planet.linuxaudio.org

It's called "1.05." But the update to this iconic free and open-source tracker is massive, with a new UI option, new built-in MilkySynth, new effects, and more.

The post MilkyTracker, legendary free music tool, just got a huge update appeared first on CDM Create Digital Music.

The last months Malte Steiner expanded his knowledge of analog electronics, researched and build a modular synthesizer system. The idea is to create a cheap, repairable system which one would check in during a flight and drag onto stage. The most expensive is actually the suitcase, the whole system is around 500.-€ instead of the 2000.- to 3000.- € a comparable Eurorack suitcase would cost.

The GStreamer team is pleased to announce another bug fix release in the new stable 1.24 release series of your favourite cross-platform multimedia framework!

This release only contains bugfixes and security fixes.

It should be safe to update from 1.24.x, and we would recommend you update at your earliest convenience.

Highlighted bugfixes:

• More than 40 security fixes across a wide range of elements following an audit by the GitHub Security Lab, including the MP4, Matroska, Ogg and WAV demuxers, subtitle parsers, image decoders, audio decoders and the id3v2 tag parser
• avviddec: Fix regression that could trigger assertions about width/height mismatches
• appsink and appsrc fixes
• closed caption handling fixes
• decodebin3 and urisourcebin fixes
• glupload: dmabuf: Fix emulated tiled import
• level: fix LevelMeta values outside of the stated range
• mpegtsmux, flvmux: fix potential busy looping with high cpu usage in live mode
• pipeline dot file graph generation improvements
• qt(6): fix criticals with multiple qml(6)gl{src,sink}
• rtspsrc: Optionally timestamp RTP packets with their receive times in TCP/HTTP mode to enable clock drift handling
• splitmuxsrc: reduce number of file descriptors used
• systemclock: locking order fixes
• v4l2: fix possible v4l2videodec deadlock on shutdown; 8-bit bayer format fixes
• x265: Fix build with libx265 version >= 4.1 after masteringDisplayColorVolume API change
• macOS: fix rendering artifacts in retina displays, plus ptp clock fixes
• cargo: Default to thin lto for the release profile (for faster builds with lower memory requirements)
• Various bug fixes, build fixes, memory leak fixes, and other stability and reliability improvements
• Translation updates

See the GStreamer 1.24.10 release notes for more details.

Binaries for Android, iOS, Mac OS X and Windows will be available shortly.

You won't fit more synths into 6HP of Eurorack (or VCV Rack module) than the newest ALM/Busy Circuits module, MCO v2. It's a wavetable synth, an additive synth, a Roland JP8000 voice, a vocoder, a 90s VA, a bass and drum synth, and a SID chip emulation all in one.

The post ALM’s new MCO mk2 packs a studio of classic digital synths into 6HP, VCV appeared first on CDM Create Digital Music.

Week highlights: new LibrePCB release, GIMP 3.0rc2 is being delayed, FreeCAD team is hacking tirelessly at the next version, OpenSCAD team makes more integrations.

GIMP

Jehan announced on his Patreon account that the second release candidate of 3.0 is being delayed due to GNOME’s infrastructure changes. In the meantime, he started working on a new API for non-destructive filters, including adding them from scripts. At the same time, Øyvind Kolås started patching the layers blending code to use perceptual space by default for certain blending modes.

FreeCAD

Since the v1.0 release last week, maintainers have been meeting twice a week to go through the backlog of pull requests. There were over 250 of them, the list is now down to nearly 180, so there’s more work to be done.

The two sets of patches I’d like to mention here were both contributed by Pierre-Louis Boyer (ex-Ondsel).

First, Pierre-Louis has been enhancing what you can do with external geometry. Some of the patches have already landed, like being able to apply transform tools (e.g. Offset) to external geometry. Others, like creating external geometry from a face, are still being reviewed. It has already been implemented in RealThunder’s fork, but as RT indicated, the feature is hard to isolate in the code because it’s intertwined with his toponaming changes. So now we are getting an implementation from scratch in the upstream repo.

Pierre-Louis’s other work involves refactoring datums to make them more of a core feature with some enhancements.

