Arch Linux User Repository

I created a version of the bitwig-studio-beta PKGBUILD that works with the flatpak version of Bitwig studio 4.3 beta 1. It does require ostree as a make dependency to extract the files, but it seems to work fine. From what I've heard, they will be distributing more than just the flatpak in the future, so it probably won't be an issue anyway. Here is the PKGBUILD for reference: https://gist.github.com/4Evergreen4/562d5ea590d9887b29f4960b1ad0dd24

from 4.3 Bitwig is moving away from debian packages and instead going the flatpak way, which is rather annoying. Do you think it will still be possible to package it for arch without being forced into the flatpak world of parallel(and duplicate) dependencies?

sha256 sums are good in the PKGBUILD and the source deb by Bitwig has not been modified. Please delete your yay/yaourt cache folder and try building package again. Something might have corrupted your deb file download.

I get

"" Found bitwig-studio-4.2.3.deb ==> Validating source files with sha256sums... bitwig-studio-4.2.3.deb ... FAILED ==> ERROR: One or more files did not pass the validity check! Failed to build bitwig-studio ""

when i try to upgrade on my manjaro machine...

Works now! Added my user to the audio group. %jackd gives the same error message, but jack_control works and Qjackctl as well. Nice, thank you. Edit: But now, when I open pavucontrol I don't see bitwig as playback, and I don't hear any sound.

Refer to ArchWiki, you probably forgot to add yourself to the audio group and specify realtime limits/settings in sysctl.d. If you wish, you can also use jack-dbus which autostarts whenever the application requests it. Qjackctl is also a useful program.

Hello, I installed it, and it works, but I can't start the audio engine. It says: "Unable to connect to jack server". I use pulseaudio and have pulseaudio-jack and jack2 installed. When I run jackd it just gives a info message to stdout. Can you help me? Should I switch to pipewire and deinstall pulse? <img alt="error message" src="https://imgur.com/ToNLR7c.png" title="Unable to connect to jack server" />

when I run jackd:

%jackd
jackdmp 1.9.20
Copyright 2001-2005 Paul Davis and others.
Copyright 2004-2016 Grame.
Copyright 2016-2021 Filipe Coelho.
jackdmp comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; see the file COPYING for details
Cannot create RT messagebuffer thread: Operation not permitted (1)
Retrying messagebuffer thread without RT scheduling
Messagebuffer not realtime; consider enabling RT scheduling for user
no message buffer overruns
Cannot create RT messagebuffer thread: Operation not permitted (1)
Retrying messagebuffer thread without RT scheduling
Messagebuffer not realtime; consider enabling RT scheduling for user
no message buffer overruns
jack_get_descriptor : dll
jack_get_descriptor returns null for 'jack_inprocess.so'
jack_get_descriptor : dll
jack_get_descriptor returns null for 'jack_internal_metro.so'
jack_get_descriptor : dll
jack_get_descriptor returns null for 'jack_intime.so'
Cannot create RT messagebuffer thread: Operation not permitted (1)
Retrying messagebuffer thread without RT scheduling
Messagebuffer not realtime; consider enabling RT scheduling for user
no message buffer overruns

Usage: jackdmp [ --no-realtime OR -r ]
               [ --realtime OR -R [ --realtime-priority OR -P priority ] ]
      (the two previous arguments are mutually exclusive. The default is --realtime)
               [ --name OR -n server-name ]
               [ --timeout OR -t client-timeout-in-msecs ]
               [ --loopback OR -L loopback-port-number ]
               [ --port-max OR -p maximum-number-of-ports]
               [ --slave-backend OR -X slave-backend-name ]
               [ --internal-client OR -I internal-client-name ]
               [ --internal-session-file OR -C internal-session-file ]
               [ --verbose OR -v ]
               [ --clocksource OR -c [ h(pet) | s(ystem) ]
               [ --autoconnect OR -a <modechar>]
                 where <modechar> is one of:
                   ' ' - Don't restrict self connect requests (default)
                   'E' - Fail self connect requests to external ports only
                   'e' - Ignore self connect requests to external ports only
                   'A' - Fail all self connect requests
                   'a' - Ignore all self connect requests
               [ --replace-registry ]
               [ --silent OR -s ]
               [ --sync OR -S ]
               [ --temporary OR -T ]
               [ --version OR -V ]
         -d master-backend-name [ ... master-backend args ... ]
       jackdmp -d master-backend-name --help
             to display options for each master backend

4.1.3 released with workaround for nVidia driver fixes. https://downloads-eu.bitwig.com/stable/4.1.3/Release-Notes-4.1.3.html

Just to remark: the latest NVIDIA driver works with Bitwig Studio, if GNOME on Wayland is used.

Today Bitwig started crashing on start, taking X with itself. X session crashes silently and respawns. Most likely caused by some recent arch updates, but cannot seem to figure out which ones. Nothing conclusive in the logs.

