AV Linux 2019.4.

10

USER MANUAL

by Glen MacArthur

DISCLAIMER (PLEASE READ) :

Debian/GNU Linux comes with no guarantees so consequentially neither does AV Linux. I accept no responsibility for any
hardware/software malfunctions or data loss resulting from its use. It is important to note that the AV Linux ISO may contain
software that is non-free and may be distributed under special licensing arrangements with the original developers, re-distributing
the AV Linux ISO with the non-free content included is a violation of these licenses. AV Linux may potentially contain Multimedia
Codecs that may be under patent in certain countries, it is the users responsibility to know the law as it applies to their own respective
country before downloading or installing.

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 BOOKMARKS :

➢ AV Linux 2019 - A Fresh Start !

➢ ISO Info
➢ Running AV Linux Live
➢ AV Linux Basic Booting Bible
➢ LiveISO Login
➢ Live Session Limitations
➢ Important Pre-Installation Info
➢ Installing AV Linux
➢ Post-Install Virtualbox Guest Additions Removal
➢ Adding/Changing Locales Post-Install
➢ XFCE4 Whisker Menu
➢ XFCE4 Settings
➢ Thunar File Manager
➢ System Administration Basics
➢ Changing User and Group ID’s
➢ Changing System Keyboard Settings
➢ Slim Login Manager
➢ Performance Settings
➢ Monitor and Display Settings
➢ Proprietary Video Drivers in AV Linux
➢ Kernel Notes and Options
➢ Audio/MIDI Setup *Recommended Reading!
➢ Ardour/Mixbus Initial Setup
➢ Carla Plugin Host Setup
➢ Running Windows Audio Software
➢ Saving and Restoring JACK Connections
➢ DRM Web Content
➢ Quick Updating Browsers
➢ Debian Stretch
➢ Software Updates *Recommended Reading!
➢ Software Management
➢ Managing Software Repositories
➢ Pinning or Holding Packages
➢ Systemback Restore
➢ Debian Reference
➢ Handy Terminal Commands
➢ Thanks and Acknowledgements

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 AV Linux 2019 – A FRESH START! :

What AV Linux 2019 is, and what it ain't…:

This '2019' version of AV Linux represents numerous significant changes and differences from
previous versions briefly detailed in these notes. Essentially AV Linux is a downloadable and installable
shared snapshot ISO image based on Debian/GNU Linux pre-configured to facilitate use as an Audio and
Video production workstation OS. It is really intended to just be that simple, an AV production system
prepared and shared by a single user with some practical experience in setting such things up. It is NOT
intended to be a bona-fide full and proper “Linux Distribution”, as its sole maintainer I have no special
training or any credentials as a Linux System Administrator and am merely doing this in my spare time
as a hobby. The implications of this are that AV Linux is provided 'as-is' with absolutely NO guarantee
of any kind to function on any given computer, or any guarantee of regular, sustained or future
development .

Now hold on a second, that sounds pretty bleak doesn't it…? Bear in mind that you are reading this
statement in a complete User Manual and can voice your concerns in an Online User Forum, so please
let's just mutually understand that I like doing this, I want to do this, but 'real life' may intervene and I
may occasionally need to keep my focus elsewhere and therefore I can't in good conscience make any
promises about the permanence of AV Linux. OK, phew…I feel better now... are we good?

Components of AV Linux and differences from stock Debian/GNU Linux :

➢ Originates from 32bit and 64bit snapshots of Debian Stretch… PLUS

➢ Trulan Martin's Custom Realtime Preempt Kernel.
➢ CPU governed for performance by default.
➢ Optional choices of Liquorix or Debian Kernels.
➢ Some special custom packaging not found in default Repositories.
➢ Full XFCE4 Desktop Environment with attractive customizations.
➢ falkTX's KXStudio Repositories for up to date Audio Applications.
➢ Extensive Audio/Video and Administrator-friendly Thunar Custom Actions.
➢ Complete JACK Audio/MIDI environment with PulseAudio Integration.
➢ Robust Environment for developers: Compilers, Package scripts, GIT, SVN, BZR, + dev libs.
➢ Choice of GCC5 or GCC6 Compilers.
➢ Mozilla builds of Firefox and Thunderbird.
➢ An abundance of various GTK and Window Manager Themes.
➢ Customized scripts for convenience and tons of other stuff I probably have forgotten..

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 ISO INFO :

ISO Size Info :

Why is it so big!? <insert obligatory joke here>. I often get asked why AV Linux ISO's are significantly
larger than <insert obligatory Distro name here>. Here are a few reasons:

➢ My priority is functionality and attention to detail over size for its own sake.
➢ AV Linux uses a more relaxed ratio for its compressed Live filesystem than mainline Distros.
➢ 'Bundled' apps that are self-contained are much larger than apps that use the system libraries.
➢ AV Linux ships with a full development environment for developers and experienced users.
➢ Hundreds of hidden Audio Plugins are included, many are fairly large in size.
➢ None of the extra 'bulk' in AV Linux affects performance, it is still light and efficient to use.

Straight Talk on 32bit+PAE and 64bit :

64bit has replaced 32bit as the defacto Desktop computer architecture, some other OS' now only
support 64bit, for this reason and in response to user requests AV Linux now comes in both 32bit and
64bit architectures. If you have a reasonably new 64bit CPU computer with more than 4Gb of RAM then
your first choice will be to use the 64bit version of AV Linux. That said… one big misconception that
plagued the previous versions of AV Linux is that 32bit is always inferior and has no use-case with 64bit
CPU equipped computers and this is not accurate. There are of course valid technical 'whitepaper'
reasons that 64bit outperforms 32bit, however in the real world for users who aren't pushing the limits
of their system memory then the differences between 32bit+PAE and 64bit are virtually invisible. For
instance 64bit is unlikely to run more Audio tracks or Render a Video file any faster than 32bit+PAE on
the same hardware, those are factors related to CPU clock speed and HDD performance, not
necessarily the CPU architecture and memory handling capacity. The 32bit version of AV Linux has a
kernel with Physical Address Extentions (PAE) which allow it to use up to 64Gb of RAM, the bottleneck
with this is that any one running process can only access 4Gb of RAM, where misunderstanding comes
into play is that a small percentage of Users will have a workflow under normal conditions that will
require a single process to access more than 4Gb of RAM. Two possible scenarios where this can happen
are using very large audio sample libraries (ie GIG, SFZ, Drumgizmo) that cache the samples to RAM and
don't use disk streaming, assuming your system has 4Gb of RAM if the combined size of your running
programs and the samples cached in RAM exceed 4Gb then the system will become unstable and be
forced to run in its 'swap'. Other common scenarios are if you are running multiple Virtual Machines (ie
in 'VirtualBox') or doing heavy duty 3D Compositing in 'Blender', in cases like this you will not want
accessible system RAM to be a limiting factor. On the other hand if you are doing most common types
of Audio and Video work then you don't necessarily have to use the 64bit version of AV Linux on a 64bit
computer. As an example if you want to use 'ArdourVST' (Ardour built to use Windows VST Plugins)
then it is only available and possible to use on the 32bit+PAE ISO of AV Linux and can be used quite
easily on a 64bit computer.

The point here is not to confuse or promote one architecture over the other, simply to separate facts
from fiction so you can make an informed choice of what is best for you..

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Differences between the 32bit and 64bit ISOs :

At a casual glance you are not likely to see much difference between the 32bit and 64bit versions of
AV Linux, but there are a few minor differences noted here:

➢ The 32bit version has the XFCE4 Panel postioned at the top and 64bit has it at the bottom.
➢ The 32bit version has no Chrome Browser because Google discontinued 32bit support.
➢ The 32bit version has no KPTI ‘Meltdown’ security kernel patch, there is no upstream patch.
➢ The 32bit version does not support UEFI boot.
➢ The 64bit version is 'multiarch' and may have some extra required 32bit packages included.
➢ The 64bit version supports UEFI Boot (May not work on all UEFI Systems!)
➢ *UEFI boot needs further testing and feedback, User Input Needed!

Verifying the ISO Download with MD5sums :

When you download the AV Linux ISO you will see that in the server download folder is the actual
'isotester-avlXX-201X.X.X.iso' file containing the operating system and an accompanying '.md5' text file.
You should download the both the 'iso' and 'md5' files, you should be able to right-click and use 'Save
target as' for the md5 file. Before running AV Linux Live or installing it on your computer you
should verify that the 'md5sum' of your ISO download matches the md5sum on the download
server. This will ensure that you have a complete and proper download of the ISO as well as confirming
that you haven't downloaded a compromised ISO that has been maliciously tampered with.

For verification we use the 'md5sum' Terminal command. As an example let's say you downloaded the
64bit ISO to the 'Downloads' folder in your user's home folder. Open a Terminal and 'change directory'
to the 'Downloads' folder like this:

cd Downloads

Now run the md5sum command on the downloaded 64bit ISO file :

md5sum isotester-avl64-2019.4.10.iso

Of course if you've downloaded the 32bit version then change the filename to 'avl32' accordingly. The
terminal will calculate the md5 'hash' and then print it in the terminal. It will be a long string of numbers
and letters and show the ISO filename at the end. If the hash generated by the terminal matches the
hash in the md5 text file you downloaded you are good to go.

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Verifying With SHA256sum :

A last minute addition to AV Linux 2019 is the inclusion of even more secure ‘SHA256’ checksum files
with the ISO files. These will be in the download folder along with the MD5 files and for an extra
measure of safety you can also run ‘sha256sum’ on the downloaded ISO file in the same way as what
was just described in the previous section on Md5 files. The main difference is the command changes
from ‘md5sum’ to ‘sha256sum’.

Again using the example of the downloaded 64bit ISO to your 'Downloads' folder in your user's home
folder. Open a Terminal and 'change directory' to the 'Downloads' folder like this:

cd Downloads

Now run the sha256sum command on the downloaded 64bit ISO file :

sha256sum isotester-avl64-2019.4.10.iso

As before if you've downloaded the 32bit version then change the filename to 'avl32' accordingly. The
terminal will calculate the sha256 'hash' and then print it in the terminal. It will be an even longer string
of numbers and letters and show the ISO filename at the end. If the hash generated by the terminal
matches the hash in the sha256 text file you downloaded you can be confident you are getting the
authentic ISO file.

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 RUNNING AV LINUX “LIVE”

AV Linux can be used “Live” in 2 different ways with no changes to the host machine operating it, by
running it from a LiveDVD or using a Bootable USB Key.

LiveDVD:

➢ Download the AV Linux ISO file from http://www.bandshed.net/avlinux

➢ Burn the ISO file to a DVD-R or RW using your existing Burning Software.
➢ Set your Computer BIOS to Boot from your DVD Drive if it doesn't by default.
➢ Reboot into the AV Linux LiveDVD.

METHOD 1 - Bootable USB Key with ‘DD’ (Suggested Method):

Requirements:

An existing AV Linux install OR a running AV Linux LiveISO session

PC Capable of booting from USB Key with block sizes greater than 1024mb
At least 4GB USB Key
AV Linux ISO image from here: http://www.bandshed.net/avlinux

Bootable USB Keys can be created with the AV Linux DD LiveUSB Writer in the ‘Accessories’ Menu. This
unique tool uses ‘DD’ to create an 'ISOhybrid' USB Key. Please note that this tool overwrites any
existing USB FAT32 or other filesystem and writes the actual ISOhybrid image itself to the key. This
means the Key will no longer be usable for Data storage, however you can use the USB Key Tool to
overwrite the ISOhybrid image as many times as you want. This USB Key Tool will only work with
ISOhybrid images. The AV Linux ISO comes ready to use as a formatted ISOhybrid image. USB Keys can
be returned to normal storage use with ‘Gparted’. Rewriting an MSDOS partition table and then
formatting the Key to a FAT32 filesystem will allow it to be used for data storage again.

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METHOD 2 - Unetbootin Method

Requirements:

PC Capable of booting from USB Key

At least 4GB USB Key
Latest AV Linux ISO image from here: http://www.bandshed.net/avlinux

This guide is written assuming you are using an existing AV Linux install, however any current distro
with GParted and Unetbootin will work. This operation will utilize the entire USB Key so use a key you
don't want to share data on other computers with and remove any important data from the key. I would
also suggest you use a clean key without any U3 or other proprietary launching software on it, most
manufacturers provide utilities to remove this.

