For Ubuntu Planet Posts
As of today, April 25, 2019, Ubuntu Studio 16.04 LTS has reached the end of its support cycle.
We strongly urge all users of 16.04 to upgrade to Ubuntu Studio 18.04 and add the Ubuntu Studio Backports PPA for support through April 2021. Our next LTS release, 20.04, is expected in April 2020.
Ubuntu Studio 16.04 LTS will no longer receive community support from this point forward. Packages will continue to receive only security updates from Ubuntu until 2021.
Council Chair Erich Eickmeyer will be in Bellingham, WA, USA this weekend for Linux Fest Northwest 2019, and will be bringing his audio setup to demonstrate Ubuntu Studio at the Ubuntu table. Check out the post on his personal blog!
Back in April 2018, Ubuntu Studio 18.04 was released as a non-LTS (Long-Term Support) version, which limited its support cycle to end January 2019. This was due to a number of factors, from the involvement of the team members at the time to the number of team members.
In January 2019, the team came up with the idea for a Backports PPA of certain software to eliminate certain bugs and update the main packages (the ones that make Ubuntu Studio what it is). It was officially announced in February 2019.
As such, the Ubuntu Studio team no longer supports Ubuntu Studio 18.04 unless the Ubuntu Studio Backports PPA is added. Adding the Ubuntu Studio Backports PPA increases the support length of Ubuntu Studio 18.04 to 3 years total, with support ending in April 2021.
For more information about the Ubuntu Studio Backports PPA and how to add it, please click this link. To see what it contains, click this link.
The Ubuntu Studio Backports PPA contains backported packages for all currently supported versions of Ubuntu Studio, with the exception of Ubuntu Studio 16.04 LTS which reaches end-of-life on April 25, 2019.
The Ubuntu Studio team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu Studio 19.04, code-named “Disco Dingo”. This marks Ubuntu Studio’s 25th release, and is its largest and most feature-full release in a long while. This release is a regular release and as such, it is supported for 9 months.
For those requiring longer-term support, we encourage you to install Ubuntu Studio 18.04 “Bionic Beaver” and add the Ubuntu Studio Backports PPA, which will keep 18.04 supported through April 2020. Please do not install Ubuntu Studio 16.04 LTS anymore as it reaches end-of-life (EOL) on April 21, 2019.
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.
Ubuntu Studio is arguably the most popular multimedia creation operating system on Earth. With Ubuntu Studio Installer, it is now not only an operating system, but a complete multimedia toolkit for all official flavors of Ubuntu.
This means you are no longer limited to our default Xfce-based desktop, but can now install Ubuntu Studio’s benefits on the Ubuntu flavor of your choice.
For more information, please see the official wiki article.
Officially released on April 15, 2019, Carla 2.0.0 has been added to Ubuntu Studio to replace the outdated jack-rack and add more functionality.
Carla is an audio plugin host that can handle many different types of plugins, from Ladspa to DSSI to LV2 to VST. In fact, if you install the WINE bridge (not installed by default), Carla can host Windows-compiled VST plugins.
Carla can also act as a plugin itself, allowing your DAW to use any audio plugin.
Carla also includes a patchbay, which is functionally similar to that of Patchage.
Ubuntu Studio Controls has been upgraded to 1.7 with many bugfixes, and is now the preferred method for starting Jack. As such, we ask that you discontinue use of QJackCtl for starting Jack. QJackCtl remains a good way to monitor Jack’s performance and logs.
Also in Ubuntu Studio 19.04 is new default theming for our Desktop Environment, Window Manager, and Icons.
Ubuntu Studio is maintained by a very small team and we are actively seeking new contributors. We are looking for developers, packagers and testers. Even if you are interested in contributing outside these areas, please do not hesitate to reach out. Your contribution is precious regardless of your field of activity. We are open to volunteers with all expertise levels. Just head over to our contribute page to find out how to get started.
Taking the time to report bugs makes a huge difference; it’s the first step towards improvement! Clear and specific bug reports is the best way to get attention to a problem that needs fixing. The easiest way to create a bug report is with the terminal.
