: AD1988B Alt Analog [AD1988B Alt Analog]
Subdevices:1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card1: NVidia [HDA Nvidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
Subdevices:1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card1: NVidia [HDA Nvidia], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1]
Subdevices:1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card2: Pro [FastTrack Pro], device 0: USB Audio [Usb Audio]
Subdevices:1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card2: Pro [FastTrack Pro], device 1: USB Audio [Usb Audio #1]
Subdevices:1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
Are you recording audio with your Fast Track?
Not yet. More important now updating config files procedure and USE changes.
Greetings to visards of Gentoo recording!
I’m stuck at situation that never been before .
I’ve placed gentoo studio system already
at studio block and have no i-net connection with gentoo.
At home I have this computer worked,
at the new location the other computers
can see the Internet, and this is not.
it’s kind of magic 🙂
then, /etc/conf.d/ net – not exist
ifconfig – shows new names: “bond” , “enp2s0” , “enp9s4”
Internet I need to control the Studio from another room,
but the situation is not yet solved
“Show me the way” please
NetworkManager is installed by default in Gentoo Studio. The interfaces you named sound like wired interfaces, and NetworkManager should have connected to one automatically.
Do you have the nm-applet icon in your system tray? Click on it, then click on one of the wired connection interface names.
nm-applet is “disabled” an if o click on it, there is no connections at all )-:
Okay. In a terminal, become root and try /etc/init.d/NetworkManager restart.
If that doesn’t help, please provide the output of lspci and lspci -n so I can look up your hardware and see if the drivers were part of the default kernel compile.
Thank you very much. Network manager is restarted. Perhaps these problems are too simple for you. Cannot find the manual for this version of Gentoo. If there are sources, we will read in order to understand and do more creativity, and less programming 🙂
Hi,
The installation is not working on my system, and the bug reporting feature (mantis) won’t load the captcha for creating a new account…
I’ll look into Mantis as soon as I’m able.
Can you give me more information about how the installation is not working? What isn’t working? What is failing? The more information you provide, the better I’ll be able to help you.
Hi audiodef,
I did not have success with your install script and UEFI. I’m using legacy BIOS boot for now, and the system is working well.
If you’d like to work on the UEFI issue, I’m happy to troubleshoot with you.
I have had trouble with doing UEFI test installs for a while. I do need to fix this, so I very much appreciate your offer to help. If you wouldn’t mind, would you give me as much detail as you can about what went wrong with your UEFI install?
I apologize for the delay. I have a lot going on, but Gentoo Studio is very important to me. I definitely beg your patience. 🙂
I am having minor problems with the automatic install. Looks like EIX and overlays are not working. eix-sync gives an error about the database. Anytime I use emerge, I get an error about repos.conf referencing non existing directories gentoo-studio and audio-overlay. I will find the fixes, just wanted to provide feedback and check if that has happened to anyone else. I did a manual install a long time ago and had no problems.
I’m sorry you’re having trouble with this. I will plan on doing another test install as soon as time allows, so I can see what needs to be fixed. Thanks for letting me know about this.
to add to the previous comment, I can confirm the same issues both with the manual and scripted install (which makes sense as they are basically the same). also, the parted commands given don’t establish the filesystems in the environment I was using, so that needed to be handled manually before mounting and continuing.
Thanks, I appreciate the feedback. I’ll be keeping an eye out for that issue when I get a chance to run a fresh test install and troubleshoot.
I was able to fix the eix and repos.conf problems by simply re “emerge”ing eix and running eix-sync. It looks like the overlay directories and eix database aren’t included in the system tarball and this recreates them. Of course that opened pandora’s box getting the system updated. Definitely NOT GentooStudion problem.
GentooStudio is still the most capable audio distribution I have tried.
Hm, that issue feels familiar. That sounds more like an issue with the install script/installation instructions. Thanks again – this is very helpful. And thanks for the kudos. It means a lot!