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Laurent Schwartz
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Jamulus OS

Jamulus OS is a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu Studio with Jamulus software out of the box.

The idea behind this OS is simplicity. With Jamulus OS follow these steps:

What are the prerequisites ?

PC with at least :

  • 2 GHz CPU frequency.
  • 64 bits processor
  • 2 GB RAM
  • 4GB USB drive/stick with good read/write capabilities.
  • A wired connection to internet (If you don't have an internal ethernet card you can use an ethernet to USB adapter) |> Please don't use Powerline ethernet or WIFI <|
  • Sound card compatible with ALSA (All USB sound cards that are class compliant or listed here

The latest version is v2.00 (sourceforge.net) based on ubuntu studio 20.04.1.

Documentation

Jamulus OS v2 is out !

Informations on Jamulus OS v2

Consult this HOW-TO if you have any question.

Documentation on Jamulus

https://github.com/corrados/jamulus/wiki

Bandwith needed for client and server

https://jamulus.io/wiki/Network-Requirements)

Behind the scene

JamulusOS has a lowlatency kernel that performs better in real time situation such as audio processing. Linux is good at network processing too ! (It is widely used by the web industry) So JamulusOS is a good candidate for Jamulus online jam sessions.
It uses Ubuntu official repositories and provide some packages not yet available in the official repositories such as JamulusOS developped packages and Jamulus Software
JamulusOS is mainly a package selection for use with Jamulus jam session. Some packages that are available out of the box in JamulusOS need to be installed in UbuntuStudio/Ubuntu.

So if you judge that a software should be added to future release, please create a discussion or open a ticket to discuss it.

Troubleshooting with (persistent) Live USB

See Troubleshooting if you have unexpected errors.

Installation

Steps to follow to create an USB persistent live or to clone iso image to USB stick/drive

To use Jamulus OS v2, you need a computer with a sound card and a wired access to the internet.

Steps to follow :

  1. Download an iso file (see Files section)
    https://sourceforge.net/projects/jamulus-os/files/JamulusOS/v2/

  2. Download Rufus on windows (or mkusb on Linux) https://rufus.ie/ .

  3. Open Rufus, drag and drop the iso image to Rufus windows, select the USB drive/stick you
    want to overwrite with Jamulus OS, add persistence with the persistence slider, click on
    the start button and wait for the write process to complete.

  4. Reboot your computer and select your usb drive/stick in the boot options menu. The computer boots
    on the USB drive/stick. (Select "Try Jamulus OS without installation" in the grub menu)

  5. Connect your hardware (Network and sound card(s))

  6. Right click (Execute) on the "Hardware settings (For Jamulus)" icons or search it in the
    application menu. A program will probe your hardware (Network and sound card(s) ) and state
    if it can be used with Jamulus software to jam online. This can take several
    minutes ... It will display a report for network and audio in firefox at the end of the process.

  7. If the hardware check was successfull, choose a sound card and report the proposed
    settings ("Sample rate", "frames", "interface" card name) to Qjackctl or
    ubuntustudio controls. (Icons on dekstop).

  8. Right click (execute) on "Jamulus" icon and then click connect. Select a server and you're done !
    You will have to tweak the Jamulus settings (Jitter buffers, audio quality and number of audio channels).

Hard drive vs USB Stick/drive installation

Hard drive installation should perform faster than USB stick/drive especially if your USB stick/drive is slow. So consider it as an option.

25 GB are recommended for JamulusOS installation. You can install a boot loader on your hard drive to let you switch at boot time to your other OSes (Windows, Ubuntu ...). You can also use a entire hard drive, this is simpler to set. Remember that all data will be lost on the disk partition or hard drive that you set for installation. Please backup your data before any OS installation process especially if you are new to Linux.

Upgrade

Upgrade to a new version without loosing personal data

Note: You will need another drive for storing your personal data.

Go to the Jamulus OS application menu (whisker menu) and type: mkusb
Choose Backup live persistent home : it will backup your home to a compressed file where you set it to.
and to restore from the created compressed file choose Restore live persistent home

Upgrade from a previous Jamulus OS version without downloading a new ISO file

Go to the file section, choose your major version (for instance v1), in that directory, you will find an "install-package" directory. (Ex: JamulusOS/v1/install-package)

There are some self extract runnable that let you install Jamulus OS packages.

This will only install the Jamulus related software :

  • Jamulus OS : utils
  • Jamulus OS : hardware check
  • Jamulus software

Download the desired file which name ends with ".run" :

cd ~/Downloads

chmod +x jamulus-upgrade-v1.07.run

sudo ./jamulus-upgrade-v1.07.run