Pd, Max/MSP/Jitter’s free and open-source cousin for Mac, Windows, and Linux, has long been a favorite of software DIYers. It powers the synthesis and processing capabilities of the ReacTable project, made famous recently by Bjork. And its open nature has earned some followers even among Max/MSP/Jitter users (nothing stopping you from using both).

One thing Pd hasn’t been — even assuming you know how to patch — is easy. That’s unfortunate, because there are would-be patchers who can’t afford Max, or who want a full patching environment on Linux, or want some unique features in Pd and its libraries.

Hans-Christoph Steiner has been working for a long time on “Pd-extended”, adding a lot of that polish and documentation, and making the whole thing easier to install. There’s a major new, finished release that came out last week. “Easy” might not be the appropriate word — but “easier”, combined with “powerful” and “free”, might get your attention.

Hans-Christoph himself checks in to explain what Pd is about, and this build, even if you have no previous experience with the environment. Take it away, HC:

Pd (aka Pure Data) is one of the Max family of patcher languages. It is a close cousin of Max/MSP. Pd and Max were both created by Miller Puckette. It is a visual, dataflow programming language for sound, video, 3D, etc. Basically, anything you can do with Max/MSP, you can do with Pd. Miller Puckette started Pd as his “version 3″ of Max, and therefore there are some essential differences, but if you know Max/MSP, then Pd will be easy to learn. The Pd-extended distro is the Miller’s Pd plus the work of over a hundred contributors. It includes a large array of libraries for working with all sorts of things.

There are many features hidden inside of Pd that are basically undocumented. Typical of free software developers, the Pd devs write a lot of interesting code, but are not very good at documenting it (me included). For this release, we tried to bring more of that code to the forefront. The first part is getting it easy to install, the next part is making the documentation.

One open source DVD with an operating system and all the free tools you need for creative work, ready to run on any PC or Mac — it’s an interesting vision. That’s the idea behind Ubuntu Studio. Details are sketchy on development so far, but the basic idea is bundling together the tools you need on a single disc. One of the challenges of Linux has been installing all the various apps and dependencies, and it often takes a tweakhead to get the OS operating to its full potential. A quick look at what they’re planning on bundling suggests this could solve much of that.

Audio bundles include: