MUSIC DISTROS

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

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GMaq
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Re: MUSIC DISTROS

Post by GMaq »

Luc wrote: Whoa. Thanks for letting me know. I had been thinking that maybe I would benefit from moving to AV, but a distro that clashes with other distros (and not with Windows!!!!!!!! :shock: ) on dual boot is absolute garbage to me. I would expect that kind of assholery from Apple or Microsoft, never from a Linux distro.
Easy brah!

Grub's 'os-prober' misses the mark sometimes, simple as that, no 'assholery' intended, I think any Linux forum of any distro is going to have some GRUB misfires in it as Crocoduck said, GRUB is GRUB across all distros. As posted here, booting into one of the other installed distros and updating GRUB usually fixes things.
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Re: MUSIC DISTROS

Post by mk1967 »

I like AV Linux very much but I like even better LibraZiK studio https://librazik.tuxfamily.org/base-sit ... hp#install, which is also based on Debian 9.

Originally it's a French distribution - to get an English version, install the package librazik-apr-non-fr https://librazik.tuxfamily.org/doc2/com ... apt-non-fr , then open a terminal and use the command

Code: Select all

su -c "dpkg-reconfigure locales"
then restart.

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Re: MUSIC DISTROS

Post by Lyberta »

GMaq wrote:Grub's 'os-prober' misses the mark sometimes, simple as that,
Does it run every boot or does it run only when you invoke the command to update GRUB config? It seems the latter which is retarded.
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Re: MUSIC DISTROS

Post by Dominique »

Lyberta wrote:
GMaq wrote:Grub's 'os-prober' misses the mark sometimes, simple as that,
Does it run every boot or does it run only when you invoke the command to update GRUB config? It seems the latter which is retarded.
From the grub2 page on the gentoo wiki:

The os-prober run during the configuration of grub, it is grub-mkconfig that call it, if it is installed. Also, grub-mkconfig will output on the console all bootable OS/kernels it find. If 2 kernels are installed for a linux distribution, you will get these 2 options. If some of your installed kernels/OS doesn't show up when running grub-mkconfig (or the wrapper your distribution is using), you must make the necessary changes in /etc/default/grub, and run grub-mkconfig again before rebooting the system. For the exact procedure, follow the wiki of your distribution.
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Re: MUSIC DISTROS

Post by artofmusic »

Arch linux with an RT-Kernel is the best.
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Re: MUSIC DISTROS

Post by Dominique »

To answer the original question, I would not recommend gentoo to a linux beginner, but with one exception if he/she is someone that want to learn how a GNU/linux system is really working. To install gentoo can be a challenge, the documentation is at the level of the task, but if all you know is to click on install and are not really willing to learn some of the internals of a linux system and how to use the console, you will be better with a debian based distro or with opensuse.

That said, gentoo have its advantages. It is no dev packages on gentoo because these files are installed by default. Portage provides many facilities to build software. These implies it can be (much) easier to compile and install external software by making an ebuild (a script that portage use to merge the software into the running gentoo system) than by compiling it at the console by hand.

The consistency of a gentoo installation is not made toward the distribution repository but toward the installed software, which imply than using overlays (gentoo external repositories equivalence) is safer than with the binary (.deb or .rpm based) distro.
When making a system update, if some library update break a package from an overlay, portage will detect it and reinstall that software from its sources, and the outdated library version will remain in place until all software compiled against it are reinstalled. In the best case, you don't have to wait until the external repository is up-to-date to perform the update. In the worst case (it happened to me with debian), this will not completely break your system because of an update crashing in the middle and impossible to resume.
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Re: MUSIC DISTROS

Post by phfactor »

I have a hackintosh that I built and then re-built so I could dual boot with a linux distribution so I could (eventually) shift platforms. I ran Manjaro at first, because I liked the idea of a rolling distribution. But an additional wrinkle was that my audio interface is firewire-based, and I had trouble configuring the system with ffado. So I tried vanilla Ubuntu that I optimized for audio. I got everything working, but couldn't get JACK to work any better than 44.1KHz 256 sample frame buffer and 2 periods. So, I thought I'd try a music specific distro, KXStudio is on a break, so I went with AVLinux. I have my reservations with both of these. Not for their fine work, but for the inherent insecurity of dealing with single maintainer distros.

