Convert Mint to KXStudio. Cinnamon vs mate?

What other apps and distros do you use to round out your studio?

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thetotalchaos
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Convert Mint to KXStudio. Cinnamon vs mate?

Post by thetotalchaos »

Hello fellow Linux musicians,

I just saw that Linux Mint released a new beta release based on Ubuntu 18.04
Currently i am downloading both Mate and Cinnamon editions. I am currently using Mate and i am very familiar with this environment. I am using Mate since it was still Gnome2, but i have never used Cinnamon. Can anybody share his experience with Cinnamon? Is there any advantages or disadvantages compared to Mate or Gnome Shell? For example are there issues with the custom KXStudio application menu being translated to Cinnamon? Or some interesting details worth noticing?
My hardware does not require any proprietary drivers outside of the intel-microcode package. My system is assembled with the idea that it will run GNU/Linux on it, i am not in a mood for compromises of any kind. So what is your recommendation? Mate or Cinnamon? Probably something else? And why? What will be the benefits and disadvantages? My goal is to build something that can serve me for a long period of time. Currently i am using Archlinux with Mate and FluxBox as a fallback Window Manager.
If anyone out there has or had any negative experience or issues with Mint as a ProAudio OS please share it as well.

Best regards, Totalchaos
You can listen to my music at: https://totalchaos-music.bandcamp.com/

Take a journey to wonderland with The Butterfly Effect 2016
https://totalchaos-music.bandcamp.com/a ... fly-effect
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Re: Convert Mint to KXStudio. Cinnamon vs mate?

Post by barbouze »

Using Mint 18.3 & Cinnamon here, had no problems with it. From the official documentation:
Of course, all three desktops are great and Linux Mint is extremely proud of each edition. Although there are more features and better support in some editions than others, and some do run faster and use less resources than others, they’re all great alternatives and choosing the right edition is largely a matter of taste.

Other than their features and performance, Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce also represent three different desktop environments, with different menus, different panels and configuration tools. The right one for you is the one where you feel at home.

If you are unsure which desktop to choose start with the Cinnamon edition. Try them all eventually when you have the time. All three of them have their own audience within the Linux Mint community and they’re all very popular.
So if you were using Mate with Arch, you should probably use it too with Mint as I highlighted it but nothing prevents you from trying Cinnamon for some eye candy and to evaluate its impact on your setup.
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Re: Convert Mint to KXStudio. Cinnamon vs mate?

Post by Lyberta »

Debian MATE with KXStudio repos. Haven't had any problems with it.
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Re: Convert Mint to KXStudio. Cinnamon vs mate?

Post by khz »

I think one of many good possibilities of all this is that everyone is individual, depending on LAW focus(s), ... and hardware, the combinations of optimizations, distribution desktop selection,... relatively easy to implement.
Since there are - advantages and disadvantages at the same time - relatively many possible combinations, this can be tested out....:pcsuxx: ....
How well all the optimizations are coordinated with each other (or not)... .

Test individually and take what works best for you. Everything - amongst other things 100 % RT - does not have to be better.
IMHO

There are quite a few desktops: http://www.xwinman.org/
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Re: Convert Mint to KXStudio. Cinnamon vs mate?

Post by thetotalchaos »

I tried Linux Mint 19-Beta a moment ago. There is a very neat collection of applications. It seems like they took care of many key parts of a complete Desktop environment experience.
Usually i have a problem with screen tearing with Xorg. I need to modify the Intel 2D video driver, by making a custom /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf
Although i use Arch currently, the script is universal problem solver, test on both Debian and Ubuntu based distros, that have an issue with screen tearing. but like i said above, here there is no screen tearing and its awesome that way.
Does somebody use vanilla Mint without the KXSTudio repositories? Or is having an alternative approach? Lets exchange specifics. There is no intimidate need of general recommendations. But some original Mint specific solutions aimed at producing music && audio && sound && MIDI keyboard. So at the end this topic ended being a collection of useful tips by us for us.

cheers, Totalchaos

PS: Here is my script that removes the screen tearing on Xorg. I am using Intel-Haswell internal Video Card.

Code: Select all

# A script that removes the screen tearing on Intel Haswell or similar VGA
# /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf

Section "Device"
  Identifier  "Intel Graphics"
  Driver      "intel"
  Option "DRI" "2"
  Option "TearFree" "true"
EndSection
You can listen to my music at: https://totalchaos-music.bandcamp.com/

Take a journey to wonderland with The Butterfly Effect 2016
https://totalchaos-music.bandcamp.com/a ... fly-effect
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Re: Convert Mint to KXStudio. Cinnamon vs mate?

Post by asbak »

Does somebody use vanilla Mint without the KXSTudio repositories?
Either Mate or Cinnamon should be fine. I'm using a Mint 16.04 Cinnamon system without KXStudio but loaded to the brim with Linux audio apps including many of those packaged with KXStudio.

The more relevant things to worry about are Kernels, Linux compatible soundcards, in certain cases video drivers (on my system Nouveau drivers caused xruns), general system tuning & configuration settings etc.

It doesn't really make a performance difference what flavour of Debian OS (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint etc) one uses and what Desktop one uses. They'll all work if configured and tuned properly.

Out of the box and without making a bunch of configuration changes Debian flavoured OS's (and the same goes for other Linuxes) will all suck equally badly with regards to initial audio performance. It's the unfortunate reality of Linux Audio World.

Standard Linux distros just aren't set up by default to produce decent audio results. Most make use of Pulse Audio which is ok for listening to music or watching videos but hopeless for music production.

Just installing jack won't help much either because performance will still suck until a Preemptive Kernel is installed and a bunch of system parameters are tuned depending on one's requirements. There are endless amounts of guides out there, some better than others. Overall it's a frustrating initial experience because there are just so many ways things can be set up, a lot of information may be confusing, confused, out of date, irrelevant, wrong etc etc.

Many of the generally popular and "accepted ways" of doing things are not necessarily very good solutions either, but people use them because it's what other people use. In some cases these solutions are provided. (It's a bit like getting IE with Windows, because it's there many people will use it.)

For many users just getting sound working in Jack is already a result. They don't play instruments or do live work so they don't know about, understand or care about audio latency. If a system still xruns with latency settings set between 10 - 20ms then it's a pretty hopelessly configured system if one intended to do guitar fx processing or play softsynths live. Guitar FX used with latency settings higher than 10ms are lame anyway, the overall delay is very noticeable. For live FX processing you really want to go down as low as possible to avoid introducing long delays.

Ideally for live usage a system shouldn't produce xruns between 6 - 10 ms and this is perfectly achievable with a good sound card. A good sound card does not necessarily have to be expensive either. Most people tend to buy supposedly "professional grade" hipster brand soundcards at vastly inflated prices that don't work or sound any better than some of the cheaper brands. Why they choose to waste money that could have been better spent on other gear and PC upgrades is a mystery.

For recording, low latency performance isn't required but it just seems a bit pointless to invest a lot of time and effort into setting up a complex Linux Audio Workstation only to have it struggle along.

There aren't really any Mint specific solutions. The Debian audio scene will usually translate just fine into a Mint environment. The rest comes down to learning how to compile code, maintain libraries, maintain packages, compile kernels, understanding what settings to tune, finding out which sound cards produce good results in Linux etc.
Some Focal / 20.04 audio packages and resources https://midistudio.groups.io/g/linuxaudio
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