AV Linux MX Edition 23.1 (AVL-MXe) Released!

[alextone]

Hi all,

A minor ISO update has been uploaded, info has been added to the first post..

There's no easy way to put this, so i'll be blunt.

The muse-sounds-manager has been the subject of a heated debate on the Musescore forums, because (a) the company that owns Musescore (Muse) didn't tell anyone the muse-sounds-manager required root access to a user's system, and (b) they were harvesting user telemetry as a result. (Much as they did with their other prize app, Audacity.)
Since then, and as a result of a large user backlash, they've included an option to turn off sending telemetry that the user can activate, BUT, the manager itself still requires root access, and runs in the background, unless the user deliberately kills it, stone dead.

I urge users who are considering installing the muse sounds libs, to make sure it's actually what you want. Unlike Musescore itself, which is licensed opensource, muse sounds are not, and are owned by Muse, the parent company.

I opted not to install the muse sounds, and i wasn't alone, by any means. I have no wish to give any company root access to my computer, no matter how many times they say it's harmless.

It's a user's decision, of course, but I felt it's important to have all the facts, before deciding one way or the other. Musescore is a fine program, and the new version, although it's less linux friendly than it was (no more jack midi, for just one reason), may well turn out to be their best yet, in the future. (I'm still on a 3.7 appimage, a "fork" of 3.6, with extras. It still has all the tools, including jack midi, and the SFZ synthesizer, for linux users.)

Alex.

[CharlesV]

According to all reports, Muse was never 'harvesting data' from Audacity. The kickback from their announcement was pretty dramatic and their very limited telemetry, which was off by default, was pulled almost before it even hit the publish. And, it was pulled after the immediate thrashing they took.

I have watched via firewall if any version I used has ever 'written home' and if you turn off "check for updates' then it never does.

[AVLinux]

Ugh!

Caught in the middle again... I don't use MuseScore (and rarely Audacity)

Someone on the Ardour forum suggested having Musescore without the Manager would have people missing out on the Orchestral sounds so I added it last minute for convenience..

[alextone]

According to all reports, Muse was never 'harvesting data' from Audacity. The kickback from their announcement was pretty dramatic and their very limited telemetry, which was off by default, was pulled almost before it even hit the publish. And, it was pulled after the immediate thrashing they took.

I have watched via firewall if any version I used has ever 'written home' and if you turn off "check for updates' then it never does.

I have to ask. Why would an opensource entity want to add telemetry in the first place? And the reaction of the company reps when it came up regarding Musescore was almost predictable, giving they admitted to having telemetry in Audacity in the first place, but claimed it, and they, were harmless. I saw some of the savaging they took, and in my humble opinion,they deserved it, because they never gave users the option to opt in/out in the first place. It was coded to opt in by default. There's a checkbox in Musescore now, because users brought into the light what was happening.

The muse-sounds-manager requires root access, and it continues to run, after the user has downloaded the sounds. It's not opensource, even if Musescore is, at least for now.
That, imho, is a cause for concern, and at least a careful consideration by users, which is why I posted.

[alextone]

Ugh!

Caught in the middle again... I don't use MuseScore (and rarely Audacity)

Someone on the Ardour forum suggested having Musescore without the Manager would have people missing out on the Orchestral sounds so I added it last minute for convenience..

Not your fault at all. How could you know if you never use the app.

If users want to add orchestral sounds, the default soundfont MSbasic.sf3 is not the worst orchestral soundfont i've heard, and there are others. Version 4 of Musescore removed all else but using a soundfont of some sort, and the proprietary muse sounds. (in Linux)

Anyway, i've said my piece, and there's no need for me to comment further.

[CharlesV]

According to all reports, Muse was never 'harvesting data' from Audacity. The kickback from their announcement was pretty dramatic and their very limited telemetry, which was off by default, was pulled almost before it even hit the publish. And, it was pulled after the immediate thrashing they took.

I have watched via firewall if any version I used has ever 'written home' and if you turn off "check for updates' then it never does.

I have to ask. Why would an opensource entity want to add telemetry in the first place? And the reaction of the company reps when it came up regarding Musescore was almost predictable, giving they admitted to having telemetry in Audacity in the first place, but claimed it, and they, were harmless. I saw some of the savaging they took, and in my humble opinion,they deserved it, because they never gave users the option to opt in/out in the first place. It was coded to opt in by default. There's a checkbox in Musescore now, because users brought into the light what was happening.

The muse-sounds-manager requires root access, and it continues to run, after the user has downloaded the sounds. It's not opensource, even if Musescore is, at least for now.
That, imho, is a cause for concern, and at least a careful consideration by users, which is why I posted.

I agree that their claim as to why telemetry was needed in Audacity was faulty, and was enough for me to create some firewall rules to check and stop it. I dont know anything about the musecore, but I do agree that is cause for concern.

I think it was positive for you to bring up the Musecore issue, and was just trying to state that the Audacity issue was not only benign but was pretty soundly rejected by the community en masse.

[CharlesV]

@AVLinux the saying of "Damned if you do and damned if you dont" kind of ring true here. I think it is good to provide the ability for people, as well as providing the 'watch out' for people to understand.

[AVLinux]

Agreed @CharlesV !

OK, well as far as the lightDM logging in/Enlightenment starting riddle goes... I have just done a complete AVL-MXe-23.1 install from the provided ISO on my main Dev box and I did create a new hostname and everything worked exactly as it was supposed to and it also did last week on my Studio box with completely different hardware (also numerous Gnome-Boxes and Virtualbox installs). I'm certainly not suggesting that people have not had the issues that they've described, of course they have! The only thing a little the same was an install on my son's Thinkpad T14-G1 and there seemed to be some issue with the backlight and lightDM because the Login screen (only) was very dim but still visible, I switched his machine to booting systemd and the issue disappeared completely..

All I can say is if you have issues they are probably related to your specific hardware and they are probably not something I can fix conclusively on my end unless the MX devs find something... Intermittent issues are always so much fun!!

[pianokeyjoe]

ScreenshotWavbreaker.jpg

I do not know if this is the thread to ask about this but it is very AVL-MXE related since it is a game changer for us "sampler" users. I need to know what is the app or set of apps used to invoke "wavsplitter" in Thunar custom actions that use "sox" set of tools? I need this to happen in AVL-MXE 2020 MX19.4 edition which is based on Buster AHS. I downloaded "wavbreaker" and while it says it breaks wav files, it does not do it automagically at silence points but rather requires you to specify a time interval manually before breaking the wav file into smaller chunks so "not the same" as the custom action you showed in the video introduction to AVL-MXE 23.1 @1:23:18 time interval. I saw the terminal invoke "sox" but thats it. We sample collectors and sample makers really need this app or set of apps. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Sadly my older hardware just works best with the older Buster based MX19.4 based AVL-MXE releases so that is my reason for using the older release and wanting this set of apps or app.

[AVLinux]

Hi,

The Thunar custom actions are simply sox commands, but they are a combination of sox scripts in /usr/local/bin and xml entries in ~/.config/Thunar/uca.xml file

If you have sox installed you can also just run the waves splitter command in a terminal in the folder the wave's you want to split are in:

Code: Select all

for file in *.wav; do   sox -V3 $file ${file}-split.wav silence -l 1 0.1 -65d   1 0.60 -65d : newfile : restart;done

Good reference article here: https://madskjeldgaard.dk/posts/sox-tut ... y-silence/