Ubuntu Studio: A Multimedia Professional’s Dream Distro: Pictorial Walkthrough

This post is been migrated to INITCRON.org

Ubuntu Studio is a tailor made  multimedia creation flavor of Ubuntu aimed at audio/video, graphic editors, both enthusiasts and professionals. One could setup a decent studio, and connect midi devices, synthesizers, audio/video recording devices, additional sound cards and installing ubuntu studio on the system. Look and feel of ubuntu studio is very attractive. Folks who are not much interested in studio tools, but like the look and feel of it, can  stillinstall and use ubuntu studio theme on top of their existing ubuntu system ( sudo apt-get install -yq ubuntustudio-look ).

Ubuntu Studio comes with a kernel which is been  tweaked to allow higher priority to graphics, audio  and video applications which should give effectively better performance for these applications and reduce latency, jitter etc. Ubuntu Studio comes with Some of the tools that come with ubuntu studio are,

Graphics: Blender 3D Modeler, GIMP, InkScape, Synfig Studio, Agave, Scribus
Audio Production : Audacity, Ardour, Mixx, Muse, RoseGarden, QSynth etc. etc…
Video Production : Kino, Open Movie Editor, Stop Motion

For more information on Ubuntu Studio please visit their homepage at http://ubuntustudio.org and also have a look at the wiki article on ubuntu studio at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Studio.

Ubuntu 8.04 LTS ‘Hardy Heron’ – You’ll never go back

This post is been migrated to INITCRON.org

The much awaited version of ubuntu, named ‘Hardy Heron’ (ubuntu 8.04) is officially been launched today. “You’ll never go back” is what canonical says on their official website http://www.ubuntu.com . Ubuntu releases LTS (Long Term Support) every two years and provides 3 years and 5 years of support respectively for desktop and server editions. Last one of the series was Ubuntu LTS 6.06, released in June 2006. In addition to LTS, ubuntu has a smaller release cycle of 6 months which are supported for a year and half, last one being 7.10 ‘Gutsy Gibbon’.

Features

Here are some feature highlights for the latest ubuntu version,

• Firefox 3 beta 5 : Improved browsing speeds : lightweight Mozilla Firefox 3 Beta 5 means faster browsing with improved performance and less use of RAM as compared to the older versions of the firefox which were memory hogger and slower.  Some of the noticeable features of new firefox are  it allows you to bookmark, and subscribe to the rss feeds directly from the address bar, shows summary of the website while you are typing the address, shows recently closed tabs  etc. Click on  View -> Switch Page Direction, and see everything getting aligned to the right hand side.
• Wubi : Painless Migration From Windows : Are you a windows user and always been wanted to give linux a spin ?? Then wubi is a bless to you (http://wubi-installer.org). All you need to do is, run wubi’s exe file. It will install ubuntu as any other windows application, without disturbing your windows partitions and prepares you to boot into ubuntu after a reboot. Wubi installs ubuntu on the top of windows as a large file. If one chooses to get rid of ubuntu, they could remove it like any other application from add/remove programs.
• Gnome 2.22 : Enhanced User Experience : Gnome 2.22 comes with improved look and feel, new applications such as cheese (needs to be installed as an additional package on ubuntu), new networked filesystem GVFS which overcomes GNOME VFS shortcomings, improved support for DVD and digitial TV, international clock, remote desktop viewer and many more enhancements to make user experience. One thing clearly missing is the gnome-control-center. Its just disappeared from the menu. To open the control center, one has to open a terminal and type in gnome-control-center to open it.
• Dash : Better System Performance : since 6.10 , ubuntu has changed the default system shell to dash(the Debian Almquist Shell) instead of /bin/sh to improve overall system persormance. This might cause few scripts to break though for users who are migrating from 6.06 LTS to 8.04 LTS.
• Multimedia : Get…Set….Go in minutes : The latest version of ubuntu makes it smoother to play any audio/video formats quickly.  If the codec for a particular format is not present, it immediately fires up synaptic and asks your permission to install the codec. All it takes is a couple of clicks and you are ready to get on with your music/videos.  Certainly saves a time and efforts for newbies.  Installing flash plugin was a piece of cake as well unlike the older version of ubuntu where one had to install it manually. Default audio player comes with magnatune, jamendo stores as additional features. For video playback, I would still recommend using mplayer.
• System Hibernate : I could successfully put my laptop to hibernate mode and bring it back, which I could not do with the older versions.
• Hardware Testing : This is a utility which serves a its purpose well. You can run it from System -> Administration -> Hardware Testing. It gathers information about your hardware, runs  manual tests to verify your hardware (audio, network controllers, screen resolution, mouse, video, keyboard, internet connection)  works and submits information to launchpad if you have an account. It is recommended you submit the results to launchpad in order to assist  developers fraternity to come up with better hardware support.

Issues

Is the new version of Ubuntu comes without any bugs and issues?? Ubuntu flolks claim hardy heron is the most stable and fastest ubuntu ever. Neverthless, I could see the following issues with my copy of installation atleast.

• System hangs after opening multiple applications. I just opened around 10 lightweight apps, and before even using them, it got hung. Strange enough, my mouse was cruising smoothly all over the screen, but not a single application was responding. Does not look like a load issue, most likely a gnome/app bug.
• ‘ NetworkManager restart ‘ in a terminal fails to restart network manager.