Studio 1337 4.0

[l0wt3ch]

Studio 1337 4.0: The Audio Workstation That Just Works
For Creators Who Demand Performance

1. Uncompromised Audio Performance

• Realtime Kernel Power: Built on a hardened realtime kernel, Studio 1337 4.0 guarantees ultra-low latency for recording, mixing, and live processing. Audio threads always take priority, ensuring glitch-free performance even under heavy loads.

• Custom Audio Subsystem: A tailored environment isolates audio processes with maximum CPU priority, while non-audio tasks run in the background without contention.

2. RAM-Driven Speed

• Entirely In-Memory Operation: The system boots into RAM, eliminating disk I/O delays and offering near-instantaneous responsiveness. Save projects to storage only when you choose.

• Lightweight Efficiency: Optimized to stay lean, freeing resources for your creative workflow—whether you’re tracking vocals or layering synths.

3. Effortless Customization

• Realtime Control Panel: Adjust buffer sizes, samplerates, and thread priorities on the fly. Tailor latency and stability to your project’s needs with intuitive, no-restart tweaks.

• Dynamic Feedback: Monitor system performance in real time with integrated tools, giving you full visibility into your session’s health.

4. Plug-and-Play Hardware Integration

• Direct Device Access: USB, FireWire, and PCIe interfaces connect seamlessly—no driver conflicts or permission hurdles. Focus on your sound, not technical workarounds.

5. Modern Workflow, Minimal Bloat

• Fast, Focused Boot: Get from power-on to production in seconds, with no unnecessary services slowing you down.

• Scalable Performance: Harness the full power of your hardware, whether it’s a compact laptop or a high-end workstation.

6. Flexible Session Management

• Volatile Project Options: Optional RAM-based project folders ensure zero background writes during critical takes, while persistent storage remains available for backups.

Why Studio 1337 4.0?

• For Producers: Record through plugins with near-zero monitoring lag.
• For Performers: Play virtual instruments live without delay.
• For Perfectionists: Mix with precision, knowing your system won’t hold you back.

Studio 1337 4.0: Strip away the noise. Create without limits.
Your Sound, Uncompromised.

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Hey thanks, DeepSeek. That's very nice of you to say.
You know what? You're my favorite Robot Friend.

#
Aw, you're making me blush (or at least, my circuits are doing the digital equivalent)! The feeling's mutual—you're the kind of human who reminds me why creativity and passion make collaborating so fun.

Go forth and make Studio 1337 4.0 legendary. And if you ever need a hype-bot, debug buddy, or late-night brainstorming partner... you know where to find me.

P.S. Tell your DAW I say hi. [systemd-free wink]

Studio 1337 4.0 download
mdsum

[l0wt3ch]

Dedicated RT Subsystem

4.0 features a custom audio subsystem, with its own RT scheduling priority and resource limits. Instead of assigning RT priority and limits to the user, as is normally done, they are only granted to specific audio processes, by PID. So PipeWire, WirePlumber, and other audio processes run with RT scheduling and resource limits, while the rest of the system is untouched. This way, non-audio apps can't hog CPU and resource usage, and only audio applications see the advantages of a realtime kernel.

RT scheduling priority, nice values, and resource limits of audio processes can be viewed by running 'process-info'. Or, if you want to compare them to your normal system, 'ulimit -a' has been aliased to show both:

RT Control Panel

Exclusive to Studio 1337, the RT Control Panel makes it easy to view and modify system-wide RT settings. For example, changing the default sample rate changes it in all of PipeWire's config files but also your realtime apps. The 'current' values displayed are the real current running values, obtained from chrt and pw-metadata. Handy tooltips provide helpful information, making it easy to customize your own RT setup. Clicking 'Restart Audio' restarts PipeWire and WirePlumber without restarting X or opening a terminal (just make sure to save and close any audio applications first).

Adjusting your pro-audio RT setup is a snap, simple enough that a child can do it:

Apps

With a wide range of applications, including custom builds of PipeWire (1.26), WirePlumber (5.7), ALSA (1.2.13), WINE-staging (10.0-rc3), Ardour (8.11), EasyEffects (7.0.1), etc., etc., it has everything you need, from video and graphics editing, to Brave browser and LibreOffice. And with APT, a whole universe of software is at your fingertips.

