By now you may have seen Ubuntu’s blog post (Statement on 32-bit i386 packages for Ubuntu 19.10 and 20.04 LTS) and saw that it mentions Ubuntu Studio as being one of the catalysts behind the change-of-plans. You may also be wondering why Ubuntu Studio would be concerned with this.
While we did cease building 32-bit i386 ISO images a year ago, we still were counting on backward compatibility with 32-bit software, namely when it comes to audio plugins.
One of the biggest features of Carla being in the repositories is that it allows a WINE Bridge for Windows-based VST plugins, the vast majority of which are still compiled in 32-bit. Without 32-bit support, this feature is dead. This makes converting to Ubuntu Studio from Windows especially hard on those who rely on Windows VST plugins, the vast majority for which there is no Linux alternative. If this WINE bridge were to disappear, so would a large part of our user base. This would be a large part of professional recording studios and artists that would rather not be running Windows.
Additionally, any native Linux audio plugins compiled in 32-bit and brought-in from 3rd party sources would also no longer work (Carla provides a bridge for these, too). Audio plugins included in Ubuntu Studio and the repositories would not be affected.
However, the eventuality is that 32-bit software will eventually have to disappear. So, we urge you to contact the publisher/developer of whatever 32-bit plugin you rely on and urge the publisher/developer of that plugin to begin to compile their plugins in 64-bit.
We hope this brings clarity as to what Ubuntu Studio had to do with this decision. Thank you for using Ubuntu Studio, and we hope this keeps our community alive for years to come.
We hope that Ubuntu Studio 19.04’s release has been a welcome update for our users. As such, we are continuing our work on Ubuntu Studio with our next release scheduled for October 17, 2019, codenamed “Eoan Ermine”.
Bug Fix for Ubuntu Studio Controls
A bug identified in which the ALSA-Jack MIDI bridge was not surviving a reboot was fixed and updated in Ubuntu 19.04. As such, please make sure all of your packages are up-to-date.
New Features Coming to Ubuntu Studio Controls
We have already done a lot of work to Ubuntu Studio Controls for 19.10, and as such we have several new features already landing:
Multiple PulseAudio Bridges (for routing of individual applications)
In-Window Jack Status Indicator
DSP Usage Meter
Quick-links to QASMixer, Carla, and PulseAudio Control
These features are currently available in Eoan Ermine’s daily ISO images. After we have determined there has been sufficient testing (or 19.10 is released, whichever comes first), we will backport this version of Ubuntu Studio Controls to our backports PPA.
LSP-Plugins Coming to Ubuntu Studio 19.10
The Linux Studio Plugins Project is a collection of 91 Ladspa, LV2, and VST audio plugins compatible with Carla, Ardour, and other DAWs. These plugins are to be included by default in Ubuntu Studio 19.10, and are currently available in the Backports PPA for 18.04, 18.10, and 19.04. If you feel as though Ubuntu Studio is lacking in audio plugins, this should no longer be the case.
Removed ubuntustudio-gnome-branding from ubuntustudio-installer as people without the default GNOME Ubuntu were installing it, undesirably pulling-in GNOME packages.
The default wallpaper for 19.04 was slightly “fixed” and is available to 18.04 and 18.10 in the “ubuntustudio-disco-wallpapers” package, along with a version without the Ubuntu Studio logo in the lower-right corner.
An updated package of the Calf Studio Gear plugins to 0.90.2 for 18.04, 18.10, and 19.04
Ubuntu Studio 18.10 END-OF-LIFE Coming on July 18th, 2019
If you have not already upgraded from Ubuntu Studio 18.10 to 19.04, you have just over a month left to do so before Ubuntu Studio 18.10 reaches End-Of-Life and will no longer be supported. Ubuntu 18.10 and all official flavors reach End-Of-Life on July 18, 2019. Mark your calendar and upgrade as soon as possible!
Upgrading is available via the Software Updater and the command line “do-release-upgrade” tool.
If you have added the Backports PPA, please install and run ppa-purge tool before upgrading for the best upgrade experience:
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, theUbuntu 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.
