Quick start for Rivendell on debian/ubuntu
What is the simplest Rivendell setup ? You need :
- any recent computer
- any sound card supported by alsa
- in our case, a debian or ubuntu
- something like gnome and kde
- five minutes
Objective : a first sound in Rivendell :
Step 1 : Install mysql-server-5.0
Rivendell uses mysql, you need a mysql server :
apt-get install mysql-server-5.0
Choose a mysql root password .. and don’t forget it. It will be needed in few minutes.
Step 2 : Install the Rivendell package for your distribution
- Add debian.tryphon.org to your sources.list
- Don’t forget apt-get update
- Install package : apt-get install rivendell
- Important : skip package configuration proposed by the package
Step 3 : Setup your user
To test easily Rivendell, use your regular user account. For that, you need to be a member of group rivendell :
sudo adduser alban rivendell
This group needs to use realtime threads. Edit /etc/security/limits.conf and add :
@rivendell - rtprio 99 @rivendell - memlock 250000 @rivendell - nice -10
You need to logout and restart a new Gnome/KDE session to make effective these changes
Step 4 : Setup alsa
Edit (or create) /etc/asound.conf with :
pcm.rd0 {
type hw
card 0
}
ctl.rd0 {
type hw
card 0
}
Rivendell uses alsa card rd0 (rd1, ..) when available.
Step 5 : Setup rivendell
Create a file /etc/rd.conf with :
[Identity] AudioOwner=alban ; < - your login AudioGroup=rivendell [mySQL] Hostname=localhost Loginname=rduser Password=letmein Database=Rivendell Driver=QMYSQL3 [Logs] Facility=Syslog [Alsa] PeriodQuantity=4 PeriodSize=1024 [Tuning] UseRealtime=Yes RealtimePriority=9 [Format] SampleRate=44100 Channels=2
Setup 6 : Initialize Rivendell
Start rdadmin.
As database doesn’t exist, it will ask the login for mysql : use root and the root mysql password :
After this success message :
rdadmin should started “normally” and ask you to login (with a rivendell user) :
The default rivendell administrator user has the login admin and no password.
If rdadmin doesn’t start as expected, something goes wrong. A small visit on rivendell irc channel is certainly the best solution.
Setup 7 : Start rdairplay for a first sound
- Click on “Main Log” button (on bottom right)
- Click on Add button (on bottom left) to add a first Cart in this empty Log
-
Double click on the first (and single) Cart “Test tune” :
-
Click on the yellow “Where” button of the first Log entry :
- The Log is no longer empty. Click on green “Start” :
- Your first sound in Rivendell
This is not a production environment. But you can start your first tests with a such setup.
Welcome in the Rivendell user community 
Tags: alsa, debian, install, mysql, rivendell, tutorial, ubuntu
April 19th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
This is quite handy , thx
Now I can’t wait for the next topics like :
- how to set my ‘programs grid’ (litteraly translated from french) ?
- how do I set playlists, random but smart playlists as well ?
- how do I insert direct live, or stream from sat or net in my grid ?
- etc …
Again thanks from radiolarzac.org for your support !
Cheers !
April 20th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
After the soop’s questions on #rivendell channel, I’ve updated the “Setup 6 : Initialize Rivendell” with some screenshots.
April 28th, 2009 at 11:37 am
en un mot : BRAVO !
Y a plus de raison de ne pas essayer à présent
April 29th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Your instructions are brilliant. They are perfect on Ubuntu Hardy. I have had issues with Ubuntu Intrepid. When using more than one soundcard and Alsa… the sound cards sometimes swap around so sometimes one card is card 1 and the next time it is sound card 0.
If you edit the alsa-base file
/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base
by adding options to hard code which sound card is which.
For example….
options snd-emu10k1 index=0
options snd-hda-intel index=1
options snd-bt87x index=2
Thanks again
Geoff
May 11th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
Geoff, we are working on setting this up again. We truely appreciate your effort and your sharing of this important config info to the world!
Regards
Warren
May 20th, 2009 at 3:54 am
I have installed rivendell several times on two different computers using Ubuntu Hardy, Intrepid, and Jaunty and the results are always the same — the test tone will not play. It isn’t just that I can’t hear the sound — it seems to skip over the sound file altogether. Do you have any ideas on how to fix this problem?
May 22nd, 2009 at 4:15 am
Remember - any sound card supported by alsa gives audio out. If not supported then no sound at all.
July 17th, 2009 at 11:49 pm
I have just installed Rivendell on a fresh install of ubuntu 8.04, when i first run the rivendell modules it runs the applications, but when i restart the computer to move it back in my studio i get an error message that says “unable to start the Rivendell Daemons” any suggestions?
July 18th, 2009 at 2:40 am
Solution to Unable to start rivendell daemons,
run the command “sudo /etc/init.d/rivendell start” (without the quotes) in terminal. Those should start the Rivendell daemons.
July 18th, 2009 at 8:44 am
May be a problem with limits given by pam. The freenode #rivendell channel might be a better place to discuss about the details of it
July 19th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
[...] Please follow the quick start guide for your first Rivendell installation. [...]
July 19th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Hi Alban, awesome this quick start guide!!
I ‘ll translate to portuguese and spread a bit more!!
Cheers
July 19th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
@Daniel : we should transform this blog page in a wiki page
August 16th, 2009 at 9:39 am
[...] Please follow the quick start guide for your first Rivendell installation. [...]