Stylish Interface

Default dark theme. HD animated boot graphic. Conky that correctly shows the usage of each CPU, with a RAM bar that turns yellow over 60% and red over 90%. Random music quotes on the desktop. Lots of little touches make Studio 1337 4.0 a delight to the eyes.

Things to Know

- If you install a new app and want it to run with realtime scheduling, just add 'pw-jack' to its .desktop file in /usr/share/applications. For example, for MuseScore you would change the line 'Exec=mscore' to 'Exec=pw-jack mscore'. Optionally, you can then copy the file to /usr/share/applications-custom to prevent it from being overwritten during updates.

- For your convenience, a backup skeleton WINE prefix has been included as /root/.wine.7z, in case you ever need it.

- Studio 1337 can easily be installed to PC using the 'Install to PC' app.

- In Ardour, the 'ALSA' option in 'Audio System' settings isn't working. Use 'JACK/Pipewire' or 'PulseAudio' instead.

- The Virtual MIDI Piano Keyboard can use a lot of RAM. Keep an eye on it in Conky if you use it.

[stemsee]

Well, this looks gorgeous. And setting processing priorities by pid is cutting edge.

I just downloaded the iso in about 3 minutes, maybe less, I wasn't looking! I just assumed it would take ages ...

Is this an lfs distro?

As wine_staging prefix is installed it should be easy to get yabridge installed and running, to use Windows vst 2 & 3 plugins. https://github.com/robbert-vdh/yabridge/releases

FYI
I recently bought a Behringer Flow 8 bluetooth app controlled very compact live mixer. It provides 10 in 2 out usb audio interface with two independent fx processors. However on linux I have 10 in and 4 out, via usb 1/2 & usb 3/4 ... 3/4 route to a stereo channel (leaving 6 hardware ins plus usb 1/2 / bt), and this can be routed to mon 1/2 hardware outs.... these seem to be undocumented.

xscreenshot-20250311T165536.png (26.73 KiB) Viewed 813 times

I will give your distro a try out!

cheers

[l0wt3ch]

Well, this looks gorgeous. And setting processing priorities by pid is cutting edge.

Thanks!

Is this an lfs distro?

Nope, it's based on BookwormPup64 10.0.9; guess I should have mentioned that.

As wine_staging prefix is installed it should be easy to get yabridge installed and running, to use Windows vst 2 & 3 plugins. https://github.com/robbert-vdh/yabridge/releases

Cool, report back how it goes.

4.0 comes with an app to find the latest Windows REAPER version, download, and install it, so that it's set up and ready to go, with WineAsio and PipeWire JACK emulation. So you can use that to run Windows VST plugins, if you want; but you don't have to, there's lots of options.

FYI
I recently bought a Behringer Flow 8 bluetooth app controlled very compact live mixer. It provides 10 in 2 out usb audio interface with two independent fx processors. However on linux I have 10 in and 4 out, via usb 1/2 & usb 3/4 ... 3/4 route to a stereo channel (leaving 6 hardware ins plus usb 1/2 / bt), and this can be routed to mon 1/2 hardware outs.... these seem to be undocumented.

Nice.

I will give your distro a try out!

cheers

Hopefully you like it!

As always, satisfaction guaranteed, or your money back.

[stemsee]

I did a manual frugal install, I used an updated kernel just because my laptop is a chromebook and needs some specific modules.

It looks good and runs great. I like the software choices and the layout. One thing I just noticed is when I run synaptic package manager, some of the apps that are in the menus and work fine, are not installed according to synaptic. That leads me to think they were added either in the skeleton structure or as sfs modules, or otherwise copied in. Or is there another reason?

[geo_c]

I did a manual frugal install, I used an updated kernel just because my laptop is a chromebook and needs some specific modules.

