Downloads



Prior stable version: 1.0 R2 Stable CD (video edition included) [2007-06-02]

Current stable versions: 1.0 R3 Stable CD (video edition not included) [2008-04-06] and 1.0 R4 Stable DVD (all kind of apps) (2008-05-24)


French: Annonce du lancement de Musix 1.0 Stable

1.0 R2 general info

Thanks to the support of the Ututo Proyect, FSF, Ourproject, and to the usual collaborators, the Musix project has just released Musix GNU+Linux 1.0 R2, a new version of the 100% Free Software Multimedia Operating System for artists and general users.

Index

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Download

Direct download: MusixGNU+Linux1.0r2_Stable.iso

md5: 844d9a9570e8d36b5eb5e0a8adfadf07

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Release announcement, Musix 1.0 R2 Stable

image:musix_is_out.png

After 2 years of hard work, the Musix project team is proud to announce the release of the first stable version of Musix.

Musix is a 100% Free Multimedia Operating System derived from Knoppix and Debian/Stable, designed for artists as well as general users. Musix is specialized in audio and music production, but it also includes high quality software for graphics, video edition and many other tasks.

This new release includes the Linux Kernel 2.6.21. The documentation was updated and many important applications were upgraded (among those: Ardour 2.0.0.2, Rosegarden 1.5.1 and the Musix's Control Panel). Some new programs were also installed (MScore, Nekobee and more). Many bugs were corrected and some new functionality added.

The start-up system has been improved, (the "knoppix" boot argument and other options were added).

The graphical artwork in the user interface and the functionality were improved: now it is really easy to change colour themes. KDE and GNOME applications look almost identical using the same colour palette and icon theme (crystalsvg). Now applications like The GIMP (GTK2) and Rosegarden (KDE) appear user-friendlier.

Software featured in Musix 1.0 R2 includes: Ardour 0.99.3 & Ardour 2.0.0.2 (audio sequencer), Rosegarden 1.5.1 (audio/midi sequencer), Cinelerra (video edition), Bluefish (web design), The GIMP (image manipulation), Inkscape (vectorial graphic design), Blender3D (3D rendering and animation), Musix Control and more.


image:Ardour2_small.jpg

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Project Goals

Musix is concluding its "0.xx" stage by achieving all the proposed objectives set at its creation 2 years ago:

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Future versions: Musix 1.0 Live-DVD

This version will contain bug-fixes as reported by users of Musix 1.0 R2. Better language support (60 or more) and various multimedia and office applications (for example Amarok and OpenOffice).

At the same time, we plan to make a Portuguese remasterization and to continue with the development of test versions of the traditional Live-CD (these will be probably be called "Musix-testing_year_month").

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Leadership , collaborators and users

It is good to announce that the music teacher Gilbeto Borges is now part of the Core Team, he developed the Musix's Control Panel and many other packages, but his merit is related to the politic point of view about the free software's role into our society: http://www.musix.org.ar/wordpress/?p=94

In this way, we hope that proyect's decisions could be more democratic, retaining our ideology: 100% free software as in freedom, software for the masses.

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Collaborators

We must highlight the great level of collaboration in the last times: the Linux Kernel is builded and packaged by the finnish musician Tapani Raikkonen, developer of SuomiKnoppix, the backports (Debian/Stable) and new apps are packages by the spanish musician Carlos Pino, the argentinian musician Ariel Errera has re-arranged the Fluxbox's menus and its functionality, take part on the Musix's docs maintenance and, especially, he did a good job by making KDE and GTK2 apps icon-theme compatibles; the spanish musician Arturo Borrero Gonzalez is now supporting the new Forums... and many other collaborators worked in important tasks.


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Contact and Help

There are many ways if you are looking to get in touch with us, in spanish or english language, see: https://www.musix.org.ar/wiki/index.php/Ayuda

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System and desktop startup

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Languages

We must remark the improvements in language support, specially German and Portuguese, as well as improvements for Finnish, Polish, Italian, Catalan, French and Serbian.

image:roxlanguages1.jpg

The Rox-Filer file manager, supports 22 languages. Once installed, the system can support at least 60 languages for KDE programs, provided by the kde-i18n-* packages. The user even can install a language support package from the Live-CD.

From the welcome screen, several options are offered. For example, the possibility of making different audio and video autodetections: "xorgmusix" runs a suitable video autodetection for most computers, but "knoppix" will make the usual autodetection if we wished that.

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Booting the Live-CD

These boot methods were added:

These boot options (also called "cheatcodes"), can be added, for example: 

xorgmusix repair noalsaconf kdm lang=es

will call Xorg video autodetection, it will repair file systems, it will avoid alsaconf sound autodetection and finally will open the KDM session administrator with the system configured in Spanish (lang=es).

Let's see another example: 

knoppix lang=en dma

The system will start the traditional way, using the Knoppix video autodetection, the language will be English (lang=en) and will work with direct memory access (DMA) to accelerate the read/write in storage media (discs).

