The State of Multimedia Linux [LWN.net]

[This article was contributed by Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier]

About three years ago a volunteer project, sparked by Marco Trevisani, started working on DeMuDi (the Debian Multimedia Distribution). The goal of DeMuDi was to provide a multimedia GNU/Linux distribution. Not just a distribution with multimedia players and viewers, but a distribution with tools to author multimedia content. Originally devised for distribution at the International Computer Music Conference, the project took on a life of its own after that conference.

According to Guenter Geiger, one of the developers who worked on the original DeMuDi project and who has been one of the main volunteers until recently, the project sparked the AGNULA (A GNU/Linux Audio distribution) project. (Note: The availability of the AGNULA website leaves much to be desired. It may be easier to get information on AGNULA using Google's caching feature.) The AGNULA project was started by Nicola Bernardini. Bernardini, the manager of Centro Tempo Reale in Florence, delivered a proposal to the European Commission. The EC gave a green light to the project, and provided a two-year funding package starting April 1, 2002.

The AGNULA project is coordinated by Tempo Reale and involves research institutions in Paris, Barcelona, Stockholm and the Free Software Foundation Europe. The goal of the project is to produce two distributions, DeMuDi and a Red Hat-based version called ReHMuDi, as well as a number of multimedia packages. Only free software is to be used to build these distributions.

Unfortunately, development of the distributions under the AGNULA project do not seem to be proceeding quite as quickly as some might have hoped. Trevisani, who was the Technical Coordinator for the AGNULA/DeMuDi project, spoke up a few weeks ago on the Debian developer media list about the problems with DeMuDi as a separate distribution and the need for a internal Debian multimedia project:

After one year of work and having reached release 0.9 I definitely think that is time to start a Debian-Multimedia internal-projects...I'm aware that there is no chance for the project for growing and lasting in the future if it does not become quite urgently a Debian internal projects.

Trevisani has stepped down from his position as Technical Coordinator for the project after one year of work and the release of DeMuDi 0.9. The position is now being handled by Andrea Glorioso. Glorioso also took part in the discussion on the Debian developer mailing list, and says that they're trying to find a good way to cooperate between the AGNULA project and Debian. However, there are some technical hurdles in coordinating packages with Debian, since the stable distribution moves very slowly and the testing and unstable distributions are (by definition) always in a state of flux.

Geiger has also stopped working on DeMuDi and says that he wants to "concentrate more on pushing the idea within Debian, simply by maintaining the DeMuDi packages within the Debian framework." Geiger says that the main problem with DeMuDi is a lack of developers. A glance at the DeMuDi developer mailing list archives shows that there's not a lot of activity on that front.

While some developers are being paid for work related to Linux multimedia, Geiger says there is little money for creating the distribution itself. According to Geiger, "the big part of the money is going into the subprojects...the small part that is left for building the two distributions is divided equally among DeMuDi and RehMuDi." Both Geiger and Trevisani have worked on DeMuDi as volunteers.

For now, Geiger says that the he hopes there will be more discussion within Debian about an internal multimedia project. He also mentioned that a separate mailing list for discussion of a multimedia project has been requested. As of yet, there's no official word on the status of an internal Debian project.

Whether the AGNULA projects will result in a usable multimedia distribution, or if Trevisani and Geiger will be successful in producing a viable sub-project within Debian, remains to be seen. If Linux is going to make any kind of dent in Microsoft's share on the desktop, we'll definitely need multimedia applications that can compete with the commercial counterparts for Windows and the Mac OS. There are a number of applications that are showing promise, but a distribution that bundles the applications could be a huge boon in luring users away from proprietary platforms and onto Linux.

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The need for a Multimedia Distribution

Posted Feb 27, 2003 15:48 UTC (Thu) by yohahn (subscriber, #4107) [Link]

The problem with the "just included with the distro" idea is that multimedia authoring has very different requirements than multimedia listening. (at least on the more professional side)

I know a bit about the audio perpective, so that's what i'll comment on.

When you are playing back audio, frequently you use large buffers to keep from having dropouts in audio when another task is busy with the processor, and you are unable to send more data to the audio card. XMMS and the like all provide this capability, I imagine that video uses a similar method.

This is very different from what happens when you wish to do multi-track recording. When you are playing a track and trying to record on another audio track (listen to the background while singing the lead), you want as little latency as possible. This means you cannot use large audio buffers as they add latency.

