Has anyone, anywhere got MS4 playback working on a Linux system?
Four long days of trying everything and I could think of, and still no sound from MS4 playback on a Ubuntu 22.04 system. I have read virtually every thread on the subject and nowhere is it acknowledged by anyone associated with MuseScore that MS4 playback in Linux is deader than a doornail. Tell me how to get it working, or, if you're on the development team, be forthright and tell me it's broken.
Another forum poster says MuseScore 4 has started treating Linux users as second class citizens. I don't want to agree--I've been a huge user, supporter, and advocate of MuseScore for over a decade--but I must. There's more than a whiff of half-assery in the implementation for Linux.
Comments
I have it playing back via the AppImage and using the MS Basic sounds. Audio device is set as System Default and no MIDI In or Out. I haven't tried installing MuseHub and nor do I plan to.
OS: Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS, Arch.: x86_64, MuseScore version (64-bit): 4.0.1-230121751, revision: 9b70a8c
In reply to MS4 is a bit of a train… by underquark
So basically you're just running 3.6 with a few engraving improvements. The only part of MS4 I'm interested in is the much-vaunted, fabulous new playback. I wouldn't be surprised to discover many MS users feel the same. I'm not interested in engraving improvements. With work, MS has always been able to turn out beautiful scores. I want--expected, given the hype--the game-changing, best-of-breed, gold standard playback we were promised. I'm not usually this critical, but wow! what a freakin' awful disappointment to discover that Linux users have been forgotten. Why "forgotten"? Because if we'd been on anybody's mind, they would have told us MS4 wasn't ready for Linux. A simple "still beta and we're working on it" would have sufficed.
In reply to So basically you're just… by Peter Schaffter
And no JACK either.
Not sure what you've tried or what specifically went wrong, but for the record, simply downloading the supported AppImage works perfectly on every Linux system I've tried. Also downloading Muse Sounds via the Muse Hub has worked perfectly.
In reply to Not sure what you've tried… by Marc Sabatella
Wrong. I can't get it to run on Devuan. Won't even start.
In reply to Wrong. I can't get it to run… by arfursmiff
Did you set the file as executable?
In reply to Not sure what you've tried… by Marc Sabatella
Just curious.
Had this been resolved?
I'm running Ubuntu Studio.
Is happily go with a different distro if MS4 playback works.
Any help is appreciated.
I am not a programmer, so I don't understand all the tech talk very well.
Too busy making music to take the time to learn I guess...
In reply to Just curious. Had this been… by Eric Eaton
Can you explain what specifically goes wrong for you? Which audio system(s) are you using? You are using the supported AppImage and not some sort of third party build? FWIW, it continues to work perfectly right out of the box on Debian and other distributions, but some systems might require to change some audio settings, so the more you can share about your system configuration, the better people can help.
In reply to Just curious. Had this been… by Eric Eaton
No one has replied to this thread with a useful answer. When MS4 came out, it was apparent that the Linux platform had been and continues to be ignored. Complaints were raised almost immediately but were swatted off like pesky mosquitos. We ought to have known when 3.x versions started appearing as flatpaks and snaps--the lazy developer's half-assed way of porting to Linux.
In reply to No one has replied to this… by Peter Schaffter
Hmm, it seems you might have missed some of the replies in this thread. We definitely confirmed MU4 runs just fine on Linux in general - I’ve been running it happily on four different Linux machines since the day it came out, including with Muse Sounds.
So we need more information about your specific configuration to understand what is causing problems for you. Can you explain in more detail what specifically is going on? After downloading the AppImage and making it executable and running it from the command line just as you would for MU3, what specifically goes wrong? What error messages appear on the console? Or, if it works fine from the command line but not after running with the “install” option to run directly from your window manager, we’d need more info about your window manager and the environment it runs programs in, which can different from the terminal environment. In particular, it would be useful to know what combination of pipewire, ALSA, or other audio systems you are running, since that is different from system to syste, and sometimes you might need to change a setting to get things working if your configuration is not one of the more common ones that work “out of the box”.
As for Flatpak and Snap, those builds are not provided by the MuseScore rearm but instead by the maintainers of those systems, as a service to the people who find those to be a useful way of running programs. That is no different from MU3. But the official supported way of running MuseScore has not changed in many years - download and optionally install the AppImage directly from this site.
In reply to No one has replied to this… by Peter Schaffter
Utter nonsense, the Linux platform definitively is not being ignored
The playback does not work under Kubuntu 24.04 (not the studio version).
Is there a way to convert ms4 notes (written in windows) back to ms3 so that I can continue working with them in Linux?
Appimage is definitely a step backwards, and it's a shame that music Linux distributions like ubuntu studio only support MS3.
In reply to The playback does not work… by Maaattt
You could use my MuseScore 3.7 Evolution, it can read Mu4 scores. But it is an AppImage...
In reply to You could use my MuseScore 3… by Jojo-Schmitz
Thank you jojo, your 3.7 works and looks good.
I guess that the playback problem with MS4 could be pipewire instead of jack in ubuntu 24?
In reply to Thank you jojo, your 3.7… by Maaattt
Yes, possible
In reply to You could use my MuseScore 3… by Jojo-Schmitz
I'm using MuseScore (now 4.4.2) on Debian 12:
OS: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm), Arch.: x86_64, MuseScore Studio version (64-bit): 4.4.2-242570931, revision: 3130f97
I've been using musescore since version 2 without any problem, just downloading the appimage and running it.
A little (ehm .. not precisely so little) came with 4.2.2 when, for some reason, musesounds choir lost some voices (ex sopranos) and forced me to convert to external SFZ in all my choir compositions. A pity, becauses Musesound choir worked very well.
For the rest no problem at all.