Challenges using under Linux Mint

I am running Linux Mint 20 (as a VM) and running Audacity 2.3.3 as installed via package management. I am having some trouble using it, although I believe that at least some of the trouble is of a novice using the controls.

When I open audacity, it doesn’t even paint over the background for much of the window. The screenshot below is of loading a webpage, starting Audacity, and then moving the Audacity window to show that it looks like part of the webpage has been picked up and moved.

See the webpage for comparison in terms of (x, y) position from top left pixel.

This doesn’t happen every single time, but it seems to happen at least the first time, and it has been consistent for at least the first Audacity window I pull up.


TIA,

I assume that’s using the Ubuntu 20.04 build of Audacity. Unfortunately they built Audacity 2.3.3 with GTK3, which is not fully supported by Audacity and known to cause graphical glitches on some machines.

How severe is the problem? Is Audacity still usable?

I have exactly the same problem, Linux Mint (Cinnamon) 20.04 with Audacity 2.3.3 and freezing screen (blue background part) below menu.

The screen will “update” whenever you change the size of the Audacity window (but not when you move the window), but otherwise it only updates occasionally when the playing/recording cursor reaches the end.

In answer to your question, it is unusable. I have had to dust off and use an old Pentium PC (Linux 19 with Audacity 2.2.1)

If this is an issue with 2.3.3, is it possible for me to uninstall and reinstall 2.2.1-1? This seems to have been the previous version on my Upload Manager History of updates, which worked perfectly.

Phil

BTW It must be said - Audacity is the best app on my PC!

I think the best solution would be to build Audacity 2.4.2 from the source code. If cmake version 3.15 or later is available from your package manager, then building Audacity is quite straightforward - I’ve written step by step instructions for Ubuntu 20.04 which I think should be the same on Linux Mint 20.

I think Mint 20 should have cmake 3.16, which will be perfect - perhaps you could check if that is the version in your package manager.

If you do decide to try building from source, completely remove all package versions of Audacity before you start.

I found the solution on this website!

https://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=111549&hilit=gtk3&start=10#p399919