Dyne:bolic 2.5.2

finferflu · 2007-12-20 14:57:42

Have you guys ever given it a go?
I find it quite amazing, not so much because it works out of the box, but because of all the tools pre-installed. I find it extremely useful. I was so happy to find ndiswrapper and was able to be online in less than a minute.

I have only tested it for one hour, but it seems quite solid, stable and ultra light. It uses a modded Xfce as DE. It's not so user friendly, because you have to know what you are doing, but it comes with a dyne:bolic and a GNU manual.
What I have particularly loved is that the devs have put their own customisation on all the tools, so you surely get the most out of all those apps. For example I had 0 xruns with JACK, which I have left running all the time, having all sorts of apps open, Firefox, Pidgin, audio apps, and considering it was a liveCD session, I find it quite impressive.
I also enjoy the fact there is no real need to install it, since it works so well as a liveCD and I can save my settings either on my HD or on a USB stick. I think I'll stick with it for audio production.

The only down side for me is boot time, it takes a couple of minutes if not more...

Here is a screenshot:

Last edited by finferflu (2007-12-20 20:53:43)

schivmeister · 2007-12-21 18:58:34

Wow that's great. Personally, I never installed a pro audio distro as my DAW shift to Linux started with Gentoo and remains so. Before that it was the average stuff that users did like recording with audacity and drums with Hydrogen, on Ubuntu. I then installed the above, dyne:bolic and found it non-appealing. That's some 16 months ago i think.

While banging my head during the course of Gentoo, I installed JAD, a SUSE-based pro audio distro to get some real work done while waiting for something to finish compiling. Surprisingly, even in alpha stage it was really good. Now i hear Ubuntustudio is great too, haven't burn it but have the iso downloaded. Will try dyne:bolic again just to see how it fares now, but i'm pretty sure I'd still recommend JAD to a fellow musician.

finferflu · 2007-12-21 23:06:41

I actually heard that UbuntuStudio is bloated, full of apps you probably will never use. The fact that it comes in DVD format only makes you think. Moreover its DE is Gnome, which I find quite heavy for music production. Dyne:bolic is supposed to run on really ancient machines, such as Pentium I MMX, 64MB RAM. So just figure out how it would run on a more recent machine. As I said, what I like is that the whole system has already been tweaked and customised, which for me is just excellent, since for now I don't think I could do a better job.

JAD looks better than UbuntuStudio, but I still think Dyne:bolic is more stripped down and lighter, since it's been created from scratch. I will have to try it first, before I can say anything else.

Thanks for the input

By the way I seem to have some issues with saving my session, since not all of my settings are saved, but perhaps I have to read some documentation before judging it...

Edit:
But I have just found this out:

Is it possible to install dynebolic on a hard disk? If so, what filesystems are supported?

From version 1.2 and later, yes! The procedure is called "docking", and all you have to do is copy the entire dyne/ directory and subdirectories to the root directory of your hard disk (using Winblows for example that would result in C:\dyne\), whether you have ext2/3, reiserfs, NTFS, DOS FAT, BeOS, or *BSD. Hehe! Afterwards you have to boot up normally using your dyne:bolic cd, which will automatically recognize the harddisk partition containing the dyne/ subdirectory, therefore ejecting the dyne:bolic cd and booting up the image from harddisk. Easy, ain't it?

This sounds veeeeery cool

Last edited by finferflu (2007-12-21 23:11:59)

schivmeister · 2007-12-22 21:49:50

Wow indeed! Hah..i have yet to hear of such a thing in other Live distros. A pretty unique idea, albeit simple..

thisllub · 2007-12-29 23:47:03

I have used 64studio http://www.64studio.com/ as my main distro for the last 6 months. I use a Lexicon Omega usb sound card and it works flawlessly in 64bits.
I think it is the best audio focused distro to date.

schivmeister · 2007-12-31 11:33:51

Ok. Feedback.

Only tried on laptop with intel-hda. Have a ZOOM ADC, but that's about all of the hardware for recording. Currently haven't got a dedicated audio interface for the laptop, as the M-Audio Delta i have is physically slotted inside my workstation.

