I want to install Ardour on Linux Mint 22.1 (CINNAMON). I see several ways to do it.
i) Mint repo system version (light)
ii) Mint repo Flatpack version (heavy)
iii) Unbuntu Studio Installer (I plan to use this to set up my latency and real time performance later on).
iv) Ardour site .run file
Independently on the fact that subsribing to Ardour is recommended ofr financial reasons, what are the rpos and cons of the four method above ?
Alsois ther some specific thing to do during and after installation I should car about ?
I plan to test Ardour with ALSA only first and care about Jack within Pipewire only in a second step.
Avoid (ii) flatpak version has various issues, notably you’d then also have to get all plugins using flatpak, and flatpak’s sandbox adds overhead too.
(iii) Last I checked, Ubuntu Studio’s official policy was to do (iv) and get the official binary for the last version.
this leaves (i) and (iv).
If Mint provides a reasonably recent version (Ardour 8.10 or 8.11) give it a go.
You can always later install the official binary in parallel to the distro version.
I’d recommend iii and iv it’s a really easy way to tune the system for audio work and have the latest / greatest version of Ardour.
As Robin kindly suggested, however, you can by all means try out the distro version from the Ubuntu repo until you’re more familiar with the software etc. There’s no harm in that at all.
My perspective is to use Ubuntu Studio and update Ardour as needed in Ubuntu Studio. I run linux mint and Ubuntu Studio dual boot but I have found the need for setup and toiling to get things to work with maximal efficiency is less with Ubuntu Studio and Ardour. Thus I keep Ardour solely on Ubuntu Studio. Though I do like Linux Mint but having a dedicated OS like Ubuntu Studio for Ardour is the best long term decision as it keeps conflicting non musical apps/setups from interfering from audio setups.
Also separating /home to another partition so it can be backed up separately and it allows for a complete OS replacement if you every have major OS problems. I have needed to do this a couple times and it saves so much time especially for people with only moderate coding experience (like myself).
Something to consider is the version of Ubuntu Studio that you have. I’m using it and I’ve been quite happy with the LTS version; it’s very stable and usable as a “daily driver” for all my computing needs in addition to being my audio workstation. But be aware that (for me at least) the version of Ardour in the LTS Ubuntu Studio won’t update until the next LTS release. For example, the 22.04 LTS version of Ubuntu Studio contains Ardour 6.9 which is very old. The 24.04 LTS version of Ardour is more recent (8.4) but still not the latest. I’ve chosen to contribute to Ardour and as a result have been able to update to 8.11, and I’m finding that the latest fixes and features are “nice to have”.
it’s a really easy way to tune the system for audio work and have the latest / greatest version of Ardour.