Category: Known Issues

Noble Numbat updates for February

in Development, Known Issues, News, Testing
Feb
07
2024

Greetings Ubuntu Studio Community!

The GREAT news is that the installer is now working! You can see from the screenshots below that, when you boot, you will be presented with a brand new installer that should be functional.

Unfortunately, when you get to this screen, the branding is a little “off”:

That said, for testing purposes, it should still function, but it does have some rough edges, so we do not recommend installing on a production machine.

Here’s another screenshot:

That said, per this discourse discussion, there will be more iterations coming on this installer. So stay tuned.

We’ve got a nice little feature coming to Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration that will help people with their audio routing needs. Currently, in Ubuntu Studio 23.10, your audio will automatically route to the first two channels on your default audio device, which might not be desired.

In Ubuntu Studio 24.04, We’re including the ability to create a Dummy Audio Device that can be started upon login depending upon your needs. When assigned as the default, this will free-up channels that would normally be assigned to your system audio to be assigned to a null device.

You’ll also notice a brand new interface for Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration due to GNOME’s new libadwaita engine. This was unintentional, but since it’s very dialog-driven, the change is very intuitive.

We have been working with the Edubuntu Team on providing a new metapackage for Music Education. This is going to be ubuntu-edu-music and includes quite a few educational music packages:

  • FMIT: Free Musical Instrument Tuner, a tool for tuning musical Instruments (will be included in ubuntustudio-audio as well!)
  • GNOME Metronome: Exactly what it sounds like (pun unintended): a metronome.
  • Minuet: Ear training for intervals, chords, scales, and more.
  • MuseScore: Create, playback, and print sheet music for free (this one is no stranger to the Ubuntu Studio community)
  • Piano Booster: MIDI player/game that displays musical notes and teaches you how to play piano, optionally using a MIDI keyboard.
  • Solfege: Ear training program for harmonic and melodic intervals, chords, scales, and rhythms.

We do want to note how closely tied we are to the Edubuntu project: Our project leader, Erich Eickmeyer, and Edubuntu’s project leader, Amy Eickmeyer, are a married couple. In addition to being our project leader, Erich does a lot of the day-to-day operations as the Technical Lead for Edubuntu.

That’s what we have for now. We are getting closer to release and 24.04 LTS is turning out to be an amazing release. With the improvements coming, we hope everything you could possibly need for content creation will be configured for you to use out of the box.

None of these improvements could be done without your financial support. If you could, we ask that you please consider giving a donation, joining our Patreon, or consider donating monthly here or at the links on the sidebar.

Noble Numbat Updates for December

in Development, Known Issues, News, Planet Ubuntu, Testing
Dec
14
2023

UPDATE: The boot issues have been fixed, however, the installer frontend is not yet working due to a known bug. This is true for Ubuntu Desktop Noble Numbat as well. If you wish to test the installation, it must be tested with subiquity. This can be done with:

sudo snap install subiquity --classic
sudo subiquity

However, the live .iso image is now functioning.

Greetings to our community!

We’re working diligently on getting ready for the next Long-Term Support release of Ubuntu Studio, right now codenamed Noble Numbat, which will become 24.04 LTS in April.

One of the things we are putting our energy into is moving away from the Ubiquity Installer, due to be sunset, and to the modern Subiquity installer, which has a technical caveat: it’s text-only. However, the Ubuntu Desktop team came up with a wonderful solution: Ubuntu Desktop Installer. It’s a flutter-based frontend to Subiquity which was released as the default installer experience for Ubuntu Desktop 23.04. Along with that, Ubuntu Budgie also released their own version, the Ubuntu Budgie Installer, which is done as an add-on to the Ubuntu Desktop Installer, and released that as their default installation experience for Ubuntu Budgie 23.10.

In following that lead, we have decided to change our installation experience to the Ubuntu Studio System Installer, which is built upon the work that Ubuntu Budgie and Ubuntu Desktop teams have already done. This will make us the first non-GNOME-based flavor to use this installation. However, in doing the switchover on our daily builds, we have run into some breakage.

Right now, our daily .iso images boot to a black screen with a mouse cursor. In other words, they do not work. Additionally, you cannot login to a virtual terminal to diagnose the issue via logs. This is because, upon extracting the .iso image and included squashfs file, we found out that the default live user (normally named “ubuntu-studio”) is not being created upon image build.

We do not expect this issue to be resolved until January. This is because the people that we need help to resolve this issue (Ubuntu Desktop team and Ubuntu Foundations team) are employees at Canonical. Canonical’s developers are mandated to take the final two weeks of every year off, which is why the yy.04 cycles are slightly longer than the yy.10 cycles.

If, for whatever reason, we cannot get this resolved, we will find another path. That said, we request that since this is a known bug and that a bug report exists, please do not file any further bug reports, and please do not attempt any further testing on our .iso images for Noble Numbat (future 24.04) as the .iso images are failing until further notice.

Please watch our accounts on x (formerly known as twitter) or mastodon.art for further updates.

Community Updates October 2023

in Known Issues, News, Planet Ubuntu
Oct
24
2023

In consideration of some ongoing issues, we thought we’d give some insight into a few things going on right now.

Upgrades to 23.10

Unfortunately, as of this writing, upgrades to 23.10 have not yet been enabled due to a blocking bug in the release upgrader. The fix is in place, but must be manually verified by the team in charge of the release upgrader only after the new development cycle opens up for 24.04. For more details, please see the Ubuntu Discourse.