STEP 1.
Insert your USB Key into the USB Port but don't mount it (or unmount it) in the File Manager. From the
menu go to 'Preferences'-->GParted and launch GParted.

STEP 2.
Using the drop down dialog in the upper right corner of GParted select your USB Key. MAKE SURE YOU
KNOW WHICH DRIVE YOUR USB KEY IS!!

STEP 3. (DO WITH CAUTION)

Select any existing Partitions on the Key, Right Click on them and delete them until the Key is
completely unallocated space.

STEP 4.
Create a new FAT32 partition on the USB Key equal to or slightly larger than the size of the AV Linux
ISO. In the remaining unpartitioned space create an ext2 or ext3 partition and in the 'label' field enter
'live-rw'.

STEP 5.
Click on the checkmark icon at the top of GParted and apply the partitions you have created to the key.

STEP 6.
Once GParted has finished creating your new partitions right click on the FAT32 Partition and select
'Manage Flags' and from the list select 'boot'. When you close the Flags dialog Gparted should quickly
rescan and display the boot flag on your FAT32 Partition. Close Gparted.

STEP 7.
Remove your USB Key and then plug it back in. Then open the File Manager, you should see 2 partitions
available to mount relating to your USB Key you can mount them both but you only need to mount the
FAT32 one. Hint... it is the one not called 'live-rw'.

STEP 8.
From the menu open 'System'--->Unetbootin. Select the Diskimage option and navigate to where you
have downloaded or placed the ISO Image file and Click OK. Unetbootin will take several minutes to
copy the image and bootloader to your Key.

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Adding Persistence to the Key:

If you simply want AV Linux on a USB Key without persistent storage you can stop here. This will give
you the partition AV Linux runs from and a small additional partition to store files on while you are
running it. For persistence there are a few more steps and a few things to consider:

- Persistence will dramatically slow bootup time the first boot after enabling it.
- Persistence may cause the system response to be a little slower than a non-persistent Key.
- Installing AV Linux from a persistent Key has NOT been tested and may not work.
- Do not remove your persistent key when prompted until it stops flashing.

STEP 9.
Mount the FAT 32 Partition of your Key (if it isn't already) in the File Manager and navigate to the
'syslinux.cfg' file. Right click on it and open it in Mousepad and modify its text in line 9 like the example
below, once done save the edited syslinux.cfg file and you are ready to boot into your new Key. Enjoy!

append initrd=/ubninit boot=live config threadirqs quiet splash persistent --

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 AV LINUX BASIC BOOTING BIBLE

When Booting an AV Linux ISO :

1. Be patient...This is a large ISO it can take several seconds to start the boot especially on LiveDVD
media.

2. Watch for disk activity, if you see nothing immediately on the monitor but there is disk activity it is
still working on the boot.

3. Closely observe the Kernel console text output for red text errors, warnings and even many regular
console colored errors are normally harmless. AV Linux doesn't use a bootsplash is so the User can
monitor what the Kernel is doing at boot.

4. The SliM Login window may take a few seconds to show up, possibly even longer when using a
LiveDVD vs a Bootable USB Drive.

5. If the desktop partially loads OR the display resolution is wrong or corrupted it is most likely a Kernel
Modesetting/Video Driver issue which is covered in more detail below.

Common Boot Failure Gremlins :

1. A corrupted or broken ISO image on the Project ftp server.

This is extremely unlikely and rare and is easily ruled out by a single successful install by an end-user,
AV Linux is pre-tested by a third party before any release is made public to make sure the ftp ISO
images are intact and functional.

2. A bad download of the ISO image.

This is not common, but quite possible and can be verified by using the accompanying ISO.md5 file
from the ftp download folder. Another simple indication is if the file sizes on both the ftp and the
downloaded file match perfectly.

3. A bad burn of the ISO to disk media.

This is usually the most likely cause of boot failure and is generally evident when the disk does nothing
at all or freezes after displaying a few lines of console text which may be accompanied by numerous
console red error messages. Always burn any compressed filesystem media like ISO images at low burn
speeds (i.e. 4X or less) and make sure to use good disk media. If a LiveDVD fails try it on a different
computer, this is the number one way to discern if your media is bad or not or whether your computer
has a specific hardware issue with the LiveDVD.

4. Incompatible Video Hardware and Kernel Mode Setting (KMS).

This issue is generally evidenced by the Kernel completing its console output and dying at the login or
unsuccessfully trying to load the Desktop and/or displaying the Desktop at a very low or garbled
resolution. AV Linux 6.0.4 can be booted to disable KMS by selecting the 'Failsafe' option from the
ISOlinux LiveDVD boot splash screen.

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 AV LINUX LiveISO LOGIN :

Login Username and Password Required:

AV Linux 2019 requires a login to the LiveISO, when the LiveISO finishes booting and proceeds into the
SliM login screen you will need to enter the following Username and Password:

AV Linux 32bit :

Username: isotester
Password: avl32
Root Password: avl32admin

AV Linux 64bit :

Username: isotester
Password: avl64
Root Password: avl64admin

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 LIMITATIONS OF LIVE SESSIONS :

Due to some changes in how AV Linux LiveISO's are built there are now some limitations when running
AV Linux live from both DVDs and USB keys. The live session should be looked at as an opportunity to
kick the tires of AV Linux, to see how it works, if it supports your PC hardware and to demo some of the
great included applications. It is not really recommended to use AV Linux live for actual production for
the following reasons:

➢ The audio latency performance of Live sessions is noticeably higher than that of installs to
HDD. The cause for this is unknown but it seems to relate to how the Bootable ISOs are created
by Systemback. By default the Live ISO is set for a conservative latency of 1024fpp, depending
on your hardware AV Linux once installed to hard disk should easily run at significantly lower
latencies. Performance may potentially be further impeded by the necessary ‘KPTI Meltdown’
kernel security patch.

➢ The LiveISO contains a well-rounded collection of applications but there are literally thousands
more in the included repositories that are available after installing AV Linux, if you require
applications that are not included on the ISO as provided then you will need an internet
connection to enable installing and updating applications.

➢ By default the AV Linux LiveISO runs in English with the English keyboard map, if you need a
different keyboard map during a Live session please see the 'Changing the Keyboard Settings'
section of the Manual.

➢ By default the 'Performance' CPU Governor is enabled, this is an absolute 'must have' setting
for working with Audio and may negatively impact battery life to a small degree on laptops.

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 IMPORTANT PRE-INSTALLATION INFO! :

Systemback and GPT Partition Table Support:

AV Linux 2019 utilizes the Systemback Installer which at the time of this writing does not support
formatting of and installation to Hard Drives with ‘GPT’ partition tables in BIOS or legacy-boot mode.
GPT can be used in many newer computers in UEFI mode but it has not been tested as widely.

Installation on UEFI Secure Boot Computers:

In the past computer boot management and system hardware configuration outside of the installed
Operating System was handled by the ‘BIOS’ (Basic Input Output System) but in recent years as a
security feature the ‘UEFI’ (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) has come to be the new standard.
UEFI manages booting with ‘Secure Boot’ software and requires any new Operating Systems to be
installed on the computer to have a digitally signed ‘.efi’ file that can be verified by the Secure Boot
software. At the time of this writing Systemback has no UEFI support for 32bit, 64bit has preliminary
support.

Summary and Potential Workarounds:

Generally speaking installation of AV Linux 2019 will currently be best suited to computers with Hard
Drives formatted to the MSDOS partition table and BIOSes that pre-date UEFI OR have options in the
BIOS to disable or circumvent Secure Boot.

At the time of this writing Systemback has unfortunately ceased development and is currently still
functional in AV Linux with some held packages, prayers and duct tape. There are some UEFI utilities
included in Debian Linux but Systemback predates them and they have not been fully tested to work or
be compatible with Systemback.

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 INSTALLING AV LINUX :

*WARNING!! - The following section involves major system changes like hard drive partitioning etc.
There is always a risk of Data loss or corruption when installing a new or different Operating System.
ALWAYS back up any important Data before making changes to your existing Hard Drive!

Systemback Installation Info:

Installation of AV Linux is now handled by 'Systemback' which is an excellent Linux Backup utility which
contains an Installer as well. While it is not really intended to be an ISO tool for Distribution creation it
does the job required to get AV Linux from ISO to the target system. Systemback's installer is not like a
complete Distribution installer and does not provide setting up of locales etc. during the install
process, it merely provides some basic disk formatting tools, copies the Live ISO Image as-is to the
target machine and then installs the GRUB Bootloader. Users who require a locale and language
support other than the default English will now find that installing AV Linux and setting it up for non-
English locales is a 2-step process: Step 1 is to install the Live ISO. Step 2 is to use the ' AV Linux
Assistant' to set up language, keyboard and locales after installing.

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Superuser not sudo :

*PLEASE NOTE! AV Linux does not use 'sudo' it uses the pure Debian Root Superuser and User method.
When installing and setting up AV Linux you will need to have a separate and unique password for your
Root Superuser to administrate the system and a regular User password for normal system use.

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 Installation on Older BIOS-based Systems or with ‘legacy-boot’ enabled :

This is an example of installing AV Linux running in a Live session preferably running off of a USB Key,
this example will go from formatting and partitioning the hard disk all the way through to rebooting
into the new system. This is how you would install AV Linux on an older computer with a BIOS that
predates UEFI or a computer with a ‘legacy-boot’ that allows booting without UEFI. The 32bit version of
AV Linux can only be installed this way. Installing on a UEFI boot computer is covered here.

Once logged into to a Live session launch Gparted to set up a partition table and create disk partitions
to install to. For simplicity and clarity we are assuming AV Linux is the only OS to be installed on the
computer and we are using two primary partitions with AV Linux being installed on a single root ‘/’
partition with an additional swap partition.

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 Gparted will need to run with Root privileges so you need to enter the AV Linux ISO Root password,
‘avl64admin’ for 64bit and ‘avl32admin’ for 32bit.

The hard drive in this example case has no partition table or partitions so we are starting from scratch,
for this mode of install we want to create an ‘msdos’ partition table from the Gparted ‘Device’ menu. If
you are installing to an existing hard disk with data already on it this step will erase all data.

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 Once the partition table has been written we can right-click on the unallocated space to create our
new partitions, we want one ext4 (sda1) partition for the operating system and one linux-swap (sda2)
partition.

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 Create an ext4 partition with 1024mb free space following to prepare room to create the linux-swap
partition. Once you have created the 1024mb linux-swap partition in the remaining unallocated space
click the ‘Apply’ button to write the partitions to the disk.

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Before closing Gparted we want to right-click on the (sda1) ext4 partition and add a ‘boot’ flag.

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If everything has completed successfully we can verify our new partitions in Gparted and close it.

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 Now that the hard drive has been partitioned we are ready to use Systemback to install AV Linux from
the Live session to the Hard Drive. Launch Systemback from the Whisker menu and click on the ‘System
Install’ button.

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23
 Enter your name, username and a separate and distinct password for your user and the root user, you
can also create a hostname, this is the name the computer will display on a network and at the terminal
prompt.

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 In the ‘Partition Settings’ window we set up the partitions and mount points for install. In the example
below we set the mount point for the ext4 (sda1) partition as ‘/’ and check ‘Format’ to clear the
partition, once you have set the mount point click the green arrow button to apply the settings. It is
also suggested to uncheck ‘Transfer user configuration and data files’ to allow some system defaults to
be incorporated in the install.

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 Set the mount point for the linux-swap (sda2) partition to ‘SWAP’ and apply the change with the green
arrow button. Once the partition settings are done the ‘Next’ button will become active and you can
start the install. The ‘Install GRUB 2 bootloader:’ dropdown box should say ‘Auto’ and not be greyed
out.

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 Installation from USB key should take 20 minutes or less and will also look after installing the GRUB 2
bootloader.

Once the system install has completed you can close Systemback and boot into your new system
whenever you are ready!