This stems from his earlier attempt to implement markers for the Assembly workbench to aid the top-down design approach. Markers are essentially LCS, and so are the joints in assemblies. The idea was to create a part, add a marker to its feature in the Assembly branch, and then use it as a reference when you create the next part in context. Preliminary patches have been merged, a more deep change is being reviewed.

There’s some news in the grants department too. I mentioned this project at the end of the v1.0 review, but Kacper’s grant application was approved this week by the FPA General Assembly. He will work on transparent previews for various PD operations such as Pad, Loft, Fillet, and others. This will be the first stage of unifying Part and Part Design.

In the proposal, Kacper mentions further stages that are out of the scope for this grant:

• Add more multi-solid capabilities to Part Design
• Allow using features from other workbenches in the Part Design workbench
• Merging duplicated features, such as Extrude / Pad / Pocket, Chamfer, Fillet etc.

OpenSCAD

I haven’t looked at changes in the project for a long time, plus they haven’t done any releases since 2021. Most recently, Marius Kintel added support for multiple 3D printing services. Currently, the support covers PCBWay, Print A Thing, OctoPrint, and sending a file to a local slicer.

The team has been spending some time to switch to Qt6 lately, too. Among more curious things — Folkert van Heusden recently added support for exporting PovRay scripts and has PovRay animation support in the works.

LibrePCB 1.2.0

Urban Bruhin released a major new version of LibrePCB. Highlights:

• KiCad Library importing, with some limitations
• Datasheet overlay for footprints
• Opening datasheets from schematic
• Specctra DSN exporting / SES importing
• Various productivity improvements incl. mass importing of symbol pins from datasheets, moving & aligning multiple footprint objects at once, copying properties from one footprint object to other objects, and more.
• Dark theme on Windows.

You can find details in the release announcement.

Kdenlive

The team announced that the next Kdenlive Café will be on the 3rd of December at 8 PM UTC. It’s their monthly online meeting between developers and users. You can join them at Join us at: https://meet.kde.org/b/far-twm-ebr.

The next release, 24.12, is expected on the second Tuesday of December.

Artworks

3D art for the Europa game, by Jaspreet Singh. Jaspreet modeled various temples, buildings, and robotic animals. All work done in Blender.

Sin City by Sami Dahdouh, made with Blender and Krita:

Skies of Solitude by Mukitul Islam, made with Blender

The Scent of Autumn by Yao Chan, made with Blender:

Pirate Bay Fluid and Ocean simulation by BlindIllusionist (via Blendernation):

Fun stuff

Blender origin story (via Blendernation):

Week highlights: this was a pretty eventful week, with major new releases of Blender, FreeCAD, and Zrythm.

Inkscape

Rafał Siejakowski proposed an enhancement to Inkscape’s Node tool: being able to edit arcs in paths as arcs, with arc-specific controls:

You can grab a build from the merge request’s pipelines.

Blender 4.3

As usual, the new version of Blender arrived with a gazillion new features and improvements. There’s no competing against official release notes, so here are just some release highlights:

• Rendering: Light Linking and Shadow Linking in Eevee, Metallic BSDF.
• Compositing: Eevee passes are now available for interactive compositing.
• UV editing: a new iterative unwrapping method, “Minimum Stretch”, provides less distortion.
• Geometry nodes now work with Grease Pencil data smoothly.
• The Grease Pencil’s engine was rewritten for better architecture and performance.
• Over a hundred default sculpting brushes and improved user interface for working with brushes.
• Areas can now be torn out and docked back freely.

There’s a video too:

FreeCAD 1.0

This is a huge milestone for the project that has been over 20 years in the making. Frankly, I don’t know why it took the FreeCAD team this long to accept the truth that many of their users rely on the software in their daily work. Projects with fewer features and worse UI have larger version numbers, and numerology is hard and probably pointless to beat. The answer could be in the toponaming issue, though.

I already covered the news in a separate post (and completely forgot to mention the new logo), so here are some of the highlights:

• Toponaming issue largely mitigated.
• Brand-new Assembly workbench built-in, developed by the Ondsel team, with exploded. views and BOM generation (both parametric).
• New features and major quality-of-life improvements in Sketcher and TechDraw.
• The Path workbench has been renamed to CAM and now ships with a new toolpath simulator.
• The Arch, BIM, and NativeIFC workbenches have been merged into one BIM workbench and now feature direct IFC editing.
• New ways to analyze models in the FEM workbench.

