Can't get JACK to work in S15Pup64

[yolhurt]

I haven't been able to get any JACK-based program (installed from the PPM) to work in S15Pup64.***

The latest case of this has been with the program Guitarix, which gives me a "Warning, the jack server is not running" message on start up, followed by "I really tried to get jack up and running, sorry..." when I try to activate it.

I'm used to Windows when it comes to audio stuff and don't really have much idea about JACK on Linux (you could say I know jack about it).

Could anyone give me any pointers on what I might need to do to get JACK working? I'm running a frugal install on a Thinkpad X230 laptop.

Thanks for any help.

(*** = to be honest, I haven't been able to get hardly anything from S15Pup's PPM to work).

[geo_c]

I dabbled with SC15 a bit, and since it's using slackware repositories, the offereings there I found very slim. I'm under the impression that slackware is geared more toward those who like to compile applications rather than rely on precompiled packages. I could be wrong.

I'm a professional musician and have been using a puppy remaster/derivative called jackalpup for several years in my studio. I don't use MSwindows at all, just puppies, Kennel Linuxes, and such. Jackalpup is the OS that gave me the green light to erase windows from all my machines.

@puddlemoon decided to take a break from maintaing it as a public distro and isn't active on the forum currently, but it's a solid running distro that is a remaster of fossapup64_9.5. So it's solid. I use it all the time. It's fully configured with jack server running out of the box, and most known linux jack compatible applications built in.

The main topic thread is here: viewtopic.php?t=1148

You should be able to download it from here: https://archive.org/details/Puppy_Linux_jackalpup

And it installs and boots like any other pup. You should be able to create a bootable install using SC15.

[yolhurt]

Thanks for the recommendation. Been a bit busy in the last couple of days but I'm going to download that distro and check it out later today. I have previously tried another audio-dedicated Puppy found in the forum (can't remember the name) and ran into similar problems with JACK. Hopefully I'll have more luck with Jackalpup.

[geo_c]

Thanks for the recommendation. Been a bit busy in the last couple of days but I'm going to download that distro and check it out later today. I have previously tried another audio-dedicated Puppy found in the forum (can't remember the name) and ran into similar problems with JACK. Hopefully I'll have more luck with Jackalpup.

Like I was saying, jack will be running out of the box, but jack has a bit of a learning curve. It works great when you know how to use it. Basically, it will be set to use your default audio card, so if you're using an outboard interface, you may have to choose it in the jack settings.

At any rate, in jackalpup, it's all installed and running properly. Now I also may be personally using one of the earlier versions, as you can see from the topic there is a version using real time kernel, and one using a low latency kernel, or at least they are available. I use the rt kernel as I use virtual instruments.

If at some point you want to use the exact version I'm using, I can copy my system directory and upload it, because I know my version is rock solid.

Being real time though, and having the default cpu scaling set to performance, it will run the cpu on the hot side.

[mikewalsh]

@yolhurt :-

As @geo_c says, Jackalpup is indeed a very solid Puppy-based DAW. Now, he knows I've mentioned this one before, and I'm going to do so again; another Puppy DAW worth exploring is Studio 13.37, from long-time Puppy veteran musician 10wt3ch ("lowtech").....a member of the Linux Musicians forum for many years.

He started developing this all the way back in the days of Slackware 13.37 - hence the name. It's been updated several times over the years; the current 'final' version is based on Bionicpup64. 10wt3ch had his own web-site at one time, and made a wee bit of pocket-money by charging a modest fee for supplying a good-quality USB flash drive with Studio 13.37 pre-installed. The web-site is no longer extant.....and the final version was freely available here on the Forum a couple of years back, but the links are now dead.

If you'd like to try this out, I archived a copy of it on my Google Drive at the time. It's well worth investigating, since I've never seen so much audio-video software in one place in my life.......seriously!

You can find it here, if interested:-

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Entirely your decision, naturally. As far as I can tell, JACK is set-up and working correctly here, too.

Mike.

[mikeslr]

Keep the following in mind: Puppys --even when you deploy them to a hard-drive-- are designed as portables. They don't need their own dedicated partition; only their own folder; best one which is on a Linux formatted partition. So you don't have to choose between puddlemoon's jackalpup and 10wt3ch's Studio. Just download both ISOs, Left-Click those and copy their respective contents into their own folders. As you are running S15Pup64, you install grub2config-2.0.1, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewto ... 703#p29703 into S15Pup65 --if not already built-in-- run it and it will create a boot-menu from which any operating system on your computer can be booted.

Both puddlemoon and 10wt3ch are talented programmers as well as musicians. If there's a problem it's not likely to be with those applications but simply because no Puppy may run OOTB under all computers. Don't hesitate to seek assistance.

I didn't know the last version of Studio was based on Bionicpup64. It's a couple years older than jackalpup. That shouldn't deter you. The only applications which need to be frequently updated are web-browsers. And both can use the current Web-browser's Mikewalsh packages as portables. You'll find an almost complete list of current Mike's portables here, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=5104, web-browsers as well as other applications that may interest you.
In addition to those, if you find that you want some other applications the first place to look is in the Additional Software Section, https://www.forum.puppylinux.com/viewforum.php?f=7 or ask, preferably before you use any other means to obtain applications.