August 26th, 2009 at 9:48 am
[...] Please follow the quick start guide for your first Rivendell installation. [...]
August 26th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
I found another problem with installing RD. I added the asound.conf with relevant entries to enable sound cards but they didn’t show up.
Check what groups the rduser is in.
Rduser must be in the audio group.
Then type command
sudo adduser USERNAME audio
(replace USERNAME with user that runs RD)
October 18th, 2009 at 4:51 am
What is alsa? Will Rivendell play audio thru a normal computer sound card, that is, what comes built into the mother board of a typical PC computer?
October 18th, 2009 at 11:58 am
@Bob: alsa is one of the sound drivers used under Linux. Rivendell can use any sound card supported by alsa, the built-in sound card of your mother board for example … for tests.
October 18th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
I have Rivendell installed on newest stable Xubuntu and it’s running fine. The problem what I have is with when I try play the test tune. With the instructions on this blog post I get
caed: Error: alsaLoadPlayback(/var/snd/999999_000.wav) openWave() failed to open file
caed: unable to allocate stream for card 0
What’s the cause of this?
October 18th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
The debian/rivendell package can have problem to create the cut of the test tune. You can solve the problem by running : rdgen -t 10 -l 16 /var/snd/999999_000.wav (with the same user than rivendell).
You’re welcome on freenode irc channel #rivendell
October 25th, 2009 at 4:56 am
Further to my comments before about adding lines to the
/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base file for defining sound cards
type the below line to find out the exact driver name for each sound card
cat /proc/asound/modules
November 16th, 2009 at 10:18 am
Great tutorial. The easiest one yet to be sure. Everything worked like a charm up until I rebooted the computer. Now I can’t see the test log I created and the ADD DEL MOVE and COPY buttons are greyed out along with some of the buttons in LogEdit and LogManager etc. as well. I can’t load a log or anything. Any thoughts on what I might have done?
November 16th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
@Simon: looks like a database connection problem, you’re welcome on Freenode #rivendell irc channel
November 16th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Thanks! I certainly will. I figured it out too…
sudo /etc/init.d/rivendell start
gets it ALL moving along nicely!
November 16th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
Hi,any further news on Rivendell daemon error in “Jaunty” of Ubuntu.
I built from source so problem still exists (1.5.2).
Kind Regards Tony
November 16th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
A workaround has been used in ubuntu packages. See this commit for details.
December 22nd, 2009 at 2:54 pm
[...] Please follow the quick start guide for your first Rivendell installation. [...]
December 29th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Hey guys.
I followed all the instructions given above, and the workarounds, and can run the software.
However, when I go to play a audio file, the file refuses to play. It shows all the song data (title, track length, etc), but just won’t start.
I assume is has something to do with ALSA, but I don’t see any error messages, either in the program window or the terminal.
The only thing I can’t seem to do is follow Geoffs suggestion of making rduser a part of the audio group. Can somebody enlighten me on how to do this?
The only other useful thing I can think of saying is after running cat /proc/asound/modules, and creating the file /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base, and adding the lines as suggested, nothing changes.
I am running Ubuntu Karmic, if that helps.
Can anybody throw a few suggestions?
Joseph.
January 27th, 2010 at 3:53 am
NOOBs looking for help! We got our NCE construction permit (w00t!) and are getting our studio equipment together.
I’m trying to figure out if an M-Audio 1010LT soundcard will function with Rivendell. The card uses “Open Sound System” drivers. http://www.opensound.com/oss.html
Their wiki states that the OSS drivers can be configured to do ALSA emulation.
http://www.opensound.com/wiki/index.php/Tips_And_Tricks#ALSA_Emulation
Any feedback, opinions, or pertinent information would be much appreciated.
January 27th, 2010 at 10:02 am
The M-Audio 1010LT works fine by using the alsa driver (without oss) : http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Matrix:Vendor-MAudio. In most of modern linux distributions, the card is supported without any specific setup.
We’re using it for many years : http://blog.tryphon.org/alban/archives/2009/05/13/studio-mobile-ingredients-materiels/
February 25th, 2010 at 12:56 pm
[...] Please follow the quick start guide for your first Rivendell installation. [...]
February 28th, 2010 at 12:02 am
Hi
I am experiencing problems with getting Rivendell to install and run. I believe that I have followed the blog instructions correctly. I have installed Ubuntu 9.10 (karmic) which has been upgraded to Studio running on a Dell Optiplex 170 using the built-in sound card for test purposes.
The first problem is that I receive a daemons error before starting Rivendell. Running the command “sudo /etc/init.d/rivendell” start gives the response “Starting Rivendell daemons: caed ripcdrdimport: no process found
rdcatchd.
” Not sure if this is correct but the application will start. However, every reboot requires this command to be issued before Rivendell will start.
The second problem, like many people, is that I have no sound. I am able to get sound to play outside of Rivendell ok, so I assume the Alsa sound card settings are correct. However, when loading the test tone and either selecting Automatic or Live Assist etc, clicking Start button, the cart does not play. Clicking a second time turns the start button red and the countdown timer shows the running time. Not sure if this is relevant, but the clock background continually flashes red. I don’t remember the demo doing this!
I am quite keen to get Rivendell running so any advice that others can share would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers, Julian
March 14th, 2010 at 11:48 pm
Hi,
J’ai suivi le tuto à la lettre et tout est installé correctement.
Le seul souci : pas de son !!
J’utilise une carte son son USB très bien reconnu par les autres programmes (Ardour…) mais rien avec Rivendell
Please help me