Full Blown Audio Video Workstation using KDE chroot and KXStudio

NOTICE: Audio is all over the place with recent changes to the Chrome Stable channel - the Beta channel seems to be working better, but there are still many issues being ironed out.

David Schneider suggested: If cras adds too much latency then be sure to add yourself to the hwaudio group, stop cras, and change the default alsa pcm to hw0.

I haven't tried that yet, but here is how to stop cras:

Log-out of Linux and it will bring you back to the Chrome OS.

Type in this at your crosh shell prompt to turn off the Chrome OS system audio:

sudo initctl stop cras

It will return:

cras stop/waiting

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Note: Not all of the following will work with a Samsung ARM processor! But JACK audio seems to work if you turn off the Chrome Audio System (cras) with sudo initctl stop cras as described above.

We cannot make KXStudio work as-is on an ARM based Chromebook, like a Samsung - you'll have to install your own QJacktl and other audio utilities as KXStudio's PPA's are written for x86/64 machines... but to use JACK you'll need to definitely shut off cras to avoid a bad restart-causing crash coming about from trying to run the two sound systems at the same time.

I have a fully working installation of KDE KXStudio running on a 3-pound, $199 Chromebook!

Hit CTRL-ALT-T to enter crosh and type in shell and hit enter to get to the command line.

(Note: Precise or 12.04 did not seem to work with the Chromebook - too many package dependencies were broken.)

Install a 12.10 XFCE desktop using this command next:

sudo sh -e ~/Downloads/crouton -t chrome,xfce -n kxstudio -r quantal

Or you can try out the more heavyweight KDE desktop environment, but XFCE4 will run faster.

sudo sh -e ~/Downloads/crouton -t chrome,kde -n kxstudio -r quantal

(You can see whether you can pull off both XFCE and KDE with KXSTUDIO at the same time by typing sudo sh -e ~/Downloads/crouton -t chrome,xfce,kde -n kxstudio -r quantal though I've not tested whether this would work.)

It takes about 10-15 minutes on a fast connection.

Enter your new XFCE installation now by typing:

sudo startxfce4

Or start up KDE if you opted for that by typing:

sudo startkde

Note: If you have other more recently installed chroots of xfce or kde, then add the chroot name like this:

sudo startxfce4 -n kxstudio

or

sudo startkde -n kxstudio

Now go to the KXStudio:Ubuntu:Upgrade page and run all the commands there in your terminal. You will need to install python-software-properties or software-properties-common to get the add-apt-repository command to work:

For release <= ubuntu 12.04
sudo apt-get install python-software-properties

For release >= ubuntu 12.10
sudo apt-get install software-properties-common

Frankly, I seemed to have better luck with the installations if I installed Synaptic and used it to update at this point, over using sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

sudo apt-get install synaptic

Install the kxstudio-desktop-xfce desktop now, or the kxstudio-desktop-kde one if you opted to try the KDE environment.

The meta-all, meta-graphics and meta-video packages are reporting broken packages and do not install, so you have to install each meta package individually. Gimp, Inkscape and Blender are already there, among others. Try installing other video tools you want individually. (kdenlive is already there.) I haven't attempted video editing on my Chromebook yet, but it will be interesting to see how that holds up!

After everything is installed, log-out and it will bring you back to the Chrome OS.

Now enter your KXStudio installation with:

sudo startxfce4 or sudo startkde

You may want to skip this as it might break the audio - still testing latest crouton: Navigate to the KXStudio Welcome Page in System a little ways down and force the settings to be updated, and go ahead and apply the KXStudio theme.

Now log-out and sudo startxfce4 or sudo startkde again and you'll be in KXStudio!

JACK worked from Cadence after manually starting it (auto-start does not seem to work), but I had to go into the ALSA mixer to turn on my headphones at one point (they muted themselves) - You might want to add the Speakers volume control also, but probably not necessary.

It probably is a good idea to stop cras while using the audio in KXStudio. It may not be fully necessary, but strange things may happen if you try to play sounds in Chrome OS (even inadvertently).

You can always verify if cras is running with something like

ps -eaf | grep cras

Run that last command in the crosh shell before starting up KDE/KXStudio.

(Page adapted from a post at the LinuxMusicians.com KXStudio forum)