MIDI & Audio & DSP -- newbie questions

[basscop5000]

So, I've been lucky to stumble across an ACTIVE recording community, and to be honest I see more activity here than Cubase forums

Anyway, I'm pretty new to all this, and I hope I can find something to meet my demands.
I'm currently using TuxGuitar to write and export MIDI, and I import in Rosegarden... problem is audio recording in RG isn't too pretty and I don't have the system to want to run Qjackctl and RG and Fluidsynth and yet ANOTHER program for tracking.

Currently, I'm on a 2.4ghz P4 with 1gb RAM on Ubuntu RTK and an M-Audio Delta 10/10 (It's cheap, but Linux support seems better than Windows - Way to go, Envycontrol)

I've gotten comfortable in both Cubase and Sonar, with the exception of performance. Honestly, I'm not worried about a steep learning curve, just functionality and usability. The only things I'm really concerned with as far as features are multi-track recording, slope and snap tempo changes, and time signature changes... like every measure. So far I've only seen RG and Sonar to do that for me.

These MIDI features are a MUST for me, so do I have any lightweight, all-in-one DAW solutions aside from RG, or am I better off with the mix and match, picking up the smallest apps I can find?

Also, I do all my final recordings live, with a cab-mic setup, what options do I have for direct plugin, real-time guitar FX - like distortion, preamp, power amp, cab, and mic models to reroute for scratch-tracks?

I know I put out a lot of questions, so stab at em bit by bit if you must.
Thanks much to anyone willing to give input -- The Bass Cop.

[studio32]

Yo welcome!

Recording > ardour (midi is in progress...) traverso, audacity
Midi sequencr > qtractor (great app for you I think)
guitar sounds > rakarrack and guitarix, take also a look in the howto section for guitar sounds!!!....

and check out the wiki especially the newbie page (see signature)

You can introduce yourself in the new! forum part!

[basscop5000]

Honestly, I was quite scared of the barebones, almost dumbed-down pro-tools frontend (imagine that!) I saw from Ardour when I first switched over to Linux, but I guess I'll have to play with it some more.

Thanks again, and I intend to go introduce myself, that is if roommate's kids aren't all wound up and I get assaulted with a few thousand "what's this?" questions, and such.

[Patel12]

These MIDI features are a MUST for me, so do I have any lightweight, all-in-one DAW solutions aside from RG, or am I better off with the mix and match, picking up the smallest apps I can find?

[RockHopper]

Another spam bot

Anyway, hi basscop5000! A good source of info for getting to grips with Linux audio is http://libremusicproduction.com