PrusaSlicer becomes flatpak-only

This is only the first alpha release of PrusaSlicer v2.9.0, but Prusa announced they will only be providing Linux builds in flatpak from now on. The popular 3D printers vendor found testing AppImage builds on multiple Linux distributions challenging and supporting both libfuse2 and libfuse3 too cumbersome. Flatpak solves both issues for them.

Meanwhile, the upcoming release is full of awesome: multiple beds in the scene, Printables integration, scarf seams (masking visible seams on smooth surfaced by overlapping extrusions), fuzzy skin improvements, and more.

Zrythm 1.0.0

After 5 years of development, Alexandros Theodotou released Zrythm 1.0, a free/libre DAW that, I dare say, has some fine-tuning for electronic music production. It’s also one of those DAWs where you see more videos of playing back a real project than tutorials or reviews.

There isn’t much of a changelog to look at because Alexandros made frequent beta releases. The Features page should give you a pretty good idea about what the application is capable of, though. Just a few highlights:

• Regular audio and MIDI, as well as chord tracks
• Context-sensitive clip editor in the bottom panel
• Free stretching of audio and MIDI clips
• Bounce in place
• Support for VST2, VST3, LV2, CLAP, AU (macOS-only), and JSFX plugins, with plugin sandboxing and automation
• Automatic project backups
• Hardware-accelerated UI (GTK4)

The GTK4-based UI is not for long: Alexandros has already started porting everything to Qt6/QML (UI) and JUCE (lower-level things). Here are the details of the plan.

The monetization model is close to Ardour’s: you can either build the source code yourself or get ready-to-use builds for a small fee. The difference is that with Zrythm, you get several tiers, including a small annual subscription fee for everything included.

The downloads page is here.

Artworks

“Convoy” by Sami Dahdouh, made with Blender and Krita:

“Ghyslaine” by Blender-Fan, made with GIMP, Blender, Krita:

“Page of Swords” by Sylvia Ritter, made with Krita:

You might think that visualizing music with lasers would be a complicated and difficult affair. In fact, it’s remarkably simple if you want it to be, and [byte_thrasher] shows us just how easy it can be.

At heart, what you’re trying to do is make a laser trace out waveforms of the music you’re listening to, right? So you just need a way to move the laser’s beam along with the sound waves from whatever you’re listening to. You might be thinking about putting a laser on the head of a servo-operated platform fed movement instructions from a digital music file, but you’d be way over-complicating things. You already have something that moves with the music you play — a speaker!

[byte_thrasher’s] concept is simple. Get a Bluetooth speaker, and stick it in a bowl. Cover the bowl with a flexible membrane, like plastic wrap. Stick a small piece of mirror on the plastic. When you play music with the speaker, the mirror will vibrate and move in turn. All you then have to do is aim a safe laser in a safe direction such that it bounces off the mirror and projects on to a surface. Then, the laser will dance with your tunes, and it’ll probably look pretty cool!

We’ve seen some beautiful laser visual effects before, too. Just be careful and keep your power levels safe and your beams pointing where they should be.

put a bluetooth speaker in a bowl, cover the bowl with plastic wrap pulled taut, glue a shard of mirror to the plastic wrap, point a laser beam at the mirror so that it bounces off towards the ceiling, play music, enjoy pic.twitter.com/Vs6lBJihCg

— avi (@byte_thrasher) November 9, 2024

As most git users are aware, the default branch name in git changed from master to main a while ago. Since I maintain projects created both before and after this change, some maintenance tasks have become more difficult to automate as a result (and I'm a sucker for consistency).

I put off dealing with this because I was planning to make master branches disappear at the same time APIs are broken, but that wasn't a good idea for several reasons beyond the scope of this post. So, I've changed all of my personal projects, and all projects maintained under the LV2 umbrella, to use main.