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Installing on UEFI computers :

Once logged into to a Live USB session launch Gparted to set up a partition table and create disk
partitions to install to. For simplicity and clarity we are assuming AV Linux is the only OS to be installed
on the computer and we will use three primary partitions, a 128mb FAT32 EFI boot partition at (sda1),
an ext4 (sda2) root partition to install AV Linux to and last a ‘linux-swap’ (sda3) partition. AV Linux 32bit
cannot be installed on UEFI computers unless they support ‘legacy-boot’. AV Linux 64bit can be installed on
either UEFI or older BIOS-based computers.

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Gparted requires Root privileges so enter the 64bit LiveISO Root password; avl64admin

We can use a GPT partition table for UEFI boot, create one from the ‘Devices’ menu. If you have
existing data on the Hard Drive creating a partition table will erase the disk!

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 Once the partition table has been written we can create partitions on the disk to install to, we need a
128mb FAT32 EFI partition at (sda1), a single ext4 (sda2) partition for the operating system and one
linux-swap (sda3) partition. Right-click on the unallocated disk space to create the new partitions.

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 First create a 128mb primary partition and format it to FAT32, this will be the boot partition that
contains the EFI boot files.

Next create a primary partition and format it to ext4, create 1024mb of free space to follow to make
room for a swap partition.

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Lastly in the 1024mb of remaining unallocated space create a primary linux-swap partition.

Hit the Apply button to write the changes to disk.

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 Once the partitions have been successfully created and written to disk right-click on the (sda1) FAT32
partition select ‘Manage Flags’ from the menu and check off ‘boot’ this will automatically select ‘esp’.

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 Now all partitions will be visible in the main Gparted window, once you have verified that they are
created correctly you can close Gparted and move on to installation with Systemback.

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Now that the hard drive has been partitioned we are ready to use Systemback to install AV Linux from
the Live session to the Hard Drive. Launch Systemback from the Whisker menu and click on the ‘System
Install’ button.

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36
 Enter your name, username and a separate and distinct password for your user and the root user, you
can also create a hostname, this is the name the computer will display on a network and at the terminal
prompt.

37
 In the ‘Partition Settings’ window we set up the partitions and mount points for install. Before we get
to that in an UEFI install it should be noted that the ‘Install GRUB 2 bootloader’ dropdown is greyed out
but beside it Systemback hints that we need to set a mount point as ‘/boot/efi’. This is pertaining to the
first FAT32 (sda1) partition.

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 In the example below we select and set the mount point for the intended EFI FAT32 (sda1) partition as
‘/boot/efi’ and check ‘Format’ to clear the partition, once you have set the mount point click the green
arrow button to apply the settings. You will notice that once you have applied the settings the GRUB 2
bootloader dropdown will change from greyed out to ‘EFI’. It is also suggested to uncheck ‘Transfer
user configuration and data files’ to allow some system defaults to incorporated in the install.

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Next set the mount point of the ext4 (sda2) partition to ‘/’ and apply it with the green arrow.

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Lastly set the mount point of the linux-swap (sda3) partition to ‘SWAP’ and apply it with the green
arrow. Now that all partitions are set up and you can proceed with the install.

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Installation from USB key should take 20 minutes or less and will also look after installing the GRUB 2
bootloader to the ‘EFI’ folder.

Once the system install has completed you can close Systemback and boot into your new system
whenever you are ready!

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*Last Resort Manual GRUB-efi install in case the above doesn’t work.

Reboot AVLinux Live from USB, this step is important because running from the Live USB will allow us
to make changes to the partitions we created previously.

Mount the ext4 sda2 partition:

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt

Mount the FAT32 sda1 partition:

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot

Now run this command:

for i in /dev /dev/pts /proc /sys /run; do sudo mount -B $i /mnt$i; done

Now change root on the /mnt directory:

chroot /mnt

Mount sda1:

mount /dev/sda1 /boot/efi

Install/Reinstall grub-efi:

apt-get install --reinstall grub-efi

Install grub to the partitioned drive:

grub-install /dev/sda

Make grub generate the changes in it’s config

update-grub

Verify the install:

efibootmgr --verbose | grep debian

References:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2/Installing#via_ChRoot
https://wiki.debian.org/GrubEFIReinstall

If you’re installing in Virtualbox there is a problem with the Interactive shell to be aware of.
https://askubuntu.com/questions/566315/virtualbox-boots-only-in-uefi-interactive-shell

43
 POST-INSTALL VIRTUALBOX GUEST ADDITIONS REMOVAL :

AV Linux is built in Virtualbox ‘Virtual Machines’ and utilizes ‘Guest Additions’ for full functionality with
the Host machine. The Guest Additions modules are left in AV Linux because they don’t do any harm
and are actually useful to people who may try AV Linux out in Virtualbox. When AV Linux boots on a
computer that isn’t a Virtualbox host the modules are not initialized and will display a notification on
when logging in to the Desktop and will aslo display a red warning in the kernel boot progress text.
These notifications and warnings are harmless and will not impact performance at all.

It is important to note that the Virtualbox Guest Additions are now automatically removed when Live
booting or installing AV Linux on computer hardware systems, installations in Virtualbox Virtual
Machines will retain the Guest Additions for convenience.

44
 ADDING LOCALES AFTER INSTALL :

Post-Install Setup using the AV Linux Assistant :

The Systemback installer used to install the Live system to HDD simply copies the running Live session
as-is. If you require a different language and keyboard layout once AV Linux is installed you can use the
'AV Linux Assistant' to assist you with adding your locale and system keyboard settings.

45
 WHISKER MENU :

Customized Menu :

AV Linux 2019 uses the XFCE4 'Whisker Menu' which allows you to browse Applications as you would
in a regular Menu as well as providing a Search bar that you can type the name of the Application into.
The Menu categories are customized using the KXStudio Menu which has been prepared to help users
get to the applications they are looking for quickly and differs significantly from the stock XFCE4 menu.

46
 XFCE4 SETTINGS :

The settings for XFCE4 are accessed by using the 'Settings Manager'. Find it by either typing 'Settings'
in the Whisker Menu search bar or navigate to 'Settings' → 'Settings Manager'.

47
 You can change how the system looks with the 'Appearance' settings. This will allow you to set the GTK
theme, system icons, system fonts and some menu related items. AV Linux comes pre-loaded with a
large amount of themes and colors to choose from.

48
 The Window Manager themes are not set in the 'Appearance' dialog, they have a separate 'Window
Manager' applet in the Settings Manager.

49
 Change your Desktop wallpaper and other settings with the 'Desktop' applet in the Settings Manager
or alternatively right-click on the Desktop and select 'Desktop Settings' from the Menu. Most common
image file formats will also give you the ability to 'Set As Wallpaper' when you right-click on them.

50
 THUNAR FILE MANAGER :

The Thunar File Manager included in XFCE4 is extremely useful and for AV Linux has been customized
and extended with Custom Actions to do MUCH more than simply manage files. As you navigate the
System you will see there are numerous options when you right-click on the Desktop and in folders ,
more different options appear when you right -click on certain file types. Custom Actions enable many
tasks including system administration, media playing, media conversions, networking and more! A
summary of the Custom Actions is shown below, most options are self-explanatory. Some will be
explained further on following pages.

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Choice of Compilers :

A unique Custom Action feature of interest to developers and those who like to compile their own
programs is the ability to choose which 'gcc' version to compile software source code with. The AV
Linux kernel is currently compiled with gcc-6 so to build modules (ie for VirtualBox) it is important that
gcc-6 is used. You may find that for compiling newer versions of programs you require gcc-5 or even
gcc-6 which has significant ABI changes while older programs may need to be compiled with a gcc-4.9.
Don't forget AV Linux is OOTB developer-friendly containing most common build systems, source code
tools and development libraries.

52
One-Click Samba Sharing on Your Network :

*PLEASE NOTE!! - This will expose any folders you enable for sharing on your Network with
permissions for ALL users on your Network, if you are concerned about the security of your network, or
are not sure which files you are making available DO NOT enable Samba sharing! It is also not
recommended to share the root directory of a drive and all its contents on a Network.

Right-clicking on a folder in Thunar will allow you to 'one-click' share it on your network.

53
 Once you have enabled sharing on the folder you should be able to see it on your network by going to
'Browse Network' at the bottom of the left-hand pane of the main Thunar Window. The computer you
are using should appear in the Network by its hostname. If you select the named Computer the shared
file should appear with any other shared folders on the system. It is important to note that the folder
you right-clicked on to share will not look any different when viewed in Thunar. In order to remind
yourself that you have shared it you may want to right-click on it, select 'Properties' → 'Emblems' and
attach a sharing emblem to the folder.

54
Creating an SFZ Library :

Two very handy Custom Action Menus exist to quickly and easily create two kinds of Sound Libraries
right from within Thunar, the workflow in principle is similar for both but for the Manual I'll quickly go
over an example to create an SFZ Sound Library.

First you'll need all your recorded samples collected together in one folder, the better job you do of
sequentially naming your samples the more accurate the end result will be. In the example picture
below you will see a folder of samples to be made into an SFZ. In this case the intent is to have 5
velocity-layered samples assigned to each key so taking '36-CajonCenter-1.wav' as an example you can
see the '36' is the intended key note number, the actual sample name is next and '1' is the layer
number, meaning on key 36 the quietest sample to be played is '36-CajonCenter-1' and the loudest
sample to be played will be '36-CajonCenter-5'.

55
 After your samples are organized and ready navigate to your samples folder with Thunar and right-
click within the folder.

56
 You will then see an interactive X-Terminal open a script with prompts to follow, it will be very
beneficial to know ahead of time how you want your SFZ formatted. Some options you will have during
the process will be to choose if you want every individual sample mapped to a single key or multiple
samples mapped to a key, whether you want 'one-shot' or 'looped' modes and many more SFZ-specific
features and details.

57
Convert Audio Files With PACPL :

You can quickly and easily convert Audio files from one format to another with the integrated PACPL
Custom Action. When you right click on an Audio file in a folder you will will see the option to “Convert
Audio Files” as one of the menu options. Pretty much all common options for conversion are supported.

58
 When you select this option from the menu a dialog will appear with a listing of available codecs to
choose from, clicking on the left side of the dialog will select the codecs you want. If you want to
tweak the bitrate options for some codecs you can edit the configuration file for PACPL in
/etc/pacpl/pacpl.conf. To open this file for editing right-click on it and select 'Edit Text As Root' which
will prompt you for your Root password and then open it for editing in 'Mousepad'. Once you have made
your changes don't forget to save them in Mousepad.

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 DEBIAN SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION BASICS :

Simple Commands for SysAdmin Tasks :

As a Linux user I used to wonder why XFCE4 and other light Desktop Environments didn't have any
fancy graphical tools for common tasks like adding or removing users and password changes. After
learning how simple the actual Terminal commands were I could see that trying to put these tasks into
a GUI could potentially make them more confusing and time consuming than they really need to be. In
this section I've tried to demonstrate the most commonly used SysAdmin commands.

To add a new User to your system and create a new folder for them in the System '/home'folder you
need to know what the new User's name will be and run this command in a Root Terminal:

adduser <USERNAME>

Obviously you replace '<USERNAME>' with the actual User name, when you execute this command you
will be prompted for some more information and when finished the new users folder will be created in
the system '/home' folder.

To add a system user to a 'Group' on the system (ie the 'lpadmin' Group to allow printing) then use this
command in a Root Terminal:

adduser <USERNAME> <GROUP>

To add a Group to the System use this command in a Root Terminal:

addgroup <GROUPNAME>

To remove a user from the System you use this command in a Root Terminal:

deluser <USERNAME>

To remove the User and their User folder from the systems '/home' add this:

deluser <USERNAME> --remove-home

To remove a User from a Group use this command:

deluser <USERNAME> <GROUP>

To change your 'Root' Password use this command in a Root Terminal:

passwd

To change a User's Password use this command in a Root Terminal:

passwd <USERNAME>

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 CHANGING USER AND GROUP ID's :

How to change ‘UID’ and ‘GID’ for System Users :

By default the primary user on a Linux system is assigned a numerical User and Group ID (a.k.a. ‘UID’
and ‘GID’) of ‘1000’, additional users are assigned numbers in excess of 1000 (ie 1001, 1002, etc). File
and folder ownership permissions are assigned to the User and Group that created them. A scenario
where this may come into play is if you are a secondary user and the primary user has been removed
from the system now making you the new primary user/System Administrator, the files of the primary
user will all have UID’s and GID’s of ‘1000’ so since you are a secondary user with a UID/GID of ‘1001’ you
will not have ownership permissions of any files associated with User or Group ‘1000’. To fix this you’ll
need to change your UID/GID.