This has been a total nightmare. My particular setup, that is, a dual booted hackintosh, means that I have to figure out how to install AVLinux boot loader files in my existing EFI partition. The Systemback install makes this difficult. I have tried several approaches, even removing the MacOS drive and just doing a straight AVLinux install. But whenever I get to the part of the install (p. 38 of the manual!) where I'm supposed to see a "hint" to set the mount point as /boot/efi, and the GRUB dropdown is supposed to be greyed out. . . . I get none of this, no hint, no EFI in the GRUB dropdown. Nada.

So I tried to join the AVL forum for help. Two hours later, I gave up. I couldn't even register. It kept erroring out on me, or kept blithely telling me that I had to prove I wasn't a bot. And there's no way to contact the webmaster, or anyone for that matter, to get clarification.

AVLinux may be the bees knees, but the difficulty of dealing with the install and the support forum has completely soured me on the thing.

I am extraordinarily frustrated at this point. So, next best? I'd be happy to install a distro that will let me install the uefi boot files to my existing EFI partition, has a realtime kernel, and that I can add the KXStudio repositories to. Can anyone recommend something? Til then, I'm back on my Hackintosh. Thanks.
Ubuntu 18.04 low-latency kernel.
Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 DSP Firewire interface
Mixbus 5
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Re: MUSIC DISTROS

Post by JamesPeters »

phfactor wrote:I'd be happy to install a distro that will let me install the uefi boot files to my existing EFI partition, has a realtime kernel, and that I can add the KXStudio repositories to.
Try MX Linux? I only installed on a clean SSD so I'm not certain what GRUB options there are at the moment, but I think it'll do what you want in that regard. The "stock" kernel works great for me and there's Liquorix kernel in the repos if you want to try that (also AntiX kernels, if you want to try those). Also you can boost with systemd or sysvinit from the boot menu. And there are lots of packages in the repos.

I was just talking about MX Linux on this thread (more info about my experience with MX Linux is in that post). I don't know why that person I'm replying to said it wasn't a good distro for music, other than it doesn't come with a lot of music apps installed (and it doesn't claim its kernel is "realtime" despite working so well).
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Re: MUSIC DISTROS

Post by gborfitz »

Hi, guys. I'm going to try (one more time) to migrate to Linux and Ardour (Ubuntu Studio). Last time I dind't had time and patience to get a good workflow and deal with Jack...
My question is: There's some hardware that would't be able to been managed with GNU/Linux (and ardour)? I mean procesor's vendors (like Intel), specifics soundcards, midi controllers...?
I have an Acer laptop with an i5 and an AudioBox 96 soundcard (PreSonus).

Thanks in advance!
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Re: MUSIC DISTROS

Post by artofmusic »

CPU: If you can go Ryzen 7 do it?
Soundcard: MOTU or Focusrite (Scarlett, Carlett line) seems the best supported.
MEM: 16GB minimum or 32GB if you use heavy sampling plugins like kontakt through LinVst or Carla's wine bridge.
Storage: OS and Sample libraries should try to be stored on an SSD for maximum performance. Other stuff on HDD and use the BFQ scheduler for spinning drives, NOOP/none for SSD's.

Distro: Debian with an RT Kernel or Arch Linux works well plus you can easily build stuff.
Desktop Environment: Openbox or XFCE, maybe cinnamon for a usable environment, if you have Ryzen 7 I would say cinnamon.
DAW(s) and other music software: I personally use Mixbus32c (Paid) or Ardour synced to Musescore, but Muse I would say would be the next best thing in the free domain. Otherwise, Bitwig or REAPER Linux native along with LinVst to bridge windows vsts to Linux is another great option.
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Re: MUSIC DISTROS

Post by Gps »

Luc wrote:
CrocoDuck wrote:it can always happen
Yes, that happened to me once with Suse and I never used that piece of garbage again. Unacceptable. If a distro can't make an installer that won't harm Grub like most distros, I can't trust it to do much else correctly. It's not rocket science. My right, my choice.
As a happy suse user, what you should have done after suse messed up you're system ( or better yet before) , was to go to openSUSE forums and ask for help.

Last week they were helping somebody with ubuntu who wanted suse and ubuntu running,

He also had issues that the suse installer changed grub in a way, ubuntu did not start any more.

He was more experienced with ubuntu so he fixed the problem first with Ubuntu, then asked for help on suse forum to have both bootable.
Because the ubuntu installer did not see suse either, after he had Ubuntu booting again, he could not start suse.

