New SuperCollider on (x)Ubuntu

My page on installing SC3.x on Ubuntu has been a popular page here at scacinto.com. Because it was written 3+ years ago, and more importantly, because so much changed with the SC3.6 update I felt compelled to write up another tut. This time I’m installed 3.6.x on Xubuntu 13.10. The flavor of Ubuntu you choose doesn’t matter. I like X because it uses the lighter XFCE desktop environment. Actually, I like and use #! Linux more, but Ubuntu is the easier and more people use it (even though #! is better!) so here goes:

Set up the SuperCollider Repos

Open a terminal shell and enter the following:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys FABAEF95

then:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:supercollider/ppa

then:

sudo apt-get update

Install SuperCollider

In the shell:

sudo apt-get install supercollider-ide

(During installation you will be prompted to add your user to the audio group so Jack can use RT priority. Make sure you select ‘yes’ here as ‘no’ is selected by default.)

The new supercollider IDE is totally awesome and game-changing and you should use it and not gedit or vim or anything else. Installing the supercollider-ide package installs a bunch of stuff including (but not limited to) supercollider, supercollider-common, supercollider-ide, supercollider-server, and jack2 including qjackctl. You no longer have to build for support for Jack2 and the QT GUI is installed by defaul so no more having to get and install and configure Swing. Life.is.good.

To run SC3.6:

In a shell:

qjackctl &

then:

scide

Run the following to check the GUI:

GUI.qt; // set by default i think, but what the hell...

32.do({ arg i;
b = Button(w, Rect(rrand(20,300),rrand(20,300), 75, 24));
b.states = [["Start "++i, Color.black, Color.rand],
["Stop "++i, Color.white, Color.red]];
});
w.front;
)

That’s it people. I hope you’re not disappointed. If you want to remember the Bad ol’ Days, check out this post on installing 3.4 on Ubuntu from back in 2011. Just don’t try to follow the instructions…