Closure of Matrix Rooms

Due to the disabling of Libera’s Matrix to IRC bridge, we had to make the hard decision to close the Matrix rooms since we want to keep our support and communication rooms unified. While we would like to return to Matrix someday, this is something that is on hold for now. There are plans in the larger Ubuntu community, in cooperation with Canonical, to unify all communication platforms between the community and Canonical, so stay tuned for that.

Closure of the Ubuntu Studio Café (offtopic chat)

What started out as the #ubuntustudio-offtopic channel on IRC, the Ubuntu Studio Café was intended to be a place where the community could simply socialize and chat about whatever they wanted so long as the IRC Guidelines and the Ubuntu Code of Conduct were still followed. However, we started to realize that people became confused between this channel and the support channel, #ubuntustudio, and would often use them interchangeably. While support wasn’t allowed in the offtopic channel, people were asking for support in the offtopic channel, and often going offtopic (chatting without support specifically) in the support channel.

Additionally, neither channel sees much traffic, with the support channel understandably seeing most of the traffic.

Therefore, after a discussion on the Ubuntu Studio Users Mailing List, it has been decided to close #ubuntustudio-offtopic and combine much of its function with the main support channel, making the the support channel an on-topic support and discussion channel, as long as the discussion is related to Ubuntu Studio and creativity, meaning using its tools and helping each other use the included tools. For offtopic non-Ubuntu Studio discussion, the #ubuntu-offtopic channel exists and anyone is welcome.

This closure will occur this Friday, October 27th, 2023.

More on Backports

As stated in the Ubuntu 23.10 Release Announcement, the Ubuntu Studio Backports PPA is in the process of being sunset in favor of using the official Ubuntu Backports repository. However, the Backports repository only works for LTS releases and for good reason. There are a few requirements for backporting:

  • It must be an application which already exists in the Ubuntu repositories
  • It must be an application which would not otherwise qualify for a simple bugfix, which would then qualify it to be a Stable Release Update. This means it must have new features.
  • It must not rely on new libraries or new versions of libraries.
  • It must exist within a later supported release or the development release of Ubuntu.

If you have a suggestion for an application for which to backport that meets those requirements, feel free to join and email the Ubuntu Studio Users Mailing List with your suggestion with the tag “[BPO]” at the beginning of the subject line. Backports to 22.04 LTS will close with the release of 24.04 LTS at which time backports to 24.04 LTS will open. Additionally, suggestions must pertain to Ubuntu Studio and preferably must be applications included with Ubuntu Studio. Suggestions can be rejected at the Project Leader’s discretion.

We are also considering sunsetting the Ardour Backports PPA in favor of only backporting Ardour’s point releases. For major upgrades, we recommend subscribing to Ardour’s official releases at ardour.org for as little as $1 USD per month.

Ubuntu Studio 23.10 Released

in Known Issues, News, Planet Ubuntu, Release Notes
Oct
12
2023

The Ubuntu Studio team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu Studio 23.10, code-named “Mantic Minotaur”. This marks Ubuntu Studio’s 33rd release. This release is a regular release and as such, it is supported for 9 months (until July 2024).

Since it’s just out, you may experience some issues, so you might want to wait a bit before upgrading. Please see the release notes for a more-complete list of changes and known issues.

You can download Ubuntu Studio 23.10 from our download page.

Upgrading

Instructions for upgrading are included in the release notes.

New This Release

Ubiquity System Installer Returns

In the days where we used Xfce as our default desktop environment, our default system installer was one developed and used by most Ubuntu flavors called Ubiquity. However, when we switched to KDE’s Plasma Desktop as our default desktop environment, we wished to use the Qt version, but we found out it was hardcoded for Kubuntu’s branding. With that, we partnered with Lubuntu, which also uses a Qt-based desktop called LXQt, to use the Qt-based Calamares installer.

Unfortunately, we found that, despite the customization and user experience it provided, it lacked a few features Ubiquity provides:

  • A language chooser at boot, which changes the language for the live session and installer alike
  • An OEM mode for computer manufacturers
  • The ability to install without running the live session

This release, we worked hard to make sure the first time you boot Ubuntu Studio 23.10 is a pleasing one and that everything is themed correctly, including pushing changes to Ubiquity itself so that the GTK version of Ubiquity would work with our default theming as well as fixing a bug that affected other Ubuntu flavors with dark themes.

For the next release, we hope to switch to the same installer Ubuntu Desktop (GNOME) and Ubuntu Budgie are using, which is a graphical frontend for the text-based Subiquity installer used in Ubuntu Server. We believe that unifying under a single codebase makes maintenance easier and creates a higher-quality experience for everyone.

PipeWire Continues to Get Stronger

Pipewire logo.svg

PipeWire has gained numerous improvements, including fixes for prosumer and professional audio. The JACK compatibility now performs in real-time, and some FireWire features have now been implemented.

We also include a new utility, called the Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration utility, found in the Ubuntu Studio Information menu. This can be used to configure the default PipeWire Quantum value, Enable or Disable the PipeWire-JACK compatibility layer (handy for using JACK by itself), or switch to the classic PulseAudio-JACK setup that was the default prior to 23.04. Click here for more information about that utility

In the Repositories: QPrompt

QPrompt is a Qt-based teleprompter application now available in the repositories. While a snap version does exist and is installable from Discover, the version in the repositories is more up-to-date. Since Discover does not see the version in the repositories, it needs to be installed from the command line by issuing the following command:

sudo apt install qprompt

Backports PPA is Now Deprecated

As stated in the release announcement of Ubuntu Studio 23.04, that release was the last release in which packages would be backported to the Ubuntu Studio Backports PPA. As of this release, we will no longer be backporting packages from the next release to regular releases such as this release. As such, the backports PPA items have been removed from Ubuntu Studio Installer for this release. This simply means a longer wait for new software and that interval will be six months for regular releases.

In the future, we plan to utilize the official Ubuntu Backports Repository and backporting newer package versions there, except for Ardour Backports when new whole versions are released as they would still be backported to our Ardour Backports PPA. The Ubuntu Backports Repository only supports LTS releases. Therefore, we plan to backport only to 22.04 LTS and, in the future, only 24.04 LTS using the backports repository once it releases.

Furthermore, as of today, backports to the Backports PPA for 23.04 have stopped, and software for 23.04 in that PPA will be deleted when 23.04 goes End-Of-Life (EOL) in January 2024. If you would like newer software and are running 23.04, we encourage you to upgrade when you receive the notification.

Plasma Desktop Backports

Since we share the Desktop Environment with Kubuntu, simply adding the Kubuntu Backports will help you with keeping the desktop environment and its components up to date with the latest versions:

  • sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports
  • sudo apt upgrade

More Updates

There are many more updates not covered here but are mentioned in the Release Notes. We highly recommend reading those release notes so you know what has been updated and know any known issues that you may encounter.

Get Involved!

A wonderful way to contribute is to get involved with the project directly! We’re always looking for new volunteers to help with packaging, documentation, tutorials, user support, and MORE! Check out all the ways you can contribute!

Our project leader, Erich Eickmeyer, is now working on Ubuntu Studio part-time, and is hoping that the users of Ubuntu Studio can give enough to generate a monthly part-time income. Your donations are appreciated! If other distributions can do it, surely we can! See the sidebar for ways to give!

Special Thanks

Huge special thanks for this release go to:

  • Eylul Dogruel: Artwork, Graphics Design
  • Ross Gammon: Upstream Debian Developer, Testing, Email Support
  • Sebastien Ramacher: Upstream Debian Developer
  • Dennis Braun: Upstream Debian Maintainer
  • Rik Mills: Kubuntu Council Member, help with Plasma desktop
  • Len Ovens: Studio Controls
  • Mauro Gaspari: Tutorials, Promotion, and Documentation, Testing
  • Krytarik Raido: IRC Moderator, Mailing List Moderator
  • Erich Eickmeyer: Project Leader, Packaging, Development, Direction, Treasurer

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does Ubuntu Studio contain snaps?
A: Yes. Mozilla’s distribution agreement with Canonical changed about a year ago, and Ubuntu was forced to no longer distribute Firefox in a native .deb package. We have found that, after numerous improvements, Firefox now performs just as well as the native .deb package did.

Additionally, FreeShow is an Electron-based application. Electron-based applications cannot be packaged in the Ubuntu repositories in that they cannot be packaged in a traditional Debian source package. While such apps do have a build system to create a .deb binary package, it circumvents the source package build system which is required when packaging for Ubuntu. However, Electron apps also have a facility for creating snaps, which can be uploaded to the snap store. Therefore, for FreeShow to be included in Ubuntu Studio, it had to be packaged as a snap.

Q: Will you ever make an ISO image with {my favorite desktop environment}?
A: To do so would require creating an entirely new flavor of Ubuntu, which would require going through the Official Ubuntu Flavor application process. Since we’re completely volunteer-run, we don’t have the time or resources to do this. Instead, we recommend you download the official flavor for the desktop environment of your choice and use Ubuntu Studio Installer to get Ubuntu Studio. Please note that this process does not convert that flavor to Ubuntu Studio but adds its tools, features, and benefits to the existing flavor installation.

Q: What if I don’t want all these packages installed on my machine?
A: Simply use the Ubuntu Studio Installer to remove the features of Ubuntu Studio you don’t want or need by unchecking the boxes!

Ubuntu Studio 23.10 Beta Released

in Development, Known Issues, News, Planet Ubuntu, Release Notes, Testing
Sep
22
2023

The Ubuntu Studio team is pleased to announce the beta release of Ubuntu Studio 23.10, codenamed “Mantic Minotaur”.

While this beta is reasonably free of any showstopper installer bugs, you may find some bugs within. This image is, however, mostly representative of what you will find when Ubuntu Studio 23.10 is released on October 12, 2023.

Special Notes

The Ubuntu Studio 23.10 disk image (ISO) exceeds 4 GB and cannot be downloaded to some file systems such as FAT32, and may not be readable when burned to a DVD. For this reason, we recommend downloading to a compatible file system. When creating a boot medium, we recommend creating a bootable USB stick with the ISO image, or burning to a Dual-Layer DVD.

Images can be obtained from this link: https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/23.10/beta/

Full updated information, including Upgrade Instructions, are available in the Release Notes.

New Features This Release

  • PipeWire‘s JACK support is now drastically improved and includes a real-time bridge between the JACK and ALSA components of PipeWire, and continues to improve with every release. Version 0.3.79
  • Ubuntu Studio Installer now includes an Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration utility for fine-tuning the PipeWire setup or changing the configuration altogether. Version 1.9
  • QPrompt is now, while not included in the Ubuntu Studio .iso image, available in the repositories. QPrompt is free teleprompter software for video recording and television studios. Version 1.1.6

Major Package Upgrades

  • Ardour version 7.5.0
  • Qtractor version 0.9.35
  • OBS Studio version 29.1.3
  • Audacity version 3.3.3
  • digiKam version 8.1.0
  • Kdenlive version 23.08.1
  • Krita version 5.1.5

There are many other improvements, too numerous to list here. We encourage you to look around the freely-downloadable ISO image.

Known Issues

  • Ubuntu Studio’s classic PulseAudio-JACK configuration cannot be used on Ubuntu Desktop (GNOME) due to a known issue with the ubuntu-desktop metapackage. (LP: #2033440)

Official Ubuntu Studio release notes can be found at https://ubuntustudio.org/ubuntu-studio-23-10-release-notes/

Further known issues, mostly pertaining to the desktop environment, can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ManticMinotaur/ReleaseNotes/Kubuntu

Additionally, the main Ubuntu release notes contain more generic issues: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/mantic-minotaur-release-notes/35534

How You Can Help

Please test using the test cases on https://iso.qa.ubuntu.com. All you need is a Launchpad account to get started.

Additionally, we need financial contributions. Our project lead, Erich Eickmeyer, is working long hours on this project and trying to generate a part-time income. See this post as to the reasons why and go here to see how you can contribute financially (options are also in the sidebar).

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does Ubuntu Studio contain snaps?
A: Yes. Mozilla’s distribution agreement with Canonical changed, and Ubuntu was forced to no longer distribute Firefox in a native .deb package. We have found that, after numerous improvements, Firefox now performs just as well as the native .deb package did.

Additionally, Freeshow is an Electron-based application. Electron-based applications cannot be packaged in the Ubuntu repositories in that they cannot be packaged in a traditional Debian source package. While such apps do have a build system to create a .deb binary package, it circumvents the source package build system in Launchpad, which is required when packaging for Ubuntu. However, Electron apps also have a facility for creating snaps, which can be uploaded and included. Therefore, for Freeshow to be included in Ubuntu Studio, it had to be packaged as a snap.

Q: If I install this Beta release, will I have to reinstall when the final release comes out?
A: No. If you keep it updated, your installation will automatically become the final release. However, if Audacity returns to the Ubuntu repositories before final release, then you might end-up with a double-installation of Audacity. Removal instructions of one or the other will be made available in a future post.

Q: Will you make an ISO with {my favorite desktop environment}?
A: To do so would require creating an entirely new flavor of Ubuntu, which would require going through the Official Ubuntu Flavor application process. Since we’re completely volunteer-run, we don’t have the time or resources to do this. Instead, we recommend you download the official flavor for the desktop environment of your choice and use Ubuntu Studio Installer to get Ubuntu Studio.

Q: What if I don’t want all these packages installed on my machine?
A: Simply use the Ubuntu Studio Installer to remove the features of Ubuntu Studio you don’t want or need!

Ubuntu Studio 23.04 Released

in Known Issues, News, Planet Ubuntu, Release Notes
Apr
20
2023

The Ubuntu Studio team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu Studio 23.04, code-named “Lunar Lobster”. This marks Ubuntu Studio’s 33rd release. This release is a regular release and as such, it is supported for 9 months (until January 2024).

Since it’s just out, you may experience some issues, so you might want to wait a bit before upgrading. Please see the release notes for a complete list of changes and known issues.

You can download Ubuntu Studio 23.04 from our download page.

Upgrading

Instructions for upgrading are included in the release notes.

New This Release

Plasma Desktop 5.27 LTS

This release includes the Long-Term Support release of KDE’s Plasma Desktop 5.27. This is a wonderful release and includes several stability and performance culminations of Plasma Desktop 5.

PipeWire Audio by Default

Pipewire logo.svg

Beginning in this release we have switched to utilized PipeWire by default with the JACK and PulseAudio plugins. This means that, without configuration, all JACK and PulseAudio applications will simply work without much configuration.

For advanced routing, Patchance is a new addition and is fully JACK compatible and works with PipeWire to route audio applications between each other and between outputs and inputs.

While PipeWire is convenient and recommended for most users, we do not recommend it for professional or prosumer audio work at this time. Click here for more information.

Rewritten Ubuntu Studio Installer

Ubuntu Studio Installer has been completely rewritten from the ground-up and works better on high-DPI displays. It utilizes the Zenity GTK interface to give users a choice of package selection and is even capable of uninstalling entire groups of packages.

Ubuntu Studio Installer can still be used to add or remove the Ubuntu Studio Backports PPA as well as switch between the new PipeWire configuration or the traditional PulseAudio/JACK configuration of past releases (which also installs Studio Controls).

Wayland Available (but not default)

Wayland is available and installed by default to select upon login and test but is still unsupported. We have done this at the request of KDE so that it can gain more testing and bug reports. We have done our best to configure it with the default theming and to make sure it picks up your settings, but it is possible some things will be missed and not work quite right. However, it has undergone extensive real-world testing and works well on non-Nvidia systems.

Return of the Materia Theme

We have returned our theming back to being based on the Materia theme while keeping the Papirus icons, but using the Dark theme that we introduced back in Ubuntu Studio 22.04. This further differentiates our KDE Plasma Desktop from the default Breeze theme used in Kubuntu.

We have gone even further with this and introduced a new Login Screen and Lock Screen based on the Materia theme. This is to keep our theming consistent and to give our system a more unique look.

Login Screen / Lock Screen

Backports PPA

There are a few items planned for the Backports PPA once the next release cycle opens. We plan to keep the backports PPA up to date for the next six months until the release of 23.10, at which point you will be encouraged to upgrade.