So both the suse and ubuntu installer had a problem detecting the other Linux distro and setting up grub right.
If I recall right the trouble seem to come from Ubuntu and SUSE using a different grub version.
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Re: MUSIC DISTROS

Post by phfactor »

Thanks JamesPeters and artofmusic. I read and researched a variety of distros related to music production. I decided to go for an Arch install. Their community is active and deep, and you learn more about the nuts and bolts of what you're doing, so it's not a distro for everybody. But I want to install just what I decide to. So far, so good. I haven't even installed a RT kernel yet, but I've been able to set up JACK with a significantly higher sample rate and significantly lower latency. I run Mixbus and I'm taking a look at Reaper as an additional tool.

I haven't integrated it with the Clover bootloader I use in order to dual boot my hackintosh, but that comes next.
Ubuntu 18.04 low-latency kernel.
Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 DSP Firewire interface
Mixbus 5
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Re: MUSIC DISTROS

Post by Michael Willis »

gborfitz wrote: deal with Jack...
Please be aware that it is not entirely necessary to use Jack, it really depends on what you're doing. If you want to do everything in an Ardour session with only plugins and hardware, you don't have to use Jack, Ardour will manage the signal routing for you.
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Re: MUSIC DISTROS

Post by gborfitz »

Michael Willis wrote:
gborfitz wrote: deal with Jack...
Please be aware that it is not entirely necessary to use Jack, it really depends on what you're doing. If you want to do everything in an Ardour session with only plugins and hardware, you don't have to use Jack, Ardour will manage the signal routing for you.
Thanks Michael. Is good to know that. So... There's no sompatibility or support issue with Intel's chipset? As I said earlier, I got an AudioBox 96 (Presonus) and don't have official driver for Linux, I think that I could get one anyway...
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Re: MUSIC DISTROS

Post by GMaq »

phfactor wrote:I have a hackintosh that I built and then re-built so I could dual boot with a linux distribution so I could (eventually) shift platforms. I ran Manjaro at first, because I liked the idea of a rolling distribution. But an additional wrinkle was that my audio interface is firewire-based, and I had trouble configuring the system with ffado. So I tried vanilla Ubuntu that I optimized for audio. I got everything working, but couldn't get JACK to work any better than 44.1KHz 256 sample frame buffer and 2 periods. So, I thought I'd try a music specific distro, KXStudio is on a break, so I went with AVLinux. I have my reservations with both of these. Not for their fine work, but for the inherent insecurity of dealing with single maintainer distros.

This has been a total nightmare. My particular setup, that is, a dual booted hackintosh, means that I have to figure out how to install AVLinux boot loader files in my existing EFI partition. The Systemback install makes this difficult. I have tried several approaches, even removing the MacOS drive and just doing a straight AVLinux install. But whenever I get to the part of the install (p. 38 of the manual!) where I'm supposed to see a "hint" to set the mount point as /boot/efi, and the GRUB dropdown is supposed to be greyed out. . . . I get none of this, no hint, no EFI in the GRUB dropdown. Nada.

So I tried to join the AVL forum for help. Two hours later, I gave up. I couldn't even register. It kept erroring out on me, or kept blithely telling me that I had to prove I wasn't a bot. And there's no way to contact the webmaster, or anyone for that matter, to get clarification.

AVLinux may be the bees knees, but the difficulty of dealing with the install and the support forum has completely soured me on the thing.

I am extraordinarily frustrated at this point. So, next best? I'd be happy to install a distro that will let me install the uefi boot files to my existing EFI partition, has a realtime kernel, and that I can add the KXStudio repositories to. Can anyone recommend something? Til then, I'm back on my Hackintosh. Thanks.
To be honest about 95% of people are able to register no problem and a small percentage have issues even though they have done everything right, I've never been able to track down the exact problem and as things are Spam posts are almost non-existent so I'm a little hesitant to relax things registration-wise because I often am not able to check the forum for a few days at a time.

I've read this and your other post about your frustration with AVL, I can't say I disagree or am offended however the reality is I'm just a fellow musician and father with a full-time business and part-time work in 3 bands who is doing this pretty much alone in an ever-shrinking pool of elusive spare time.. Like many things and products when AVL works it works very well, but it doesn't always work for everyone and the less 'standard' your setup is the less likely it is to be successful. I personally have never installed AVL on a MacBook or Hackintosh so I have little experience or insight on how to achieve that.

Hopefully we can get something figured out for you.
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