Re: [LAU] [ANN] LADI Session Handler - Preview 2

rosea grammostola wrote:
> Nedko Arnaudov wrote:
>> The second milestone is reached and result is a tarball that brave souls
>> may want to download and try. It can start apps and restore their
>> connections. Level 1 apps are supported.
>>
>> Beware that no apps have implemented level 1 yet. If non-level-1 app is
>> started at level 1, it will probably quit on save, because the default
>> signal handler for SIGUSR1 terminates the process.
>>
>> This preview also features a2jmidid support. Run the a2j script as an
>> app in the studio.
>>
>> This is a beta quality software, use it with double caution.
>>
>> I would like to thank the early adopters and especially Frank Kober for
>> their help with testing the git ladish code and for the valuable
>> suggestions they gave.
>>
>> Build will produce three operational components:
>> * ladishd - The daemon, a D-Bus service
>> * gladish - GTK GUI interface
>> * ladish_control - Command-line interface
>>
>> In the tarball you will also find bundled:
>> * flowcanvas-0.6.0
>> * LADI Tools (svn version)
>> * a2jmidid-6 (contains the a2j script for use in ladish)
>> * jack2 from the ladi branch
>>
>> The jack2 ladi branch contains fixes for two important issues:
>> * Race that causes connection restore to fail sometimes during studio
>> startup (http://ladish.org/ticket/28)
>> * A deadlock on studio start (http://ladish.org/ticket/35)
>>
>> Hopefully, these fixes with be in the next jack2 release (1.9.5).
>>
>> The jack2 ladi branch also contains the no-self-connect changeset that
>> adds new engine option, for disabling self connect of apps. Default
>> value for this option is to allow self connections.
>>
>> Make sure to configure jack2 with --dbus (and maybe with --classic too).
>>
>> Download:
>> http://ladish.org/download/ladish-0.2.tar.bz2
>> http://ladish.org/download/ladish-0.2.tar.bz2.sig
>>
>> Homepage: http://ladish.org/
>> Roadmap: http://ladish.org/roadmap
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> LADI Session Handler or simply ladish is a session management system
>> for JACK applications on GNU/Linux. Its aim is to allow you to have
>> many different audio programs running at once, to save their setup,
>> close them down and then easily reload the setup at some other
>> time. ladish doesn't deal with any kind of audio or MIDI data itself;
>> it just runs programs, deals with saving/loading (arbitrary) data and
>> connects JACK ports together. It can also be used to move entire
>> sessions between computers, or post sessions on the Internet for
>> download.
>>
>> Project goals:
>> * Save and restore sets of JACK (audio and MIDI) enabled
>> applications.
>> * Provide JACK clients with virtual hardware ports, so projects can
>> be transfered (or backups restored) between computers running
>> different hardware and backups. * Don't require session handling
>> library to be used. There is no need
>> of such library for restoring connections between JACK clients.
>> * Flow canvas based GUI. Positions of elements on the canvas are
>> saved/restored.
>> * Allow clients to use external storage to save its state. This
>> includes storing internal state to non-filesystem place like memory
>> of a hardware synth. This also includes storing client internal
>> state (client project data) in a way that is not directly bound to
>> ladish project. * Import/export operations, as opposed to
>> save/load. Save/load
>> operate in current system and may cause saving data outside of
>> project itself (external storage). Import/export uses/produces
>> "tarball" suitable for transferring session data over network to
>> other computer or storing it in a backup archive.
>> * Hierarchical or tag-based organization of projects.
>> * List of JACK applications. Applications are always started through
>> ladish to have restored runtime environment closer to one existed
>> before project save.
>> * Distributed studio - network connected computers. Netjack
>> configuration is part of the studio and thus is saved/restored.
>> * Collaborate with the X11 window manager so window properties like
>> window position, virtual desktop and screen (multimonitor) are
>> saved/restored.
>>
>>
>
> Hi all,
>
> I must admit I was skeptical about Ladish, after the disappointing
> progress of LASH and the jackdbus debate on LAD. By accident I got an
> conversation with Nedko on IRC and being in an 'tweak-mode' I was so
> 'stupid' to try ladish, not knowing what to expect really cause the
> website couldn't make that clear to me at that point. But also with in
> mind that an Session Handler is what Linux needs if you want to work
> 'the modular way'.
>
> Since I met Linux it has been an debate, whether the modular approach
> on Linux is good or bad. It became obvious to me that technical spoken
> there where advantages for sure, and after I did see the JACK design