Imagen:Musix1.0-welcome-screen.jpg

Spanish-speaking users can simply press [enter] from the welcome screen, and the system should start straight away: all these cheatcodes were created to solve problems, improve performance with certain hardware combinations or change de default language.

The users of other languages, will see the corresponding options in the first welcome screen and in the KDM session administrator (if "kdm" is typed at the beginning). For more information, press F2, F3, F4, F5, or F6.

Imagen:Splashy_Musix1.0R1.jpg

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Video

Since Musix 0.99 we added the Xorg's video autodetection method as a new "boot argument" (also called "cheatcode") for the Live-CD: 

xorgmusix dma lang=en

That way the system starts in English (lang=en) and is likely to perform a better video autodetection, even achieving 2D and 3D acceleration with no need to install or to configure anything in some computers. This video autodetection method is not the default one. It only works if the user orders it, and is in testing phase.

If you want to avoid this autodetection step, you should boot the system in this way (some examples):

musix dma

english dma

knoppix dma lang=fr

portuguese dma

failsafe

videovesa dma lang=pt

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Sound

In some computers it may be necessary to disable alsaconf's autodetection. This can be done after installation by typing in a terminal as root: 

rm /etc/rcS.d/S50sndconf-musix.sh

This will also speed system boot time. If this causes an incorrect configuration of the ound hardware, one can re-activate alsaconf autodetection by typing: 

ln -s /bin/sndconf-musix.sh /etc/rcS.d/S50sndconf-musix.sh
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Updating without reinstalling

Musix 1.0 R2 should be able to update a previously installed version without reinstalling the whole system. This can be achieved only from the package updater of the Knoppix installer in graphic or text mode.

Basically, the update consists on selecting from the "Synaptic" program what software packages appear as new, and proceed to their replacement. You should also be looking for packages that are not installed in the hard disk from the old installation.

This is an experimental process, and it is recommendable to reinstall all the system if we want to fully use the characteristics of the new version.

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Summary

Musix 1.0 Stable tries to offer the greatest possible amount of 100% free software multimedia applications for creative users who need to produce their work in different multimedia formats.

For instance: nowadays for a music group it's not sufficient to record a song, but perhaps they need to also design a Web site, film and to publish a video and design the cover of their CD or DVD.

Musix is a complete "artist's production factory", suitable for classroom work at educational institutions, graphic design, recording studios, video editing, at home, institutions or companies of any type.

imagen:Musix1.0rc1-rosegarden640x480.jpg

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Full changelog

http://www.musix.org.ar/wiki/index.php/Musix1.0r1tasks

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Musix 1.0 R2 advices and bugs

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Finnish desktop

The "finnish" cheatcode [boot argument] will not work, but: we have a basic support for finnish language: Rosegarden and other apps will run in finnish, but you must start Musix 1.0 R2 adding "kdm" to the boot argument, for instance:

knoppix lang=fi kdm dma

xorgmusix lang=fi kdm dma

failsafe lang=fi kdm dma

Then, just select a Finnish Desktop from the KDM's welcome screen.

Printers

apt-get update
get-more-print-packages

On the other hand, the user will have to use Kuser to add itself to the different groups that will give him permission to print or to use other devices like, for example, some modems.

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Compiling software

restore-dev.sh

In the case of trying to compile drivers, it is necessary to install kernel headers, this script will do it too. Download it from this link, save it on /usr/sbin/, then type "chmod +x /usr/sbin/restore-dev.sh", and then you must execute it as root user.

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New kernels

The Linux kernel 2.6.21 is an stable kernel prepared to work with JACK audio connection kit on real-time tasks. However, we have an even more optimized kernel available, ready for installation through apt-get or synaptic.

Installation can be accomplished by typing in a terminal (as root): 

 apt-get update
 apt-get install linux-image-2.6.21-rt7

It is likely that Tapani Kaikkonen continues compiling new optimized kernels for real-time work, a good way to search for them is typing in a terminal: 

 apt-cache search linux-image

Announcements regarding the availability of new kernels can be found in the mail-list or in the BLOG

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Inconsistent Filesystem Structure

Note: this bug is only present into Musix 1.0 R2

apt-get update; apt-get install nosavedefault

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Usage examples

Musix GNU+Linux is being used in Brazil, United States, Spain (in several places), and Costa Rica, just to name some countries. Musix is also being used in music's classrooms in some schools, for a start, this gives teachers and students the possibility to use free cultural and technological tools. This means that they would be able to make use of these tools and the 4 freedoms provided by the free software licence.

Also Musix is the system used in Palau Firal de Congressos de Tarragona, Spain

In these 2 years, Musix has been mentioned in several articles worldwide, maybe the most remarkable is Keyboard Magazine article, which aims at GNU/Linux & audio in general and it has been discussed in DIGG and Slashdot.

Updated: Musix on "Der Spiegel" (The Mirror); is Europe's biggest and most influential weekly magazine.

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Download recommendations

It is recommended to use a download manager, since it helps to manage resources better. You can use graphical managers like kget or gwget, or "wget -c" from a text console (terminal).

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Translators

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