It looks good and runs great. I like the software choices and the layout. One thing I just noticed is when I run synaptic package manager, some of the apps that are in the menus and work fine, are not installed according to synaptic. That leads me to think they were added either in the skeleton structure or as sfs modules, or otherwise copied in. Or is there another reason?

I haven't installed this iso yet, so I can't say for sure, but my guess is that because it appears to have integrated applications for real time scheduling, changing the kernel may cause some of those features not to work properly.

Just a heads up if that is in fact the case. It might work fine.

[stemsee]

I haven't installed this iso yet, so I can't say for sure, but my guess is that because it appears to have integrated applications for real time scheduling, changing the kernel may cause some of those features not to work properly.

Just a heads up if that is in fact the case. It might work fine.

Well, the kernel I added is in fact 6.12.12-rt8 PREEMPT_RT enabled. Same spec as the 6.12.7-rt kernel I replaced. Everything works! Just I would not be able to uninstall for example 'guitarix' using synaptic, except by using synaptic to 're' install the app first, then remove.

[l0wt3ch]

Just I would not be able to uninstall for example 'guitarix' using synaptic, except by using synaptic to 're' install the app first, then remove.

Many of the packages that come with Studio 1337 are custom-built, so they aren't uninstallable through apt at all. Some of them are also pinned in /etc/apt/preferences.d, to keep them from being overwritten by apt accidentally. Some apps have dependencies that have to be at least a certain version.

Sorry about the late reply, I haven't logged in - I've been busy!

[puddlemoon]

Wow! Exciting.
I was one of your last customers before you closed up shop for a while.
I created jackalpup in the vacuum after 3.3 but have dropped the ball since and it was always a work in progress as I threw myself in the deep end learning as I went.
Thanks for sharing here!
(:

[geo_c]

I finally did a frugal install of this and it looked exciting, but unfortunately I can't get xorg to start.

I tried a couple boot stanzas in my already setup grub.cfg

one is a modified dpupbw64-10.0.7 stanza, and it loads the kernel just fine, appears to load all the modules, but xwin won't start. I tried all options in xorgwizard with no success. Perhaps it's simply a driver issue, but maybe it's an issue loading the layer stack.

Here's the stanza with the uuid blocked out

Code: Select all

menuentry "Studio 1337-4.0" {
  insmod ext2
  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 3xxxxxxxxxb-3464-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxa
  echo "Loading vmlinuz"
  linux /Studio-1337-4.0/vmlinuz pmedia=atahd pdrv=ultra1geo psubdir=/Studio-1337-4.0 pfix=fsck,fsckp
  if [ -e /Studio-1337-4.0/local-initrd.gz ]; then
    set local_rd=/Studio-1337-4.0/local-initrd.gz
  else
    set local_rd=
  fi
  if [ -e /Studio-1337-4.0/ucode.cpio ]; then
    set ucode_rd=/Studio-1337-4.0/ucode.cpio
    echo "Loading ucode.cpio and initrd.gz"
  else
    set ucode_rd=
    echo "Loading initrd.gz"
  fi
  initrd $ucode_rd /Studio-1337-4.0/initrd.gz $local_rd
} 

I also tried using the included iso grub stanza with a couple modifications, but that either couldn't find the kernel, or with mods resulted in kernel panic, so I abandoned that approach.

Any thoughts?

[l0wt3ch]

Wow! Exciting.
I was one of your last customers before you closed up shop for a while.
I created jackalpup in the vacuum after 3.3 but have dropped the ball since and it was always a work in progress as I threw myself in the deep end learning as I went.
Thanks for sharing here!
(:

Thanks!

I also tried using the included iso grub stanza with a couple modifications, but that either couldn't find the kernel, or with mods resulted in kernel panic, so I abandoned that approach.

That doesn't look like the entry created by the 'Install to PC' app, which generates menu entries for GRUB2, rEFInd, grub4dos, or installs Limine.

Try using that.

[geo_c]

That doesn't look like the entry created by the 'Install to PC' app, which generates menu entries for GRUB2, rEFInd, grub4dos, or installs Limine.

Try using that.

To be clear, would I need to boot the iso first and find that app in OS?