> presentation on jackaudio.org I found it a intelligent concept, which
> could especially be useful in an open source community, where it seems
> to be harder for people to spend a lot of time on a big
> 'all-in-one-app' or to work together like you can do within a company.
> So an approach where developer A works on an 'one-task-one-tool-app'
> for task Y and developer B is working on a 'one-task-one-tool-app' for
> task X, and being able to connect one tool with another, looked like
> it was the best way to gain success when working as an community.
>
> But, all though striving hard to proof wrong, the disadvantage of the
> modular approach was hard to tackle. Launching all apps and settings
> manually again and again. Especially till approximately one year ago,
> when I was less capable of configuring my system for RT properly and
> when the RT kernels where not as good as they are now, and JACK was
> shutting down more often then the recent JACK2, it was really bad
> often. Just launched four apps with their settings, made some sounds
> and then
> "jack shuts down unexpectedly", end of party, restart party. Being
> busy for 15minuts to get it all back again...
>
> With an session handler like Ladish, I feel the modular approach gets
> another chance. It could fulfill the potential of the modular
> approach, the-one-task-one-tool, the unix philosophy. It makes working
> on Linux beneficial again in certain areas compared to other OS. I'm
> not saying an 'all-in-one-app' with plugins is not good. No I like
> that to, but with the LinuxAudio infrastructure at the moment in mind,
> it is a 'must' to be able to work both ways. Now (there are no LV2
> plugins of Hydrogen, ams, etc. soon) but also in the future.
>
> After some testing (I decided to compile jack2 from git and ladi
> branch with --dbus and --classic so I was able to use both jackdbus
> and jackd. ) I must say that I'm enthusiastic about Ladish. It does
> make working the modular way on Linux far more pleasurable already. It
> launches apps automatically with in a studio and restores the
> connections. As a 'tester' I found the support excellent via IRC
> (#ladi at freenode). I had some Debian related issues and they where
> fixed within an hour. Fixes where quick not only for ladish but also
> for the laditools and a2jmidid (I build them all from git). Also the
> devs are open to suggestions and critique.
>
> I really can recommend everyone with a bit of Linux experience to try
> it out! I think Ladish is especially useful for the 'Light' music
> musicians (pop, rock, dance etc.). It is not necessarily the best
> session handling approach for everyone though. I can imagine that
> projects who work with a very stable set of tools (openoctave for
> example) , could equally benefit from some kind of scripting
> solution, like the openoctave project is using already. But when I
> think about the discussion on LAU about 'fast composing tools' by Atte
> and Ken, I really think Ladish could be great for that kind of
> projects. It could even be a alternative to Renoise, when launching
> tools like Aldrin/ Epichord, Lv2rack, fst/vsthost, jack-mixer together
> in a 'studio' in Ladish (just an example). Why not sit around the
> table with some people who have the same goals and make those apps
> work perfectly together with each other and are doing the things you
> want in your workfow (the openoctave approach)? The same is true for
> the discussion about 'Ableton live alternative on Linux' imo.
>
> I'm not saying Ladish is already there. There has been a firm debate
> about the good and the bad of jackdbus on LAD (which I don't want to
> do over again in this thread ;) ). It doesn't seems to be totally
> clear what are actually the benefits or disadvantages of jackdbus,
> what are myths about jackdbus and what not... So I think another
> benefit of having more testers, users and developers involved in
> Ladish, is that you can influence the development of Ladish a bit and
> that the community can point to, and solve some problems if they are
> there (btw the developers are not necessarily sticking with jackdbus
> for ever, it seems to be the best choice atm and we have to see how it
> develops). Another point later in it's development is the
> implementation of level 1 and higher in other apps
> (http://ladish.org/wiki/levels). How could this be done as easy and
> good as possible and how can apps implement Ladish support?
>
> At least I go further with testing and enjoying the features of Ladish
> for my workflow. I hope more people (users and developers) will join
> to test, stimulate and criticize it. If Ladish succeed it will be a
> major breakthrough for LinuxAudio and especially the users imho.
>

There is a preview video now on vimeo: http://vimeo.com/8530340

Ams, Jack_mixer and Calfplugin host have already 'level 1' support

http://ladish.org/

\r
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Received on Thu Jan 7 12:15:01 2010