If you're tracking any of those repositories, maintain packaging infrastructure, or similar, please update your local trees and/or configuration accordingly. It's best to rename the local branch with git, since this preserves your local reftree and avoids accidental use of the old name:

git branch -m master main

The GStreamer team is pleased to announce another bug fix release in the new stable 1.24 release series of your favourite cross-platform multimedia framework!

This release only contains bugfixes and a security fix and it should be safe to update from 1.24.x.

Highlighted bugfixes:

• gst-rtsp-server security fix
• GstAggregator start time selection and latency query fixes for force-live mode
• audioconvert: fix dynamic handling of mix matrix, and accept custom upstream event for setting one
• encodebin: fix parser selection for encoders that support multiple codecs
• flvmux improvments for pipelines where timestamps don't start at 0
• glcontext: egl: Unrestrict the support base DRM formats
• kms: Add IMX-DCSS auto-detection in sink and fix stride with planar formats in allocator
• macOS main application event loop fixes
• mpegtsdemux: Handle PTS/DTS wraparound with ignore-pcr=true
• playbin3, decodebin3, parsebin, urisourcebin: fix races, and improve stability and stream-collection handling
• rtpmanager: fix early RTCP SR generation for sparse streams like metadata
• qml6glsrc: Reduce capture delay
• qtdemux: fix parsing of rotation matrix with 180 degree rotation
• rtpav1depay: added wait-for-keyframe and request-keyframe properties
• srt: make work with newer libsrt versions and don't re-connect on authentication failure
• v4l2 fixes and improvement
• webrtcsink, webrtcbin and whepsrc fixes
• cerbero: fix Python 3.13 compatibility, g-i with newer setuptools, bootstrap on Arch Linux; iOS build fixes
• Ship qroverlay plugin in binary packages
• Various bug fixes, memory leak fixes, and other stability and reliability improvements

See the GStreamer 1.24.9 release notes for more details.

Binaries for Android, iOS, Mac OS X and Windows will be available shortly.

The Ubuntu Studio team is pleased to announce the release of Ubuntu Studio 24.10 code-named “Oracular Oriole”. This marks Ubuntu Studio’s 35th release. This release is a Regular release and as such, it is supported for 9 months, until July 2025.

Since it’s just out, you may experience some issues, so you might want to wait a bit before upgrading. Please see the release notes for a more complete list of changes and known issues. Listed here are some of the major highlights.

You can download Ubuntu Studio 24.10 from our download page.

Special Notes

The Ubuntu Studio 24.10 disk image (ISO) exceeds 4 GB and cannot be downloaded to some file systems such as FAT32 and may not be readable when burned to a standard DVD. For this reason, we recommend downloading to a compatible file system. When creating a boot medium, we recommend creating a bootable USB stick with the ISO image or burning to a Dual-Layer DVD.

Minimum installation media requirements: Dual-Layer DVD or 8GB USB drive.

Images can be obtained from this link: https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/24.10/release/

Full updated information, including Upgrade Instructions, are available in the Release Notes.

Upgrades from 24.04 LTS should be enabled within a month after release, so we appreciate your patience.

New This Release

Minimal Installation

We have now implemented minimal installations in the system installer. This will let you install a minimal desktop to get going and then install what you need via Ubuntu Studio Installer. This will make a faster installation process and lets you customize what you need for your personal Studio.

Unfortunately, at least for the time being, we also had to get rid of the default shortcuts in the panel since it would cause an error when loading without the applications being installed. A solution for this is coming in 25.04.

Generic Kernel

The Generic Ubuntu Kernel is now fully capable of low-latency workloads. As such, with this release, we have switched from the LowLatency Kernel to the Generic Kernel with the boot options to enable the low-latency configuration enabled by default.

These options can be changed via Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration and customized depending on your use-case and your workload. If you don’t need the low-latency and wish to have a computer that is more energy-efficient, you may wish to turn off all three options. The choice is yours.

Plasma 6

Ubuntu Studio, in cooperation with Kubuntu, switched to Plasma 6 this cycle. This switch was not without issues, so we expect many of the issues to be Plasma 6 related, especially when it comes to the default configuration and theming.

