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FreeAgent Dockstar

Posted: Mon Aug 23, 2010 10:49 am
by bijl
Hi everyone,

I would like to try LinuxSampler on a Seagate Dockstar to improve the pianosound of my Yamaha YPP-50 piano from 1989. The Dockstar has 128MB ram, 256MB flash, 1.2GHz cpu and a ARM processor.

The setup will be:

YPP-50 (midi out) -- Roland Canvas UM-1 -- Dockstar -- CSound soundcard -- YPP-50 (audio in)

I can connect to a GUI over the network (if needed).

The Dockstar runs Debian. It is possible to connect storage devices to the Dockstar so diskspace is not an issue here.

Now my questions:

- Is this feasable to do with Dockstar?
- What can I expect? (Performance/memory consumption)
- Which piano library should I use with this memory size?
- Can I compile LinuxSampler for an ARM processor with this specs?
- Is there any recommended Kernel settings for optimal performance?
- Which problems will I face?

Thank you very much for your help.

Greetings,
Bijl

Re: FreeAgent Dockstar

Posted: Fri Aug 27, 2010 12:46 pm
by cuse
I have no idea what kind of load / performance this device is capable to bear. I guess the only way is to try out. But in general its feasible to use it as sampler and as you suggested probably just connect with a Frontend GUI from another machine over the network.

About the problems you will face: LinuxSampler compiles in general on any device that runs Linux. However there are few lines where we are using CPU dependent assembler code. It is the method RTMathBase::CreateTimeStamp() (in src/common/RTMath.cpp) which creates timestamps in realtime for incoming events and this method is not implemented for ARM processors yet. However the Debian folks use(d) a tiny patch which makes also this code to compile on any processor. They use a POSIX function to create the timestamp for all systems which dont have their own assembler code in this method. We didnt add that to our codebase because because that function is a system call and a system calls may harm realtime stability when used in the realtime audio thread. We thought its better to add assembler code for other processor when people complain about the missing code. ;-)

Re: FreeAgent Dockstar

Posted: Fri Aug 27, 2010 12:53 pm
by cuse
If you already have that device, you can also run a quick benchmark to see how many voices its theoretically (and approximately) capable to render. The benchmark code is included with the linuxsampler source code, is very light-weight and compiles without any drivers or other dependencies. You can read more here:

http://linuxsampler.org/debian.html#benchmark

This benchmark covers mostly rendering capabilty of the processor and RAM. It does not benchmark the streaming capablity of the system however.

Re: FreeAgent Dockstar

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2013 3:00 pm
by moony
where can I get a patch for the RTMath on ARM issue?