Open one up and type: ubuntu-bug <package>
Read more about this at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs
The Ubuntu Studio team is pleased to announce the beta release of Ubuntu Studio 19.04, codenamed Disco Dingo.
While this beta is reasonably free of any showstopper CD build or installer bugs, you may find some bugs within. This image is, however, reasonably representative of what you will find when Ubuntu Studio 19.04 is released on April 18, 2019.
In terms of new features, Ubuntu Studio 19.04 will include a new version of the Ubuntu Studio Metapackage Installer, renamed to Ubuntu Studio Installer. This package is used to add features you may have opted-out of during installation. With this release, Ubuntu Studio can now be installed on top of a default Ubuntu installation or any flavor thereof such as Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Budgie, or Ubuntu Kylin. Documentation on this feature is coming soon.
Another major new feature is the addition of the upcoming Carla 2.0, originally from the KXStudio project. Carla is an audio plugin host and graphical patchbay which can be used as an audio plugin itself, and also can be used as a bridge to use VST plugins compiled for Windows using WINE. Please note that this WINE bridge is not installed by default, but is available in the Ubuntu repositories.
With the addition of Carla, jack-rack has been removed from the default installation for obsolescence reasons, and because Carla duplicates its functionality.
Also included are new GTK and icon themes which modernize the look and feel of Ubuntu Studio.
There is a known bug with the installer. Due to the new theme, there are occurrences of black text on a dark gray background. We intend to fix this before 19.04 is released. (Bug #1822134)
Official Ubuntu Studio release notes can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DiscoDingo/ReleaseNotes/UbuntuStudio
Further known issues, mostly pertaining to the desktop environment, can be found at https://wiki.xubuntu.org/releases/19.04/release-notes
Additionally, the main Ubuntu release notes contain more generic issues: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DiscoDingo/ReleaseNotes
To upgrade to Ubuntu Studio 19.04 Beta, follow these instructions:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DiscoUpgrades
The Ubuntu Studio 19.04 Beta images can be downloaded at:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/disco/beta/
During a meeting of the Ubuntu Developer Membership Board on March 11, 2019, two Ubuntu Studio developers, Council Chair Erich Eickmeyer and Council Member Ross Gammon, successfully applied for and received upload rights to Ubuntu Studio’s core packages, fulfilling the requirements prescribed in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RecognizedFlavors.
We would like to thank the community for staying with us through this uncertain time, and thank the Ubuntu Developer Membership Board for approving Erich and Ross’s applications.
The release of Ubuntu Studio 19.04 will remain on-course. Beta is scheduled for March 28th, Release Candidate for April 11th, and Final Release scheduled for April 18th.
With Ubuntu 19.04’s feature freeze quickly approaching, we would like to announce the new updates coming to Ubuntu Studio 19.04.
This is really a bit of a bugfix for the version of Ubuntu Studio Controls that landed in 18.10. Ubuntu Studio Controls dramatically simplifies audio setup for the JACK Audio Connection Kit on your Ubuntu installation, and is the only GUI tool that enables JACK to automatically detect hotplugged USB audio devices along with allowing more than one audio device to be connected to JACK simultaneously.
Because Ubuntu Studio Controls is easy to use, we found it was also easier to support than the stack available in Ubuntu Studio 18.04. For this reason, among others, we have created an Ubuntu Studio Backports PPA, and will backport the newer versions of the Ubuntu Studio tools and select applications to this PPA. Please do keep in mind that this PPA is not supported by Ubuntu. Use it at your own risk. Support is provided by the Ubuntu Studio team only.
If you are on Ubuntu Studio 18.04 or newer, simply add this PPA by typing the following into your terminal:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntustudio-ppa/backportsWhile support for Ubuntu Studio 18.04 was supposed to end in January due to its non-LTS status, we have decided to support it until the release of 20.04, and we felt a Backports PPA was the best way to do this. There will be no releases of Ubuntu Studio 18.04.x ISO, but updating the already-available ISO as well as adding the backports PPA will keep you up-to-date and allow the Ubuntu Studio team to support you better.