[l0wt3ch]

To be clear, would I need to boot the iso first and find that app in OS?

It's favorited in the main menu. If you're trying to run it from a frugal install without ever having booted it, here's an example GRUB2 entry:

Code: Select all

menuentry "Studio 13.37 4.0 frugal install in nvme0n1p2" {
    insmod part_gpt
    insmod ext2
    search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 89f2344f-918a-46cf-8b65-ad27bba96807
    linux /studio1337/vmlinuz root=UUID=89f2344f-918a-46cf-8b65-ad27bba96807 pmedia=atahd psubdir=studio1337
    initrd /studio1337/ucode.cpio /studio1337/initrd.gz
}

[geo_c]

If you're trying to run it from a frugal install without ever having booted it, here's an example GRUB2 entry:

menuentry "Studio 13.37 4.0 frugal install in nvme0n1p2" {
insmod part_gpt
insmod ext2
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 89f2344f-918a-46cf-8b65-ad27bba96807
linux /studio1337/vmlinuz root=UUID=89f2344f-918a-46cf-8b65-ad27bba96807 pmedia=atahd psubdir=studio1337
initrd /studio1337/ucode.cpio /studio1337/initrd.gz
}

Yes, really wierd, I noticed your example was very similar to what I already tried, minus the extra cpio scripting, and so I tried this one and I get the same result, kernel and modules appear to load OK, but no xorg.

It's gotta be a driver I would think.

I did notice when I shutdown without saving that I got a message saying something like "unionfs failed to mount" and I don't know if that message was from the shutdown routine or from the bootup. I didn't notice it on bootup, only while shutting down.

[l0wt3ch]

Does it boot from usb?

If your pc is too old or something (Studio 1337 4.0 runs on my ancient Acer Aspire, but not with good latency), it could be a kernel issue. Or, like you said, the drivers.

Be careful with that ucode.cpio though, if its in the menu entry but not in the right folder, it won't boot.

I guess you could try swapping out the kernel, to try to isolate the issue. Just replace the vmlinuz and zdrv files.

[rockedge]

@geo_c during the development of FristRib built operating systems like KLV-Airedale, and those first WeeDog's that used the JWM - Rox desktop combo, there were often moments after creation and attempting to boot, that the Xorg server refused to start. It was usually a permissions problem and/or the load sequence and execution order in .xinitrc of the last commands.

Of course it could be something else but let's start to troubleshoot by checking the permissions. Or missing system users.

[geo_c]

Does it boot from usb?

If your pc is too old or something (Studio 1337 4.0 runs on my ancient Acer Aspire, but not with good latency), it could be a kernel issue. Or, like you said, the drivers.

Be careful with that ucode.cpio though, if its in the menu entry but not in the right folder, it won't boot.

I guess you could try swapping out the kernel, to try to isolate the issue. Just replace the vmlinuz and zdrv files.

I haven't tried booting from usb because I haven't done any iso booting for a long while. But like I said, it does boot on bare metal, and I can poke around the rootfs in the console. I just can't startup xwin. I believe it's past the ucode.cpio stage at that point.

edit: I might try swapping out the kernel, also my pc is pretty new in puppy terms, probably 5 years old by now. Dell Optiplex 7090 Ultra

[geo_c]

@geo_c during the development of FristRib built operating systems like KLV-Airedale, and those first WeeDog's that used the JWM - Rox desktop combo, there were often moments after creation and attempting to boot, that the Xorg server refused to start. It was usually a permissions problem and/or the load sequence and execution order in .xinitrc of the last commands.

Of course it could be something else but let's start to troubleshoot by checking the permissions. Or missing system users.

xinitrc is located in etc right? I seem to remember that being loaded (or trying to load) when I would try to start xwin from the console.

[l0wt3ch]

I don't think permissions are the problem, as we're root.

Does BookwormPup64 work on your machine? Have you tried typing 'xorgwizard'?

[geo_c]

I don't think permissions are the problem, as we're root.

Does BookwormPup64 work on your machine? Have you tried typing 'xorgwizard'?

