Page Category: Semplice

1.0 Introduction

Suse-based distros are a little bit tricky: SLES is the Suse Linux Enterprise Server and is a commercial, server-grade, heavy duty distro. The community release of that same software is called OpenSuse Leap. The 'preview' code that will eventually become OpenSuse Leap (and hence SLES) is available in the form of OpenSuse Tumbleweed. Think of Tumbleweed as a rolling distribution that's ever so slightly unstable; Leap is a rather more stable version of that; and SLES is the final, commercial-grade release of that stabilised code.

Since SLES costs money and I'm too cheap to part with any, Semplice has not been tested on SLES. But it runs perfectly fine on both Leap and Tumbleweed -so you might reasonably expect it to cope with SLES, too: I just can't tell you it does or not, because I literally don't have the relevant software to test on. [...] 

1.0 Introduction

Fedora Linux is a 'consumer' distro that is effectively owned and governed by Red Hat, which makes it a hard pass from me these days, though I was a regular user of it back in 2012-2015 or so. Semplice installs and runs on it without issue, with the only potential 'curly bit' being its requirement for the RPM Fusion Free repository to be enabled. Semplice's ability to verify audio CD rips by looking up equivalent rips in the AccurateRip database triggers the need to compile the Python Audio Tools package by hand, which is clunky... but it should all be automated so as not to be a major concern.

For this article, I'm using Fedora 39 with its default Gnome-based desktop environment, but Semplice doesn't particularly care what desktop environment you use. [...] 

1.0 Introduction

Ubuntu is a derivative of Debian and thus the Semplice installation on the one goes about as well as you'd expect on the other: Ubuntu is, in fact, an excellent Semplice host. There are no particular dramas and everything works as intended after it completes. I've tested it on Ubuntu 23.10 and 22.04, but assume it should work equally well on any other vaguely recent version, too.

For this article, I'm using Ubuntu 23.10 with its default Gnome-based desktop environment, but Semplice doesn't particularly care what desktop environment you use, so I imagine it works just fine on similar 'flavours' of Ubuntu, such as Kubuntu, Lubuntu and so on. [...] 

1.0 Introduction

Debian is one of the oldest active distros around and is the 'parent' for many child distros: you can argue the entire Ubuntu family tree descends ultimately from Debian, too. It's therefore good to know that Semplice is a first-class citizen on Debian and all its progeny. The only real point of weirdness as far as Semplice-on-Debian is concerned arises (potentially) from the fact that, by default, the non-root user created when installing Debian itself does not get given sudo privileges. That's a problem for Semplice, because it needs to access the /usr/bin folder, which requires elevated privileges: without them, the installation would fail. Accordingly, Semplice tests for the existence of sudo privileges and, if it finds them, proceeds exactly as it would do on any other distro. If it discovers that you lack sudo privileges, however, then it will ask you to supply the root user password first. With root privileges acquired, it will add you to the /etc/sudoers file. With that done, the Semplice installer can then ask you to supply your own password to access your new sudo privileges. After that, everything proceeds normally.

Just be warned, therefore, that on Debian, a line will be added to the /etc/sudoers file that grants the user installing Semplice full sudo rights on the system. That may not be something you want to live with permanently, in which case you should run visudo after the Semplice installation completes and remove that extra line. Semplice does not need sudo privileges to run. It simply needs them to be installed, so revoking sudo privileges post-install is perfectly fine. [...] 

1.0 Introduction

Arch being a fairly tricky distro to install in an entirely reliable way, various 'child' distros of it have sprung up, each trying to make the installation process simpler and more consistent. Garuda Linux is one of the weirder 'child distros' to have arisen as a result of this need for 'Arch made simpler', with a unique look and style which will repel many, whilst simultaneously endearing it (I'd imagine!) to rather a lot 🙂 I personally cannot stand it and wouldn't touch it with a bargepole... but, at the time of writing, it's 13th on the Distrowatch popularity table, so Semplice needs to be able to run on it! Fortunately, it does so with as much ease as it does on any Arch-flavoured distro.

As with all these installation articles, I assume a fresh, default installation of the underlying operating system. I always assume, however, that any installer-provided options to install third-party programs, drivers or audio codec support are taken: not that it makes any difference to the way Semplice works, but I just like to be clear on what my working assumptions are 🙂 [...] 

1.0 Introduction

Arch being a fairly tricky distro to install in an entirely reliable way, various 'child' distros of it have sprung up, each trying to make the installation process simpler and more consistent. Endeavour OS is possibly one of the more obscure 'child distros' to have arisen as a result of this need for 'Arch made simpler'... but it also happens to be what I use for my main desktop these days (though I realise that changes with the wind direction at times!) and is therefore the distro on which Semplice was principally developed.

Accordingly, Endeavour OS is a bit of a 'gold standard' distro as far as getting Semplice working properly: there should be no dramas! [...] 

1.0 Introduction

Arch being a fairly tricky distro to install in an entirely reliable way, various 'child' distros of it have sprung up, each trying to make the installation process simpler and more consistent. Manjaro is probably one of the more popular Arch 'child distros' to have arisen as a result of this need for 'Arch made simpler'! The distro generally behaves as 'proper Arch' would do and thus Semplice runs on it without drama and the Semplice installation process is identical to that you'd perform on Arch itself, too.

As with all these installation articles, I assume a fresh, default installation of the underlying operating system. I always assume, however, that any installer-provided options to install third-party programs, drivers or audio codec support are taken: not that it makes any difference to the way Semplice works, but I just like to be clear on what my working assumptions are 🙂 [...] 