Instructions for enabling the Ubuntu Studio Backports PPA

  • Automatic method:
    • Open Ubuntu Studio Installer
    • Click the checkbox next to “PPA-Ubuntu_Studio_Backports”
  • Manual method:
    • sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntustudio-ppa/backports
    • sudo apt upgrade

Please note, however, this is the last regular release in which we will be supporting the backports PPA. In the future, we plan to utilize the official Ubuntu Backports Repository and backporting newer package versions there, except for Ardour Backports when new whole versions are released. The Ubuntu Backports Repository only supports LTS releases.

Plasma Desktop Backports

Since we share the Desktop Environment with Kubuntu, simply adding the Kubuntu Backports will help you with keeping the desktop environment and its components up to date with the latest versions:

  • sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports
  • sudo apt upgrade

More Updates

There are many more updates not covered here but are mentioned in the Release Notes. We highly recommend reading those release notes so you know what has been updated and know any known issues that you may encounter.

Get Involved!

A wonderful way to contribute is to get involved with the project directly! We’re always looking for new volunteers to help with packaging, documentation, tutorials, user support, and MORE! Check out all the ways you can contribute!

Special Thanks

Huge special thanks for this release go to:

  • Len Ovens: Studio Controls, Ubuntu Studio Installer, Coding
  • Simon Quigley: Packaging, Ubuntu Core Developer
  • Eylul Dogruel: Artwork, Graphics Design
  • Ross Gammon: Upstream Debian Developer, Testing, Email Support
  • Sebastien Ramacher: Upstream Debian Developer
  • Dennis Braun: Debian Package Maintainer
  • Rik Mills: Kubuntu Council Member, help with Plasma desktop
  • Mauro Gaspari: Tutorials, Promotion, and Documentation, Testing
  • Aaron Rainbolt: Testing and bug reporting, IRC Support
  • Krytarik Raido: IRC Moderator, Mailing List Moderator
  • Erich Eickmeyer: Project Leader, Packaging, Direction, Treasurer

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does Ubuntu Studio contain snaps?
A: Yes. Mozilla’s distribution agreement with Canonical changed, and Ubuntu was forced to no longer distribute Firefox in a native .deb package. We have found that, after numerous improvements, Firefox now performs just as well as the native .deb package did.

Additionally, FreeShow is an Electron-based application. Electron-based applications cannot be packaged in the Ubuntu repositories in that they cannot be packaged in a traditional Debian source package. While such apps do have a build system to create a .deb binary package, it circumvents the source package build system which is required when packaging for Ubuntu. However, Electron apps also have a facility for creating snaps, which can be uploaded to the snap store. Therefore, for FreeShow to be included in Ubuntu Studio, it had to be packaged as a snap.

Q: Will you ever make an ISO image with {my favorite desktop environment}?
A: To do so would require creating an entirely new flavor of Ubuntu, which would require going through the Official Ubuntu Flavor application process. Since we’re completely volunteer-run, we don’t have the time or resources to do this. Instead, we recommend you download the official flavor for the desktop environment of your choice and use Ubuntu Studio Installer to get Ubuntu Studio. Please note that this process does not convert that flavor to Ubuntu Studio but adds its tools, features, and benefits to the existing flavor installation.

Q: What if I don’t want all these packages installed on my machine?
A: Simply use the newly rewritten Ubuntu Studio Installer to remove the features of Ubuntu Studio you don’t want or need by unchecking the boxes!

Ubuntu Studio 23.04 Beta Released

in Development, Known Issues, News, Planet Ubuntu, Release Notes, Testing
Mar
31
2023

The Ubuntu Studio team is pleased to announce the beta release of Ubuntu Studio 23.10, codenamed “Lunar Lobster”.

While this beta is reasonably free of any showstopper installer bugs, you may find some bugs within. This image is, however, mostly representative of what you will find when Ubuntu Studio 23.04 is released on April 20, 2023.

Special notes:

The Ubuntu Studio 22.10 disk image (ISO) exceeds 4 GB and cannot be downloaded to some file systems such as FAT32, and may not be readable when burned to a DVD. For this reason, we recommend downloading to a compatible file system. When creating a boot medium, we recommend creating a bootable USB stick with the ISO image, or burning to a Dual-Layer DVD.

Images can be obtained from this link: https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/23.04/beta/

Full updated information, including Upgrade Instructions, are available in the Release Notes.

New Features This Release

  • PipeWire is now enabled with JACK support by default. More on that here.
  • Ubuntu Studio Installer has been completely rewritten from the ground-up and can be used to remove components you don’t want. Version 1.4
  • Patchance, a simple patchbay for JACK (works with Pipewire with JACK). version 1.0.0
  • We have changed back to the Materia theme first used in Ubuntu Studio 19.04, this time using the dark theme by default.
  • Entirely new Login Screen and Lock Screen Theme based on the Materia theme. This is to differentiate from the Breeze theme traditionally used in KDE Plasma and used mostly in Kubuntu, as to set our default setup apart and to not simply be “Kubuntu with a bunch of extra packages.”

Major Package Upgrades

  • Darktable version 4.2.1
  • Gimp version 2.10.34
  • Ardour version 7.3.0
  • OBS Studio version 29.0.2
  • Audacity version 3.2.4
  • digiKam version 8.0.0-beta1
  • Kdenlive version 22.12.3
  • Krita version 5.1.5

There are many other improvements, too numerous to list here. We encourage you to look around the freely-downloadable ISO image.

Known Issues

  • digiKam is a beta release of 8.0.0. As such, it may have undocumented bugs. We hope these bugs get ironed out by the time 8.0.0 stable comes out, and the digiKam developers have set a goal for April 2023 for a release. When the 8.0.0 stable release of digiKam becomes available, we hope to provide these to you as a Stable Release Update. If you would like a stable version of digiKam now, a snap of 7.8.0 is available.

