New notebook – The day after

Everything seems to work, network, audio, external monitor, display brightness. And this is the first notebook I’ve ever come across to that has a touch pad with an actual real middle click! Love it! Keyboard is nice too, backlight works fine and it has a nice array of function keys that are almost all mapped now. Overall feel of this machine is really nice, aluminum housing and the chiclet keyboard feels stable and solid. Startup time is twice as fast as the BTO. Compared to my new notebook the old one feels strangely completely outdated.

Now what is in there? CPU is an AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS, an 8-core CPU with SMT. Disabled SMT though, Ardour seems to run slightly better on 8 real cores. 32GB of RAM which should be more than enough, my old notebook had 16GB and never had any issues with that. Storage is a 1TB SK hynix BC901 NVMe drive with more than decent throughput. Almost all USB ports sit on their own bus which is quite nice. The only bus that shares its IRQ with something else (the WiFi module) is bus 001. USB ports that use this bus are both the USB-C and USB Type-A connectors closest to the screen. So better not use those.

The only thing that is a bit flaky is the WiFi connection but came across more mentions about that. The connection sometimes randomly reconnects. Can live with it, when making music I often completely disable WiFi. Did have to use systemd automount instead of an fstab entry to mount my NAS as the WiFi connection apparently takes a bit too long to come up.

Didn’t have to tweak a lot so far. As I already mentioned I did disable SMT (Simultaneous Multi-Threading) and I’ve prioritized the IRQ of the USB bus my audio interface sits on. Not with rtirq or udev-rtirq (which doesn’t work properly on this machine, the wrong IRQ seems to get prioritized) but with a small script to fetch the IRQ number that seems to change on every boot and feeding the outcome to chrt. Installed a liquorix kernel on it and enabled threaded IRQ’s, disabled mitigations and USB autosuspend. Also allowed my user to set CPU DMA latency.

BTO vs Lenovo

It’s running Debian 12 with XFCE again. Simple, fast and looks good enough to me with the Greybird theme and elementary icons. And no more notebook that takes off into orbit, the new one is way more quiet.

On with making music!

Edit: the script I threw together could be useful for others too with USB audio interfaces connected to a machine that uses MSI (Message-Signaled Interrupts) enabled USB controllers. You can find the snd_dev_id of your interface with aplay -l.

#!/bin/bash

prio=90
prio_step=5
proc_path=/proc/asound
sys_pci_bus_path=/sys/class/pci_bus
snd_dev_ids=( Babyface2359686 UA25 )

for snd_dev_id in ${snd_dev_ids[@]}; do
  snd_dev_card_number=$(awk '/'$snd_dev_id'/ {print $1}' $proc_path/cards)

  if [ -n "$snd_dev_card_number" ]; then
    snd_dev_card=card$snd_dev_card_number
    snd_dev_pci_bus_ref=$(grep -Eo "usb-[^[:space:],-]+" $proc_path/$snd_dev_card/stream0 | sed "s/usb-\(.*\)/\1/")
    snd_dev_pci_bus_ref_short=$(awk -F ':' '{print $1":"$2}' <<<$snd_dev_pci_bus_ref)
    snd_dev_irq=$(cat $sys_pci_bus_path/$snd_dev_pci_bus_ref_short/device/$snd_dev_pci_bus_ref/irq)
    snd_dev_irq_pid=$(pgrep $snd_dev_irq-xhci)

    chrt -f -p $prio $snd_dev_irq_pid
    
    prio=$((prio-prio_step))
  fi

done
New notebook – The day after

New notebook – Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5

After long consideration I ended up with a Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5 16APH8 (83AR0045MH) or actually a 83AR004CMH, which are exactly the same models. For a while I was eying a BTO P•BOOK 16P1390 that got a good review from an old colleague of mine from the UvA. That’s actually a TongFang ID6H2 but by the time I made up my mind the version I actually wanted with an i7-13700H CPU was already sold out. Why BTO? And why replace it? Well, my current audio workstation is a BTO from 2013 and it has served me well, actually, it still runs amazingly well but it’s showing its age here and there. No support for bigger external monitors for instance, and I’m also hitting full DSP load in Ardour a bit too early.

So I did some more research and concluded that it might be a good thing to switch to AMD. Not only because Linus is on AMD now but I just want 8 cores that perform the same. Add to that that quite some Linux music producers favor AMD too and that the Ryzen 7 7840HS I went for doesn’t differ that much performance wise from its Intel i7-13700H equivalent. But it’s cheaper in the configuration I chose compared to a BTO alternative. I also looked at other vendors like Laptop With Linux and Tuxedo but the Clevo’s from Laptop With Linux are too bulky for my taste and are a bit behind spec wise and Tuxedo only offers keyboards with ISO layouts and they’re also quite pricey. I quickly let go of the idea of getting a Framework notebook, that would easily get twice as expensive as the notebook I have now and despite how much I love their sustainability approach that is simply too much. And not buying a new notebook every three or four years is pretty sustainable too I guess.