AV Linux 2019 has scripts to ease the changing of User and Group ID’s for situations where it is necessary,
it is highly recommended to not use these scripts unless you know exactly what you are doing.

In order to be used these scripts must be run as Root outside of the ‘X’ graphical environment in the
the basic system Console this ensure that no files to be changed are being used by the graphical
Desktop Environment. There are 2 ways to login to the bare Console:

1. Boot the system and select ‘Advanced Options’ from the initial GRUB Boot menu, then select
‘Recovery Mode’ in the Kernel Boot choices. When the computer completes it’s boot in recovery mode
you will arrive at a login prompt to the Console, in some cases you may need to hit the ‘Enter’ key on
your computer keyboard to initiate the login prompt. Once prompted enter your Username as ‘root’
and then enter your Root password. You are now logged in to the Console as Root and can proceed to
run the scripts

2. If you are using your computer you can use the Ctrl+Alt+F3 key to get out of X, you will then be
presented with a bare Console login prompt and can enter the Username ‘root’ and your Root
password at the Console prompt.

Using the UID/GID Scripts :

It is very important to note that you use these scripts for the regular Username you log into the
system with. As an example we are changing the UID/GID for a User named ‘tester’ from ‘1001’ to ‘1000’.
Once logged in to the Console as Root enter this command to change your UID:

ChangeUID.sh

This will launch an interactive script which will indicate the syntax required.

ChangeUID.sh [username] [oldUID] [newUID]

To demonstrate our example from above complete the command and fill in the required information
like the example below, then hit ‘Enter’:

ChangeUID.sh tester 1001 1000

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 Depending on the size of your Hard Drives and number of files on your system it could take the scripts
several seconds to a few minutes to find and change the file ownerships. It is normal to see some
warnings and terminal output about files located in ‘/proc’.

We are not done yet, so far only the User ID’s have been changed, we now need to to also change the
Group ID’s. You must change both User ID’s and Group ID’s. Group ID’s are done with a different script, as
before we will use the example of the ‘tester’ Group being changed from ‘1001’ to ‘1000’.

ChangeGID.sh

This will launch an interactive script which will indicate the syntax required.

ChangeGID.sh [username] [oldGID] [newGID]

To demonstrate our example from above complete the command and fill in the required information
like the example below then hit ‘Enter’:

ChangeGID.sh tester 1001 1000

As before, depending on the size of your Hard Drives and number of files on your system it could take
the scripts several seconds to a few minutes to find and change the file Group ownerships. It is normal
to see some warnings and terminal output about files located in ‘/proc’.

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 CHANGING KEYBOARD SETTINGS :

Changing the Keyboard Layout for Other Languages :

To set the keyboard for a different language during a LiveISO session open a Terminal and use the
'setxkbmap' command with the accompanying 2 letter code for your language. The screenshot below
shows the command for French (setxkbmap fr).

63
 To permanently change the keyboard setting in an AV Linux install use the Keyboard setting utilities
found in the AV Linux Assistant. You can also change the System keyboard manually by opening a Root
Terminal from the Accessories menu and editing the configuration file in /etc/default/keyboard with
this command:

mousepad /etc/default/keyboard

Change the Model and Country codes within the quotes to the correct ones for your Country and save
the changes.

XKBMODEL="pc104"
XKBLAYOUT="us"
XKBVARIANT=""
XKBOPTIONS=""

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 SliM LOGIN MANAGER :

Setting SliM For Autologin :

AV Linux features 'SliM' as its default login manager. SliM has a very light system footprint and is still
quite configurable by editing its configuration file in /etc/slim.conf. The example below will cover the
most popular configuration request...autologin.

First open a Root Terminal from the 'Accessories' Menu and enter:

mousepad /etc/slim.conf

To enable autologin two separate variables must be changed in slim.conf. Scroll down the file to find
the following line:

# default_user

To set yourself as the default user remove the '#' comment from the beginning of the line and then add
your username, USERNAME is used here as an example:

default_user USERNAME

If we leave the file like this then on next login it will automatically enter your username but still require
your password, to have autologin work fully you need to edit the autologin line:

# auto_login no

Once again remove the '#' comment and change the 'no' to a 'yes' like this:

auto_login yes

When you have completed editing the slim.conf file click 'Save' in the Mousepad Text Editor and
autologin should be active on your next login.

*PLEASE NOTE! - SliM does NOT support remote login, if you require remote login it is recommended
to install 'lightDM' from the Debian repositories and configure it as the default login manager.

65
Setting SliM Default Session Using Other Desktop Environments :

Open a Root Terminal from the 'Accessories' Menu and enter:

mousepad /etc/slim.conf

Scroll down the file to find the following line:

login_cmd exec /bin/bash -login /etc/X11/Xsession %session

Change '%session' to the start command of your desired other default Desktop Environment.

Command Examples For Some Other Common Light Desktops:

default,startxfce4,openbox,ion3,icewm,wmaker,blackbox,awesome

66
 PERFORMANCE SETTINGS :

CPU Governor Settings :

Governing the CPU in AV Linux is set by the 'cpufrequtils' configuration file found in /etc/default. For
Audio work it is NOT recommended to change this setting.

NEW! Change CPU Governor Settings Dynamically :

For those who want to conserve battery life in a laptop or want the flexibilty to change the CPU
Governor on-the-fly AV Linux 2019 now has the Korakios ‘Set CPU Governor’ Utility in the ‘Settings’
Menu.

67
Power Management :

To change settings related to System power consumption use the XFCE4 Power Manager found in the
‘Settings’ Menu.

68
NEW! System Check for Additional Performance Parameters :

AV Linux 2019 has added Raboof’s ‘Realtime Quick Config Scan’ in the ‘System’ menu as a useful
graphical way to check and verify important Linux-centric performance configurations on the system,
by default AV Linux is pre-configured to pass all of the various configuration parameters.

69
 MONITOR AND DISPLAY SETTINGS :

AV Linux uses an application called 'Arandr' to handle setting the monitor screen resolution and also
for setting up Dual-head displays. Arandr can be found in the 'Settings' menu. To change and select the
monitor resolution right-click on the rectangle within the Arandr window that represents the Video
output and display you are using. If you are using more than one output and display there will be more
than one rectangle present within the Arandr window.

*PLEASE NOTE! - To use Dual-head for certain nVidia and AMD Video cards it may be necessary to
have Proprietary Video Drivers installed which is not possible with the AV Linux RT Kernel.

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Making a Persistent Dual-Head Setup :

If you have a permanent setup with Dual-head monitors you may want to have the Arandr
configuration settings automatically start it up for you when you boot up your computer. This is
possible but requires some extra steps and placing a '.desktop' launcher in
/home/<YOURUSERNAME>/.config/autostart. Here's how to do it:

➢ Start Arandr configure the displays as desired.

➢ Save and name your configuration from the 'Save As' menu (ie dualhead.sh).

➢ 'dualhead.sh' will be saved in /home/<YOURUSERNAME>/.screenlayout by default.

➢ Find your created 'dualhead.sh' in the '.screenlayout' folder and right-click on it.

➢ Go to 'Properties' -->'Permissions' and make sure 'Allow executing file as program' is checked.

➢ In your home folder right-click and 'Create Document' → 'Empty File' and name it
'dualhead.desktop'.

➢ Right-click on the 'dualhead.desktop' file you created and 'Open with Mousepad'.

➢ From the example below copy and paste the Launcher text into the 'dualhead.desktop' file.

➢ Change the yellow highlighted '<YOURUSERNAME>' to your actual User name.

➢ Save your changes in Mousepad

➢ Copy the 'dualhead .desktop' file to /home/<YOURUSERNAME>/.config/autostart.

➢ On reboot your ArandR configuration should be automatically loaded.

Example 'dualhead.desktop' Launcher File :

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Categories=System
Terminal=false
Icon=
Name=Dualhead
Exec=/home/<YOURUSERNAME>/.screenlayout/dualhead.sh
Comment=Autostart Dual Monitors

71
 PROPRIETARY VIDEO DRIVERS IN AV LINUX :
*PLEASE NOTE! - PROPRIETARY VIDEO DRIVERS ARE NOT COMPATIBLE WITH DEFAULT 'RT' KERNELS!!

Install the optional AV Linux ‘lowlatency’ kernel :

Proprietary Video drivers are not installable with ‘RT’ Kernels which AV Linux uses by default for the
best performance. If you are not experiencing any problems relating to Video drivers on your system
then it is recommended to just use the default Xorg AMD and Nouveau video drivers. If you feel it is
absolutely necessary to install 3rd party Video drivers then the first step for compatibility is to install
the optional AV Linux ‘lowlatency’ kernel. To do this go to Menu→’System’ →’Synaptic Package Manager’
and in Synaptic’s ‘Quick filter’ search bar enter one at a time:

“linux-image-4.9.76-lowlatency-avl2”
“linux-headers-4.9.76-lowlatency-avl2”

Select these packages to install with Synaptic and install them.

The SGFXI Script:

The installation of proprietary 3D nVidia and AMD video card drivers is handled by a 3 rd party script in
AV Linux called SGFXI. Proprietary drivers are not supported and are to be installed at the risk and
discretion of the user, potentially very new Video cards or very old legacy Video Cards may not be
supported by SGFXI! AV Linux provides this method to help facilitate the installation of proprietary 3D
drivers since some users may want this option and Debian Linux has no tools to handle this operation
other than for the stock Debian Kernel which AV Linux does not use.

Setting Up Network Connections Correctly for SGFXI (only if necessary) :

SGFXI obtains and installs the Video Drivers on your system as the Root user, this means that any
Network Connection employed by SGFXI must be available to both the logged-in Session user and also
the Root user. For this to work it has to be explicitly enabled in the Network Manager on whichever
Internet Connection you are planning to use whether it is Wired, WiFi, DSL or USB Adaptor BEFORE
running SGFXI. To do this right-click on the 'Network-Manager-Applet' in the Systray section of the
XFCE4 Panel, in this example we are editing the 'Auto Ethernet' wired connection.

72
 This will take you the 'Network Connections' dialog where you can select the connection you want to
edit by choosing its tab. In the example we have selected 'Wired Connection 1' and highlighted its
connection. Next click the 'Edit' button at the right side.

73
 Once the 'Edit' button is clicked you will be taken to the Connection Editing dialog where you must
ensure the 'All users may connect to this network' checkbox is selected. Upon selecting it (if it is not
already selected) you may be prompted to enter your Root password. Now log out and log back in or
reboot to ensure the new settings have taken hold and then run SGFXI as detailed in the next section.

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Running SGFXI :

SGFXI cannot be run in a regular Desktop session it has to run in the bare system console. In order to
run SGFXI this way you need to shut down the graphical XFCE4 Desktop Environment by hitting the Ctrl,
Alt, F2 keys simultaneously. Your system will then go to the basic system console where you will be
prompted to login. Since SGFXI requires running with Root privileges you need to login as 'root' and
then enter your root password. If a login prompt doesn't immediately appear in the console you may
need to hit the 'Enter' key to display the login prompt. Once you have successfully logged in as ‘root’
then at the console command prompt run SGFXI by typing:

sgfxi

When SGFXI launches carefully read and follow the screen prompts.

*PLEASE NOTE! - In the case of nVidia Video cards since SGFXI needs to blacklist the Xorg ‘Nouveau’
driver module it is sometimes necessary to run SGFXI twice in a row to completely install the nVidia
proprietary Video drivers. In this case SGFXI will most likely run the first time and obtain the drivers and
when you are prompted to log back in the computer will fail to use the new driver and leave you at the
bare console unable to login. The reason for this is that SGFXI cannot both install the drivers and
blacklist modules from the Xorg Video drivers at the same time. Although this is somewhat
cumbersome usually logging in as 'root' and running SGFXI again will allow the driver installation to
complete.