It turned out to be nvidia driver update v 495.46

Specifically, this is listed in release notes Known Issues section:

 Known Issues

Interaction with pthreads
Single-threaded applications that use dlopen() to load NVIDIA's libGL library, and then use dlopen() to load any other library that is linked against libpthread will crash in libGL. This does not happen in NVIDIA's new ELF TLS OpenGL libraries (see Chapter 5, Listing of Installed Components for a description of the ELF TLS OpenGL libraries). Possible workarounds for this problem are:

Load the library that is linked with libpthread before loading libGL.

Link the application with libpthread.

Bitwig Nvidia Users be aware, downgrading nvidia driver to v495.44 resolves issue.

Not sure if this is to do with my setup, the package or a bug in bitwig, but bitwig is crashing almost straight away. I get the option to log in, to choose demo, I choose demo, I get a window telling me to click on the dashboard button. I can't click on anything and then, after a few moments, it crashes. No error message - even if I run it from cli.

That's really neat if you use flatpak.

On flatpak there is a 3.3 branch, a stable, early-access and beta branch. Once 4.1 is out there will be a 4.0 branch as stable and early-access will point to 4.1.

You can point them to flatpak for early-access and beta.

flatpak install --branch=beta com.bitwig.BitwigStudio

flatpak run --branch=beta com.bitwig.BitwigStudio

I really wish there was a way to keep people from flagging pre-release versions and/or differentiating between the two. Unfortunately, the only thing I can think of is establishing a pre-release branch, and I don't think that will stop people from flagging, and it's too much overhead.

Works fine now, first download had an error, after running yay again it worked.

It's working for me (installed with yay this morning). Thanks a lot stylemistake.

I can't download this. I've updated my mirrors but the download speed is straight up zero bytes/second. Anyone else having this issue?

Updated PKGBUILD, if anything doesn't work or new dependencies must be added, let me know.

Yes! Bitwig 4 is finally out there :-) https://www.bitwig.com/whats-new/

I'm not sure how I should proceed to install it. Any ideas?

Hey, I'm on 3.1.3, im kinda new to linux, and im using Manjaro xfce. I've managed to use debtap to convert the .deb. Bitwig is running on my machine.

In windows, my track pad was able to navigate along the XY axis freely however now I have to hold down CTRL and Shift to move exclusively along the X or Y axis. Does anyone have a solution to this? Many Thanks!

@stylemistake, yes that could work, but early-access is not beta either. I think the correct solution is to have those three channels: beta/early-access/stable and a good set of scripts to make the maintenance easier.

Well, perhaps we can reuse the beta package for this?

@abique Yes, Bitwig is aware of the issue, and a fix is coming in the next release.

@stylemistake The problem with that approach is that users of AUR helpers like yay who want a strictly stable experience need to manually hold back upgrades for prerelease versions.

The concept is that there are two channels: stable and early-access.

The very same builds gets marked as stable once it has been out for some time and no serious regression did hit the support inbox.

I think the best it to make an other package: bitwig-studio-early-access

I would prefer this AUR entry to be a single, continuous source of package versions, because it is always possible to check them out from git. We could prefix these pre-release versions as: 3.3.8.pre-1, just to provide a better clarity for end users. Thoughts?

On flatpak there are two branches: stable -> 3.3.7 and early-access -> 3.3.8

@dgmulf did you report your issue to support@bitwig.com ?

3.3.8 is considered a "pre-release", and has a project-breaking bug on my system (the Amount control in the ADSR modulator no longer functions). Should there be a separate package for pre-release versions, e.g. bitwig-prerelease?

Yes the installer was replaced for a hotfix. Anyway, 3.3.7 is out.

The 3.3.6 sha256 checksum seems to be invalid.

3.3.2 wasn't a stable release, nor is it in the changelogs. But I guess this is Arch Linux, so when in Rome...

Apologies... I haven't noticed that pkg is up to date.

YESSSS!

Yo I got love for front line workers and a, butbAUR package maintainers are my real heroes.

YESSSS!

Yo I got love for front line workers and a, butbAUR package maintainers are my real heroes.

Hi. v3.3 is available.

Yeah, you can do just that. We will release 3.3 once it gets out of beta.

Hi, Bitwig 3.3 .deb file is up on Bitwig website now, though it still says beta.

If I just modified the relevant parameters in this PKGBUILD to point to that file, will it install 3.3?

I have removed zenity from dependencies, since it doesn't seem to be used anywhere and debian package no longer requires it.

Ah! So sorry, I had the previous version still there. Thought git clean -ffd . would've removed it.

Before you clean it, check if any of the files have changed. Maybe it's not just a repackage (if contents are changing, and not just timestamps).

Hmm, sha256sum of a freshly downloaded package is unchanged. Clean the cache, perhaps? This is really weird, tho.