I verified beforehand if Linux would run on my Lenovo and found some references that confirmed Linux would run well on it. Given the track record Lenovo has with Linux on its notebooks this was no surprise. Just picked it up from a local store which I find more convenient and safer than having it sent over from an online vendor or even Lenovo itself. Lenovo does offer an option without an OS though but a dual boot option can come in handy, especially when having to update firmware of external devices or the firmware of the notebook itself.

Installing Debian 12 on it as we speak and the initial setup went very smoothly. I’m surprised at how small and light it is. And I’ll have to get used to the resolution, but the WQXGA resolution was a conscious decision. I work with two screens, Ardour editor on my main screen and the mixer on my notebook screen and coming from 1920×1080 @ 60Hz the Lenovo with its 2560×1600 @ 120 Hz screen will definitely be an improvement.

On with setting up my new machine!

New notebook – Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5

Balancing act

At the moment everything seems a bit like a balancing act. First on a physical level, as I’m currently recovering from surgery one of the things I have to learn again is to find my balance, literally. While recovering I can’t do very much hobby stuff in the analogue domain so I swayed a bit to the digital domain again.

About 6 years ago I bought a Mixbus 32C license but found myself using Ardour more and more. During the pandemic I took a subscription and from then on I basically started using Ardour exclusively. Still remember the first time I opened up Ardour back in the 00’s, to me it was intimidating, daunting, what did all those buttons and sliders do? But like with more things in life, sometimes you just fathom the seeming complexity of something, call it an eye opener, and then you’re like, why didn’t I start using Ardour right from the beginning?

Now Ardour is my DAW of choice. It’s running on Debian 12 with a Liquorix kernel on my old, trusted BTO and I’ve never had such a stable setup before. Yes, Debian, after 14 years of Ubuntu that has become a balancing act too. The more applications are moved into Snap the more it alienates me from the OS. While I understand the concept of self-contained applications, it’s part of my job, I don’t think this concept has a real purpose on a desktop OS. It adds another layer of complexity and makes communication between applications harder. Whole different story for another time.

Ardour 8.0 has just been released and I can wholeheartedly recommend it. Installing and setting it up is a breeze and even on my old BTO it runs like a charm. The only restriction is that I can’t use too many Dragonfly Reverb plugins within a project but once I give in to my GAS to get a Framework notebook that will be resolved too.

Balancing act

Resolved JACK issues on notebook

Finally got around troubleshooting the issues I was facing with JACK on my notebook, a BTO that is actually a Clevo W170ER. Somehow I couldn’t go lower than -p128 with USB audio interfaces. When I thought I had tried every option, even disabling hyperthreading, I noticed two unidentified entries in my lsusb output:

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 8087:07da Intel Corp. 
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 5986:0401 Acer, Inc

The first entry is a Bluetooth adapter and the second entry is a webcam. Both devices are unnecessary when making music so I thought, why not unbind them. First I had to figure out their respective bus ID’s:

$ tree /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb
/sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb
??? 1-1 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1
??? 1-1.3 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1/1-1.3
??? 2-1 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1
??? 2-1.6 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1/2-1.6
??? bind
??? uevent
??? unbind
??? usb1 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1
??? usb2 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2
??? usb3 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb3
??? usb4 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb4

Since the Bluetooth adapter sits on bus 1 and the webcam on bus two their respective ID’s should be 1-1 and 2-1. So I echoed the ID’s to the unbind file in the same directory:

$ echo -n "1-1" | sudo tee /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/unbind
$ echo -n "2-1" | sudo tee /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/unbind

Good riddance:

$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub

Then I started JACK again with -p64 using an USB audio interface connected to bus 3 (so no rate matching hub in between) and no more xruns, not even with a generic kernel and using WiFi and all. Next hurdle is the onboard sound. Below -p128 I get bursts of massive xruns and so far I didn’t manage to pinpoint the culprit.

Edit #1: I’ve found out that the Bluetooth adapter is the main bottleneck. Also, by echoing the aformentioned ID’s (1-1 and 2-1) you disable the whole USB bus apparently. To disable just the USB device echo the last ID in the respective path names, so for the Bluetooth adapter that’s 1-1.3 and for the webcam 2-1.6. This way you can still use the USB bus on which these devices are residing. In my case disabling the whole bus is not an option, this would mean I’d have to connect all my USB interfaces to bus 3 (bus 4 doesn’t have any external inputs) which could result in these devices getting in each other’s way with regard to bandwidth. After echoing the ID’s the output of the tree command looks like this:

$ tree /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb
/sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb
??? 1-1 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1/1-1
??? 2-1 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2/2-1
??? bind
??? uevent
??? unbind
??? usb1 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.0/usb1
??? usb2 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.0/usb2
??? usb3 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb3
??? usb4 -> ../../../../devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb4

The lsusb command still shows the devices though.