In the past, Ubuntu Studio Meta Installer had been a tool used to install metapackages of various creative application categories. Now, Ubuntu Studio Installer can be used to install not only those metapackages, but also the under-the-hood tweaks used to enable real-time audio processing and reduce the default swappiness, which dictates when the system starts moving unused portions of RAM to the hard drive swap file. This increases overall performance for most applications, but is not recommended for systems with less than 4GB of RAM. Also included is the lowlatency Linux kernel, as well as the option to move the lowlatency kernel to the top of your GRUB bootloader menu, making it the default which is especially useful for audio production.
With these changes, Ubuntu Studio Installer allows you to install Ubuntu Studio as a ToolKit on top of your existing Ubuntu installation, including official flavors (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Budgie), although our default ISO installer is based on Xubuntu.
Additionally, Ubuntu Studio will allow you to rebrand your Ubuntu (or flavor) install as Ubuntu Studio, theming your GRUB menu and Plymouth theme accordingly. For Ubuntu (proper), it will also re-theme your GDM login screen to Ubuntu Studio, and install the vanilla GNOME session which more closely matches the Ubuntu Studio branding, and install GNOME Tweaks to allow you to retheme using our Numix Blue theme and icon theme. These items are purely cosmetic, but we believe it adds to the Ubuntu Studio experience.
The Ubuntu Studio Installer will also give you the option to add the backports PPA mentioned above.
The ubiquitous JACK routing tool, Patchage, is no longer developed. This has made finding a replacement a priority. The Ubuntu Studio Team determined a good replacement to be Carla from KXStudio. We have been working closely with the upstream developer to add this tool as not only a replacement for Patchage, but to add a high-quality plugin host as well. Carla includes a graphical patchbay and experimental features such as the ability to host Windows VST audio plugins (the Windows bridge will not be installed by default and must be added after Ubuntu Studio installation). This has been a much-requested feature and we hope it helps audio producers everywhere.
Carla will be available in Ubuntu Studio 19.04 as well as our Backports PPA.
We hope you like the new, simplified, Plymouth Boot Theme coming to Ubuntu Studio 19.04, which will be added to our Backports PPA.
We have added a new way to receive official support from the Ubuntu Studio team, as well as a way to connect the community: Telegram. Telegram is an instant-messaging app available for Linux, Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS. As such, we have created a bridge from our brand-new Telegram groups to our official Ubuntu Studio IRC channels, expanding the methods in which to connect our community and offer support. Additionally, we encourage our community to offer support to each other via Telegram and IRC.
Click Here to join our official Ubuntu Studio Support Telegram Group
Click Here to join our Ubuntu Studio Café (non-support) Telegram Group
Our council chair, Erich Eickmeyer, recently appeared on the Destination Linux podcast to discuss these items. Check it out! https://destinationlinux.org/episode-108/
The Ubuntu Studio team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu Studio 18.10 “Cosmic Cuttlefish”. As a regular release, this version of Ubuntu Studio will be supported for 9 months.
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.
Click Here to Download Ubuntu Studio 18.10
Ubuntu Studio Controls has historically been the app to run to get initial audio configuration set for your system. This release, Ubuntu Studio Controls has undergone a major rewrite, and has the following features:
Ubuntu Studio Controls now, for the first time ever for any JACK configuration GUI, configures JACK to automatically detect hot-plugged USB audio devices and allows you to use more than one audio device at a time. This is something you will find in no other such utility.
Future plans for Ubuntu Studio Controls includes configuration of WACOM Tablets, which is something currently not available in our default Xfce desktop environment.
PikoPixel is an easy-to-use application for drawing & editing pixel-art.
Among those applications upgraded in this release is GIMP 2.10, which saw its release shortly before the release of Ubuntu Studio 18.04. Due to a library conflict between GIMP 2.10 and MyPaint, we had to make the hard decision to drop MyPaint from the default installation of Ubuntu Studio beginning in 18.10, citing other tools, such as Krita, as filling a similar role in graphical art production. As such, if both are installed and you wish to upgrade to Ubuntu Studio 18.10, you must uninstall GIMP or MyPaint for the upgrade to be successful. We apologize for this inconvenience. At this time, we are waiting for the upstream developers of MyPaint to release a new version based on libmypaint 1.3 before both can be co-installable again.