1.0 Introduction

Arch is a slightly awkward distro to document because it starts off as a very minimal operating system and is thereafter highly customised by each user, resulting in a platform that is quite possibly unique -with a unique bunch of 'issues' and 'quirks' that might mean that anything I describe below might not actually apply to you or work as intended!

Accordingly, this document starts with a disclaimer: I'm running Gnome-on-Arch, installed according to the instructions I give in an older article. I am reasonably confident that the Semplice Version 2 installation will work fine on any Arch platform that follows those sorts of installation instructions ...but obviously cannot guarantee it! [...] 

1.0 Operating System Support

The Semplice Version 2 installation process is now fully-automated and does everything required to make the program work properly (previous versions would detect what needed to be done to get things running but then ask you to issue the necessary commands, manually). A Semplice Version 2 installation neither deletes nor upgrades a prior version installation of Semplice: the two versions can co-exist without drama, though it remains advised to cease using Semplice Version 1 and to delete it manually off your system (by isssuing the commands sudo rm -f /usr/bin/semplice.sh and then rm -rf $HOME/.local/share/semplice).

Semplice on Linux

Semplice runs on all major Linux distros: my basic rule of thumb is to take the top 20 distros listed on Distrowatch's Page Hit Ranking at the start of major program development and make sure the resulting Semplice runs fine on all of them. I then add in a sprinkling of other distros that appeal to me for one reason or another, even if they don't seem terribly popular, according to Distrowatch! Since most distros are actually derived from other, 'parent' distros (Mint, for example, is a variant of Ubuntu, as Manjaro is of Arch), we can construct a 'support matrix' for what Semplice runs on, based on the principle 'family', as follows: [...] 

This page describes the changes made in each point release of Semplice since its first release as version 2.00 in April 2024.

Since version 2.00 has only just been released, this page is currently blank. When new point releases are made, they'll be listed here in reverse chronological order. [...] 

1.0 Introduction

Back at the beginning of January 2021, I wrote a blog post in which I deplored the tendency of classical music to be presented (on CDs, the radio and so on) as a series of 'tracks', rather than as a 'whole composition'. I pointed out back then that 78s didn't come with 'tracks' (though they were short-playing enough probably not to need any!), and that quite a lot of 33⅓ LPs also didn't. Tracks didn't really become a 'thing' until the invention of the CD -and they are (in my view) totally inappropriate for classical music, anyway. By this I mean: Beethoven didn't write four separate 'things' he threw together to make a symphony. He wrote a single symphony that happens to be comprised of four distinct, but related, movements. Accordingly, I would want my music collection to have a single 'item' for 'Symphony No. 5'. I might well be cognizant of the fact that it has 'sections' within it with names such as 'Allegro con brio' or 'Andante con moto', whose existence might be acknowledged by some piece of logical metadata; but I certainly wouldn't want to organise my physical music structures around the existence of movements. It's a bit like quarks in physics: they have no separate existence and cannot (should not, in the case of classical music!) be accessible individually. Those are highly personal opinions, of course: you're welcome to disagree and to listen to your music however you deem best for you!

Apart from such 'metaphysical' opinions about the non-tracky nature of classical music, there are practical matters to deal with, too. Computers store digital music on some sort of disk storage; disks require a file system; most file systems perform better when you present them with a few large files, rather than with lots of small ones. Therefore, turning a 4-track symphony into a single file called 'Symphony No. 5' is better for your file system than making it store 4 separate files, one per movement, on it. In the case of a Handel oratorio, you might even have over 80 or 90 separate 'tracks' on a double CD set, so there the advantage into storing the work as a single 'work' and not 90 separate sub-works is even more pronounced. [...] 

1.0 Introduction

SACDs use a digital format called 'Direct Stream Digital' (or DSD). This uses 'pulse-density modulation' (PDM) to convey musical or sound information; traditional CDs use 'pulse-code modulation' (PCM). The difference between the two encoding technologies is substantial and, obviously, very tricky to describe in simple terms (but I had a go here: if PCM is like a wave going up and down on a pond, PDM is like a longitudinal wave travelling along a spring or slinky). Those fundamental differences in nature make it very difficult, too, to convert something in PDM to PCM accurately and precisely. It's like trying to translate Italian to English: you'll mostly do OK, but some subtleties will be lost in the translation. In particular, absolute peak volumes are difficult to match between the two technologies, such that what PCM thinks is a non-distorting volume of 0dB, PDM will translate as something like +3dB, well into the distorting and clipping region of screwing things up badly! The engineers compensate for this by backing off the value of PDM signals by a modest amount, so that there's no danger of a PDM peak ever being converted into an above-zero PCM/analog peak volume. Typically, SACDs are therefore mastered at around -6dB, compared to what you'd expect from a standard CD, in this attempt to suppress distorting peak volumes. It's not true for every SACD, it has to be said: the technology has improved over the years and more accurate peak management of PDM signals provide less risky volume issues these days. Nevertheless, a -6dB mastering level has become something of an unofficial standard by now.

This, of course, poses practical issues. You listen to a rip of a standard CD at a good level and everything sounds fine; you then start playing a rip from an SACD and wonder why everyone seems to be whispering! So you crank up your amplifier's volume knob to make things acceptable once more... only to have the next piece of ripped-from-an-ordinary-CD music blast your eardrums as being waaay to loud! Rather than constantly having to adjust the volume knob, how about we just adjust the volume of the audio signal in the digital file itself? That, of course, is exactly what Semplice's Audio Processing menu, Option 1 allows us to do. It's also entirely safe to do, because at this point, we're just dealing with FLACs that have been created from the SACD data: the conversion from PDM to PCM has already happened, so we can adjust PCM absolute volume levels without the risk of re-introducing inappropriate PDM peak volume spikes. [...]