I’ve been using Ardour 4.6.0 “Evening Star” (built from revision 1:4.6~dfsg-1) for the last few months. (I believe this is the version that’s available in the Ubuntu repository.) I’m really enjoying it and would like to both upgrade to get the latest goodies as well as become a subscriber to support the project.
My only concern is seems like a lot to ask for my old sessions to work two major versions later. I’m still feeling my way around, so the sessions are pretty simple (audio, MIDI, a Calf plugin here or there). Should I expect these sessions to continue to work in the new version?
What should I expect for the upgrade process? Download and double-click a deb?
Why isn’t it just executable by default? When you download Mixbus and extract it the run file is executable… Making Ardour the same would take the confusion down about 50%… especially in nice Distros where the File Manager is all ready to click and go with run files…
I wondered this too. Maybe precisely because it is delivered as a tar file that the run file is able to maintain its permissions? I assume there’s some security risk for a script to be executable by default.
Security risk…? OK, in general yes… But somebody has to willfully DL this from a trusted site with Password Authentication and then it’s going to install a kickass DAW on your system… Or alternately why not tar Ardour like Mixbus… For a new user to Linux it is infinitely easier to right click, extract and then use an executable run file than put an awkward name and case specific series of words into a Terminal the user probably hasn’t discovered is even on their system yet…
Sorry this has touched a nerve… Ardour bundles are brilliant the obtuseness of the install for new Linux Users is not… How many times have Robin and Paul had to answer this question here and on IRC…?
On the downside it needs about 4 times as much disk-space. First untar, then the .run bundle inflates the real installer which in turn unpacks the payload.
That regularly fails on systems with a RAM backed /tmp filesystem.
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Not very often in recent years since using .run installers.
It is not usually an issue because many users do know how to run.run installers. There are many high profile vendors who use the same (nvidia drivers, google-earth, virtualbox, various well known games - see https://makeself.io/).
We try to get users to learn that there’s more to life that point and grunt – besides the user is going to right-click enough in Ardour already
Besides, there is no canonical way to run the installer using the GUI. It differs with each desktop environment.
Thanks. I’m probably due for an OS upgrade, too, and must have installed it from a less current repo.
Fantastic. I’ll start with the demo download, then, and unlock it after I get myself sorted. To ensure the new version doesn’t do anything bad to my old sessions I’ll tar up each project dir before opening it up.