Official Ubuntu Studio release notes can be found at https://ubuntustudio.org/ubuntu-studio-23-04-release-notes/

Further known issues, mostly pertaining to the desktop environment, can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LunarLobster/ReleaseNotes/Kubuntu (when available)

Additionally, the main Ubuntu release notes contain more generic issues: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/kinetic-kudu-release-notes/27976

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does KDE Plasma use more resources than your former desktop environment (Xfce)?
A: In our testing, the increase in resource usage is negligible, and our optimizations were never tied to the desktop environment.

Q: Does Ubuntu Studio contain snaps?
A: Yes. Mozilla’s distribution agreement with Canonical changed, and Ubuntu was forced to no longer distribute Firefox in a native .deb package. We have found that, after numerous improvements, Firefox now performs just as well as the native .deb package did.

Additionally, Freeshow is an Electron-based application. Electron-based applications cannot be packaged in the Ubuntu repositories in that they cannot be packaged in a traditional Debian source package. While such apps do have a build system to create a .deb binary package, it circumvents the source package build system in Launchpad, which is required when packaging for Ubuntu. However, Electron apps also have a facility for creating snaps, which can be uploaded included. Therefore, for Freeshow to be included in Ubuntu Studio, it had to be packaged as a snap.

Q: If I install this Beta release, will I have to reinstall when the final release comes out?
A: No. If you keep it updated, your installation will automatically become the final release. However, if Audacity returns to the Ubuntu repositories before final release, then you might end-up with a double-installation of Audacity. Removal instructions of one or the other will be made available in a future post.

Q: Will you make an ISO with {my favorite desktop environment}?
A: To do so would require creating an entirely new flavor of Ubuntu, which would require going through the Official Ubuntu Flavor application process. Since we’re completely volunteer-run, we don’t have the time or resources to do this. Instead, we recommend you download the official flavor for the desktop environment of your choice and use Ubuntu Studio Installer to get Ubuntu Studio.

Q: What if I don’t want all these packages installed on my machine?
A: Simply use the Ubuntu Studio Installer to remove the features of Ubuntu Studio you don’t want or need!

Please Test!

Ubuntu Studio 22.10 Beta Released

in Development, Known Issues, News, Planet Ubuntu, Release Notes, Testing
Sep
30
2022

The Ubuntu Studio team is pleased to announce the beta release of Ubuntu Studio 22.10, codenamed “Kinetic Kudu”.

While this beta is reasonably free of any showstopper installer bugs, you may find some bugs within. This image is, however, mostly representative of what you will find when Ubuntu Studio 22.10 is released on October 20, 2022.

Special notes:

The Ubuntu Studio 22.10 disk image (ISO) exceeds 4 GB and cannot be downloaded to some file systems such as FAT32, and may not be readable when burned to a DVD. For this reason, we recommend downloading to a compatible file system. When creating a boot medium, we recommend creating a bootable USB stick with the ISO image, or burning to a Dual-Layer DVD.

Images can be obtained from this link: https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/22.10/beta/

Full updated information, including Upgrade Instructions, are available in the Release Notes.

Regarding Pipewire

One of our goals this release was to create some kind of switch between our traditional PulseAudio/JACK setup and Pipewire, but this did not come to fruition as we had quite a few other bugs to squash as a result of the transition to ffmpeg 5. Additionally, we had a lot of clean-up after the transition to Python 3.10 in 22.04 LTS among other bugs. Sadly, that’s where our attention went and Pipewire support had to be deprioritized for this release.

New Features This Release

  • Ubuntu Studio Installer now includes Ubuntu Studio Feature Uninstaller to remove features of Ubuntu Studio that you don’t need. This is a long-requested feature that will be detailed in the official release announcement when Ubuntu Studio 22.10 releases on October 20th.
  • Q Light Controller Plus version 4.12.5
  • Freeshow version 0.5.6
  • openLP version 2.9.5

Major Package Upgrades

  • Darktable version 4.0.0
  • OBS Studio version 28.0.1
  • Audacity version 3.1.3
  • digiKam version 8.0.0 development snapshot (pre-release, see notes below)
  • Kdenlive version 22.08.1
  • Krita version 5.1.1

There are many other improvements, too numerous to list here. We encourage you to take a look around the freely-downloadable ISO image.

Known Issues

  • digiKam is a development snapshot of 8.0.0. As such, it likely has undocumented bugs. We hope these bugs get ironed out by the time 8.0.0 beta comes out, but we are not sure when that will be as the digiKam developers have not released a timeline or release date. When the 8.0.0 beta or stable release of digiKam becomes available, we hope to provide these to you as Stable Release Updates. This came from the transition to ffmpeg 5 as prior versions of digiKam do not support ffmpeg 5. If you would like a stable version of digiKam now, a snap of 7.8.0 is available.

Official Ubuntu Studio release notes can be found at https://ubuntustudio.org/ubuntu-studio-22-10-release-notes/

Further known issues, mostly pertaining to the desktop environment, can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KineticKudu/ReleaseNotes/Kubuntu

Additionally, the main Ubuntu release notes contain more generic issues: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/kinetic-kudu-release-notes/27976

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does KDE Plasma use more resources than your former desktop environment (Xfce)?
A: In our testing, the increase in resource usage is negligible, and our optimizations were never tied to the desktop environment.