SGFXI is quite flexible and can be run with many optional commands as listed below which were taken
from the help file which can be accessed in a terminal by typing 'sgfxi -h':

Return the system to Xorg Video Drivers :

In the event that driver installation does not complete properly or you wish to go back to the Xorg
drivers then follow the steps above to log in to the bare system console as root and run:

sgfxi -! 32

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 KERNEL NOTES :

Default RT (Realtime Preempt) Kernel :

AV Linux offers a range of choices for post-install Kernels, by default it features the performance
advantages of a custom RT Kernel. AV Linux 2019 features optionally installable ‘lowlatency’ kernels
which will support the installation of 3rd party proprietary Video card drivers. Updated AV Linux Kernels
can be installed from the AV Linux Kernel Repository which is enabled by default in the AV Linux 2019
Software Sources. If for some reason you require features that are not in the AV Linux kernel it is
possible to install the 'Liquorix' kernels or the stock Debian kernels using Synaptic Package Manager. It
is strongly recommended to only change or update your Kernel if absolutely necessary.

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Cheatcodes Enabled By Default in AV Linux :

threadirqs - force-threaded irq handlers (realtime preemption)

Threaded irq's have long been a major part of the RT_PREEMPT patchset, and can offer significant
benefits for low latency audio uses. Use this parameter unless you have a really good reason not to.

transparent_hugepage=never - turn off hugepages (a new memory management feature)

Transparent hugepages should be useful in memory intensive applications, such as virtual machines,
databases, and possibly video editing. If ultra-low latency is desired, it seems to be best to disable
them. Use this parameter if you want to squeeze the lowest latency possible out of your audio chain.

noresume - stops system from resuming from hibernation

This option is enabled on the LiveISO image to suppress the “running /scripts/local-block...done”
message from displaying and delaying login. If you have problems with hibernation you may want to
remove this option after installing AV Linux.

To Be Enabled Optionally :

noautogroup - disable auto cgroup scheduling

The famous "200 line patch that does wonders", aka SCHED_AUTOGROUP, is useful when cpu-intensive
tasks, such as make, are being done in a terminal, while the desktop is in use. Use this parameter to
disable it if you think it is causing problems.

nopti - disable Kernel Page Table Isolation patches (aka the Meltdown mitigation)
This option is only recommended if you use your computer solely for Audio and Video work and do not
have it connected to the Internet. This will disable protection from the ‘Meltdown’ security threat.

Example grub kernel command line:

threadirqs transparent_hugepage=never noresume quiet

Making GRUB-2 Add the Boot Flags Automatically :

1. In a Root Terminal:

mousepad /etc/default/grub

2. Add the desired boot flags to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT line, like this:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="threadirqs transparent_hugepage=never"
3. Then run in a Root Terminal:

update-grub

4. Reboot

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 AUDIO & MIDI IN AV LINUX :
*Recommended Reading!*

PulseAudio with JACK :

It cannot be overstated that AV Linux differs significantly from your usual Linux Desktop in its handling
of Audio routing and subsystems. AV Linux relies on the low-latency Jack Audio Connection Kit (a.k.a
JACK) for its powerful interconnectivity. JACK is a low-latency sound server which runs on top of ALSA
(Advanced Linux Sound Architecture). ALSA is the basic 'driver' level of Audio hardware support and is
both integrated in the Kernel itself as well as being a core component of the Operating System. By
default many distributions and Desktop Environments install the ‘PulseAudio’ Audio server, in recent
years PulseAudio can be made to peacefully coexist with JACK and AV Linux makes this easier by pre-
configuring JACK and PulseAudio to work together with a custom ‘pajackconnect’ script .

Setting things up with Qjackctl :

The most initially confusing thing for many people getting started with Linux Audio is how to get the
applications they want to use to 'see' (or perhaps hear) their Audio device. Reading this section will
hopefully facilitate getting everything to 'just work'. The biggest step required of the user is to identify
and select the Audio device they want to use, after that most of the complexity is looked after for you.

The easiest way to setup the JACK Audio server is to use the JACK Control app (a.k.a. Qjackctl). It can
easily be launched from the XFCE4 Panel or Whisker Menu. To setup your Audio device click the 'Setup'
button.

The 'Setup' Window has multiple tabs which we will go over one at a time, the 'Settings' tab is where
we initially select and set up the device we want to use with JACK in the 'Parameters' tab. To the left is
the 'Driver' select dropdown box. Internal, PCI, and USB 1.1 and 2.0 Audio devices require the 'alsa'
driver and FireWire devices require you to select the ‘alsa’ or 'firewire' driver (depending on the firewire
driver being used). It is essential that the 'Realtime' checkbox is selected. Next we need to select our
desired Audio device from the 'Interface' dropdown box.

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79
 In the 'Interface' dropdown box we will see a list of available Audio devices on the system, generally
speaking whatever appears in the dropdown box should be supported to use with JACK, below is an
example with multiple ALSA devices on a system to illustrate what to look for.

In the example picture above we can see that the system has a ‘USB Audio CODEC’ device at 'hw:0' and
an iRig DUO USB Audio device at ‘hw:1’

Underneath the 'Interface' dropdown box we can set the 'Sample Rate' , 'Frames/Period' and
'Periods/Buffer'. By default AV Linux is pre-configured for a Sample Rate of 44100, 512 Frames/Period
and 3 Periods/Buffer. Potentially these default settings will work OOTB for most users but may need to
be changed depending on the performance of your hardware. The the most influencial number is
'Frames/Period'. If you are experiencing Audio dropouts or 'Xruns' you may need to increase from '512',
conversely if you want to have lower 'latency' you can decrease from '512' until Xruns reappear. The
'Periods/Buffer' figure is dependent on the Audio device type, USB and Internal Audio devices generally
perform best at a setting of '3' Buffers and PCI (e) Audio devices require a setting of '2'. Once you are
happy with your settings you can start JACK by hitting the 'Start' button on Qjackctl.

*PLEASE NOTE! - 'Latency' is the delay incurred by your Audio/MIDI signals going into your Audio/MIDI
device Inputs and following the signal path of both the hardware and software Applications being used
and coming back out of the Audio/MIDI device's Outputs.

The 'Advanced' tab of the Setup window contains extra settings for experienced Users and in most
cases these settings do not need to be changed. The ability to choose separate Output and Input
devices may be of interest to people who want to use multiple Audio devices, a common scenario is
using USB microphones to record and another System Audio device to play back. Another important
JACK setting is the 'Timeout' value for running MIDI Plugins and editing a setting of 2000ms is
recommended and set by default.

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JACK's L'il Helpers: pajackconnect and a2jmidid :

The next 'Options' tab is where we can have Qjackctl execute any optional scripts when it is started,
by default AV Linux provides a 'pajackconnect' script as one of two very important helper applications
when Qjackctl starts JACK. One helper application is 'a2jmidid'' (ALSA to JACK MIDI Daemon). In Linux
there are 2 methods of handling MIDI I/O, one is at the ALSA driver level and the other is with JACK.
This can be a problem if you are using an application with JACK and trying to connect a MIDI device with
ALSA, the two methods cannot be used at the same time so the solution is to bridge any ALSA MIDI
devices so they appear available as JACK MIDI and this is exactly what 'a2jmidid' is for, now any ALSA
MIDI devices seamlessly appear to be selected as 'a2j' in Applications using JACK.

The second helper application is a script known as 'pajackconnect' and it’s purpose is to integrate
PulseAudio as a source and sink server and client routed through JACK. The ensures that applications
using PulseAudio will route their Audio to the selected running Audio device you’ve selected in
Qjackctl.

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JACK Autostart and Other Settings :

The 'Misc' tab of the Qjackctl 'Setup' window gives some other convenient options for getting JACK
integrated smoothly. The 'Start JACK Audio server on application startup' checkbox means as soon as
you launch Qjackctl it will start JACK without you needing to hit the 'Start' button. You can also have
Qjackctl run in the system tray on the XFCE4 panel when you close the GUI. If you have a setup where
you are using one Audio device and it doesn't change you can have Qjackctl automatically start when
you log in to your computer, for this to work you need to select the option to 'Start JACK Audio server
on application startup'. To have Qjackctl automatically start you need to add it to the XFCE4 'Session
and Startup' list. Go to the Whisker Menu and type 'Session' into the search bar and the top choice
should be 'Session and Startup', go to the 'Application Autostart' tab and click the 'Add' button and
create an entry for Qjackctl like the one shown on the next page.

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83
Getting Connected :

If you are using a monolithic DAW like Ardour or Mixbus with JACK you will find that most of the
connectivity you need is managed within the program itself so making manual connections is not
necessary, in these cases you simply start JACK and then launch your program. However if you want to
use and connect individual JACK-aware programs you may want to use the connection features of
Qjackctl. It should be noted that AV Linux also comes with 'Patchage' another program to manage
connections as well but for now we will stick with Qjackctl. To access the connections window click the
'Connect' button.

There are three tabs in the 'Connections' window which pertain to three specific connection points.
'Audio' is for both hardware and software Audio (not MIDI) connections. When you are using the default
AV Linux settings it is normal and expected for the 'PulseAudio JACK Sink' and 'PulseAudio JACK
Source' clients to appear because PulseAudio is still active on the system. If you have a JACK-aware
application running it should appear in the 'Readable or Writable Clients' panes and in most cases you
will want to connect it to the 'system' playback or 'system' capture ports not the PulseAudio ports.

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 The center 'MIDI' tab is for 'JACK MIDI' connections, because JACK MIDI is being bridged by 'a2jmidid'
its ports appear under the 'a2j' Client. You can see the iRig PRO DUO is visible in this tab ready to be
connected to JACK-aware MIDI applications.

The 'ALSA' tab is for ALSA MIDI hardware and software to be connected, as you can see since the iRig
PRO DUO is supported by ALSA it also appears in the ALSA tab.

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Potential Audio Routing Problems with Mozilla Firefox :

Recently Mozilla’s Firefox Web Browser changed it’s Audio routing from directly connecting to ALSA to
utilizing PulseAudio. It has been noted that if PulseAudio and JACK are working together utilizing the
‘PulseAudio JACK Source/Sink’ Firefox may try to access the default system Audio device directly rather
than connecting through the already running PulseAudio JACK Sink. This results in no Browser sound
and Audio and Video streams that will not play back. To fix this Firefox needs to be directed to use the
JACK Sink by using the PulseAudio Volume Control. Launch the Volume Control by clicking on the
Sound applet in the Systray area of the XFCE4 Panel and then selecting ‘Audio Mixer’.

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Look for ‘Firefox’ in the ‘Playback’ Tab and click on the highlighted Audio device button.

Make sure you have the ‘PulseAudio JACK Sink’ selected for Playback rather than the system Audio
device.

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jackd and jackdbus :

There are 2 different ways the system can run JACK behind the scenes, the simplest is by running the
‘jackd’ executable with ‘Qjackctl’ and this is what AV Linux uses by default, however there is a second
way of running JACK and this is with the Desktop interprocess communication mechanism known as ‘D-
bus’. Running JACK with D-bus is a selectable option in Qjackctl (Setup → Misc. tab). If you start JACK
with Qjackctl before doing Audio and MIDI work you will probably not encounter the D-bus JACK
executable known as ‘jackdbus’.

Occasionally other JACK-aware programs that are launched before Qjackctl may inadvertently start
jackdbus and when you later try to launch JACK with Qjackctl you will see JACK is already running and
displaying as ‘Active’ in the Qjackctl GUI and you may even notice that the sample rate may set to a
different value than intended. Only one instance of JACK can run at a time so you may not be able to
launch other JACK-aware programs or you may find that your Audio setup seems to have a mind of it’s
own if jackdbus is running undetected in the background.

AV Linux has a simple utility called ‘Killswitch’ to help shutdown hung or misbehaving programs and
also to kill any instances of jackd and jackdbus running in the background and reset the system to start
JACK cleanly.

