Selecting a distro - Noob first steps

[Snap]

hrmm, if anyone thinks that KXStudio has this X or Y issue, why don't I get reports?
You can easily ask for any information not available in the internet, and I'm usually quick to reply back...

Anyone is welcome to write stuff for KXStudio, if that's a welcome page you're missing why not ask for it?

I'm a little upset on how this is turning out...

It's not your fault at all. Perhaps the contrary. KXStudio seems to be becoming so popular amongst the Linux audio community, or this is what I get from a newcomer point of view. The problem is that so many alternative distros are coming out based in your one and info and opnions are spreading all over so it's difficult to make an informed and precise choice.

You know, maybe for a experienced Linux user Ubuntu sucks and they all want Debian and all those other "pure" distros. But for new switchers like me, Ubuntu is a bless. You don't have to fight the OS that much. Nor compiling things or making a custom system from packages. Buntus mostly work without tweaks right out of the box. And the same goes for KXS over Buntus of different flavors. Us jumping from Win and Mac OS to Linux are usually somewhat scared by the command line and all that stuff. In my particular case I want a fast, estable and reliable OS with some good quality and acceptably easy to use DAW and a set of audio tools plus a good sound system or whatever is called the ALSA/Jack team.

I haven't had the time and the chance to ask for anything, or a welcome guide, or a full guide for KXS or anything else. Be sure I'll do if I need it. Just stumbling here for first time... But AVL just has all this already there. Perhaps (or surely) because there are not a dozen of distros based on it fighting each other plus the original one.

All I can say is big big thanks for your effort and putting KXS together!

[wolftune]

I still strongly urge everyone to always first suggest ideas upstream and push to make existing things what you want before forking.
It would be a shame for any good welcome-to-linux-audio/KXStudio documentation to be in some KXStudio distros and not others. Everyone should work together to make the best documentation and put it in KXStudio and any variants, but coordinated. I see lots of wonderful things about KXStudio, and lots of things missing. But if anyone has any time to work on the missing things, great! Just get them as far upstream as possible and coordinate with others instead of doing them unilaterally.

i2: I think your values and purpose here are excellent, but I hate the idea that I would ever tell students that they must choose between your option with your nice documentation and desktop vs the other KXStudio options with its own documentation that is good in its own way, etc. I want the best of all to be combined into one thing, perhaps with choices available just where we really think it is a personal taste issue for each user. So to clarify: I like where you're heading, just please keep everything as close to KXStudio as possible so everyone can benefit whether or not they use your particular ISO.

[wolftune]

By the way, on the subject of choices:

There are certain things that make sense to customize and others less so. The details are not simple, but it's nice to choose green or blue; and it is nice to have your own macros or your own mixer layout. It is not nice to choose between Docky vs Cairo vs icon-only task manager.

The reason is: blue vs green is a real taste issue. Docky isn't a color, Cairo isn't a color; these are disparate and annoying to have to choose. KDE is great for choosing things in a good way. The choice between gnome vs kde vs xfce; that's annoying (although good in the sense that none are perfect, it would be better in principle, if unrealistic, to have everything about all of these was just all in one single DE).

There's the type of choice that means you are in control and can change things, and then there's just bunches of preset options, each of which may or may not be adjustable. So choosing different distros and ISOs is annoying, is itself much less desirable than have all the options available as adjustable presets within one distro. Choosing qtractor vs Muse is annoying. But telling a program that you prefer faders on the left or in black, that's nice (but still better if the defaults are great).

The reason things get split into all these different DE's and distros and ISOs is because of the challenge of actually coordinating and mixing the best ideas. But rising to that challenge is the most honorable (if sometimes idealistic and unrealistic) thing to do.

[Snap]

Choices are good, but do we need them all the time? I mean. Before knowing about the existence of dedicated audio Linux distros (that was about two weeks ago) My computer just went south (so long fellow!!!) and I thought it was a right time for a change fed up of windows and fine with Mac for common daily use, but stuck in OS 10.6 and not willing to update anymore. Apple is not what it used to be when I started using Logic Audio, my first DAW ever, about 18 years ago... or thereabouts.

So new PC, new OS, and maybe new DAW. Let's see what I find out there. Ubuntu with an RT kernel and KXStudio buzzes all the way and I only read good things about AV Linux. Ok, let's try those, but... what Ubuntu? what DE? what distro? There are too many? I have to say that after trying the typical DEs, I'm with you, Wolftune. KDE appeals me a lot. Many customizable choices there. back to the original question, I like those options and possibilities. I can use them or not, but they are there by default. Then tried AVL. intended to be as is. Not to be messed up. About no choices. No customizations. Love it or pass by.... And I love that too! It just works and does the job pretty good.

The common trend seems to be having a dual boot PC with the two distros inside, and that's the route I think I'll take. AVL is easy. Now the complex question is what the heck do I install to get KXStudio running?

[i2productions]

You seem to have the live media covered for testing. Install some flavor of ubuntu/mint and do the upgrade guide. Works best, and then you have all choices available to you!

[wolftune]

Choices are good

No, choices CAN be good. But they can also be bad.
http://www.ted.com/talks/redirect?key=b_schwartz

If there are two choices, and both are good, adding a third choice that will make your system crash unexpectedly isn't good. Choice is not good. Choice is just neutral. Freedom is good, and that usually means choices because free people create variations on things. But it is the freedom that is the good thing. Choices are only good when they are good.

[Snap]

You seem to have the live media covered for testing. Install some flavor of ubuntu/mint and do the upgrade guide. Works best, and then you have all choices available to you!