Q: Does Ubuntu Studio contain snaps?
A: Yes. Mozilla’s distribution agreement with Canonical changed, and Ubuntu was forced to no-longer distribute Firefox in a native .deb package. We have found that, after numerous improvements, Firefox now performs just as well as the native .deb package did.

Additionally, Audacity 2.4.2, due to incompatibilities with ffmpeg 5, had to be removed from the official Ubuntu repositories this cycle. For that reason, we worked hard with the snap packager to include it in Ubuntu Studio 22.10. Therefore, Audacity 3.1.3 is included as a snap. Watch this bug to track Audacity’s reintroduction into the Ubuntu repositories. Right now, it is on-pace to happen before the release of Ubuntu 22.10. When this happens, we fully intend to drop the snap and re-include the .deb package in Ubuntu Studio. Watch Ubuntu Studio News for updates.

Finally, Freeshow is an Electron-based application. Electron-based applications cannot be packaged in the Ubuntu repositories in that they cannot be packaged in a traditional Debian source package. While such apps do have a build system to create a .deb binary package, it circumvents the source package build system in Launchpad, which is required when packaging for Ubuntu. However, Electron apps also have a facility for creating snaps, which can be uploaded included. Therefore, for Freeshow to be included in Ubuntu Studio, it had to be packaged as a snap.

Q: If I install this Beta release, will I have to reinstall when the final release comes out?
A: No. If you keep it updated, your installation will automatically become the final release. However, if Audacity returns to the Ubuntu repositories before final release, then you might end-up with a double-installation of Audacity. Removal instructions of one or the other will be made available in a future post.

Q: Will you make an ISO with {my favorite desktop environment}?
A: To do so would require creating an entirely new flavor of Ubuntu, which would require going through the Official Ubuntu Flavor application process. Since we’re completely volunteer-run, we don’t have the time or resources to do this. Instead, we recommend you download the official flavor for the desktop environment of your choice and use Ubuntu Studio Installer to get Ubuntu Studio.

Q: What if I don’t want all of these packages installed on my machine?
A: Simply use the Ubuntu Studio Feature Uninstaller to remove the features of Ubuntu Studio you don’t want or need!

Please Test!

Ubuntu Studio 22.04 LTS Released

in Known Issues, News, Planet Ubuntu, Release Notes
Apr
21
2022

The Ubuntu Studio team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu Studio 22.04, code-named “Jammy Jellyfish”. This marks Ubuntu Studio’s 31st release. This release is a Long-Term Support release and as such, it is supported for 3 years (until April 2025).

Since it’s just out, you may experience some issues, so you might want to wait a bit before upgrading. Please see the release notes for a complete list of changes and known issues.

You can download Ubuntu Studio 22.04 LTS from our download page.

Upgrading

Since it’s just out, you may experience some issues, so you might want to wait a bit before upgrading.

Due to the change in desktop environment that started after the release of 20.04 LTS, direct upgrades from 20.04 LTS are not supported and may only be attempted at-your-own-risk. As with any system-critical operation, back-up your data before attempting any upgrade. The safest upgrade path is a backup of your /home directory and a clean install.

We have had anecdotal reports of successful upgrades from 20.04 LTS (Xfce desktop) to later releases (Plasma desktop), but this will remain at your own risk, and it is highly recommended to wait until 22.04.1 is released in August before attempting such an upgrade.

Instructions for upgrading are included in the release notes.

New This Release

Most of this release is evolutionary on top of 21.10 rather than revolutionary. As such, most of the applications contained are simply upgraded versions. Details on key packages can be found in the release notes.

Dark Theme By Default

For this release, we have a neutral-toned dark theme by default. While we could have gone with the Breeze Dark color scheme since we dropped the Materia KDE widget and window theme (it was difficult to maintain and work with new Plasma features), we decided to develop our own based on GNOME’s Adwaita Dark theme with a corresponding Light theme. This was to help with photography since a neutral tone is necessary as Breeze Dark has a more blueish hue, which can trick the eye into seeing photos as appearing warmer than they actually are.

However, switching from the dark theme to the light theme is a breeze (pun somewhat intended). When opening the System Settings, one only has to look at the home screen to see how to do that.

Support for rEFInd

rEFInd is a bootloader for UEFI-based systems. Our settings which help to support the lowlatency kernel help to create a menu entry to help apply those settings and keep the lowlatency kernel as the default kernel detected by rEFInd. To keep it current, simply enter sudo dpkg-reconfigure ubuntustudio-lowlatency-settings in the command line after a kernel update.

For a more complete list of changes, please see the release notes.

Backports PPA

System Settings with Accent Colors (Folder Colors will follow if Backports PPA is added)

There are a few items planned for the Backports PPA once the next release cycle opens. One of those is folder icons that match the accent color set in the System Settings.

We plan on keeping the backports PPA up-to-date for the next two years until the release of 24.04 LTS, at which point you will be encouraged to update.

Instructions for enabling the Ubuntu Studio Backports PPA

  • Automatic method:
    • Open Ubuntu Studio Installer
    • Click “Enable Backports”
  • Manual method:
    • sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntustudio-ppa/backports
    • sudo apt upgrade

Note that at release time, there’s nothing in there yet, so if you add it now (at the time of this writing) you’ll get a 404 (file not found) error.

On a related note, at this time, the Backports PPA is frozen for 21.10 and 20.04 LTS. To receive newer versions of software, you must upgrade.

Plasma Backports

Since we share the Desktop Environment with Kubuntu, simply adding the Kubuntu Backports will help you with keeping the desktop environment and its components up-to-date with the latest versions:

  • sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports
  • sudo apt upgrade

More Updates

There are many more updates not covered here but are mentioned in the Release Notes. We highly recommend reading those release notes so you know what has been updated and know any known issues that you may encounter.

