13,420
edits
Changes
no edit summary
=== Tips, Pros & Cons ===
==== Jack & High CPU Usage (and Potential Solution) ====
I am content to use the Bristol Hammond B3 keyboard emulator, and Q-synth (with sound-fonts) for piano, electric piano and other types of instruments. I will only notice some distortion if I simultaneously strike many keys on the keyboard (which I seldom do)...
I have also noticed when running other Bristol keyboard emulators, the CPU usage is very high in the Jack audio server - this can cause sound distortion. This is no doubt attributed to the limited power of the arm processor - adding RAM will not have a considerable impact on the quality of multiple Bristol emulators.
There is a method to change your Acer Aspireone into "performance mode" in order to keep CPU Usage within acceptable levels.
By default, Ubuntu has set the default CPU frequency (i.e. performance) of newly installed computers to "On Demand". This is for a number of reasons including not constantly requiring fan to draw down the battery (although I would be plugged in for practice and performance anyways). The Acer Aspireone a751h CPU has the "speedstep" feature, and will now show the step to change it to "performance".
Steps to Enhance CPU performance:
# Check BIOS version. I had version 3010, which didn't support "speedstep" feature, but version 3012 does (which means you need to download version, and flash your BIOS).
# I have dual boot, so decided to perform the BIOS flash in my MS WIndows XP portion of notebook:
:# Boot netbook into MS Windows (not Ubuntu Linux)
:# Go to following page to download most recent BIOS version from ACER webpage:<br />[ [<font>[http://support.acer.com/us/en/product/default.aspx?tab=5&modelId=1112 http://support.acer.com/us/en/product/default.aspx?tab=5&modelId=1112]</font>] ]
=== What I Love About Open-Source Applications ===
