Comparing Linux Audio distributions

Installation & Configuration Linux
#30

Hi,

Regarding AV Linux and Ardour4…

While it is true that AV Linux is on hiatus right now due to several factors as far as Ardour4 is concerned I strongly feel I “shouldn’t” be packaging it any more. It is now commonly known ardour.org is providing it’s own binaries that run very well on AV Linux (and pretty much all other Linux distributions). Paul and the developers only officially support their own binaries and even though I have a pretty good track record of packaging Ardour properly they have made it quite clear that outside packages are not officially supported… Further to that Ardour as a project requires (and very much deserves) funding and support and since I myself am a user and supporter of the project and personally interested in it’s success I think it is counterproductive (for me) to continue packaging Ardour for free in between AV Linux releases… Lastly the availability of nightly builds has made pretty much all of the interim bugfix packaging of Ardour now unnecessary… Side note: To be honest there have been very few AV Linux releases with a regular Ardour release included, most have been custom GIT builds to provide the best functionality available at the time…

In the future AV Linux ‘8’ LiveDVDs will feature only the most recent Ardour4 version and the Mixbus demos exclusively as the only DAWs. I will still encourage people to update by using the official binary builds purchased from here but since future AV Linux versions will feature the KXStudio repositories falkTX’s Ardour builds will also happen be available as well.

To clarify I will still provide custom builds of Ardour with WinVST support (32bit only) since they are not provided through any other channels and not available elsewhere and I actually use them regularly myself… these special builds are most definitely NOT supported by the development team…

To any AV Linux users still reading I have unfortunately been delayed in getting back to maintaining and providing updates for AV Linux 6.X…BUT… You can expect a brand new 4.x RT kernel as soon as a reliable patch is provided and tested and also a huge heap of updated plugins is on the way which should keep Ardour users productive with state-of-the-art goodies until AV Linux 8 is released in the late summer/early autumn of 2015…

#31

I have been using Fedora 21 for many months now for audio production, using mainly Harrison’s Mixbus version of Ardour (but occasionally I will use a self built Ardour for testing/comparison purposes). I have had the most satisfying results. It was not hard to set up. I did a minimal installation, added the deemed necessary repositories (rpmfusion, CCRMA) and did the jack setup FAQ manually. Some things were already in place, some weren’t. It never hurts to double check using the FAQ anyway, regardless of the distribution. I have found that many things that were once exclusive to CCRMA are now part of the RPMFusion or Fedora repositories, such as Ardour itself. I was rather surprised to discover this.

I am NOT using the CCRMA RT kernel, but the stock (4.1.3) kernel, and with very good results. I don’t ever have issues with pops, clicks or dropouts.

Yes indeed, Fedora does have a short life cycle (roughly 2 years) They only support 3 concurrent versions. Presently that would be Fedora 20, 21 and 22. However, there is a tool called FedUp that will upgrade you to the latest version automatically. I have NOT TRIED THIS, and it works great for some people, and not so great for others. I will try it eventually, but as long as I am still getting updates, I am not too worried about it for now.

I am just throwing my 2 cents in here saying to please not disregard Fedora as a viable audio platform. It does a pretty damn good job of it!

#32

Manjaro - Arch

I'm running Manjaro, and Ardour is really fast and smooth on this system. The advantage of Manjaro is it's already really fast and streamlined, built from Arch. Most other distros just crawl in comparison to Manjaro. I'm not sure if my system is already set up for realtime audio. Arch is cutting edge so it wouldn't be difficult to do. The XFCE desktop is also excellent, requiring minimal resources for a simple, lightweight and highly usable desktop environment. It is one of the default desktops for Manjaro. Manjaro is still in version 0.8, so it is not yet suitable for professionals who don't have time to troubleshoot occasional potential fixes. Try a live USB, you won't be disappointed.
#33

Another huge benefit to Manjaro and Arch is they are rolling release, so there’s no more problems with total OS upgrades like almost all other distros. It just keeps on going!

#34

What works for you is just that.

After experiments I tried to work with the elegant if not the simple solution(s). I do not have to run multiple plugins and in fact I don’t need them at all. Mostly I record my own voiceovers and then perhaps flesh that out to a finished product. So for me synths and plugins that create music is overkill. I have only a few ideas of what I would do if I had different requirements, but I think it would be roughly the same.