New Look

Ubuntu Studio had been using the same theming, “Materia” (except for the 22.04 LTS release which was a re-colored Breeze theme) since 19.04. However, Materia has gone dead upstream. To stay consistent, we found a fork called “Orchis” which seems to match closely and have switched to that.

As you can see from the screenshot, it has more vivid colors, round corners, and a more modern look. We hope you enjoy it. We are aware of a bug involving a dark bar under windows which may be an issue, but sometimes switching the window decorations to another variation of the theme is a solution.

PipeWire 1.2.4

This release contains PipeWire 1.2. With PipeWire 1.2, FireWire devices requiring FFADO are supported. Do note that the Ubuntu Studio team does not have any FireWire devices and could not test this.

PipeWire’s JACK compatibility is configured to use out-of-the-box and is zero-latency internally. System latency is configurable via Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration.

However, if you would rather use straight JACK 2 instead, that’s also possible. Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration can disable and enable PipeWire’s JACK compatibility on-the-fly. From there, you can simply use JACK via QJackCtl.

Complete Deprecation of PulseAudio/JACK setup/Studio Controls

Due to the maturity of PipeWire, the traditional PulseAudio/JACK setup, where JACK would be started/stopped by Studio Controls and bridged to PulseAudio, is now fully deprecated and the option is not offered anymore. This configuration is no longer installable via Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration. Studio Controls may return someday as a PipeWire fine-tuning solution, but for now it is unsupported by the developer.

Ardour 8.6

While this does not represent the latest release of Ardour, Ardour 8.6 is a great release. If you would like the latest release, we highly recommend purchasing one-time or subscribing to Ardour directly from the developers to help support this wonderful application.

To help support Ardour’s funding, you may obtain later versions directly from ardour.org. To do so, please one-time purchase or subscribe to Ardour from their website. If you wish to get later versions of Ardour from us, you will have to wait until the next regular release of Ubuntu Studio, due in April 2025.

Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration

Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration’s Dummy Audio Device now also has a much-requested Dummy Audio Input.

Additionally as described above, Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration has an option to configure the default boot parameters that are commonly used to enable the low-latency capabilities of the Linux kernel used in Ubuntu. For more information about that, see the Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration page.

We’re back on Matrix

You’ll notice that the menu links to our support chat and on our website will now take you to a Matrix chat. This is due to the Ubuntu community carving its own space within the Matrix federation.

However, this is not only a support chat. This is also a creativity discussion chat. You can pass ideas to each other and you’re welcome to it if the topic remains within those confines. However, if a moderator or admin warns you that you’re getting off-topic (or the intention for the chat room), please heed the warning.

This is a persistent connection, meaning if you close the window (or chat), it won’t lose your place as you may only need to sign back in to resume the chat.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does Ubuntu Studio contain snaps?
A: Yes. Mozilla’s distribution agreement with Canonical changed, and Ubuntu was forced to no longer distribute Firefox in a native .deb package. We have found that, after numerous improvements, Firefox now performs just as well as the native .deb package did.

Thunderbird also became a snap so that the maintainers can get security patches delivered faster.

Additionally, Freeshow is an Electron-based application. Electron-based applications cannot be packaged in the Ubuntu repositories in that they cannot be packaged in a traditional Debian source package. While such apps do have a build system to create a .deb binary package, it circumvents the source package build system in Launchpad, which is required when packaging for Ubuntu. However, Electron apps also have a facility for creating snaps, which can be uploaded and included. Therefore, for Freeshow to be included in Ubuntu Studio, it had to be packaged as a snap.

We have additional snaps that are Ubuntu-specific, such as the Firmware Updater and the Security Center. Contrary to popular myth, Ubuntu does not have any plans to switch all packages to snaps, nor do we.

Q: Will you make an ISO with {my favorite desktop environment}?
A: To do so would require creating an entirely new flavor of Ubuntu, which would require going through the Official Ubuntu Flavor application process. Since we’re completely volunteer-run, we don’t have the time or resources to do this. Instead, we recommend you download the official flavor for the desktop environment of your choice and use Ubuntu Studio Installer to get Ubuntu Studio – which does *not* convert that flavor to Ubuntu Studio but adds its benefits.