New This Release
Ubuntu Studio Installer
Ubuntu Studio Installer
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.
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.
Other Changes
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.
Want to help out?
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.
Found a bug?
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.
Erich Eickmeyer, Council Chair, Communications, Ubuntu Studio Installer contributions, Social Media, Packaging, Documentation, Artwork, Theming, Vision
Len Ovens, Council Member, Ubuntu Studio Controls, Ubuntu Studio Installer, Coding
Set Hallstrom, Council Member, Guidance
Eylul Dogruel, Artwork
Ross Gammon, Council Member, Guidance, Packaging, Sage Wisdom
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.
New Features
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.
Known Issues
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)
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.
The following is a statement about the recent activity regarding Ubuntu Studio’s status as an official flavor of Ubuntu from council chair, Erich Eickmeyer:
Hello Ubuntu Studio Community,
As you have probably heard by now, Ubuntu Studio’s status as an official flavor of Ubuntu was recently called into question. You can read more here: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/technical-board/2019-March/002428.html
Basically, in order for Ubuntu Studio to remain an official flavor, we must have at least one team member with package upload permissions. Right now, out of the three active developers (Myself, Len Ovens, Ross Gammon), we have no upload permissions. As such, since before the release of 16.04 back in April 2016, the team had been going to other members of the Ubuntu community known as Masters of the Universe (MOTUs). Those are a select few active developers that have unlimited upload access to the Universe repository of Ubuntu, which contains applications and components not found in the Main repository, such as the core components of Ubuntu Studio.
Unfortunately, this was the result of a bad leadership hand-off when a previous Ubuntu Studio Project Lead failed to properly hand-off the project to other team members. At the time, there was a lot of team burn-out, and the project leader was among those burnt-out. When that leader left, it was abrupt and, in the opinion of others I have spoken to, not without malice. As such, that leader was the last member of the Ubuntu Studio team with package upload permissions.
During this period, Ross had applied for upload permissions, but the process stalled. In the meantime, the team had pinged MOTUs to help on a temporary basis. In some cases, with development cycles with no activity, the work was minimal and simply required a sign-off on the Ubuntu release. For this reason, Ubuntu Studio saw little, if any development between 16.04 and 18.04.
I came on just before the 18.04 release, and ended up taking on the mantle of leadership. This resulted in an improvement for 18.10. With 19.04, currently in development, we made some pretty significant changes.
However, when I went looking for a MOTU to help with uploading, I had trouble finding someone willing to sponsor & upload that many changes. When I started escalating the issue, it sparked the situation we are in today.
As such, Ross is reapplying, and I’m am applying for package upload permissions. In the past 24 hours, I was able to contact two MOTUs (Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre and Dmitry Shachnev) and the packages awaiting upload have now been uploaded. Meaning, all of the changes previously announced for 19.04 are now expected to land.
If, for whatever reason, both PPU applications are rejected, it unfortunately means there will be no 19.04 release for Ubuntu Studio. However, with Ross’s packaging experience with upstream Debian, and the high need for at least one or both of us to be uploaders, this is unlikely.
We will know more information on Monday after the meeting of the Developer Membership Board.
At this time, there is not much the community as a whole can do. We are waiting for this process to complete. My whole goal was to bring awareness to the situation, as I believe in transparency from a leadership perspective.
So, here’s to looking forward to a bright future for Ubuntu Studio. At this point, I’m 95% sure things will be okay.
With warm regards, Erich Eickmeyer Council Chair Ubuntu Studio
With Ubuntu 19.04’s feature freeze quickly approaching, we would like to announce the new updates coming to Ubuntu Studio 19.04.
Updated Ubuntu Studio Controls
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.
Addition of Ubuntu Studio Backports PPA
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:
While 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.
New Features in Ubuntu Studio Installer
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.
New Tool: Carla
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.
New Boot Theme
We hope you like the new, simplified, Plymouth Boot Theme coming to Ubuntu Studio 19.04, which will be added to our Backports PPA.
Telegram as an Additional Support Channel
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.