I think they've repackaged it again.

$ sha256sum bitwig-studio-3.0.deb
57860bc11496e738aad7d3e022f3721e6b9e30b401488b97672564e8aef929d0  bitwig-studio-3.0.deb
$ grep sha256 PKGBUILD
sha256sums=('fbc2a8ce495d1337799b7495f73ee6ae75bbdcbd7893443358547d977588fc5c')

Apparently they silently repackaged it. Fixed the checksum, also using sha256 now, because why not.

The package's m5sum is not valid anymore:

==> Making package: bitwig-studio 3.0.0-1 (Fri 12 Jul 2019 06:18:13 PM CEST)
==> Retrieving sources...
  -> Downloading bitwig-studio-3.0.deb...
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100   154  100   154    0     0   1149      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--  1140
100  190M  100  190M    0     0  5408k      0  0:00:36  0:00:36 --:--:-- 5857k
==> Validating source files with md5sums...
    bitwig-studio-3.0.deb ... FAILED
==> ERROR: One or more files did not pass the validity check!
Error downloading sources: bitwig-studio

It seems to work so long as an audio backend is installed at some point. It also fails relatively gracefully if a backend is missing.

For example, I've installed the gnome-desktop group, which depends on PulseAudio and ALSA. To install this package, I downloaded a snapshot and moved jack to optdepends, built it, and added it to IgnorePkg. Both the PulseAudio and ALSA backends work, though I had to make a simple change to my PulseAudio configuration.

It is possible, but we need to make sure it works without jack libs.

P.S. Zenity also seems like an unnecessary dependency, never seen it using it.

Is it possible to move the dependency on the jack group to optdepends? I know many people prefer to use Jack with DAWs, but it isn't required by Bitwig Studio. Sometimes I actually prefer not to install it.

flac/mp3 issues have been resolved in 2.3.3 for me

Just had a conversation with one of the bitwig devs - sounds like they are aware of this issue (they are running into this with Ubuntu 18.04) and plan to fix it in a 2.3.x point release. Could potentially be related to ffprobe

Workaround for the time being would be to decode mp3/flac/whatever to WAV before you import

Obviously, the avprobe symlink trick doesn't work either.

My guess is that it's related to gstreamer: I use git to keep track of my bitwig projects and by looking at the logs I can tell that MP3 worked on the 14th of March, that is after ffmpeg 3.4.2-2 but before gstreamer 1.14. This is one of the packages i've been playing with recently and we can see that there are gstreamer libraries in /opt/bitwig-studio. That could explain why not everybody is experiencing the issue. That's quite a random guess, still. Anyone can confirm that it works without gstreamer ?

Got a response from BitWig; looks like they aren't interesting in fixing it... :/

Hello [prg]

this must be something specific to Arch Linux, on Ubuntu it works just fine. Unfortunately we can't maintain official support for all the different distros out there and therefore had to decide on one we use to test and more or less guarantee that it works. Therefor we currently can't say what exactly the reason is, that drag and drop does not seem to work using Arch Linux and Bitwig Studio.

Best regards, Bitwig Technical Support Team

I'm also experiencing mikeza's issue. I've emailed BitWig through their support contact form but would love to hear any if anyone comes with a resolution here. ffmpeg 3.4.2-2 installed; don't remember having this problem with old versions

@mikeza Same here, did you find a solution ?

It's not related to ffmpeg since I'm sure MP3 & FLAC worked at least until mid-march and latest ffmpeg build-date is feb. I also tried to downgrade BW with no luck.

@stylemistake Yes, I have ffmpeg 1:3.4.2-2

Edit: I've also installed and tested ffmpeg-git and ffmpeg-compat-54

Legacy Bitwig worked fine.

@mikeza Have you installed "ffmpeg", which is an optional dependency?

Encountering problems trying to import/play MP3 and FLAC files. WAV works fine. All other features are working great.

[2018-04-03 17:38:19 float-document-master error] Error loading file /home/mz/media/music/mp3/100s/IVRY/03 F Around.mp3: com.bitwig.base.io.ivA: com.bitwig.flt.library.metadata.reader.exception.CouldNotReadMetadataException: could not read metadata: Could not read audio file metadata

Edits: shortened error message

@bsorahan > Hoping that "pacman -Syu" wouldn't put me back in demo mode!

Due to their new licensing policy, you get updates for 1 year after purchase, and this cycle is different depending on when you purchased it. So when you decide not to continue paying for the next year, just lock yourself into specific PKGBUILD version, and that's it.

I've used this to install bitwig and it works fabulously (after installing jack2), so I'm thinking about buying a license. I was curious about what would happen when bitwig 3 comes out: hoping that "pacman -Syu" wouldn't put me back in demo mode! It looks like we should maybe expect a major version upgrade to require a different package or some other sort of manual intervention? Thanks for making this package!