Q: What if I don’t want all these packages installed on my machine?
A: Simply use the Ubuntu Studio Installer to remove the features of Ubuntu Studio you don’t want or need!

Get Involved!

A wonderful way to contribute is to get involved with the project directly! We’re always looking for new volunteers to help with packaging, documentation, tutorials, user support, and MORE! Check out all the ways you can contribute!

Our project leader, Erich Eickmeyer, is now working on Ubuntu Studio at least part-time, and is hoping that the users of Ubuntu Studio can give enough to generate a monthly part-time income. We’re not there, but if every Ubuntu Studio user donated monthly, we’d be there! Your donations are appreciated! If other distributions can do it, surely we can! See the sidebar for ways to give!

Special Thanks

Huge special thanks for this release go to:

• Eylul Dogruel: Artwork, Graphics Design
• Ross Gammon: Upstream Debian Developer, Testing, Email Support
• Sebastien Ramacher: Upstream Debian Developer
• Dennis Braun: Upstream Debian Developer
• Rik Mills: Kubuntu Council Member, help with Plasma desktop
• Scarlett Moore: Kubuntu Project Lead, help with Plasma desktop
• Cristian Delgado: Translations for Ubuntu Studio Menu
• Dan Bungert: Subiquity, seed fixes
• Len Ovens: Testing, insight
• Wim Taymans: Creator of PipeWire
• Mauro Gaspari: Tutorials, Promotion, and Documentation, Testing, keeping Erich sane
• Krytarik Raido: IRC Moderator, Mailing List Moderator
• Erich Eickmeyer: Project Leader, Packaging, Development, Direction, Treasurer

It’s 2024. You’ve probably got one or more pairs of wireless headphones around the house. [Barnso] prefers wired headphones with a long cable, but he also decries the fact that it often gets tangled in his chair. The solution? A pulley system to make everything easier.

The concept is simple. [Barnso]’s system uses three pulleys. The headphone cable goes to the PC, and then runs over the first pulley. It then runs under a second pulley which is free to move, but weighted so that it naturally wants to fall down under gravity. The cable then comes back up over a third pulley, and then runs to the headphones on [Barnso]’s head. Basically, it’s a super simple cable retraction mechanism that keeps the long headphone cable organized and in one place.

It’s nice to see a simple mechanism that makes life easier, particularly one that solves a problem so many of us have faced in real life. The construction shown in the video is almost (intentionally?) maddeningly hacky but it does the job. If you prefer to go wireless, though, we can show you how to do that too.

The Ubuntu Studio team is pleased to announce the beta release of Ubuntu Studio 24.10, codenamed “Oracular Oriole”.

While this beta is reasonably free of any showstopper installer bugs, you will find some bugs within. This image is, however, mostly representative of what you will find when Ubuntu Studio 24.10 is released on October 10, 2024.

Special Notes

The Ubuntu Studio 24.10 image (ISO) exceeds 4 GB and cannot be downloaded to some file systems such as FAT32 and may not be readable when burned to a DVD. For this reason, we recommend downloading to a compatible file system. When creating a boot medium, we recommend creating a bootable USB stick with the ISO image or burning to a Dual-Layer DVD.

Images can be obtained from this link: https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/24.10/beta/

Full updated information, including Upgrade Instructions, are available in the Release Notes.

New Features This Release

• Plasma 6.1 is now the default desktop environment, an upgrade from Plasma 5.27. This may have some unknown bugs that we’re ironing out as we go along, along with theming.
• Ubuntu’s Generic Kernel is now capable of the same low latency processing as Ubuntu’s lowlatency kernel when certain boot parameters are used. Additionally, the lowlatency kernel is eventually going to be deprecated. With this in mind, we have switched to the generic kernel with the low latency boot parameters enabled by default. These boot parameters can be tweaked in Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuation.
• Minimal Install Option for new installations. This allows users to install Ubuntu Studio and customize what they need later with Ubuntu Studio Installer.
• Orchis is now our default theme, which replaces Materia, our default theme since 19.04. Materia has stopped development, so we decided to
• PipeWire continues to improve with every release and now includes FFADO support. Version 1.2.3
• Ubuntu Studio Installer‘s included Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration utility for fine-tuning the PipeWire setup now includes the ability to create or remove a dummy audio input device. Version 1.30
• The legacy PulseAudio/JACK has been deprecated and discontinued, is no longer supported, and is no longer an option to use. Going forward, PipeWire or JACK are the only options. PipeWire’s JACK integration can be disabled from Ubuntu Studio Audio Configuration to use JACK by itself with QJackCtl, or via other means.