You can also manually kill all JACK processes by running this command in a regular Terminal:

killall -9 jackd jackdbus

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FireWire Audio Drivers: ALSA or FFado?? :

We are in a period of dual support for FireWire Audio devices, with the older FFado method and the
newer ALSA FireWire drivers which are present in the Linux kernel as modules. An issue is you have to
use one or the other and it seems for most users that FFado still provides the best latency (256fpp or
less). By default AV Linux will load the ALSA modules for FireWire so to select your FireWire Audio
device in Qjackctl you need to use the ‘alsa’ JACK driver not ‘firewire’. It is now necessary to tell the
system not to load the ALSA 'snd_dice' module before running FFado and JACK will work. To do this
during a session open a Root Terminal and use this command to remove the ALSA FireWire module:

rmmod snd_dice

It is important to note this is a ‘per-use’ command and will not be persistent on a reboot in order to
make it persistent on every boot some further configuration is needed.

Disabling ALSA FireWire Modules from loading at Boot :

If you want to permanently disable snd_dice you can blacklist the module so it will not load at boot like
this:

➢ Create a text file in /etc/modprobe.d/ called ‘snd_dice.conf’ containing only the text 'blacklist
snd_dice'.

➢ Run 'depmod -ae' as root.

➢ Recreate your initrd with 'update-initramfs -u'

With the ‘snd_dice’ ALSA modules disabled you can now use the older FFado drivers, to do this select
the ‘firewire’ driver in Qjackctl as detailed earlier in this section.

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 INITIAL SET UP OF ARDOUR/MIXBUS :

Choosing An Audio Backend :

For many people new to Audio Recording with Linux it can be a bit confusing and daunting to initially
set up the full-featured DAWs Ardour and Mixbus. Both powerful programs share the same core so we
will use Ardour as an example. Recently Ardour and Mixbus have gained the ability to be used with
either JACK or ALSA Audio 'backends'. As stated in the previous chapter AV Linux is centered
around using the JACK Audio server, because JACK has interconnectivity with other external
JACK-aware programs it is recommended to prefer the JACK backend for using Ardour/Mixbus and
to have JACK up and running before Ardour and Mixbus are launched.

When you initially launch Ardour or Mixbus either in a Live Session or a fresh HDD install you will be
greeted by an initial welcome screen and walked through a few setup dialogs, in most cases except for
what is detailed here you can accept the default setup choices as offered.

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 A very important part of the initial setup process is to have Ardour scan for Audio plugins, the scan
doesn't take very long and doing this now will ensure that the hundreds of pre-installed Audio Plugins
included in AV Linux will all be present and ready to use in your Ardour sessions. Ardour will auto-
detect LADSPA and LV2 Audio plugins, LinuxVST plugins specifically will be found during the scan. It is
important to note that any LinuxVST plugins you may have added yourself that aren't located in the
standard paths of /usr/local/lib/vst or /usr/lib/vst will require you to to point Ardour/Mixbus to their
folders by adding a custom path after launching the program, custom paths are set in 'Edit' →
'Preferences' → 'Plugins'.

*PLEASE NOTE! - Mixbus now requires Plugins to be scanned from 'Edit' → 'Preferences' → 'Plugins'
and does not offer a Scan option at first run.

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 When you set up your initial Ardour/Mixbus session you will be presented with an 'Audio/MIDI Setup'
dialog, this is where you will choose whichever Audio backend you will use. As stated JACK is the
preferred recommendation, ALSA can be selected but has the following caveat: No Audio/MIDI from
any other external programs or applications can be routed in or out of Ardour/Mixbus. In the ALSA
setup example below we are using the same USB Audio device for both Input and Output which is a
suggested practice. It is possible to select a different Input than the Output, people using USB
Microphones may want to use the mic with an Input and the System Audio device as an Output.
Take note that since this is a USB Audio device we set the 'Periods' dropdown selection to '3', for
internal or PCI(e) Audio devices it is recommended to use a setting of '2'. If required it is also possible
(but not usually necessary) to accurately calibrate Audio/MIDI latency using a cable looped from your
Audio/MIDI outputs to the inputs to calculate the actual latencies. Once you have your settings
selected click the 'Start' button to your upper-right.

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 If you already have JACK up and running before setting up your intial Ardour/Mixbus session when
you select the 'JACK' backend it will detect that JACK is already running and simply clicking the
'Connect to JACK' button will connect you to whatever settings and Audio device you've chosen in
Qjackctl.

Further Info: The Ardour Reference Manual

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 CARLA PLUGIN HOST SETUP :

Carla… She's Quite a Gal! :

AV Linux includes 'Carla' which is a very useful host for all common Linux Audio plugin formats and
comes with the optional extensions required to host Windows VST Audio plugins with Wine. Carla can
be used to host plugins 'Standalone' or or also can be used as an LV2 or LinuxVST Plugin within Ardour
or Mixbus to facilitate loading plugin formats that are not natively supported (ie DSSI). In addition Carla
can also host Soundfont2, GIG and SFZ Sound Library formats. In order to get the best performance out
of Carla it is advised to do an initial setup and scan for all Plugins available in various formats on the
system. When this scan is performed with Carla running 'Standalone' it will then also ensure all Plugins
scanned are available to Carla running as a Plugin when Ardour or Mixbus are used.

If you have downloaded any outside plugins or Soundfont2, SFZ, or GIG Sound Libraries to your system
you may first want to tell Carla where they are by adding the 'PATH' to Carla's scan. To do this, make
sure you have JACK running and launch Carla from the Whisker Menu and select ‘Settings’→’Configure
Carla’.

*PLEASE NOTE! – For Windows VST Plugins and other Plugin Bridges to work with Carla it is now
necessary to enable that feature in the new ‘Experimental’ tab found in ‘Settings’ →’Configure Carla’.

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 The 'Settings' window will open, select the 'Paths' Icon and from the Dropdown box select whichever
type of Plugin or Sound Library you want to create a path for and if it isn't already listed use the '+Add'
button to add your custom path for scanning. It is advised to restart Carla for the new paths to be taken
into account.

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 To access the scanning setup dialog click '+Add Plugin'.

At this point Carla is showing what Plugins are already scanned and and available, to perform the
actual scanning operations for new Plugins etc. that aren't available yet click the 'Refresh' button.

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 Check off as many or as few Plugin types as you would like Carla to scan for and then select the 'Start'
Button to perform the actual scan. After scanning when you click the '+Add Plugin' on Carla's main
window button you should be able to search and select your desired plugin by entering its name in the
search field at the top of the 'Add New' window.

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 Once you have Carla set up and have the Plugins you need to use included in the list you will notice
that when a Plugin is selected it appears in 'Carla Rack'. From here you can simply tweak the Plugin
parameters visually in the presented Rack UI or for most LV2, LinuxVST and DSSI plugins you can click
on the 'gear' Icon in the Rack slot and the plugin will show its own GUI to handle settings. In the
example below ZynAddSubFX LV2 Plugin is loaded in Carla Rack. Note that LADSPA plugins and GIG,
SFZ and SF2 Sound Libraries don't have GUI's and can have their settings modified by selecting the
'wrench' icon which will open a new parameters window.

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 Any plugins that are loaded into Carla running as a Standalone host will not automatically connect to
the system Audio outputs, this differs from Carla running as a Plugin within Ardour or Mixbus in which
case the connections are handled automatically within the DAW. When Carla is used by itself it provides
its own Patchbay to make connections. In the example below we are using 'Carla Patchbay' to connect
ZynAddSubFX to the system Audio Outputs. Carla can save both your Rack and Patchbay settings to a
file to be retrieved later which makes preserving complicated setups easy.

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 RUNNING WINDOWS AUDIO SOFTWARE :

Exposing Windows ASIO Audio drivers to JACK with WineASIO :

It is possible to run some popular Windows Audio software in AV Linux and have it run with Windows
native ASIO Audio drivers. This is accomplished using a utility called WineASIO which runs in the
Microsoft Windows emulating Linux software known as ‘Wine’. AV Linux 2019 comes with ‘Wine-
staging’ installed and a WineASIO launching utility that can be found in the ‘Multimedia’ →’Audio Tools’
menu. To use WineASIO you must first have the JACK Audio server running as detailed in the ‘Audio &
Midi in AV Linux’ section. WineASIO can be used with both 32bit and 64bit Windows software
applications.

Once you select the appropriate button pertaining to the Windows Audio application you want to run a
Terminal window will open confirming that the WineASIO ‘.dll’ has successfully launched.

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 When WineASIO is up and running you can launch your Windows program and select the WineASIO
driver in the Audio setup dialog of the application. As an example we will use the standalone version of
the Windows software ‘Jam Origin MIDI Guitar 2’. As you can see in the highlighted section the
WineASIO driver has been selected which will route the Audio output through JACK.

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Running Windows VST Plugins in Ardour/Mixbus :

Steinberg’s ‘Virtual Studio Technology’ or ‘VST’ Audio plugin format is a cross-platform industry
standard and there are a wealth of good quality commercial and free VST plugins available. VST’s for
Windows are by far the most common and a large number of them will run on Linux with the aid of
‘wine’ Windows emulating software and various bridging applications. As you would expect running
Audio plugins that are not native to Linux presents challenges and it can not be overstated that there
are no guarantees of functionality and stability, it is always preferable to run Audio plugins that were
intended for the Linux platform.

AV Linux comes with a small set of ‘oldie-but-goodie’ free 32bit Windows VST Audio plugins placed in
the ‘/usr/local/lib/vst’ folder of the filesystem. With ‘wine-staging’ pre-installed these plugins can be
hosted and used in Ardour and Mixbus in three distinct ways. On 32bit AV Linux only there is a special
build of Ardour called ‘ArdourVST’ that can directly load Windows VST plugins, when you initially run
and set up ArdourVST and run a Plugin Scan as detailed in ‘Initial Setup of Ardour/Mixbus’ the Windows
VST plugins will appear selectable just like all other supported plugins. Note this feature is only in the
ArdourVST build, not the native Ardour build or Mixbus.

A second method of hosting Windows VST’s in Ardour and Mixbus on both 32 and 64bit AV Linux is
using ‘Carla-Rack’ as a plugin host within Ardour and Mixbus. Carla is a standalone application but also
exists as an LV2 and VST plugin that can be loaded into a channel strip and used as a bridge to allow
hosting various plugins that may not be natively supported by the host, as an example in Ardour and
Mixbus ‘Carla-Rack’ can be used to host Windows VST plugins that aren’t natively supported. Before
using Carla-Rack as a plugin it is important to have run Carla standalone and perform a Plugin Scan as
detailed in ‘Carla Plugin Host Setup’.

To use Carla-Rack in Ardour and Mixbus right click on a Mixer window channel strip and load the Carla-
Rack LV2 or VST Plugin.

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 Then find Carla-Rack in the plugin list under the ‘falkTX’ category, both the LV2 and VST versions are
supported by Ardour and Mixbus

Once Carla-Rack is added to the channel strip you open the Rack GUI by double-clicking on it, you can
add Windows VST’s by pressing the ‘+Add Plugin’ button on the Carla-Rack GUI and then select the
plugin you want from the list within Carla. Besides Windows VST’s any format supported by Carla
including Sound Libraries like GIG, SF2 and SFZ and Audio Plugin formats like DSSI can now be loaded
into Carla-Rack within that channel strip. The Rack will host both 32bit and 64bit plugins in the 64bit
version of AV Linux. The image below shows Carla-Rack hosting the ‘Tokyo Dawn Labs Slick EQ’
Windows VST in Ardour.
*Slick EQ is not available in AV Linux and must be downloaded separately.

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104
Hosting Windows VST’s with ‘LinVST’ :

A new method of hosting Windows VST plugins is the use of the ‘LinVST’ bridge, LinVST works a bit
differently by wrapping the Windows ‘.dll’ filetype and making it appear to the plugin host as a native
Linux VST ‘.so’ file. The included Windows VST plugins in AV Linux already have been converted, follow
the instructions below for any new Windows VST’s you may add.

In AV Linux Windows VST's are placed in /usr/local/lib/vst and /usr/lib/vst is for native for Linux VST's
only... The rationale for this is that most DAWs will look along both of those paths automatically for VST
plugins of any kind and we want VST's to be available system-wide for all users not buried in the .wine
folder in the users home folder. One of the files pre-installed by LinVST is a dummy file called 'linvst.so'
which is used as a test reference to convert all your Windows VST '.dll' files to Linux-friendly '.so' files. It
is the '.so' files which LinVST will make appear in the usual list of plugins in Ardour/Mixbus.

