Help needed on configuring Fedora 39 for Pro Audio

[IRVNG]

Hello everyone! Brand new Linux Musician here. I just switched from Windows couple months ago and one of the challenges I've been facing is getting my system ready for pro audio.

I have an Asus Zenbook UX3402ZA laptop with the following hardware and software:

• CPU: Intel Core i7 1260p

• RAM: 16GB LPDDR5 on board

• SSD: 1TB M.2 NVMe™ PCIe® 4.0 Performance SSD

• OS: Fedora 39

• DAW: REAPER

I've tried Linux Mint, Debian 12 and now Fedora. Fedora is the distro that has given me the best performance and stability.

When it comes to audio production, I've followed two different guides:

• This one: brendaningram / linux-audio-setup-scripts / Fedora 38

• And this one: patrickl / wine-tkg (which is the one above but with fewer steps)

Fedora comes pre-installed with Pipewire, however Fedora 39 comes with JACK instead of Pipewire JACK, so I made the switch after following the guides I mentioned, then tried to make some music but I've come across these issues:

1. When I'm using Pipewire JACK the audio latency is fine for a few moments but then it ramps up to like 1 second. This happens when I open a random plugin, or when I have another program open like firefox and I do random things like open a tab or play a video.
2. When I'm using JACK the latency stays stable, but I'm getting a hella lot of Xruns and stuttering.

My CPU governor is set to Performance, I installed the realtime-setup package and added myself to the realtime group (as instructed in the guides I mentioned earlier), and did everything else in the guides, but still my system isn't giving me the performance and stability I need for audio production.

Can anyone help me figure this out? I really want to make Linux and Audio Production work. It's the last piece of the puzzle to fully make the switch.

Thanks in advance!

[bluebell]

1. When I'm using JACK the latency stays stable, but I'm getting a hella lot of Xruns and stuttering.

Make sure that there is a file in /etc/security/limits.d with

Code: Select all

@audio   -  rtprio     95
@audio   -  memlock    unlimited

and that your user is in group audio. You can choose another group name, of course.

[IRVNG]

Thanks for the reply! I have two files in /etc/security/limits.d

audio.conf:

Code: Select all

@audio - rtprio 90
@audio - memlock unlimited

And realtime.conf:

Code: Select all

# This file specifies reasonable default limits for users
# who should be able to run realtime processes.
# SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later
#
# Such users must be added to group 'realtime' to be
# affected by these limits.

@realtime       soft    cpu             unlimited
@realtime       -       rtprio          99
@realtime       -       nice            -20
@realtime       -       memlock         unlimited

My user is added to both audio and realtime group.

I switched back to Pipewire JACK and noticed much better performance than JACK. The DSP load is way less and I'm not getting any Xruns. The only problem is that after a while the audio latency suddenly becomes like 700ms which isn't just even possible to work with.

[autostatic]

Welcome to the forums!

Some tips/advice that could help you further. Reaper can benefit a lot from being able to set CPU DMA latency. For implementing that see https://wiki.linuxaudio.org/wiki/system ... _interface
And does Reaper really need JACK? If not I'd use it with plain ALSA if possible, saves you an extra layer of complexity.

Also, setting fs.inotify.max_user_watches has little to do with improving audio performance: https://wiki.linuxaudio.org/wiki/system ... sysctlconf
Same goes for setting nice: https://wiki.linuxaudio.org/wiki/system ... faudioconf
Setting those won't hurt though.

And what audio interface are you using?

[IRVNG]

Hi autostatic! Thank you!

That seems like it. I found a thread in the REAPER forum that also explains how to configure your system so REAPER can change the CPU DMA Latency. I’ll try it out after work today!

I’ll also try using plain ALSA. To do that you would just change it from JACK to ALSA in REAPER's audio device configuration right?

My audio interface is a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 1st Generation.

[autostatic]

I’ll also try using plain ALSA. To do that you would just change it from JACK to ALSA in REAPER's audio device configuration right?

No idea to be honest, I do know that it's possible. Bear in mind though that Reaper then claims your audio device and no other software can use it anymore.

My audio interface is a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 1st Generation.

Cool, a USB device, make sure you connect it to a USB port with as little other devices on it. Maybe you could post the output of the lsusb command in a terminal to easily determine which port would be your best option.