Yes, I'll try that. My attempts with Ubuntu Studio were not that good and my current regular Kubuntu intall (with KXS) is ill... I screwed it up too much, trying to put jack and the sound card to work and some other things too. It needs a reinstall. Right time to drop a fresh new distro there.

[Snap]

Choices are good

No, choices CAN be good. But they can also be bad.
http://www.ted.com/talks/redirect?key=b_schwartz

If there are two choices, and both are good, adding a third choice that will make your system crash unexpectedly isn't good. Choice is not good. Choice is just neutral. Freedom is good, and that usually means choices because free people create variations on things. But it is the freedom that is the good thing. Choices are only good when they are good.

Hey, what a great video! I want to watch it throughout.

Yeah, AVL has no choices... the choice is having KSX (or anything else) side by side.

[wolftune]

Yeah, Barry Schwartz is awesome.

I should add to my comments: marketers are really into convincing people that choice is good. Because they like to give you fake choices, like a third option that is crappy because it makes the other two look better! And they use choices to hide the fact that there is NO freedom sometimes. So Choice is used to give the illusion of freedom and keep people controlled! It's normal to confuse these things because a lot of people are working on keeping us confused. But freedom is good; choice not necessarily, although it sure can fool us and does weird things to the human psyche (such as myself: I struggle with maximizing and going through all the options and it wastes a lot of time )

[GMaq]

Hi,

Just to clarify, and certainly not to step on anyone's toes. AV Linux is intended to be 'install...create', If you want to install (or run Live) and make music it has you covered, and that's all I aim for it to be... To me the Desktop Environment is of little concern other than to be a framework to allow the user to get to the applications as efficiently as possible. Is LXDE perfect..? Nope, far from it and I have customized it and blended it with as many ingredients as I can to make it user friendly since it obviously isn't a full D.E. like KDE and Gnome.

I'm a musician too and I've made a lot of well-intentioned assumptions based on years of working with this that make AV Linux far less open-ended than KXStudio and others, yes I have the audacity (pardon the pun) to assume that I know what is good for you. , I believe when you move to a completely new platform too much choice just confounds and confuses the user especially when we're talking about a Workstation here... the Desktop should be far down the priority list IMHO.

I think there are as many kinds of Linux user as there are choices, it seems very much to me in this forum and others that a large percentage of people are more interested in 'experimenting' with software than making music, that is a 100% cool and legitimate pursuit. I just want to be clear that AV Linux is intended to give you freedom to make music and create media not necessarily freedom to do everything else on top.

I admire and respect what fellow Distributors are doing especially falkTX, if KXStudio is more popular here he certainly deserves it, I'm not here to compete with anyone but myself, but I think comparing AV Linux and KXStudio is somewhat of a dead end argument because the motivation behind them is very different.

[wolftune]

GMaq, for the record, I think you "I know what is best for you" is the ideal for newbies. I think AV is wonderful and exemplary for the way distros ought to be.

The reason I don't use it myself and am not recommending it to my students is the lack of GUI's for essential settings like all the multitouch options with modern trackpads; and I really like the Cadence utilities in KXStudio. Actually, I should probably give the latest AV another try sometime, but I really value things like the simple snd-aloop daemon and the other technical stuff in KXStudio. In all honesty, the first time I tried AV was before v6 and it didn't recognize my wireless right away, so I felt totally stuck and helpless as a newbie and just gave up. If everything had worked easily and I had been able to adjust the basic controls like multitouch settings, I might have stuck with it.

I'd like to see a future where there is really just a couple go-to distros, i.e. AV and KXStudio, and both with as much good default as possible and not too much to fiddle with. I'm not the guy who like fiddling, I'm the obsessive guy who felt the need to fiddle to make sense of things; and now I rationalize that it was worthwhile, but I really wish I'd been recording more music instead. But someone's gotta do the fiddling to help everyone else. And that is the bigger point. I want someone to do the fiddling and make the best decisions, and it seems that isn't done enough within the Linux Audio world; but I want a system with minimal need for fiddling for the users!

[i2productions]

I'm not the guy who like fiddling, I'm the obsessive guy who felt the need to fiddle to make sense of things; and now I rationalize that it was worthwhile, but I really wish I'd been recording more music instead.

I'm not here to compete with anyone but myself

The two statements that some up why I released my own ISO. And I really want it to bring new and inovative people to linux and provide as much upstream progress as possible.

[Snap]

I'm a musician too and I've made a lot of well-intentioned assumptions based on years of working with this that make AV Linux far less open-ended than KXStudio and others, yes I have the audacity (pardon the pun) to assume that I know what is good for you. , I believe when you move to a completely new platform too much choice just confounds and confuses the user especially when we're talking about a Workstation here... the Desktop should be far down the priority list IMHO.

I cannot agre more. The reason why I want to get KXStudio running to give it a good go is because many of the experienced members here say it's the way to go. Undoubtingly it deserves a try. But... Honestly. The concept and philosophy behind AV Linux please me so much. It-s just stunning!

I'm right now in the KXStudio ISO running on RAM in a flash drive. It evidently works much better than my first try of Ubuntu Studio. Checking the apps at this moment. The audio works, but for some reason Reaper doesn't find WineASIO. Spent a while on Ardour.... Oh man, I'm all lost there. Need to grab a manual.

Aside of that, I'm having problems with Grub. The USB flash drives don't boot anymore. None of them. I have to disconnect the internal Hard drive in order to boot the sticks.

[i2productions]

first time you use wineasio, go to terminal and type:

Code: Select all

regsvr32 wineasio.dll

Press enter
WineASIO should work after that.

[Snap]

There you go!