Can't boot SuperCollider

Can't boot SuperCollider

[Lee Thompson]

Hi All,

I'm having a lot of trouble getting SuperCollider working on Guix.  I've
installed the package by adding it to my home-configuration.scm and
reconfiguring home, though I can't get it to boot the server.

I can load the IDE and the sclang interpreter but when I run `s.boot;`
or `Server.default.boot;` I get the following error:
> Booting server 'localhost' on address 127.0.0.1:57110.
> terminate called without an active exception
> Server 'localhost' exited with exit code 0.

I've added my user to the realtime group and added this bit of PAM
service code the manual talks about to my /etc/config.scm:
> (service pam-limits-service-type
>          (list
>           (pam-limits-entry "@realtime" 'both 'rtprio 99)
>           (pam-limits-entry "@realtime" 'both 'memlock 'unlimited)))

But this has changed nothing.  I've got no idea what's breaking here;
I'm using a default GNOME system almost fresh from the installer.  Could
someone tell me what I'm doing wrong and how to get this all working
please?

Any help appreciated, thanks

Re: Can't boot SuperCollider

[Lee Thompson]

I've found the solution to my problem which turned out to be annoyingly
obvious.  The description of SuperCollider according to Guix reads:
> …
> SuperCollider requires jackd to be installed in your user profile and
> your user must be allowed to access the realtime features of the
> kernel.
> …

It turns out that the jack-2 package doesn't provide the jackd command
like I expected.  Swapping this out for the jack-1 package (which
provides jackd) fixes this.

My fault really for failing to read the description, but I'm now
wondering if SuperCollider can be modified to report when this command
is missing; I can't imagine I'm the first person to run up against this.

Interestingly also, the supercollider-server package on Debian/Ubuntu as
provided by apt includes the jackd package as a dependency.  Is there a
reason SuperCollider on Guix doesn't or shouldn't depend on jack?

Re: Can't boot SuperCollider

[Gabriel Wicki]

Hi there!

No, you are not the only SuperCollider user - but I am neither using
GNOME nor jack.  I switched to Pipewire some time ago and had my own
issues, which were solved when starting the IDE like so:

	pw-jack scide

It's great to see you've managed to get it working, though!

> Interestingly also, the supercollider-server package on Debian/Ubuntu
> as provided by apt includes the jackd package as a dependency.  Is
> there a reason SuperCollider on Guix doesn't or shouldn't depend on
> jack? 
I guess the main reason being not to dictate uncertain dependencies,
i.e. not clobbering profiles with unneeded packages (like in my case).

Enjoy and have fun,
g