There are a few sites like Penguin Producer that give even rookies and idea of how to set up any distro to be optimized for sound and/or video. If you can bring a stable distribution into that mix and can satisfy the requirements of a mouse monkey like me, then your on to something.

I have modified Mint 17.2 to be that distribution. I spend a lot of time evangelizing my work probably more than actual work itself so being connected and having great tools is a requirement as much as the audio/video production part of it.

So in short no sacrifice can be had at the desktop level.

I used Ubuntustudio and found way too many synths and plug ins. The same for KXStudio and AVLinux. AVLinux had some buffering problems with the hard disk I didn’t like. Great people, I communicated with them for a while, but again the paradigm wasn’t close to a single performer/producer. All the them pretty much wanted plugins on the plugins.

So Mint 17.2 and soon 17.3 is what I use given that its stable, you can deal with repositories like the KXStudio repos that are used to bring in Cadence to handle desktop audio and jack. It makes the whole thing plug and play once its up and running you can use the patch bay paradigm or in some cases just run the software, like recording a skype interview for audio.

If I was to go to the pub and record the local talent I don’t think it needs to be more complex as there are fireware and usb sound cards that can at least capture performance via mics or possibly drift into direct boxes and an external board. Its a matter of channels and a little forethought.

On the rare occasion I will play live using Mixxx and that is simple using an internal card for pre-monitoring and usb for the mains. I haven’t been at the level where visuals would be a part of it, but its not hard to put that into it if you really need it.

I consider my use to be more project studio than studio. Considering that Eddie Van Halen according to most accounts records in a dump which is more cigarette ashes than anything else. Anything is possible and if your open enough to happy accidents, anything will do.

We are far beyond some of the studios I recorded in with 20 year old analogue equipment. I don’t think a debate over which distro matters that much. I decided to concentrate on simply making it work.

#35

My choice has been using Debian stable for everything. Ardour is in the stable repositories an old version, but it works for me. I have no need for MIDI or the latest VST-plugins. Installing a rock solid rt-kernel is one Synaptic search away nowadays - I’ve compiled rt-kernels before, now there’s no need. Unless I want to.
What I like in Debian is updates that don’t break your system. I’ve had enough of those in a regular Ubuntu. Pulseaudio is, though, an increasing pain in the butt. Yap, it’s good for regular “office” desktops - with jackd it just makes me want to pull my scalp out ( no hair, I’m bald ).

#36

I am in a 2 worlds kind of place…

I have been using KXStudio since the start of this year… I lost the plot, wiped my hard drive and installed KX…
It is a fantastic distro with everything I need…

However, I used to work on a gentoo OS with the pro-audio overlay… In the early days I could get it all mucked up and require a lot of work to fix.

I am enjoying the lack of requirement for much administration other than file management… However, I really miss the performance, with Gentoo I was able to squeeze more out of it and run at lower latency settings… (64 periods as opposed to 128, doesn’t sound like much but when tapping in rhythms on a controller, that delay can be noticeable, not so important for mixing functions). Don’t give me the “Gentoo is a ricer” link, I’ve been using top end CPU’s for a while now…
So I’m tempted to install Gentoo again as Gentoo studio… let’s see how it goes…

#37
Pulseaudio is, though, an increasing pain in the butt
So far I've had success with removing Pulseaudio from any Debian distribution. On one system, simply removing Pulseaudio was all I had to do to make sound work on a new installation (not an Ardour/studio system that needed Jack, just an ordinary office/desktop machine)
#38
Pulseaudio is, though, an increasing pain in the butt.
This is probably more to do with choice of window manager than choice of distro. I've been using Debian on DAW systems for years now and never had pulseaudio install itself, but I've never installed Gnome or KDE on a DAW (I use WindowMaker but I'm sure the same situation applies to other lightweight WMs).
#39

I am a producer/musician/broadcaster. After over 10 years of working/playing with Linux to attempt to produce audio, I am thrilled to have a fully functional production studio based on KX Studio. I have Zero Latency midi audio using a M-Audio USB Midi Controller Keyboard, fully functional in/outs with a PCI Delta 44 and am looking forward to producing a full album on an open source platform. The realtime plugins are amazing and I love Ardour. I have tried USB (Tascam) and Firewire (Focusrite Saphire) interfaces but I always have problems with latency. I have also tried Ubuntu Studio and AVLinux as well as a handful of others, but KXStudio is the first distro I have had this much success with. I am running on a core 2 duo 3ghz with 6 gigs of ram and an SSD. This is going to be fun.

