Ubuntu Studio & KDE

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

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bentheass
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Ubuntu Studio & KDE

Post by bentheass »

I finally updated my laptop in the first time in years (I think I was on 18.04) and I am super super disappointed that UStudio has gone with KDE & sddm.
But I find it funny that I seem to be the only one enraged by this lol
Any Studio users out there who are running 20.10 and if so, what do you think?
For as long I've been a linux user, KDE was always the pretty but resource-intensive DE for Linux. It caught me quite off guard that Studio team would choose it as their default DE for an OS that is supposed to provide maximum available resources for multimedia processing.
My laptop is my backup recording computer, my main recording computer isn't going to be getting updated for a few months while I finish projects I am in the middle of, but I want to have a plan for when that time comes. I think I might finally be switching to AVLinux or maybe I'll just piece together a UStudio distro with xfce.
Thoughts?

https://soundcloud.com/benjamindaass
https://www.thechurchofotherworldlysounds.com/
Mixbus32Cv9 on Xubuntu 20.04.6 with kernel version 5.15.0-91-lowlatency with 2nd Gen Scarlett 18i20 on a custom built box (Intel i5-11400F, 32 gigs DDR4, etc)

tseaver
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Re: Ubuntu Studio & KDE

Post by tseaver »

The UbuntuStudio release announcement for 20.04[1] previews that 20.10 will include Plasma, citing its superior integration for graphics artists and photographers. It then goes on:
For audio production, nothing in terms of resource usage changes. If the display compositor proves to be problematic, a simple alt-shift-F12 disables the display compositor. It can also be disabled from starting at login. A known resource hog from KDE, the Akonadi server in the KDE Personal Information manager, will not be included by default (Kubuntu currently does not use KDE PIM, but Thunderbird as do we). The Plasma desktop environment has, without Akonadi, become just as light in resource usage as Xfce, perhaps even lighter. Other audio-focused Linux distributions, such as Fedora Jam and KXStudio, have historically used the KDE Plasma desktop environment and done well with audio.
FWIW, I haven't tried out 20.10 yet,

[1] https://ubuntustudio.org/2020/04/ubuntu ... -released/
Ubuntu, Mixbus32C; acoustic blues / country / jazz
bentheass
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Re: Ubuntu Studio & KDE

Post by bentheass »

hi tseaver, thanks for the reply.

I've heard this claim before, and granted I didn't run actual benchmarks of any sort, but the difference is night and day to the extent that I can't imagine what data can neglect my personal anecdotal evidence.
Upon installing 20.10, my computer was significantly slower, the CPU monitor would should all 4 cores red-lining and the computer would be close to inoperable for minutes at a time while the processor crunched whatever it was doing. It was quite literally the most stressed I've ever been on a Linux box.
I installed xfce from the repos, removed kde and plasma and everything else, and now the computer is back to performing nice and smooth as it was on the older distro I was one.
After all that, I am dumbfounded that others claim it is just as resource friendly as xfce.
Not to be contrary! Again, what you quoted has been said by many others. And if KXstudio is also using KDE, then I clearly must be missing something. But until I figure out what that something is, I am staying far the hell away from KDE lol

https://soundcloud.com/benjamindaass
https://www.thechurchofotherworldlysounds.com/
Mixbus32Cv9 on Xubuntu 20.04.6 with kernel version 5.15.0-91-lowlatency with 2nd Gen Scarlett 18i20 on a custom built box (Intel i5-11400F, 32 gigs DDR4, etc)

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sunrat
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Re: Ubuntu Studio & KDE

Post by sunrat »

I use Debian Buster with KDE for my audio production and find it excellent. Definitely similar resource usage to AVL-MXE which uses Xfce. I was mixing 30 tracks with dozens of plugins yesterday in Mixbus 32C and CPU (i5 6500) was hovering at 25-30%.
Tried Ubuntu Studio a few months back and had major issues so I'm staying the hell away from that! :mrgreen:
KX Studio distro last release was 7 years ago so its KDE4 is now ancient, but I used it for a long time and it worked well. KDE Plasma 5 is in a whole different league to KDE4.
Bottom line is... YMMV. :wink:
bentheass
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Re: Ubuntu Studio & KDE

Post by bentheass »

my mileage may vary indeed.
but I'm glad everyone else is working fine on kde. maybe it was a driver issue. kde seemed to have a lot of problems managing hardware for me as well. maybe its all a hardware issue.
but back on xfce is working good for me. computer fan is hardly pushing and processor aint breaking a sweat :D

https://soundcloud.com/benjamindaass
https://www.thechurchofotherworldlysounds.com/
Mixbus32Cv9 on Xubuntu 20.04.6 with kernel version 5.15.0-91-lowlatency with 2nd Gen Scarlett 18i20 on a custom built box (Intel i5-11400F, 32 gigs DDR4, etc)

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tomcashen
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Re: Ubuntu Studio & KDE

Post by tomcashen »

I run distros on a 2011 Macbook Air these days, so resource hogs make themselves known pretty well. Plasma has really become fast for me over the last couple years, snappy as XFCE and way faster than ganome. There are a few bugaboos that can cause problems, though. Akonodi as mentioned, and baloo, the file indexer. Whether these are installed and/or enabled depends on the distro. I disable baloo by the several methods suggested by the google any time I install Plasma. Or let it run overnight.

krunner, Konsole, Kate, and Dolphin keep me interested in Plasma. On this laptop, I'm not sure how recording would do with Ubuntu Studio anyway, but Plasma in not the bottleneck it used to be.

2 cents.
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