Session Management Overview

Session managers save the current state of open audio applications along with their connections, allowing sessions to be easily restored without having to manually open each application, load individual settings files, and reconnect all JACK connections.

There are several session managers available for Linux. However, not all applications are compatible with all session managers, though some managers do provide limited support for apps not designed to work with that particular session manager.

These are some of the most well-known session managers available for Linux, in order of historical appearance.

• LASH (lash functionality is superseded by ladish which is fork of lash)
• ladish with or without Claudia
• Non Session Management and New Session Manager - a fork of NON session manager
• JACK Session (deprecated)
• RaySession

Quite a few folks are using scripts with tools developed for this purpose.

• aj-snapshot is a command-line tool and background service which can serve as the foundation for a complete semi-manual session management system. One such implementation is documented here.
• Another command-line session manager framework is Chino.

A selection of links providing further information about Linux audio session management.

Non-Session-Manager Tutorial

ladish-0.2 demonstration video

Creating a simple LADISH studio using Claudia

The Penguin Producer: The LADI Session Handler

Linux Weekly News: A Brief Survey of Linux Audio Session Managers by Dave Philips (January 2013)