[GTALUG] Seeking help with a unique Linux project?

[o1bigtenor]

Greetings

I have been following this discussion with some interest due to both interest in
the msuical side and in the computational side.

On Mon, Jan 4, 2016 at 12:49 PM, Karen Lewellen
<klewellen at shellworld.net> wrote:
> Happy new year Blaise, everyone,
> Now that I am back in professional groove, let me speak to a couple of these
> in  context.
>
>
> On Tue, 22 Dec 2015, Blaise Alleyne wrote:
>
>> I don't think it'll make much of a difference for command line usage. The
>> differences are more in the graphical desktop environments, packaging and
>> distribution, etc.
>
> This certainly makes sense, and as you discovered from my list of various
> command line programs for various music creation, they are largely in stable
> Debian distributions already.
>
>> The reason I like KXStudio is that you can install the distribution on the
>> machine, *or* you can just add the KXStudio repositories to a supported
>> Debian
>> or Ubuntu installation.
>
> Again, you are the voice of practical reason.  granted,  I prefer installing
> the best Debian first then layering in the extras.  Some posts here in other
> therads though may suggest issues with Jessie.  I want this machine to
> automatically boot to the console, since i will not be using it directly.
> If Jessie now makes this a challenge, what is the best  and least difficult
> solution?

When it comes to software there seems to be very very rarely a best AND
least difficult solution. A good solution is often a lot of work and a solution
that is 'easy' isn't often very good.
>
>
>>
>> Since I was already using Debian (Jessie), it was convenient for me to
>> just add
>> the KXStudio repositories to my existing machine. (The only extra step was
>> getting the Liquorix kernel, since the KXStudio repositories don't include
>> a low
>> latency kernel.) That way I could have all the stability and familiarity
>> of
>> Debian, but with up-to-date audio packages, and KXStudio assistance in
>> optimizing configuration for real-time audio.
>
>
> Stability is 10000% the goal here, I do not want to spend  or lose allot of
> time because things do not work well together.
> I am simply not that solid in Debian and have never found locally in person
> training  in the operating system.


I think you can find some kind of web traingin fro RedHat and OpenSuse but
I think that's it. My experience has been gotten in this kind of fashion (using
a story to illustrate.)

A young man was hired to work in the bank (small local US bank here - -
its an OLD story!). He wanted to get ahead didn't want to appear stupid yet
wanted to learn. He had heard that the owner/manager/banker was a man of
few words but much wisdom. So he made an appointment to see his boss.
At the appointed time he arrived and was escorted into the inner sanctum.
After a brief greeting he asked, "How do I make get ahead?" having thought
that this question would give him the most mileage with the least amount of
time taken from his boss. The response, "Good decisions!" from his boss.

He left and spent time pondering this response whilst doing his work. After a
period of time he felt that he had the next question that needed his boss's
input. Again an appointment with this time the question being "How do I
know how to make good decisions?. His boss's response - - - "Experience."

Again he left and pondered further and still felt stuck. Yes he understood that
he needed good decisions to get somewhere and that it took experience to
make good decisions but He also understood that he was NOT experienced.
So he made another appointment. This time he asked "How do I get
experience so that I can make good decisions?". The response was very
pithy, being just two words - - - "Bad decisions!"

Therein lies all my experience with debian where I have been for about 10 years
now. Started well into adulthood as pcs came along when I was already in my 20s
I have found  that cycle of decisions made, found to be bad, wrong or
inadequate,
followed by my learning how to get out of the mess and then working
further to get
a solution that did/does what I want it to has become my normal.

snip
>
>> - package management, software updates: if you're familiar with
>> Debian/Ubuntu,
>> then you might prefer aptitude/apt-get to Arch's repository management, or
>> vice
>> versa. This is used for installing new packages, or getting updates to
>> existing
>> packages

I have worked from aptitude back to apt-get as well. Apt-get is always there,
even aptitude isn't always there.
>
>
> but this is my point, I have absolutely zero experience updating packages in
> this way,  certainly no positive efforts.
> I want to build this house for what I desire and keep using that house as
> long as possible without having to upgrade every time  Debian developers
> change their hair style if that makes sense.

This is a huge issue. Even better is the documentation that isn't or is for a
version that is 10 or 12 years old. I'm not sure its changeable because the
people that write the software don't care about this. Documentation is very
much an after thought, if and when it is. Hopefully you can find a guru or
mentor who is somewhat local so that you can call them easily so that you
might be ideas or help or maybe even just a shoulder to cry on. While I
think Debian is a viable operating system it does have its issues. (Please
note that I AM still using it!)

Hopefully you will persevere. It should be worth it if you do, if you don't you
will be no less frustrated than if you continue so enjoy the ride - - - it will
be interesting.

(Hoping the foregoing was encouragement rather than anything else!)

Dee