Major Package Upgrades

• Ardour version 8.6.0
• Qtractor version 1.1
• OBS Studio version 30.2.3
• Audacity version 3.6.1
• digiKam version 8.4.0
• Kdenlive version 24.08.1
• Krita version 5.2.3

There are many other improvements, too numerous to list here. We encourage you to look around the freely-downloadable ISO image.

Known Issues

• Due to the transition to Plasma 6 and Qt6, there may be some theming inconsistencies, especially for those upgrading. To work around these issues, reapply the default theme using System Settings and select “Orchis-dark” from Kvantum Manager.
• Some graphics cards might find the transparency in the Orchis theme difficult to work with. For that reason, you can switch to “Orchis-dark-solid” in the Kvantum Manager. Feedback is welcome, and if the transparency becomes too burdensome, we can switch to the solid theme by default.
• The new minimal install mode will not load the desktop properly with the extra icons (gimp, krita, patchance, etc.) in the top bar, so those had to be removed by default. If you find them useful, you can add them by right-clicking in the menu and clicking “Pin to Task Manager”. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Official Ubuntu Studio release notes can be found at https://ubuntustudio.org/ubuntu-studio-24-10-release-notes/

Further known issues, mostly pertaining to the desktop environment, can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/OracularOriole/ReleaseNotes/Kubuntu

Additionally, the main Ubuntu release notes contain more generic issues: https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/oracular-oriole-release-notes/44878

How You Can Help

Please test using the test cases on https://iso.qa.ubuntu.com. All you need is a Launchpad account to get started.

Additionally, we need financial contributions. Our project lead, Erich Eickmeyer, is working long hours on this project and trying to generate a part-time income. Go here to see how you can contribute financially (options are also in the sidebar).

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does Ubuntu Studio contain snaps?
A: Yes. Mozilla’s distribution agreement with Canonical changed, and Ubuntu was forced to no longer distribute Firefox in a native .deb package. We have found that, after numerous improvements, Firefox now performs just as well as the native .deb package did.

Thunderbird is also a snap this cycle in order for the maintainers to get security patches delivered faster.

Additionally, Freeshow is an Electron-based application. Electron-based applications cannot be packaged in the Ubuntu repositories in that they cannot be packaged in a traditional Debian source package. While such apps do have a build system to create a .deb binary package, it circumvents the source package build system in Launchpad, which is required when packaging for Ubuntu. However, Electron apps also have a facility for creating snaps, which can be uploaded and included. Therefore, for Freeshow to be included in Ubuntu Studio, it had to be packaged as a snap.

Also, to keep theming consistent, all included themes are snapped in addition to the included .deb versions so that snaps stay consistent with out themes.

We are working with Canonical to make sure that the quality of snaps goes up with each release, so we please ask that you give snaps a chance instead of writing them off completely.

Q: If I install this Beta release, will I have to reinstall when the final release comes out?
A: No. If you keep it updated, your installation will automatically become the final release. However, if Audacity returns to the Ubuntu repositories before final release, then you might end-up with a double-installation of Audacity. Removal instructions of one or the other will be made available in a future post.

Q: Will you make an ISO with {my favorite desktop environment}?
A: To do so would require creating an entirely new flavor of Ubuntu, which would require going through the Official Ubuntu Flavor application process. Since we’re completely volunteer-run, we don’t have the time or resources to do this. Instead, we recommend you download the official flavor for the desktop environment of your choice and use Ubuntu Studio Installer to get Ubuntu Studio – which does *not* convert that flavor to Ubuntu Studio but adds its benefits.

Q: What if I don’t want all these packages installed on my machine?
A: We now include a minimal install option. Install using the minimal install option, then use Ubuntu Studio Installer to install what you need for your very own content creation studio.