Thus for high-end audio recording on a Linux box different frameworks are used. Where esd or aRts or the Gstreamer frameworks would be used on playback, JACK (jackit) is used when recording. Even a specially compiled kernel (with low-latency patches) must be used. (the code is in 2.5, but a patch is required under 2.4) Even on windows a different driver framework is used for high-end recording: ASIO drivers (amoung others).

These high-end frameworks are quite different from their playback siblings.
My understanding is that the design is quite different and porting one audio app to use the other framework is not easy (I have no experience here.. I believe it's a matter of using a callback function in the higher end frameworks). This has lead to a rather fragmented developement of programs using different libraries. (Two of the nicer interfaces, Sweep and Audacity, use the oss interface directly. Other apps use JACK and alsa exclusively. These inflexabilities are rather annoying).

Add to this the problems with C++ libraries. Since Multimedia uses alot of complex structures (and usually a complex UI to manipulate it) but needs good speed, frequenly C++ is used. The problem is that the standard for dynamic linking to C++ based libraries has been in alot of flux, leading to frequent dynamic linking problems as g++ versions change.

This has lead one of the nicer Multitrack recording programs, Ardour, to make some really strange decisions. They only allow static linking to multiple libraries, including libgtk+ and libgtk--. What's even stranger, because the rate at which these libraries were changing, they decided to include GTK+ and GTK-- right into the source code. You compile the GUI interface right into the app. Trying to get something like this included with debian would probably create quite a flame war (a few flareups have happened on the Ardour mailing list before)

On the other hand lots of good things have occured on the audio front. LADSPA seems to be catching on, and there is a good rallying area for linux audio projects (http://www.linuxdj.com/).

I can understand the difficulties that a multimedia distro has in front of it. The challenge should be embraced, but people need to understand the difficulties involved.

(Disclaimer: I'm not involved in any of these projects, I've simply been a long time interested observer. If I've gotten something wrong, please correct me)

The need for a Multimedia Distribution

Posted Feb 27, 2003 17:28 UTC (Thu) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]

I would guess that the multimedia applications required to compete with MicroSoft on the desktop are listening, not production, applications, since desktop users generally don't do much multitrack audio production (a bit of editing, perhaps, but not realtime).

For production, it does make sense to have different settings, but this still doesn't require a separate distribution. It would probably make most sense to have a different runlevel to avoid running programs that are generally useful but which could interfere with your editing (you don't want to run updatedb while in this mode, since it will cause a huge amount of disk load). But the same package management, configuration, and (provided the associated software is tracked properly) updating mechanisms as are used by a general-purpose distribution should be appropriate. (As far as the kernel, you do need a low-latency kernel for multimedia production, but you actually seem to want a low-latency kernel for everything, it seems).

The need for a Multimedia Distribution

Posted Feb 27, 2003 19:59 UTC (Thu) by yohahn (subscriber, #4107) [Link]

I would say there is a big market in the desktop for production. More in homes than in business. I would use the sales of DVD cameras, DVD+-RW drives, CD-RW drives, and video capture cards to support my claim.
The home multimedia authoring market is just going to get bigger as the home user gets more savy. (I think they will also start using it in church and school stuff, more and more.)

As to having everything in one distro. I agree with your assessment than a different run level could do the trick. This is a good plan for the long run

On the other hand, right now, I think it's a bit overly complex to expect it to fit right in, right away. Currently, low-latency is a custom kernel, ALSA is a custom kernel, and c++ libraries don't all work together for dynamic linking. I think a separate distro now, could help lead to packages that fit right in, later. (this model fits right into debian, I think)

The need for a Multimedia Distribution

Posted Mar 7, 2003 0:23 UTC (Fri) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

>If Linux is going to make any kind of dent in Microsoft's share on the desktop, we'll definitely need multimedia applications that can compete with the commercial counterparts for Windows and the Mac OS<.

IMHO, if Linux dosent make a significant dent on the desktop, then it 'll gonna be dead on the desktop after a very few years, and dead as a worldwide movement and in tight control of giants like IBM or HP.

I think even Linus would eventually "get off" if he only receives patches from IBM or HP boys and the like, or if the only machines that Linux would run where IBM or HP servers.

"If Linux is dead on the desktop, then is dead period"... it's a Linus statement!
"And the brilliant analisys: http://www.aaxnet.com/editor/edit029.html"

I dont know if it takes a "killer-app" or if its only a matter of drivers or toolkits, but i think its always of good taste to warn (almost a moral imperative) all developers, users and followers. WE NEED DESKTOP