LinVST comes with a little graphical utility to find the linuxvst.so file and then find all your .dll files and
do the conversion, this works best if the linuxvst.so file is in the same folder as your VST .dlls. So be
forewarned that linuxvst.so is installed to /usr/local/lib/vst so you will either need to move linuxvst.so
to your existing Windows VST folder wherever it may be OR you will need to move your WindowsVST
.dlls to /usr/local/lib/vst... either will work and this is the only complicated part of the process...

Once you are certain that linuxvst.so is in the correct spot then you will need to run the conversion
utility in a terminal, if you have kept everything in /usr/local/lib/vst then you will want to be in a Root
Terminal because that folder is outside the user’s home folder in the filesystem, if you have everything
together in a different VST folder in '.wine' or elsewhere in your home folder then you can use a regular
terminal, then run this command in the terminal

linvstconvert

If your Windows VSTs have associated subfolders you may want to use this conversion command
instead:

linvstconverttree

This will open a little dialog that prompts you to find 'linvst.so' and then find where your Windows VST
.dlls are, once that is done hit 'Start' and it will convert the dlls to so's.

Now open Ardour/Mixbus and go to Edit--->Preferences--->Plugins--->VST and make sure the path to
your Windows VST folder is there (this is why I use /usr/local/lib/vst because Mixbus looks there
automatically). If your particular path isn't there you'll need to add it manually so Ardour/Mixbus knows
where to scan..

Once that is done run a plugin scan and if all goes well those converted '.so' files should be picked up
and appear as selectable in the Ardour/Mixbus plugin list. The image below shows the ‘Slick EQ’
Windows VST Plugin running with LinVST in Ardour.

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*PLEASE NOTE* The first time Wine runs on your computer it needs to configure itself and set up it’s
directories in a hidden ‘.wine’ directory in your User home folder. Wine does not run it’s setup until the
first time it is called to run a Windows program by the host system. If the first time Wine is initiated is
during a plugin scan within a DAW it is possible the initial Wine configuration setup will occur as you are
running the LinVST plugin scanner which ensure the renamed ‘.so’ files of the Windows VST Plugins
show up in your Linux DAW. On some systems this may cause the scan to time out, fail and not
completely finish. Once Wine has set up it’s initial config you should be able to run the plugin scan
again in your DAW and it should be able to successfully complete.

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 SAVING AND RESTORING JACK CONNECTIONS :

AJ-Snapshot for JACK-Aware External Application Connections :

If you are using several JACK-Aware applications and connecting them together those unique
individual JACK connections will be lost when you you shut down the individual applications. This is a
much different scenario than when you are working within a DAW like Ardour, or a single host like Carla,
in that case the DAW remembers the connections when you save your session. What if you want to use
external JACK programs in various combinations with a complicated routing? You certainly don't want
to have to remember and manually re-connect every time you use those uniquely arranged programs.

A very simple and effective tool to save and restore ALSA and JACK Routing is a little CLI utility called
aj-snapshot. In AV Linux I have added a very simple UI to make using aj-snapshot a little easier. With
JACK running and your applications connected simply launch 'AJ-Snapshot-UI' from the Whisker Menu,
it can be found in Multimedia → Audio Tools → AJ-Snapshot-UI. Select the option to 'Save an aj-
snapshot' and it will prompt you t enter the name of the snapshot and present a File Manager to save it
where you want. Later, with JACK running and the applications you wish to re-connect launched and
running simply open your saved Snapshot and the routing and connections will be restored.

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 DRM WEB CONTENT :

Netflix and Other DRM Content on Linux :

Until recently viewing Netflix and other Microsoft Silverlight DRM web browser content on a Linux
computer was only possible through 3rd party applications and specially patched versions of ‘WINE’ (an
emulation program to run Windows software on Linux). Very recently native Linux support for DRM
Web content (ie Netflix) became fully provided through the Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox web
browsers. Google Chrome is only available on the 64bit version of AV Linux due to Google dropping
32bit support.

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 QUICK UPDATING BROWSERS :

Quick Update of Browsers :

AV Linux 2019 features a new utility to selectively update the Web Browsers and Thunderbird on the
system. The rationale behind this is if during heavy production you want to avoid blanket upgrades of
the system for the sake of stability but want the security of the latest Web Browser and Thunderbird
Email client you can use the ‘Quick Updater’ utility to upgrade only those applications leaving the rest of
the system untouched.

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 DEBIAN STRETCH :

Background on the Debian Distribution Model :

Debian/GNU Linux 9 'Stretch' is the actual 'Distribution' that AV Linux 2019 is based on. Debian
employs a multi-branch system to process the entry and inclusion of software which includes three
separate branches commonly known as 'Unstable' or 'Sid' where software applications enter the Debian
system, 'Testing' where software is refined and bugfixed and 'Stable' releases which are quite static in
nature and provide users with a solid well-tested foundation as a finished Operating System. Previously
AV Linux used the 'Testing' branch over an extended period of time which presented enough
unexpected compatibility challenges that a decision was made to align AV Linux 2019 with the Stable
Debian 9 ‘Stretch’ Release.

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 SOFTWARE UPDATES :
*Recommended Reading!*

Balancing Updates and Risk :

As detailed previously updating a system can at times be unpredictable, AV Linux is intended to

provide a dedicated Audio/Video workstation OS and since it has a specific, intended use stability is a
required trait especially when doing prolonged production work. How do we keep fresh software on
the system and retain stability? There are no guarantees and there is no surefire definitive answer to
this question so here are two suggested ways to update your system. How to proceed will be up to the
individual user and depend on the amount of experience using Debian Linux, the comfort level with risk
and whether AV Linux is being used casually or for serious production.

METHOD 1: Full Dist-Upgrade – Most Risk/Newest Software :

*This is recommended for users who can live with rare occasional system breakage or upgrade failures,
are familiar or experienced with Debian/GNU Linux and are not using AV Linux for vital production tasks..

When running Debian Systems upstream from Debian Stable it is recommended to change how you
approach and execute full System upgrades (a.k.a. “blanket upgrades”). Most users of Debian are quite
familiar with the 'Synaptic Package Manager' (discussed in a later section) to install and remove
software from their system. Synaptic is still a valuable tool and it can be used as a graphical help for
installation, removal and to search for packages on the system but not necessarily the best primary way
to perform 'blanket upgrades'. When using Debian it is also possible to perform blanket upgrades by
using the 'APT' Command Line. To facilitate this, AV Linux has added a quick and easy way to perform
this within the' AV Linux Assistant'. In 'Method 1' we are using 'Dist-Upgrade' which will upgrade the
system and forcibly add or remove any newly required or obsolete dependencies to perform the
upgrade. As an example if there is an update for 'Audacity' available and it requires the installation of
some new supporting dependencies on the system that will remove and replace its existing
dependencies then 'Dist-Upgrade' will update Audacity and install and remove whatever dependencies
are necessary. This means deeper system changes (and more potential risk) than simply updating
Audacity alone. To perform a Dist-Upgrade launch the AV Linux Assistant from the Whisker Menu or
Panel and double-click on the 'APT-Dist-Upgrade AV Linux' launcher. This will prompt you for your Root
password and then open a Terminal which will first update the Packages list and then perform the Dist-
Upgrade, make sure to watch the terminal for any prompts or warnings.

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112
METHOD 2: Safe-Upgrade – Better Stability/Reduced Update Potential :

*This is recommended for users who don't want to compromise stability, don't mind if specific application
updates are held back (occurs rarely) and are in mid-production and don't want unexpected system changes
or breakages.

At a glance 'Method 2' appears quite similar to 'Method 1' however there is one key difference in how
'Safe-Upgrade' works. To return to the example above for the 'Audacity' package, a 'Safe Upgrade'
would handle things differently. If Audacity is upgradeable with the current support dependencies on
the system then it will simply upgrade as expected, however if new support dependencies are required
that will either install new packages that aren't currently on the system or remove existing installed
dependency packages then the Audacity upgrade will be held back in a 'Safe Upgrade'. It is important
to note that in a multimedia-focused system like AV Linux that in most cases deep system support
libraries are the types of things that get held back and 'end-user' applications and Plugins etc. are the
types of packages that are less likely to get held back very often. To perform a 'Safe-Upgrade' launch
the AV Linux Assistant from the Whisker Menu or Panel and double-click on the 'APT-Upgrade AV Linux'
launcher. This will prompt you for your Root password and then open a Terminal which will first update
the packages list and then perform the Upgrade, watch the terminal for any prompts or warnings.

*Added note: This section discussed basic overall system upgrading, methods of installing individual
programs are covered in the next section…

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 SOFTWARE MANAGEMENT :

Installing Downloaded or Outside Packages :

If you have a software 'Deb' package you have downloaded outside of the Repository system it can be
installed by double-clicking on it which will automatically launch the 'Gdebi Package Installer'. Be aware
that you should only install outside packages from sources you trust. Only one Package Management Tool
can run at the same time so Gdebi will not work if you have Synaptic or Aptitude running. Gdebi will
also not force the downgrade of an installed Package so if you want to roll back to an older version of
an installed package you will need to manually install it in a Root Terminal using the 'dpkg' command
line tool with this command:

dpkg -i <PACKAGENAME>

If you have a folder of multiple Deb packages to install you can install them all at once by opening a
Root Terminal within the folder and running dpkg with a 'wildcard' like this:

dpkg -i *.deb

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Aptitude Package Manager :

*Recommended for experienced Debian Testing or Unstable users only.

Probably not the best first choice for new users but the Aptitude Package Manager is a powerful
Package Management tool and is highly recommended by experienced Debian users for its advanced
dependency handling logic. It uses the 'Ncurses' terminal interface which can be navigated with the
arrow keys on your computer keyboard. Using 'Ctrl+T' will allow you move across the menus and the
up/down arrow keys will allow you to navigate, select items with the 'Enter' key. Aptitude can be used
to install, remove and update Packages and perform Dist-Upgrades. Aptitude can be launched from the
AV Linux Assistant where it is pre-configured to automatically update the Packages list before
launching.

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Synaptic Package Manager :

*Recommended method for most users.

The most familiar Graphical Package management tool to Debian Linux users is the Synaptic Package
Manager. It has a well laid out and comprehensive interface to view what packages are on the system,
the originating repositories they came from, and much more. It can be used for 'pinning' individual
Packages to prevent them from being upgraded and has many other in-depth capabilities beyond the
scope of this manual. In AV Linux it is recommended to use Synaptic to search for Packages, to install,
remove, upgrade and autoremove individual packages but not necessarily for blanket upgrades especially
if you are using the 'Safe Upgrade' Method. When Safe Upgrade is used any 'held back' Packages will still
be visible as 'Installed (upgradeable)' in Synaptic. This is because Synaptic uses its own upgrade logic
called 'Smart Upgrade' which is quite similar to 'Dist Upgrade' and will forcibly remove and add
dependencies if requires for Package updates if you use the 'Mark All Upgrades' functionality.

Cleaning Up After Package Operations ;

When you refresh the Repository Package lists and upgrade, remove and install packages there are
some residual cached downloaded Package and Package-list files that collect on your system. These
leftover cached files can take up quite a bit of HDD space on your system over time. AV Linux comes
with a program called 'Bleachbit' which can be used to clean these caches and many other system areas.
In addition the AV Linux Assistant has a quick and easy launcher to clean the residual Packages and
related files. Just select the 'APT-Cleanup' launcher from the AV Linux Assistant to delete these cached
files.

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 MANAGING SOFTWARE REPOSITORIES :

Controlling What Software Is Available :

In Linux, software is made available from online collections of software Packages called 'Repositories'.
This system provides both applications and the required support dependencies to integrate and make
them run properly on the system. Reputable Repositories usually provide a security key file that
ensures the software is safe to download and install. AV Linux contains the Debian Testing Repositories
along with various other optional 'Repos'. Of specific interest are the excellent KXStudio Repositories
which provide many of the Audio Applications and Plugins.

Enabling and disabling Repositories is another effective strategy to control the stability of your
system. If you are a 'bleeding-edge' person you can leave them as-is, if you are in heavy production or
happy with your current setup and don't want to be distracted by constant updates then you can simply
disable selected Repositories as you wish. The selection of Repositories is handled by a 'Software &
Updates' utility that can be accessed from the 'Repositories' launcher in the AV Linux Assistant.

