Best Linux Distros To Run In A VM For Audio Recording?

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

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Shortstop
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Best Linux Distros To Run In A VM For Audio Recording?

Post by Shortstop »

Hey there,

So I've been rethinking workflows, and now am back to just using my old 'gaming' PC that I barely used which has the following specs:
Intel i7
Nvidia GeForce 1060 video card
16 GB RAM

Any good distros that anyone would recommend to just be able to run in Virt Manager with ease of use to setup, and for the distro itself to just automatically detect devices, and be able to change things on the fly (ex: Has a sane JACK setup that does the heavy lifting for you?)

I've been trying out Jackalpup Puppy Linux which is super cool, but wanted to know some other good ones.

Thanks :) 8)
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Re: Best Linux Distros To Run In A VM For Audio Recording?

Post by tavasti »

SamwiseStrikesBack wrote: Sat Nov 27, 2021 5:15 am Any good distros that anyone would recommend to just be able to run in Virt Manager with ease of use to setup, and for the distro itself to just automatically detect devices, and be able to change things on the fly (ex: Has a sane JACK setup that does the heavy lifting for you?)
What is your reason for running virtual machine instead of running wanted OS directly? What OS you are going to run in virtual machine?

Linux veteran & Novice musician

Latest track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycVrgGtrBmM

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Linuxmusician01
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Re: Best Linux Distros To Run In A VM For Audio Recording?

Post by Linuxmusician01 »

SamwiseStrikesBack wrote: Sat Nov 27, 2021 5:15 am I've been trying out Jackalpup Puppy Linux which is super cool, but wanted to know some other good ones.
My advice for beginners and/or people that want to explore Linux is always to use your average basic light weight Linux distribution. One that a lot of people use so you can easily ask for- and get Help. I'd use Xubuntu (= Ubuntu with the XFCE (lightweight) desktop). And I'd use a long term support (LTS) version of it, which at the time of writing is Ubuntu 20.04.

I, for instance, do not take beginners who ask questions about exotic distro's seriously. Impossible to know what the hell they've actually got running.
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Re: Best Linux Distros To Run In A VM For Audio Recording?

Post by sunrat »

I'm with @tavasti here - why would you want to run a distro in VM for music production? I know KVM/QEMU works quite well with Virt-manager, but you would probably need to set up hardware pass-though for a soundcard to work effectively and that's not a beginner's task. Other devices such as USB keyboards and controllers would also entail an extra level of annoying setup.
You would be much better to set up a proper installation of a dedicated audio production distro which can also be used for daily desktop work. I use Debian Bullseye/KDE with a bunch of tweaks as detailed in my guide in the HOW TOs, Tips & Tricks section but that's not really a simple undertaking. I would recommend to do a hard disk install of AVLinux-MX Edition which is well set up right from the start. AVL-MXE can also run quite well live from a fast USB device so that's another option.
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Re: Best Linux Distros To Run In A VM For Audio Recording?

Post by Shortstop »

Hey there everyone,

Forgot to mention that I'm running Manjaro Linux as the 'host'.

The reason I'm doing this method is that for that PC, I like to containerize things on that particular drive, so I would prefer VM's in this scenario.

If you guys could link me how I could enable pass-through VM requirements for 'Virt-Manager' for Manjaro, I'd really appreciate it.

I'm not a newbie by any means, so I'm ready to do whatever it takes.

Why? I like VM's, and would rather try stuff in VM's these days. Don't really care for bare metal anymore.

So with that point out of the way, looking forward to any advice on this :) Thanks
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Re: Best Linux Distros To Run In A VM For Audio Recording?

Post by Fatima »

I would strongly recommend using Ubuntu Studio - quite similar to Xubuntu as it comes with XFCE, which I do love :-D as it is a very solid GUI.
It comes with a lot of Linux music software pre-installed.
Not sure how this would work in a VM.

If you are very sure about this VMs thing, you may want to try Qubes OS which is designed for things working in VMs and may (just may) make it simpler with hardware configuration.
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Re: Best Linux Distros To Run In A VM For Audio Recording?

Post by Shortstop »

Fatima wrote: Wed Dec 01, 2021 12:23 am I would strongly recommend using Ubuntu Studio - quite similar to Xubuntu as it comes with XFCE, which I do love :-D as it is a very solid GUI.
It comes with a lot of Linux music software pre-installed.
Not sure how this would work in a VM.

If you are very sure about this VMs thing, you may want to try Qubes OS which is designed for things working in VMs and may (just may) make it simpler with hardware configuration.
Ah I see. Yeah, I've read Ubuntu Studio is awesome for recording as well.

Kind of just looking for stuff that 'Just Works' with everything pre-configured.

So, to confirm, you're recommending that 'Qubes OS' would be installed onto the machine as the 'host'?

Or are you saying to just run 'Qubes OS' from a USB flash drive, to then make VM's that are placed onto a harddrive on the machine?
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Re: Best Linux Distros To Run In A VM For Audio Recording?

Post by GMaq »

Any and all of the Music Distros... Ubuntu Studio, Librazik, AVL-MXE etc etc. are all nicely pre-configured but none of that will mean diddley squat in a Virtualized environment.... As others have stated, what the issue is not the Distro itself it is the massive Audio/Video performance hits you will take by using ANY Virtualization application... Qemu, VBox, VMWare are all not going to connect directly to the hardware that will make all the difference for performance..

If you want to run an OS Virtualized to do Office work or Photography or update your ancient iPod or Tom Tom GPS or just to take a look at a New Linux Distro in a general sense then knock yourself out, Virtualization is an awesome alternative!

To do timing i/o and latency sensitive operations like Audio and Video recording/editing you need a bare metal connection, VM's are just not there yet, not even close...
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