A Look at Ubuntu Studio

Michael J. Jordan, Linux Online Staff

May 30, 2007

Ubuntu has been the most popular Linux distribution for quite some time now. This popularity has spawned quite a few variants. Apart from the inevitable third-party knock-offs, there are a few "official" Ubuntu-based distributions: Kubuntu, which has a KDE GUI instead of the standard GNOME, Edubuntu, which is optimized for use in classrooms and Xubuntu, which uses the lighter-weight XFCE desktop to take advantage of older computers. Now, a new variant has appeared called Ubuntu Studio. This particular distribution is designed to provide and environment for people who work with graphics, audio and video. It comes with a number of open source tools to create and well as edit images, sound and video.

For the last ten days, I have been putting Ubuntu Studio through its paces to see if it meets my standards as a day-to-day work environment. My standards are not very high, actually. Though one of my jobs is to create audiovisual materials for foreign language learning, I don't consider myself an expert on the tools available for this pursuit. I am just a person who uses a limited number of tools that I feel comfortable with. Some of these are scripts that I created myself that serve as front ends to reliable audio and video editing tools (sox and mplayer, mencoder and mjpegtools, for example).

It's tough to have high standards for Linux as a video editing platform particularly. Though we've heard about how Linux is used extensively in the movie creation process in Hollywood, this is mainly as a server platform in the rendering process of computer generated images. Producers of semi-professional and professional video content have always gravitated toward Apple's Mac OS as their platform of choice. Due to frustrations I have encountered creating video content on Linux, I have often thought about breaking down and purchasing a high-end Mac and a version of Final Cut. My higher calling as a Linux advocate keeps me from acting on that impulse, however and I keep toughing it out and coming up with solutions on Linux, most of them home-brewed. I have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of Ubuntu Studio, thinking that it would eliminate some of the drudgery of creating video presentations on Linux. The fact is, after using Ubuntu Studio and the programs that ship with it, I am not really sure if it has. But the reason for this has more to do with the programs that Ubuntu Studio has to work with more than the Ubuntu variant itself. I think the old adage 'You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear' is appropriate in this case.

Working with Ubuntu Studio

Ubuntu Studio is a bit bigger than its parent, so it's distributed via a DVD image instead of a standard CD one. For your information, you can also convert a standard Ubuntu installation into Ubuntu Studio by modifying your sources.list file and running apt-get with some special parameters. There's more information on this at the Ubuntu Studio website.

After an fairly easy installation process that comes right from standard Ubuntu (I say 'fairly', because it didn't like my LCD monitor at first), I was up and running in no time.

The official Ubuntu Studio theme is somewhat dark for my taste and I changed it to something a little lighter within a few hours of starting to use it.

Fortunately, good audio and graphics programs are a little more plentiful under Linux. And they are good. We hear a lot about how Linux is missing Photoshop, for example. Linux has The GIMP, which is a perfectly acceptable alternative and when people compare it unfavorably to Photoshop, what they are really saying is that they are used to Photoshop and prefer it for that reason. Ubuntu Studio comes with The GIMP as well as other leading open source image programs like Blender, for creating 3D. And if you think Blender is a slouch, then check out image gallery. If you're into taking photos, then you'll be pleased with Ubuntu Studio for this as well. Again, since the Mac seems to be the standard everybody applies, it compares favorably to it. Within a few seconds of plugging in my Kodak digital camera, a dialog box came up showing the photos on the camera and asking what I wanted to do with them - save them, edit them with various programs. One of them is F-Spot, which is an excellent photo management program. You can do all kinds of things with it, even send your photos to your Flickr account.

The strength of Ubuntu Studio is audio and that's where this distribution puts the emphasis. It installs a low-latency kernel by default. This type of kernel is optimized for working with sound. Ubuntu Studio gives you the first rate sound editor Audacity, which is a must-have application for me. It also comes with a nice drum machine app called Hydrogen that I love playing around with, being a drummer myself. There are many sound applications here. In fact, Ubuntu Studio gives you enough of these to literally produce your own album. The only think it doesn't provide is the talent.

Sound may be Ubuntu Studio's forté, but video editing and creation is a different story, as I mentioned before. I remember trying most of the applications that come with Ubuntu Studio in the past on other distributions. Most of them I had to install from the source code and after fighting with dependencies, the result wasn't worth the effort I had put into it. The only difference with Ubuntu Studio on the video side is an easy install process. Since the programs aren't adequate and often buggy in first place, it really doesn't matter if you've gotten them painlessly. In most of my other distribution reviews, I have always stated that Linux is 99% ready for anyone's desktop. But if video creation is your thing, then you've run into the missing 1%. Ubuntu Studio's maintainers aren't at fault. Unless they're planning on developing a Final Cut Pro clone for their next release, then there isn't much they can do about improving this situation. The applications just aren't there. Interestingly, the video editing application that I have seen with the most promise, Cinelerra, has been left out of the official distribution. If you want it, you can always install it yourself via 'apt-get', which is what I did.

Conclusions

If you like using Free and Open Source Software and you're interested in audio creation and image editing and manipulation, you'll find Ubuntu Studio a convenient way to get all of the applications you need and more under one roof, so to speak. If you're in need of some good video creation and editing software like me, you're out of luck for the moment, I'm afraid. The maintainers of Ubuntu Studio have done their best to assemble what's out there for you, but what's out there in terms of working with video files leaves quite a bit to be desired. This isn't even the fault of those hard-working developers that have produced these apps. We all know that the audio and video codec world is a minefield filled with patent rights bombs waiting to go off. The closed source world has the advantage because they have legal departments to give them that advantage. We in the open source world will either have to wait until the patent system gets fixed or Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis become the number one formats. In the meantime, the Ubuntu Studio people can keep perfecting their very promising Linux distribution.

You can find more information at the The Ubuntu Studio home page

Michael J. Jordan is the managing editor of Linux Online. He can be reached at Michael.Jordan**AT**linux.org