LinuxMusicians

Which distro do you use and why? I'm currently searching for a linux studio distro, especially for designing electronic music and mixing the result with some acustic stuff

I would be glad if you have some suggetions
Mikrofonkabel

I use debian/sid, and I switch the distro hook on it from time to time.
right now I use siduction on it. it isn't a special multi media distro.
http://siduction.org/
This way works for me now longer then 8 years without the need to reinstall the hole system ever, just switch the distro.
For sure it isn't the way to go for everybody, but I have fun with it, you ask for the best distro, well, that's my.

greets
brummer

I did try a lot of distros the last days, but I never heard of this "having a basedistro and switching overlay"-thing. One of the distros that seemed pretty perfect was avlinux, with the only problem that I wasn't able to start/install it. Everytime I let my computer start it (from DVD) it says "loading...", what is followed by a bunch of codelines and at a certain point the screen allways wents black saying he has no input.

what is followed by a bunch of codelines and at a certain point the screen allways wents black saying he has no input.

Ask Gmaq in the remastersys forums.

In the meantime, I recommend ubuntustudio10.10. Not being the best option in some way, it is a good one wrt graphics.

Regarding the "best distro", there is not such a thing. All of them are very good, but you learn to lik'em more or less. Anyway, it is up to you.

Cheers! Pablo

I used to be a Mandriva user since Mandrake 7.2 but then I switched to Mint 11 and now Ubuntu 11.10 and so far 11.10 is great for audio production, though I've not completed an album using it. :/ So best distro, it's really all about how you configure your computer or what default install a distro looks like I guess. I think Ubuntu for me right now is the best option. Though Mint is pretty nice. Mandriva has gone totally down hill.

Mikrofonkabel wrote:Which distro do you use and why?

Hello Mikrofonkabel,

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS:

• PPAs (Personal Package Archives) with updated software. So even if 10.04 has been out for almost 2 years I still have a pretty much updated system.
• Tango Studio. One of the best multimedia repositories available and it's 10.04 only.
• Stable. It's an LTS (Long Term Support) release, aimed at stability. If I encounter unstable behaviour the cause is almost always something I installed afterwards and that does not come from the official repositories.
• Ubuntu is the most used desktop distro which has its advantages, you can almost always be sure that if you have a problem some other Ubuntu user has faced such a problem before too and posted it somewhere. Also a lot of stuff is documented.
• Commercial vendors are Ubuntu-centric. I have some linuxDSP and Loomer plug-ins and I'm pretty sure those are compiled on an Ubuntu system. linuxDSP even offers specific Ubuntu binaries.
• Ubuntu is Debian based. I prefer Debian because of its packaging tools, its packaging policy, its filesystem layout, its conservative approach towards stable releases, the fact that I use it extensively at work and its scalability (my ARM-based SheevaPlug runs Debian, my desktop PC runs a Debian based distro, same for my notebook and netbook)
• It just works. When I come home from work and I want to relax or make music I don't want to have to tinker and tweak endlessly to get things working. I've tried Debian Sid for like a month, didn't work for me. I'm exploring the possibility to move to Arch but I think I'll just stick with Ubuntu. Arch is nice but for me personally it's just too much hassle to maintain.

Ubuntu has its drawbacks of course:

• Big community with all its disadvantages.
• Ubuntu doesn't really focus on power users. Which is no big deal for me personally, I'll tweak and modify my systems the way I want to anyway.
• You can disagree with Canonical's policy and position within the Linux community.
• You can disagree with Canonical's decision towards the way Ubuntu or Linux in general should be heading. Take Unity. A plethora of users has an opinion about it. I really wouldn't know what to say about it, I just don't use it.
• Documentation is immensely scattered, fragmented and sometimes of bad quality or simply plain wrong. When it comes to documentation Arch is king, one Wiki, one place for every piece of information. Ubuntu has decided to use customized (closed source) Wiki software for their two Wikis (help.ubuntu.com and wiki.ubuntu.com) which creates a confusing situation.

And don't let anyone tell you distro X or Y aren't suitable for doing audio. Basically all major distros are suitable. Some take more time to set up properly, others might be a bit more heavy but all in all, they're all Linux distros that can be tweaked and modified in such a way that Ardour or Qtractor will run in a satisfying manner.

Best,

Jeremy

I've tried almost every flavor of linux studio's there is. For me there are only 2:

Linux Mint(Currently I'm Using 12 in a Cario-dock session)+KX Studio
This is what I use for 99% of my audio work. At the same time, every computer in my house has Mint, simply because it seems to be the easiest to just get the job done, look great, and run stable. KX Studio I have personally found to have the finest set of cutting edge yet relitively stable tools.

AV Linux
Until very recently(as in 2 weeks ago) I had AV Linux on a USB with me at all times. It's defintely the most stable set of audio tools out there, and runs amazingly well on older hardware. Based on Debian.

Now I will mention that I made a remastersys of ISO of my desktop setup of Linux Mint+KXStudio+Cario Dock, and it gives me more freedom of the tools I'm used to. The only downside to it is that it doesn't run as well on some of the older hardware my friends use in their music setups.