I used to have dual boot and use linux full time. However, my newer computer has had many problems with linux so switched fulltime to MS WIndows due to lack of ssd space. (do not get amd chips, it is a big lie). However, I still want to use ardour. What would be the smallest footprint but moderately easy to use linux to make that will work with calf tools and ardour. I cannot use Arch or Manjaro and they are not an option for me. I’d like to reserve only 10 gb with plenty of space for recording. I want to keep a very lean system and pretty much just an ardour box.
So I want something that works without tweaks too.
It would be great if ardour made a lean standalone distro.
You can run Ardour on Windows, so that is a possibility you could consider.
AVLinux is a distribution setup specifically for audio work, I believe you can run directly from USB if you want to try it. The person who creates the distribution is very active on these forums: new AVL version announcement
usb disk would be really cool. I wonder if I would run into latency problems though and get those clip errors. I think linux lite is an ubuntu based distro so i would be able to apt install calf and ardour.
Just ran a brief test with Linux Lite: I don’t face noticeable latency with either midi or usb mic.
I have indeed installed Ardour from the repository, probably calf is available as well
Was this Linux Lite running off a stick or installed? I see that lite runs on 8 gb it must be less than that if installed and only using ardour and calf
It runs from a USB-stick. I use it to make music on my computer for work while travelling.
If I recall well, I have installed Linux Lite on a computer, stripped it completely from its software, making it around 4GB. After that, I have made a live USB from it on a 64GB USB stick.
Now, the sblive partition is 4,2GB, I have a casperrw partition (the persistent storage) on which ardour and plugins are installed, and my project data are stored in the USBdata folder that can be assessed from other computers as well.
By the way, first I used it for FL Studio, so that one is also still installed on it through Wine. Which shows that there is a way to go beyond the 8GB.
I downloaded and installed the av linux stick from the indirect link below: It is awesome. Runs better on a stick than ardour installed on my previous Ubuntu 22.04 ssd install. great job! I might even install it on the disk if the install is not so big. Ardour hats off to you for making a great product to keep me going with linux. Eventually I’ll go back… ms makes me tired with circleWaits, but amd chips and graphics keep crashing my computer during web browsing and compiling flutter. I was once a 1 year $45 sub to ardour when I used it more regularly. (but I don’t touch money) Great job.