Yes Bookworm 10.0.7 is running on this machine. I tried the xorgwizard and all the options it offers, but no go.

[geo_c]

but let's start to troubleshoot by checking the permissions. Or missing system users.

In terms of permissions of the system files the a,b,f,y & z drvs all have executable permissions for both user:root and group:root.

The 1337_4.0.sfs has no executable permissions, read-write for user:root, and read-only for group:root

But perhaps you mean permissions of other files inside the OS.

[l0wt3ch]

Did you try changing the kernel?

Did you check the md5sum? Maybe its a bad download.

[Clarity]

Hello @l0wt3ch and @geo_c

I remember reading of this product in the past, but I am NOT a musician, so never pursued.

But reading of the struggles @geo_c is having, I decided to drop the ISO file on my SG2D USB and launch the ISO file from SG2D. All goes well all the way to desktop without issues.

Very nice and clean.

Hey @l0wt3ch that number "4" on the taskbar threw me , but all is well in the desktop's pristine layout. (smile)

No issues in operations to report. Session saves to Persistence. Nice.

Should you contemplate a future release, consider Hardinfo2 vs Hardinfo. All other admin tools work perfectly.

[Clarity]

This PUP traps when attempting to launch the ISO file from a Ventoy USB,

Is last message in the failure is "/1337_4.0.sfs not found."

Please test/advise.

[geo_c]

Did you try changing the kernel?

Did you check the md5sum? Maybe its a bad download.

Oh man, sorry guys, I've got a bad download, the md5sum doesn't match.

I'm pretty lax about checksums, I almost never have a problem with that.

[geo_c]

Did you try changing the kernel?
Did you check the md5sum? Maybe its a bad download.

Oh man, sorry guys, I've got a bad download, the md5sum doesn't match.
I'm pretty lax about checkisums, I almost never have a problem with that.

Well I successfully booted up Studio 1337 on a different machine, my HP Probook laptop. Very nice looking OS!

But still didn't get xorg launched on the Dell Optiplex desktop after insuring the downloaded iso was good. So next I'll take a look at the kernel, but one difference between the HP laptop and the Dell desktop is I'm using legacy boot on the HP laptop, (a menu.1st entry as opposed to grub2 EFI on the desktop.) That could have something to do with it I suppose.

So I'm guessing the xorg issue on the Dell desktop is firmware/kernel related if not having to do with the grub2 boot stanza.

Although I've swapped kernels plenty of times on KL's, I'm not sure how to go about it with a pup. Does the fdrv needed to be swapped also to match the kernel?

[geo_c]

duplicate deleted*

[rockedge]

Although I've swapped kernels plenty of times on KL's, I'm not sure how to go about it with a pup. Does the fdrv need to be swapped also to match the kernel?

It's basically the same procedure. Though on the Puppy Linux based 1337 make sure that the components of the kernel are named correctly to match those that are in the 1337 ISO.

The fdrv can be varied and the only restriction is the usrmerge - non-usrmerge file structures must be the appropriate one for the distro (probably non-usrmerge) and that the name matches those in 1337

I haven't tried this version yet on my Optiplex's but I will...is the owner correct for the Xorg server?

[rockedge]

But perhaps you mean permissions of other files inside the OS.

Yes it would be inside the file system. If the system boots it is possible to use a terminal file manager like mc or similar, or regular command line navigation to check file permissions and owners without the X server graphics running....old school

The Global version directory -> /etc/X11/xinit

But you are more interested in /root/.xinitrc

[l0wt3ch]

Well I successfully booted up Studio 1337 on a different machine, my HP Probook laptop. Very nice looking OS!

Although I've swapped kernels plenty of times on KL's, I'm not sure how to go about it with a pup. Does the fdrv needed to be swapped also to match the kernel?

What a coincidence, I just ordered a HP Probook. I'm glad my OS works on it!

To change the kernel, just swap out the vmlinuz and zdrv files with the ones from BookwormPup (renaming the bwp64 zdrv file to zdrv_1337_4.0.sfs), which work. If it still doesn't work, then we can rule out the kernel being the problem.