If you would like to hear some of my previous work you can see http://www.soundclick.com/valdavis.

#40

I am recording songs with Ardour for three years now. I have to take up the cudgels on behalf of UbuntuStudio. I was always using it and I recently upgraded my system to 15.10. To be honest, I have nothing to complain. I do admit, I am compiling Ardour from GIT frequently so I am always at the newest version and have all features I wish.
I do not have any issues with pulseaudio. UbuntuStudio is configured to nicely integrate pulseaudio with jack. I am using a Terratec DMX 6Fire USB audio interface which is powered on and off manually (as I want to save some power) and the loading/unloading of the drivers and jack just works fine.
For virtual instruments I mainly use linuxsampler (plugged in as a plugin) and the Calf plugins for effects.
Linuxsampler is my biggest PITA as they do not provide debian packages due to their weird licence.
Other than that, I am a happy fellow.

#41

I have been using Ubuntustudio for about 4 years now. Kernel panic never, low latency? yes. If you only have one audio interface pulse just works, other wise turn the other cards off in pulse and use only jack as it’s back end. 16.04 already has ardour4.4 in it. I do not know if 4.6 will make it or not… As for too many plugins, US has allowed choosing what you include in your install for about a year now. Things could move faster, but for doing audio it is the best ubuntu flavour to work with. XFCE is much more stable than unity as a desktop.

#42

I’m using UbuntuStudio (12.04, now 14.04) and KXStudio (12.04) on several systems. Both run fine, I like KXStudio because of its surface. But it seems to me that a third distribution runs even more reliable on my systems: TangoStudio ( http://tangostudio.tuxfamily.org/ ) based on Debian 7.
Unfortunately TangoStudio is not maintained any more since last spring :-(… so I fear I will have to say Goodbye to it as soon as Debian 7 gets too old…

#43

Allank, I’m rebuilding gentoostudio.org on a new server. If you want to give it a try when I green-light the install instructions, I’d love to hear any feedback you might have. :slight_smile:

#44

My Fedora 27 with either ardour6 or mixbus6 never crashes or locks up, and is the system in other ways as well. BUT, it’s not tweaked for low latency at all, so has all those troubles. I suspect that CCRMA could fix this.

I also tried LinuxMint 19.3 with Ubuntu Studio Audio and low latency, both from the Ubuntu repo. That solved all the xrun issues. But, the system locked on me about once an hour during 5 hrs of use. Some of that looks to be nouveau driver related. My GeForce 7200 gs isn’t supported by nVidia for Linux anymore, and the legacy support for nVidia in Ubuntu only goes back about half as far as nVidia does.

I think CCRMA may be my best bet.

#45

Before switching to CCRMA with Fedora I tried an experiment using

  • The already installed LinuxMint 19.3
  • The already installed ubuntustudio-lowlatency and ubuntustudio-audio
  • The already installed nouveau video drivers

Then I installed XFCE as the desktop, and ran it instead of Cinnamon. The result is a stable Mixbus6 setup without a single xrun.

I hope this is useful for someone else!
Cheerio…

#46

Nowadays since version 11 ( Bullseye ) came out, Debian has started to (slowly) deprecate PulseAudio in favor of PipeWire. This is a good move, I was able to remove that awful PulseAudio software from my latest install. Lo and behold - Firefox video sound still worked, even with Jack Audio Connection running!! No xruns, crackles or runaway processor usage :slight_smile:

#47

I tried pipewire on a debian based laptop that I keep in my rehearsal room. I was not impressed. I have 2 USBStreamers (by miniDSP) to collect the ADAT optical output of 2 MOTU 8pre (can’t be bothered to use the firewire driver which still sucks, i.e. produces a LOT of noise). Anyway, one of my streamers did not show up, and the other one was displaying weird sounding port names.

I went back to jack and zita-a2j (for browser sound, I’ve always used the snd-aloop trick but just for playback). Everything in my sound setup lives in jack and works really great. When pipewire matures and stops giving audio ports weird names, I will try it again.

If I was only using ardour without the need to add extra input channels via ADAT/USB, I would use pure ALSA. I’ve worked with ardour with both jack and ALSA for many years and bypassing jack in favour of direct ALSA is really nice when I don’t need extra things to patch to my session.

#48

At the moment, LibraZiK Studio, based on Debian 10, is the most reliable and most lightweight audio distribution on my systems.

Michael

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#49

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