Filed under: Audio, Video, Linux, Open Source
Ubuntu Studio announced for April release
by Chris Brentano Jan 22nd 2007 at 10:55AM
Aimed at being a "multimedia editing flavor of Ubuntu for the Linux audio, video, and graphic enthusiast or professional", Ubuntu Studio was announced this week, with the goal of building a solid multimedia distribution based on Ubuntu's custom flavored Gnome environment. Planned packages include the Soma Suite, Cinelerra, Jahshaka, and Wired, so far. I'm sure, or at least hope, that other popular tools such as Audacity and Blender will be included as well.
This is not the first media-oriented Linux distribution (see dyne:bolic, Studio to Go!, and 64 Studio) and hopefully not the last. Democratization of media editing tools, especially in regards to user-friendly Linux distros, is a good thing in my book. Have you used any open source media creating tools, and if you have what has your experience been? What areas do you think some are better than their commercial counterparts, or where can they improve?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
whynot said 5:30PM on 1-22-2007
Hope they will facilitate the installation of non free audio & video codecs... Quite painful under ubuntu at the moment.
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Khuffie said 12:25PM on 1-22-2007
So...instead of releasing a packaged application that includes all the aforementioned apps that can be easily installed on the default Ubuntu distribution...they're releasing yet another Linux distro?
Why?
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Bryan said 1:32PM on 1-22-2007
I have never used any of those apps on my linux distribution, but I will check them out. I am with Khuffie. We don't need another distribution for this. What I would like to see in Linux is a photo editor that is more powerful than FSpot, and less cluttered and confusing than The Gimp (In the gimps defense, PhotoShop is not any easier). I shudder to say it, but for an average user, Microsoft Digital Image has been the easiest photo editor to use by far.
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albert said 1:48PM on 1-22-2007
It would be nice if they would just pick one best-of-breed package for each class of software, rather than kitchen sinking the distro.
Otherwise, what's the point? I can install any of those packages anyway.
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emory said 7:32PM on 1-22-2007
While i like the idea all those apps bundled together, I'm with everyone else that it could just be released as a package, not a new distro. BUT I understand the uses of a new distro, based primarily on media. JMTC what linux needs is Picassa. Plain and simple
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Chris Brentano said 9:38PM on 1-23-2007
I can definitely see your points, Khuffie and Jan. For most Linux users, selecting and installing the packages you want to run your system is trivial. But for non-technical folks, it's quite the opposite. Sure, things are a LOT easier with handy tools such as Yum and YaST2, but they still require some know-how. If a musician or artist on a tight budget can get their work done with an easy-to-install (maybe with the help of a friend) Linux distro with an easy to use desktop interface, then that has not only created a new Linux and open source user, but it has also empowered that person as well. It sure feels a whole lot better than plunking down $800 for a commercial version of an equivalent piece of software!
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Viss said 6:01PM on 1-23-2007
Er, I dont think its another distro - I think its just regular ubuntu thats been skinned and comes with apps.
If the thing had a different kernel, was a different version of underlying linux, or otherwise structurally/architecturally different then I'd consider it a different distro.
Regardless, with the power of apt-get you can make any ubuntu installtion this buff :)
(provided we find out the distro names for the nifty new software)
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Hone Money said 1:09AM on 1-24-2007
I agree Linux needs Picassa even though I mainly use The GIMP Picassa is just so much easier to use.
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Bob said 11:50AM on 1-24-2007
Google has Picassa for Linux. Still in "labs" but it's available.
http://picasa.google.com/linux/
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Khuffie said 4:45PM on 1-24-2007
Chris, my point being is since they are specifically targetting Ubuntu in their distro, what's the point in creating yet another ubuntu variation on top of the many linux flavours out there? Ubuntu is easy to install, and since this would be targetted at Ubuntu, all that would be needed is for them to create a simple installer with all the packages required for the studio, and voila, problem solved!
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lefty.crupps said 2:31PM on 1-25-2007
I agree with Chris. Not everyone understands the way software is installed on a Linux system ("what, I don't double-click something?") and many are wary of the quality of something free, even if its Free. The whole model of Open Source and Free software is a strange idea.
But by showing a potential user the applications that deal with exactly what they're interested in (in this case, video), running on their own computer, and they can have it all, now, for free... well, that makes for a much more inticing piece of pie. No need to install the base, and then find the repos for a dozen other applications, and then issue some long command to install them. Why show the users the ugly boring side, just to show them the pretty apps at the end?
Live CDs are a way to show off the amazing software that the FLOSS community has created. Using Ubuntu in this project is no different than SuperGamer DVD being based on PCLinuxOS. Keeping the Ubuntu name just helps spread familiarity with the Ubuntu brand AND with its well-known base, Linux (yes, and GNU).
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mentok said 12:51AM on 2-02-2007
If the kernel is realtime and premptive, I can't wait! Ubuntu yet has a realtime kernel available, especially since they also have a bunch of patches and such, and the only way to use Ubuntu with a realtime kernel is top compile it yourself...
Image musicians, artists, videographers with a realtime system at their hands for all their content creation, free and simple, of course they may need to learn a little about jack, but just image the possibilities :)
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