Firstly, X wasn't optimal. It was at 1024x768 when my laptop is 1280x800. No way to make it adapt without editing xorg config..As for sound, intel-hda is a failure. In Windows and Mac OS, it can do alright and better with an ADC but in Linux it is still not an able thing. General sound was clearer and brighter, louder than a KDE environment. Version of alsa is older, and there isn't much control except for 1 playback and 1 master. No detection of recordable inputs, so right there I can't record in the first place.

QJackCtl reports failure as (i guess) it wasn't able to stop ALSA. Running from the terminal introduces a steady flow of xruns. Running Hydrogen with audio interface as auto, i presume that is ALSA, is ok except there will be cracks and pops as soon as i have many simaltaneous samples (like a fast groove with douple bass). Plugged in my guitar, there is some fuzz, but nothing useful.

Pretty much, not impressive in my case. But that is 90% due to hardware I need to get a portable pair of monitors.

finferflu · 2007-12-31 12:17:02

I had some minor issues with resolution and QJackCtl, but I could fix them in no time. I could change the resolution via control panel and the default device set in QJackCtl was wrong. As soon as I changed it, everything worked fine. No xruns, and I could flawlessly record multiple tracks. As you said, it might all be hardware related.

I think I'll give 64studio a try, just for comparison, and I could even like it more than Dynebolic, who knows...

schivmeister · 2008-01-01 09:15:15

Ok I played with it on my workstation. And now, I'm keeping it as a backup pro audio live distro (my first) It's quite fast on a desktop, don't think Ubuntustudio could rival the boot time, and it seems to love desktop hardware. Heh.

Hmm..64studio. If it's a live, it's definitely worth keeping.

thisllub · 2008-01-05 20:27:22

I haven't tried Dyne:bolic for over a year but audio work needs ram and storage.
As yet no Linux audio software does it all so you need to sync things with Jack.
With the 2 GB of ram in this machine on 64Studio I can sync Ardour to a Midi in Rosegarden running drums in Hydrogen.
I haven't done a big project with a lot of tracks and effects though.

Considering that 64Studio is basically Debian Etch with a low latency kernel, building a low latency kernel for Arch should work just as well.

I gave up on the low latency kernel because Virtualisation doesn't work.
I now have 2 versions of the kernel with Arch and I have the best of both worlds.

finferflu · 2008-01-05 20:39:01

The main thing for me is not just about having a low latency kernel. There are also some more tweaks for single applications to work well. For example, in Dynebolic, I have found lots on lots of effect plugins in Audacity, which I wouldn't have even though ever existed. That's why I prefer a ready made distro, rather than installing single applications on my own custom distro. I trust the expertise of the devs, since I am a beginner for now.

schivmeister · 2008-01-06 09:19:39

Actually low latency is only the first step. And I agree, a pre-packaged distro makes things much much simpler and easier. If you need something but you don't know what it really is and how you should go about getting it, it is probably already installed in there. I still however, can't get Ardour to record Hydrogen properly. Up til now, I have always exported-imported And I guess that's how I'd like it in the first place. It would be much better if Audacity could use JACK well.

Arch Linux

#1 2007-12-20 14:57:42

Dyne:bolic 2.5.2

#2 2007-12-21 18:58:34

Re: Dyne:bolic 2.5.2

#3 2007-12-21 23:06:41

Re: Dyne:bolic 2.5.2

#4 2007-12-22 21:49:50

Re: Dyne:bolic 2.5.2

#5 2007-12-29 23:47:03

Re: Dyne:bolic 2.5.2

#6 2007-12-31 11:33:51

Re: Dyne:bolic 2.5.2

#7 2007-12-31 12:17:02

Re: Dyne:bolic 2.5.2

#8 2008-01-01 09:15:15

Re: Dyne:bolic 2.5.2

#9 2008-01-05 20:27:22

Re: Dyne:bolic 2.5.2

#10 2008-01-05 20:39:01

Re: Dyne:bolic 2.5.2

#11 2008-01-06 09:19:39

Re: Dyne:bolic 2.5.2

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