Get Involved!

A great way to contribute is to get involved with the project directly! We’re always looking for new volunteers to help with packaging, documentation, tutorials, user support, and MORE! Check out all the ways you can contribute!

Special Thanks

Huge special thanks for this release go to:

  • Len Ovens: Studio Controls, Ubuntu Studio Installer, Coding
  • Thomas Ward: Packaging, Ubuntu Core Developer for Ubuntu Studio
  • Eylul Dogruel: Artwork, Graphics Design, Website Lead
  • Ross Gammon: Upstream Debian Developer, Guidance, Testing
  • Sebastien Ramacher: Upstream Debian Developer
  • Dennis Braun: Debian Package Maintainer
  • Rik Mills: Kubuntu Council Member, help with Plasma desktop
  • Mauro Gaspari: Tutorials, Promotion, and Documentation, Testing
  • Brian Hechinger: Testing and bug reporting
  • Chris Erswell: Testing and bug reporting
  • Robert Van Den Berg: Testing and bug reporting, IRC Support
  • Krytarik Raido: IRC Moderator, Mailing List Moderator
  • Erich Eickmeyer: Project Leader, Packaging, Direction, Treasurer

Ubuntu Studio 22.04 LTS Beta Released

in Development, Known Issues, News, Planet Ubuntu, Release Notes, Testing
Mar
31
2022

The Ubuntu Studio team is pleased to announce the beta release of Ubuntu Studio 22.04 LTS, codenamed “Jammy Jellyfish”.

While this beta is reasonably free of any showstopper DVD build or installer bugs, you may find some bugs within. This image is, however, reasonably representative of what you will find when Ubuntu Studio 22.04 LTS is released on April 21, 2022.

Ubuntu Studio 22.04 LTS will be Ubuntu Studio’s first Long-Term Support(LTS) release with the KDE Plasma Desktop Environment.

Special notes:

  • Due to the change in desktop environment, directly upgrading to Ubuntu Studio 22.04 LTS from 20.04 LTS is not supported and will not be supported.  However, upgrades from Ubuntu Studio 21.10 will be supported. See the Release Notes for more information. Anecdotally, some people have had success upgrading from 20.04 LTS to a later version, so your mileage may vary.
  • The Ubuntu Studio 22.04 LTS disk image (ISO) exceeds 4.0 GB and cannot be downloaded to some file systems such as FAT32, and may not be readable when burned to a DVD. For this reason, we recommend creating a bootable USB stick with the ISO image.

Images can be obtained from this link: https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/22.04/beta/

Full updated information is available in the Release Notes.

New Features

Ubuntu Studio 22.04 LTS includes the new KDE Plasma 5.24 LTS desktop environment. This is a beautiful and functional upgrade to previous versions, and we believe you will like it.

Studio Controls is upgraded to 2.3.0 and includes numerous bug fixes.

OBS Studio is upgraded to version 27.2.3 and works with Wayland sessions. While Wayland is not currently the default, it is available as unsupported and experimental.

There are many other improvements, too numerous to list here. We encourage you to take a look around the freely-downloadable ISO image.

Known Issues

  • At this time, the installer (Calamares) will crash when attempting an installation on a manually-partitioned btrfs file system. (LP: #1966774)
  • MyPaint crashes upon launching (LP: #1967163), may be resolved after an update.
  • There are a few cosmetic issues that should be resolved before final release.

Official Ubuntu Studio release notes can be found at https://ubuntustudio.org/ubuntu-studio-22-04-lts-release-notes/

Further known issues, mostly pertaining to the desktop environment, can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JammyJellyfish/ReleaseNotes/Kubuntu

Additionally, the main Ubuntu release notes contain more generic issues: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/jammy-jellyfish-release-notes/24668

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does KDE Plasma use more resources than your former desktop environment (Xfce)?
A: In our testing, the increase in resource usage is negligible, and our optimizations were never tied to the desktop environment.

Q: Does Ubuntu Studio contain snaps?
A: Yes. Mozilla’s distribution agreement with Canonical changed, and Ubuntu was forced to no-longer distribute Firefox in a native .deb package. We have found that, after initial launch, Firefox performs just as well as the native .deb package did.

Q: If I install this Beta release, will I have to reinstall when the final release comes out?
A: No. If you keep it updated, your installation will automatically become the final release.

Q: Will you make an ISO with {my favorite desktop environment}?
A: To do so would require creating an entirely new flavor of Ubuntu, which would require going through the Official Ubuntu Flavor application process. Since we’re completely volunteer-run, we don’t have the time or resources to do this. Instead, we recommend you download the official flavor for the desktop environment of your choice and use Ubuntu Studio Installer to get Ubuntu Studio.

Please Test!

This release we are participating in Ubuntu Testing Week, which begins as soon as this beta is released. During this testing cycle we will work with the amazing folks at the Ubuntu Hideout Discord (https://discord.gg/ubuntu). They have created a #testing-cycles channel in Discord and had a very good response with users coming forward and helping with testing. They have expressed a desire to have the Ubuntu Hideout Discord community make an even greater impact during this release.

Whether or not you choose to participate on Discord is up to you. If you do find something that is a legitimate bug, please open a terminal and type “ubuntu-bug (package name)” to file the bug report since this collects valuable information we need when debugging. If you get a popup while something is running saying that something has crashed, don’t hesitate to click on the “send bug report” button.

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