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PostPosted: Tue Sep 06, 2022 1:27 am 

Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2022 1:44 am
Posts: 91
Wondering if I'm the only one here? Linux Ubuntu 22.04, evaluating ST as an alternative to having our community radio station spend USD 4,500 on an Orban Optimod. This PC will be in the air chain 24/7 and I reckon Linux is more stable than anything Microsoft ever released and far less likely to receive unwanted and unexpected reboots for upgrades that MS wants to push. In some respects Linux ST is a bit stripped-down, lacking things like Icecast server and some other bits. I have B.U.T.T. (Broadcast Using This Tool) filling in as an Icecast stream client. Things seem reliable so far.

So, this is Jack Elliott reporting from the fringes of the Stereo-Tool-o-Sphere. Anyone out there? Anyone? Is this thing on?


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PostPosted: Wed Sep 07, 2022 9:59 pm 

Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2015 11:19 am
Posts: 193
Would love to use Linux for my community station. Instead we use Windows because of driver issues. In short: No Dante DVS in Linux, no ALSA drivers for the Marian soundcard that's currently used. We actually built an analogue system, feeding analog program input and generating (non-MPX) analogue audio out ready for transport to the transmitter. Transition to µMPX is on its way.

But Windows Enterprise LTSC runs 24/7 without issues. In group management, you can also easily configure your desired Windows Update settings, like "do nothing, never".


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PostPosted: Wed Sep 07, 2022 10:30 pm 

Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2022 1:44 am
Posts: 91
Heh -- you're right, it is a pain that one must practice "defensive computing" with Windows machine just to keep them up and running 24/7. And you're right, the Linux version of ST does lack some features . . . Icecast server-client would be nice. The others aren't very important to us. Figuring out how to make ST's Scheduler work is currently at the top of my job list.


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PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2022 7:27 pm 

Joined: Thu Sep 08, 2022 3:02 pm
Posts: 81
Well I would have joined in the Microdaft bashing until recently , but now things have changed I finally have Windows 21H2 and its a lot better and a lot more stable. Now I have Linux on another partition its pretty good too but have not found a decent player on it so am stuck with Microsoft.


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PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2022 8:59 pm 

Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2022 1:44 am
Posts: 91
Agreed: this thread is not meant to be a Windows-bashing one. I'm just wondering whether I am the lone Linux user here on the forum.


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PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2022 9:15 pm 

Joined: Thu Sep 08, 2022 3:02 pm
Posts: 81
Agrees Jack but I was pointing out how fantastic the new version is :) No i like Linux its on a dual boot for me and sometimes does things different and better but not always . Mainly because of the software support for windows which is a massive catalogue. Also some things are even with a GUI harder in Linux and needs more resolving :) To be honest I like both now Windows is updating for me the world got a lot better :) I just wish it did it more like Linux but maybe windows 11 might go back to what it did with a browser window which i still think was clearer and without reboot .


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PostPosted: Sun Sep 11, 2022 8:30 pm 

Joined: Thu Jan 15, 2015 11:19 am
Posts: 193
I do have a Stereotool running in Linux in a non-radio application, still 24/7 on, and I very much like how it's possible to set everything up to startup and restart correctly in Linux with on board tools. I'm a big fan of systemd, I have to say. The only part of the setup that's giving me trouble is a Jack client that receives MIDI commands from a remote machine. That tends to fail after a couple of weeks without acually quitting, so systemd doesn't recognize the fault. I'm pretty sure it would be a PITA to set all this up in a Windows environment.


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PostPosted: Mon Sep 12, 2022 12:51 am 

Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2022 1:44 am
Posts: 91
Thank you for contributing to this little thread. Do you (or anyone running ST on Linux) have any experience running the Low Latency output? Most, if not all, of our on-air hosts just listen to the console. I don't know if any of them bother listening to the off-air signal. But the advertised latency of 11ms is low enough that even I might listen to the off-air signal when announcing. Is the low-latency option stable? Thank you!


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PostPosted: Mon Sep 12, 2022 1:10 pm 

Joined: Thu Sep 08, 2022 3:02 pm
Posts: 81
Jack I haven't tried but found a useful set up on the forum which was as follows its well worth a go as dropped my cpu usage to 20% on Windows
Quote:
My suggestion is to set the Quality slider to 20% and Latency to 2048 (that helps A LOT compared to 4096, probably due to cache sizes). Then tweak your preset and try to make the CPU load as low as possible. Finally, increase it again.

Under CPU & Latency, make sure that you're using 3 (or 4, that doesn't really seem to matter) processing cores with no subthreads per channel, and enable "Ignore high frequencies" (that lowers the CPU load by about 20-30% for FM at 192 kHz).

Things to change to lower CPU load:
- Strictness under the clipper or composite clipper settings. Setting it lower helps a lot.
- Don't use Natural Dynamics or Delossifier. They are really heavy on ARM
- In the Declipper, set "Step size reduction" to 0.75. This has a small effect on audio quality but reduces the CPU usage of it by half.


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PostPosted: Mon Sep 12, 2022 5:02 pm 

Joined: Fri Aug 26, 2022 1:44 am
Posts: 91
Thank you for the tip!


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