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 The 'Software & Updates' utility has multiple tabs, the first tab allows you to select the actual Debian
Repositories you want, and the second tab is where you select other external Repositories.

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 PINNING AND HOLDING PACKAGES :

Preventing Unwanted Upgrades :

It is possible to prevent unwanted upgrades of Software Packages on your System by using 'Pinning'
within the Synaptic Package Manager or marking Packages to 'hold' using the 'APT' Command Line
Interface. It is important to consider that pinning a Package will also prevent its dependencies from
upgrading. 'Pinning' is only recognized by the Synaptic Package Manager so if you are using 'Aptitude'
or the 'APT' Command Line they will not be aware of the Packages you have pinned, if you are going to
specifically use Pinning as a Package locking method it is recommended to only use Synaptic as your
method of Package Management. To pin a Package in Synaptic find the the Package you want pinned
and highlight it.

Navigate to the 'Package' menu in Synaptic and check off 'Lock Version'. The Package you have pinned
will now appear with its status as 'Pinned' in the left-hand pane of the Synaptic window when the
'Status' button is selected. To unpin simply uncheck 'Lock Version'.

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Using 'apt-mark' to Hold and Release Packages :

To use 'APT' Commands to place a Package on hold open a Root Terminal and use the following
commands, note that <PACKAGENAME> requires the actual name of the Package but not the version
number:

apt-mark hold <PACKAGENAME>

To remove the hold on a Package use this command:

apt-mark unhold <PACKAGENAME>

To see what packages are held on your system:

apt-mark showhold

To discover more useful functions of 'apt-mark' use this command:

apt-mark --help

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Held Packages in AV Linux 2019 :

AV Linux 2019 has some specific held packages in order to maintain compatibility with Systemback.
This enables the AV ISO’s to be created and also helps keep backup functionality intact. It is possible
that these held packages may complicate future updates however it is not advised to to release the
hold on these packages unless you are certain you do not want to use Systemback.

64bit held packages:

dosfstools extlinux genisoimage isolinux libblkid1 libmount1 libsystemback live-boot live-

boot-doc live-boot-initramfs-tools mount syslinux syslinux-common syslinux-utils systemback
systemback-cli systemback-efiboot-amd64 systemback-locales systemback-scheduler

32bit held packages:

dosfstools extlinux genisoimage isolinux libblkid1 libmount1 libsystemback live-boot live-

boot-doc live-boot-initramfs-tools mount syslinux syslinux-common syslinux-utils systemback
systemback-cli systemback-locales systemback-scheduler

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 SYSTEMBACK RESTORE :

Comprehensive Backup and Restore :

AV Linux 2019 makes great use of Systemback for ISO creation, its Installer and probably its most
useful daily function: System Restore. Systemback serves an extremely important need by helping
mitigate some of the risk involved with potential bad upgrades. By making regular restore points if
there is some sort of system breakage incurred by faulty upgrades you can simply roll the system back
to your last working restore point much like Windows computers have had as standard issue for many
years. Systemback is quite easy to use and simply requires adequate writable HDD space to store its
Restore data. By default Systemback will store them in the system '/home' folder, most mounted
removable drives and partitions in '/media' can also be used if your User has write permissions.

To get started launch Systemback from the Whisker Menu and enter your Root Password. The Restore
window is shown below, here you can define where the Restore data goes in the 'Storage directory'
field in the upper-right corner. I personally suggest not using the default of '/home' and selecting a
drive or partition that AV Linux is not installed on just to keep the restore point in a safe and separate
location. To set files and data that don't want to be part of the backup use the 'Exclude' feature.

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 *PLEASE NOTE! - It is important to note that excluded items will be excluded from both Restore
points and any Live ISO's you create. You must also specifically define what data you want to include in
your backups in the ‘Include’ window. Once you have completed your settings click the 'Create New'
button and Systemback will take as long as it requires based on the amount of data you are backing up.

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 When creation of the Restore point is complete it will appear under the 'Restore points' column in the
Systemback GUI. If you have created a point of some special significance (ie before an update to a
complete new Desktop Environment) you can prioritize it by using the 'Highlight' button and then it
will appear in the 'Highlighted restore points' column. If you need to Restore your system select the
'System restore' button and select your Restore options in the Restore window.

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125
 DEBIAN REFERENCE :

Many people who are new to Linux are reluctant to use the terminal and sometimes consider it to be
either a primitive means of using the computer or too complicated. After some time to adjust to using it
most Linux users come to appreciate the facility and speed afforded by using the CLI. The following section
can be utilized by experienced Linux users and demonstrate some fundamentals to new Linux users. The
apt and dpkg articles are modified from an excellent article by Matthew Danish.

Common APT usage :

apt-get install <package> Downloads <package> and all of its dependencies, and installs or upgrades
them. This will also take a package off of hold if it was put on. See below for more info on hold.

apt-get remove [--purge] <package> Removes <package> and any packages that depend on it. --purge
specifies that packages should be purged, see dpkg -P for more information.

apt-get update Updates packages listings from Debian mirrors, should be run at least once a day if you
install anything that day, and every time after /etc/apt/sources.list is changed.

apt-get upgrade [-u] Upgrades all packages installed to newest versions available. Will not install new
or remove old packages. If a package changes dependencies and requires installation of a new package,
it will not be upgraded, it will be put on hold instead. apt-get upgrade will not upgrade packages put on
hold (that is the meaning of hold). See below for how to manually put packages on hold. I suggest the `-
u' option as well, because then you can see what packages are going to be upgraded.

apt-get dist-upgrade [-u] Similar to apt-get upgrade, except that dist-upgrade will install or remove
packages to satisfy dependencies.

apt-cache search <pattern> Searches packages and descriptions for <pattern>.

apt-cache show <package> Shows the full description of <package>.

apt-cache showpkg <package> Shows a lot more detail about <package>, and its relationships to
other packages.

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Common Dpkg Usage :

dpkg -i <package.deb> Installs a Debian package file; one that you downloaded manually, for example.

dpkg -c <package.deb> Lists the contents of <package.deb>, a .deb file.

dpkg -I <package.deb> Extracts package information from <package.deb>, a .deb file.

dpkg -r <package> Removes an installed package named <package>

dpkg -P <package> Purges an installed package named <package>. The difference between remove
and purge is that while remove only deletes data and executables, purge also deletes all configuration
files in addition.

dpkg -L <package> Gives a listing of all the files installed by <package>. See also dpkg -c for checking
the contents of a .deb file.

dpkg -s <package> Shows information on the installed package <package>. See also apt-cache show
for viewing package information in the Debian archive and dpkg -I for viewing package information
extracted from a .deb file.

dpkg-reconfigure <package> Reconfigures an installed package, if it uses debconf (debconf provides

that consistent configuration interface for package installation). You can reconfigure debconf itself if
you want to change the front-end or priority of questions asked. For example, to reconfigure debconf
with the dialog front-end, you simply run:
dpkg-reconfigure --frontend=dialog debconf

echo ``<package> hold'' | dpkg --set-selections Put <package> on hold (command line method)

dpkg --get-selections ``<package>'' Get the current status of <package> (command line method)

dpkg -S <file> Searches for <file> in package database, telling you which packages have that file in
them.

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Building Debian Packages from Source :

apt-get source [-b] <package> Download the source Debian package for <package> and extract it. You
must have deb-src lines in your /etc/apt/sources.list for this to work. If you supply the `-b' option and
you are currently root, then the package will be automatically built if possible.

apt-get build-dep <package> Download and install the packages necessary to build the source Debian
package <package>. This feature is only present in apt version 0.5 and up. Currently this means that
woody and above contain this functionality. If you have an older version of apt then the easiest way to
find out the build dependencies is to look in the debian/control file in the source package directory. A
common usage of this command is in conjunction with apt-get source -b. For example (as root):
apt-get build-dep <package>
apt-get source -b <package>
Will download the source package, all of its build dependencies, and attempt to compile the source
package.

dpkg-source -x <package.dsc> If you have downloaded the source package for a program manually,
which includes several files such as a .orig.tar.gz (or .tar.gz if it is Debian native), a .dsc, and a .diff.gz (if
it is not Debian native), then you can unpack the source package using this command on the .dsc file.
dpkg-buildpackage Builds a Debian package from a Debian source tree. You must be in the main
directory of the source tree for this to work. Sample usage:
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -uc -b
Where `-rfakeroot' instructs it to use the fakeroot program to simulate root privileges (for ownership
purposes), `-uc' stands for ``Don't cryptographically sign the changelog'', and `-b' stands for ``Build the
binary package only''

debuild A handy wrapper script around dpkg-buildpackage that will automatically take care of using
fakeroot or not, as well as running lintian and gpg for you.
Fixing dependencies :

dpkg --configure --pending If dpkg quits with an error while apt-get install, upgrade, or dist-upgrading
try running this to configure the packages that were already unpacked. Then try apt-get install,
upgrade, or dist-upgrade -f, and then try apt-get install, upgrade, or dist-upgrade again. Repeat as
needed. This usually resolves most dependency problems (also, if it mentions a specific package for
some reason, you might want to try installing or removing that package)

apt-get install -f
apt-get upgrade -f
apt-get dist-upgrade -f
Attempt to fix dependencies while doing one of the above. Note that apt-get install -f does not require
a <package> argument.

More info on Debian/GNU Linux: https://wiki.debian.org/

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 HANDY TERMINAL COMMANDS :

SYMLINK TO A FILE OR FOLDER ELSEWHERE ON SYSTEM (AS ROOT) :

ln -s /path/file/exists /path/link/placed

REBUILD FONT CACHE (AS ROOT) :

fc-cache -f -v

FONT ANTIALIASING AND HINTING SETUP:

dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config

DVD RIPPING WITH MPLAYER :

*Creates a file called "dump.vob" in your home folder assuming movie is title 1.
mplayer dvd://1 -dumpstream -dumpfile dump.vob

VIRTUALBOX MODULE SETUP (AS ROOT) :

*Make sure linux-headers are installed and linked
/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

PRINT A 'selections.txt' FILE TO DESIGNATE HELD PACKAGES (AS ROOT)

dpkg --get-selections \* > selections.txt
*Then edit selections.txt as Root

SAVE THE 'selections.txt' FILE TO DPKG (AS ROOT)

dpkg --set-selections < selections.txt

BUILD DEBIAN PACKAGE WITH GIT-BUILDPACKAGE:

git-buildpackage --git-upstream-branch=origin/upstream

BUILD DEBIAN PACKAGE WITH DPKG:

dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -uc -b

LINKING KERNEL HEADERS FOR MODULE BUILDING:

ln -s /usr/src/linux-headers-$(uname -r) /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build

SET A DIFFERENT C COMPILER THAN DEFAULT

*Replace X.X with desired gcc version
export CC=/usr/bin/gcc-X.X

APPLY A PATCH TO SOURCE CODE OR KERNEL

patch -p1 < PATCHFILENAME

CHECK SOUND DEVICES INSTALLED ON SYSTEM

cat /proc/asound/cards

CHECK AUDIO PLAYBACK DEVICES ON SYSTEM

aplay -l

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 THANKS AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS :

The Debian/GNU Linux Distribution

Krisztian Kende - Systemback

Trulan Martin – RT Kernel

Anahata, linuxaudio.org – Torrents and Mirrors

Korakios – CPU governing utility and UEFI boot

Tony Brijeski – Yad/Zenity Scripts

RockHopper – H2 and SFZ Thunar Custom Actions

XFCE4 Team

Filipe Coelho – KX Studio Repositories, Carla

Paul Davis, Robin Gareus, Ben Loftis – Ardour/Mixbus

osxmidi – LinVST, SFZero

aciddose – Xhip synth and plugins

libremusicproduction.com

User Manual Proofreaders

RAVEInfinity Team – Themes/Icons

Numix Icon Team – Themes/Icons

Lassekongo83 – Zukitwo and Zukitre themes

snwh - Paper Icon theme

Ubuntu fonts

Harrison Consoles – Default Wallpapers

Special Thanks:

All financial supporters of AV Linux, your kind generosity and encouragement is very much
appreciated !

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