JackLab 1.0 - the ultimate Linux AV distro!

[danboid]

NOTE TO MODS- Please don't move this to the Linux section as this announcement is primary targeted at non-Linux users more than it is existing Linux users and they're unlikely to read the Linux section of the forums

JackLab Audio Distribution 1.0 Announcement

September 15th, 2007 saw the release of the first stable version of the JackLab Audio Distribution (aka JAD), a totally free GNU/Linux based operating system which ushers in a new, open and free age in computing and media production. JackLab can be used as a complete replacement for MS Windows, as it includes WINE which allows you to run many Windows programs full-speed (some actually run FASTER under JackLab/WINE than under genuine Windows!) or you can have JackLab and Windows simultaneously installed on one PC if you wish.

Why is JackLab better than other versions of Linux? One of the longest standing criticisms of other Linux distributions has been their poor multimedia support 'out-of-the-box'- unless you knew what extra programs were required AND had a fast internet connection to download them then most versions of Linux offered only very basic, crippled multimedia support. This, however, is exactly the area in which JAD excels as it offers the most comprehensive and up-to-date selection of open source audio and multimedia software thus far- literally hundreds of programs are included on the JAD DVD. JAD is also the first version of Linux to offer full support for ASIO via wineasio, which allows musicians to use their VST plug-ins under both Linux and Windows music programs.

Immediately after installing JAD, you can:

* Playback, edit and convert MP3s, WAVS, OGGS and any other audio format
* Multi-track recording of music with lower latency than either MacOSX or Windows
* MIDI sequencing, real-time audio synthesis and FX, samplers etc.
* Capture video from DV, HDV, DVB, TV and analogue sources such as VHS
* Edit and convert video
* Rip, playback, edit and author DVDs
* Stream audio and video over the internet
* Scan, print, convert and manipulate bitmap and vector graphics
* Easily update and download 1000's more free programs from the internet
* Word processing, Desktop Publishing, internet and more are also catered for

Alongside offering optimal performance for music producers, another key goal of the JackLab project was to make the system as easy to use as possible and this is why we chose openSUSE 10.2 as its base. Thanks to openSUSE's graphical control centre- YasT, the most powerful of its kind for Linux- all system configuration tasks are easily achieved in a few clicks. To further ease the process of learning to use JackLab, it is recommended you read the JAD Introduction which explains the main differences between using JAD and MS Windows, lists the most important applications and gives handy tips on their usage:

http://wiki.jacklab.net/index.php/JAD_introduction

You can find out for yourself today why it is that Hollywood, Google, Yahoo and the world of supercomputing have standardised on the "Universal OS of the internet" that is GNU/Linux. Say goodbye to the viruses, spyware/malware, corporate control and forced upgrades that are the bane of Windows users and regain full control of your computer by downloading JackLab today. We hope you enjoy using JackLab and look forward to hearing your feedback!

http://jacklab.org/

[GMaq]

Dan,
WOW! This is great news for the Linux community, very well thought out distro, ASIO, Swami, Cinelerra, easy to use Wine implementation are all things that have kept people in their Windows environment for A/V. Couple of questions (I did have a look at the Wiki first). Is there support for ivtv cards like the Hauppauge WinTV 150/250/350? Also any plans or news on the Linux port of AviSynth? Nice work can't wait to have a look!

[danboid]

Hi GMaq!

According to the opensuse 10.2 (which JAD is based on) TV cards hardware compatibility list:

http://en.opensuse.org/HCL/TV_Cards

the WinTV MCE-150 is based on the brooktree 878 chipset and so it should work great under xdtv. See my notes on getting the best results out of xdtv in the JackLab wiki.

http://wiki.jacklab.net/index.php/JAD_introduction#xdtv

Avisynth isn't included in JAD 1.0, but if there is enough demand then it will be included in JAD 1.1 I'm sure. I don't think there has been an official Avisynth release for Linux yet but you can still try compiling it yourself by downloading the source from cvs

http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=90117

Please let us know what you think of JAD once you've tried it!

[GMaq]

Hi GMaq!

Please let us know what you think of JAD once you've tried it!

OK, You asked for it !

I have been playing around with JAD for a few days now, I'll admit for a debian guy, openSUSE takes a little getting used to, I have been able to attain pretty decent multimedia setups on Ubuntu and MEPIS but not with as broad a range of software as JAD provides, It is nice that KDenlive is the latest version, and the realtime kernel allows me to run Rosegarden without being pestered about latency issues. I have successfully used QJackctl and QSynth before and it's nice to see them both already provided in JAD. As you stated there is support for the Win-TV MCE 150 card, but to be frank the software for TV Capture (other than MythTV which takes a degree in computer science to install) in Linux anywhere sucks (for now) without support for the MPEG Hardware encoder, and there is nothing new here in JAD. There are however great progs for those with DV Cams and Digicams. For package managers at this point in time I far prefer YasT to Smart, Smart has hung on me a few times now, while YasT has allowed me to get Amarok and ntfs-3g without difficulty. I was very impressed with the installer and was able to effortlessly set up a multi-boot with WinXP and other Linux installs which other distros have been sorely lacking. A couple of issues I need to sort out, I installed the NTFS configuration utility GUI and it crashes when I try and use it Also KNotify crashes when I terminate qjackctl. Since so many other applications are the latest and greatest it'd be nice if Avidemux was 2.4p2 instead of 2.3.0. which is quite old now.

To clarify, this distro is really worth checking out and offers a total package that is not easily obtainable elsewhere, to be fair this is the first stable release and there are still a few bugs to be worked out, The Enlightenment desktop isn't really my personal cup of tea (which is an opinion only) but KDE is deployed very attractively in openSUSE. I'm going to stay with it for now and look forward to seeing what the next JAD release built on top of openSUSE 10.3 has to offer. Great work JAD dudes!

[GMaq]

Hi Again,
Unfortunately poor NTFS support in openSUSE 10.2 was a deal-breaker for me, I upgraded to openSUSE 10.3 RC1 and added the Packman and Jacklab repos, this gave me access to some fresher versions of the apps I was looking for. I have yet to find a distro that will give me a video preview for a Hauppauge PVR 150, I can capture (video only) via the terminal but not preview what I'm capturing, I've spent countless hours experimenting with at least 4 distros with the same result, If Linux multimedia developers are serious about getting Windows users to even glance at Linux (for a multimedia alternative) then this is the kind of shit that needs to be resolved. XawTV, XdTV, MoTV, KdeTV and Zapping all either do not work at all with Hauppage PVR-150's or capture in other Codecs when the card is a Hardware MPEG-2 Encoder!! (And yes I had the ivtv firmware installed) I can understand if I was screwing around with an "unsupported" card like my old ATI AIW 128, but almost every major Linux distro touts themselves as "supporting" Hauppauge PVR products. Having a hardware utility recognize the card in it's PCI slot is a long way from support in my view!!! I can totally understand that Linux cannot support every chip on the market, I can understand that they have decided on specific popular Conexxant chips, but if you are going to focus on one chipset PLEASE develop software that can actually use it to it's potential.

--End of Rant--