Information on newer packages can be found in the release notes.
Since Ubuntu Studio is the only official flavor of Ubuntu not tied to a desktop environment, we thought it would be a good idea to attempt to offer more desktop environments for Ubuntu Studio and provide multiple ISO downloads. However, since the Ubuntu infrastructure for flavors is based on the desktop environment per flavor structure, we found this to be time and effort prohibitive. As such, we have decided to abandon this idea.
However, it has also been asked how it might be possible to add Ubuntu Studio to an existing Ubuntu install. As such, our new goal is to make a single package to install which starts that process on any Ubuntu or flavor thereof. We hope this lands in Ubuntu Studio 19.04. This means you will be able to install any flavor of Ubuntu and add Ubuntu Studio on to it, allowing you to work in your favorite desktop environment while having all of the benefits of Ubuntu Studio.
Future goals include providing the optional ability to re-brand your installed Ubuntu flavor to Ubuntu Studio along with the under-the-hood configurations. Yet another, distant goal is to allow you to install your preferred desktop environment at install time from the Xfce-based Live CD so long as you have an active Internet connection. Since these are distant goals, they are not completely solidified and are subject to change.
Ubuntu Studio is maintained by a very small team and we are actively seeking new contributors. We are looking for developers, packagers and testers. Even if you are interested in contributing outside these areas, please do not hesitate to reach out. Your contribution is precious regardless of your field of activity. We are open to volunteers with all expertise levels. Just head over to our contribute page to find out how to get started.
Taking the time to report bugs makes a huge difference; it’s the first step towards improvement! Clear and specific bug reports is the best way to get attention to a problem that needs fixing. The easiest way to create a bug report is with the terminal.
Open one up and type: ubuntu-bug <package>
Read more about this at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs
The Ubuntu Studio team is pleased to announce the final beta release of Ubuntu Studio 18.10 Cosmic Cuttlefish.
While this beta is reasonably free of any showstopper CD build or installer bugs, you may find some bugs within. This image is, however, reasonably representative of what you will find when Ubuntu Studio 18.10 is released on October 18, 2018.
In terms of new features, Ubuntu Studio 18.10 will include the latest release of Ubuntu Studio Controls which will configure the JACK Audio Connection Kit to automatically detect and add hot-plugged USB audio devices as well as allow one to use multiple audio devices simultaneously. This is done independently of QJackCtl and is the first graphical tool to create such a configuration for the user out-of-the-box, making it a unique feature for Ubuntu Studio among operating systems for audio production. Another feature of Ubuntu Studio Controls is its ability to set the CPU governor to “Performance” for performance-heavy tasks such as audio production or to “Ondemand” for default CPU performance to save energy.
Among those applications upgraded in this release is GIMP 2.10, which saw its release shortly before the release of Ubuntu Studio 18.04. Due to a library conflict between GIMP 2.10 and MyPaint, we had to make the hard decision to drop MyPaint from the default installation of Ubuntu Studio, citing other tools, such as Krita, as filling a similar role in graphical art production. As such, if both are installed and you wish to upgrade to Ubuntu Studio 18.10, you must uninstall GIMP or MyPaint for the upgrade to be successful. We apologize for this inconvenience. At this time, we are waiting for the upstream developers of MyPaint to release a new version based on libmypaint 1.3 before both can be co-installable again.
To upgrade to Ubuntu Studio 18.10 Beta from Ubuntu Studio 18.04, follow these instructions:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CosmicUpgrades
The Ubuntu Studio 18.10 Beta images can be downloaded at:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/cosmic/beta/
We would like to thank everyone who participated in our wallpaper contest for Ubuntu Studio 18.10! With 487 votes, the top 5 submissions were chosen. The winners can be found at this link.
Additionally, we’d like to announce the new default wallpaper for 18.10, designed by Ubuntu Studio developer Eylul Dogruel, and is pictured to the right.
Again, thank you to everyone who submitted and voted for our new wallpapers to be included in Ubuntu Studio 18.10!