Edit #2: unbinding drivers like described above won’t persist across reboots. If you’d like to make the unbinding persistent you could add the unbind command to /etc/rc.local or create a script that runs at login. There are other options of course like blacklisting the Bluetooth drivers.

Resolved JACK issues on notebook

New notebook: minor issues

“My keyboard seems a bit loose on the lower left side, is that something that could be fixed?”
“We’ll take a look at it, should be no problem.”

So I paid a visit to BTO again, had to be at a Horus meeting anyway, and within 15 minutes the tech guy returned with my notebook from the workshop.

“Could you try it out?”
“It’s perfect, no loose spots anymore, what did you do?”
“Oh, I just replaced the keyboard with a new one.”

He just replaced the keyboard with a new one. Now that’s what I call service. With any mainstream brand you will have to do without your notebook for at least 3 weeks and in the worst case they’ll start nagging the faulty keyboard is not a warranty case. Not at BTO. Fixed within 15 minutes, ready while you wait.

At the Horus meeting one of the items on the agenda was “Jeremy’s new monster notebook”. Did I really have to show off my notebook? Yes I had and soon 2 or 3 people were like I’m going to get a BTO too and told me I should become a sales rep. More on the Horus meeting in a separate blog post.

I did find out the card reader doesn’t work. But fortunately System76 apparently uses Clevo parts too so after installing their dkms package the reader immediately started working as the udisks package already contains the needed udev rule for this card reader.

New notebook: minor issues

New notebook: BTO P•BOOK 17CL45-GT650 i7 QUAD

Yay, got a new notebook, a BTO P•BOOK 17CL45-GT650 i7 QUAD! I visited BTO last Tuesday and placed an order for a custom built notebook and it arrived yesterday. It’s quite a monster if you ask me:

  • Intel Core i7-3630QM Quad Core Processor (6MB Cache, 2.3 GHz, Turbo Mode 3.3GHz)
  • 16GB RAM
  • 120GN SSD
  • 1TB HDD
  • Nvidia GT650M

One of the reasons I chose BTO besides the fact that they offer custom built notebooks is that they also offer the choice to have your custom built notebook come without an OS. Unfortunately it came without a license, in other words, when I first started the notebook it booted into a Windows 7 installation procedure. No biggie, created a bootable USB stick with the Ubuntu 12.04 mini ISO and wiped all partitions. 20 minutes later I could boot into a fresh Lubuntu installation. And you know what? All the essential stuff worked out of the box! So far the following things just work:

  • Network, both WiFi and wired
  • Sound
  • Webcam
  • Fn buttons
  • Display
  • Suspend to RAM

The only real challenge is probably getting the Nvidia Optimus configuration to work but I already found some very specific documentation. Yes, the BTO is actually a Clevo W170ER housing with custom hardware.


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BTO P•BOOK 17CL45-GT650 i7 QUAD/Clevo W170ER

Other than that the BTO was a breeze to set up and it happily runs Lubuntu 12.04. Booting into a complete desktop takes less than 15 seconds at the moment. Next up is configuring it properly for real-time, low-latency audio. If I want to get the most out of it I’ll probably have to start looking for a decent USB2.0 audio interface. The BTO has no FireWire or PCI Express ports. A sign of the times, guess FireWire is basically dead technology.

New notebook: BTO P•BOOK 17CL45-GT650 i7 QUAD

Ik wilde een BTO (en misschien nog steeds wel)

Wil graag een nieuwe notebook en mijn oog was gevallen op een BTO. Dat is best een duur apparaat dus wilde weten of Ubuntu 12.04 er op draait en wat voor FireWire controller er in zit.

Kreeg al vrij snel een mailtje terug. Ze hebben bij BTO géén ervaring met Linux en ze wisten me ook niet te vertellen wat voor controller er precies in zit. Ja, een Via, maar wat voor Via dan? Probleem met Via is dat bijv. een VT6315 wel goed werkt voor audio en een VT6306 een stuk minder of in sommige gevallen zelfs helemaal niet.

Misschien kom ik uiteindelijk wel op een BTO uit maar vooralsnog ga ik verder zoeken naar een andere goeie kandidaat.

Ik wilde een BTO (en misschien nog steeds wel)