Hi folks,
I want to compile the 3.0 branch, but I don’t want to break my system. So installing tha actuall needed dependencies into my real system is not safe.
What can I do to?
-Virtual Maschine is too slow, I think.
-is chroot in option? I never used it.
-Installing a whole new system is maybe a bit too much, but better than a VM.
any other options?
if you have a spare PC, you could use it, like installing a bleeding edge system (an updated debian sid system for example) and easily compile ardour3. I use debian sid as my production environment with ardour2 svn, and could compile ardour3 no sweat (out of curiosity).
A VM ? way too slow to test. chroot ? maybe but you will have to prepare the chroot env, it can be tricky. The best solution in my view is to play with a spare PC for experimental things. I usually use a laptop for that (I don’t care if the OS breaks on it, I have a triple boot system and a spare system on an external 2.5’ HD that I can boot from).
Use stow and --prefix/PREFIX.
I compile all my software with --prefix=/opt/<package-name-and-number> (e.g. --prefix=/opt/scons-0.98.5). Then I use stow to link the files into /usr/local: ‘stow -d /opt -t /usr/local scons-0.98.5’ (if I want to remove the links I add a -D before the -d)
To compile ardour I add PREFIX=/opt/ardour-3svn to the scons build line (you also have to create that directory first for some reason)
Make sure you add /usr/local/lib to /etc/ld.so.conf.d/local.conf (or similar)
And you might also need to do an ‘export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig’ before compiling.
I usually also edit the /opt/<whatever>/lib/pkgconfig/*.pc files to have /usr/local as their prefix. Otherwise subsequent programs might hard link to the /opt/<whatever> lib (meaning the program won’t work if I remove that lib and replace it with a new version) instead of the /usr/local/lib link
This way I can easily back out if something I install wrecks something else (just stow -D …) and I can try newer versions while keeping the old as a backup.
So, in short, when you want to try ardour3 you stow all the necessary programs and run ‘ldconfig’. When you’re done and don’t want anything new to mess with your system you stow -D everything and rerun ldconfig
ahoy all,
has anyone had any success with a different method for safely running Ardour 2 and 3 on the same system? the “stow” method above seems a bit dangerous for my skill level 
peace
I normally run A3 without installing it. This seems like a safe way to have A2 installed, and be able to compile and run new versions of A3:
unpack the A3 source code and build it without installing. Then cd to the 3.0 directory in the ardour source and run
./gtk2_ardour/ardev
NOTE: This works for me, and hasn’t caused any issues with my other installs - but use it at your own risk - A3 is still under heavy development…
everyone: ardour3 can be safely installed alongside ardour2. it does NOT use the same system directories or the same per-user directories.
great news, thanks Paul.