Hi , I am at a crossroad so to speak.
After a calamity, to begin with self-inflicted, … now trying to install the latest version of …
I guess the Linux communitiy’s latest talk.
So I am looking for alternatives like Ubuntu Studio or Fedora Jam etc.
What are your views ? What would you recommend ?
cheers and thanks
If you will just use your system as a workstation and want really good stability, I’d go with AVLinux probably. However, I use Tumbleweed for the rolling release model. It’s really stable and the guys at GeekosDAW have a really complete repository with all things audio.
I’ve been very happy with Ubuntu Studio, currently at the 24.04.3 LTS release. It installs the KDE desktop, which I have used productively for many years, along with a large number of utilities for music production. It also installs many, many packages unrelated to music production (things like graphics, video production, etc) which some users find to be excessive. I have found several of them to be useful.
It runs well for me on my old hardware - Lenovo deskside tower, 32 GB, NVidia hardware and proprietary driver, dual boot with the original Windows 10 OS. Running Ardour 8.12 and using the LSP suite wherever possible. Good results.
I like the LTS version because it’s very stable once you get it working correctly, and requires very little/occasional adjustments to the base OS packages when updates come along.
I’d also try AV Linux 25 first, and i would definitely use that (basicaly, all software is already packed in it’s .iso instalation image file, minus sample lybraries). The only reason i don’t, is my specific laptop hardware don’t play ball with it. Back when i had various Thinkpads, everything was cool and ready to go once the installation and initial setup was done.
…And you have Glen McArthur (creator and mainteiner of AVL) often present on this, and LinuxMusicians forum.
Hi, I appreciate the mentions, thanks!
Regarding AV Linux it’s not like Ubuntu Studio, GeekOS and other things, AVL is essentially my daily system setup informed by 18 odd years of Linux Audio and Video experience that I share using the build toolchain of MX Linux. It is far more in-depth than any other Multimedia Distro out there with a lot of extra handy File-Actions and utilities that most people don’t even know exist, BUT… What kills it for a lot of people is that it isn’t focused on the ‘Big Linux Desktop Experience’. If your daily joy is working with Gnome, KDE, XFCE4 et al then you may find it confining. It uses a highly customized Enlightenment Desktop Environment for it’s blend of nice compositing, great scaling and very low RAM usage (+/- 450 Mb depending on your hardware)… Enlightenment is quirky and unique and it looks and acts like Enlightenment… If you want to focus on the Desktop Environment then it will never act or look like Gnome, KDE or MacOS… It has a panel, a menu a Desktop and everything you need and if you’re focused on using Applications it will set you up without wasting your resources but if your focus is not on the Applications then you may not like it, just being honest…
Of course you can boot the USB and see for yourself, it comes with Ardour 8.12 and a boatload of popular and useful Plugins many of which are not in any Repos, Windows Plugins are also supported after running the included ‘Wine4VST’ utility . PipeWire is ready to click play and go. It uses the excellent MX Linux Repositories (with Debian Trixie) and their extensive backporting makes running a Debian stable base feel like running a Rolling Release Distro.
@JcVardy
That is interesting ! I never heard about GeekosDAW .
…and that you are happy with Tumbleweed is good to know too. I don’t if you have guessed the problems I encountered are with openSUSE 16.0 => it should have never been released in that state.
Reading the replies , I will further investigate AVLinux, GeeKosDaw on Tumbleweed and Fedora Jam
Thanks
Many thank to all of you who have replied !
@Ljuba
@GMaq
I certainly have a close look at AVL , meaning I will install it and see how I get along 
with “Enligtenment” . I do like the concept behind it and the opportunity to talk to the creator !!!
A pic of my studio
Thanks and best regards
@JcVardy
Hi JcVardy, I was trying to contact you via private msg which does not exist.
Anyway, I have some questions re Tumbleweed and GeekosDAW and some of my background.
I was (!?!) using SUse since 2005 which proved to be a very stable system and by running Ardour the last 5 year no xruns.
Since I have to start from scratch with one of my system there was Leap 16.0, which never should have been released in that state.
Anyway I shortlisted AVLinux (not sure about “Enlightenment” ) and GeekosDAW (familiar environment and KDE)
So, does Tumbleweed still come with full functioning Yast ? If “Cockpit” was introduced , does it work “out-of-the-box” ?
You mentioned the system is stable. I assume you have to run updates … in what frequency?
Do you have problems with xruns ?
Could you give me a brief rundown on GeekosDAW , just features you like, how it stacks up to other systems … just some brief comments.
It would be much appreciated
Greetings from DownUnder
Well, for starters, you just install Tumbleweed and add the repository for GeekosDAW, which also goes by the tag “Audio” or something of the sort if I recall correctly. You should give that repo some priorities as well.
So you’ll get frequent updates both from the main OpenSuse repos and from them. Sometimes you do have to make some calls regarding conflicting versions that exist in your system during updates, but usually they are just a few. I tend to simply favor keeping obsolete pkgs just in case.
The main repos will keep you updated with the newest kernels, drivers and any update to your desktop environment quite close to their released date. The GeekosDAW repo has a very extensive collection of packages (probably the most extensive for audio I’ve seen, and I’ve tried lots of distros for this) and they are very up to date. They usually discuss that on telegram. I tend to update every Monday, figured it gives some time to actually have something reflected on my system but also not to accumulate a lot of changes all at once.
Also, as it probably was the case when you used Leap, for some codecs you do have to enable additional repos provided by Opensuse as well.
I have yast, but I installed my system before they decided to replace it. However, I do see it on the repos, so there should be no issues getting it. I should point out as well that AVLinux does come with the great mxtools as well, so both systems have a lot of tools to support. Both also come with prepared solutions for windows VSTs. GeekosDAW has a GUI for yabridge that is quite nice, and some diagnostic tools for rt.
I have no xruns, and in so far everything is geat.
Cheers.
I have used about three distros over time. Tried AV Linux a while back. Dabbled with Linux Mint and stayed with Ubuntu Studio. Ubuntu Studio is stable, customizable and Ardour works out of the box; though you will need to tweak it a bit depending on your setup . But regardless of distro, your personal distro needs to provide you a easy way to identify and reduce xruns for long term use while saving you time on setup/customization. If I was starting over, i probably would just have stuck to Ubuntu Studio just cause it has a lot but that is not with any recent experience of AV Linux.
Like most people, I have scripts to cut on my workflow, even on ubuntu studio for stopping services, setting up monitors, pushing into performance mode (when i run laptop), turning off wifi/internet, and opening auxiliary programs all so I dont waste time clicking when i need to record. I would bet that most people here have tweaked their systems and inside ardour with scripts.
which distro would save the most time for you out of the box given what your potential workflow?
I doubt the Linux distro actually makes much of a difference as long as it’s a recent release with decent hardware and kernel. Sure, there are great out of the box dists out there are tuned well for most hardware, but it is not guaranteed to be flawless with YOUR hardware. That part is completely up to the user to tweak.
Having said that, I have also experienced system degradation after simple updates to the same version. My most recent update on F42 resulted in all my HDMI outputs (I know, not really relevent here) to disappear from pavucontrol. Well, they are still there, but now the only selectable option is Pro Audio (Stereo, 5.1, 7.1 etc are gone). While this is not causing any problems so far, I now have selectable 4 HDMI interfaces on the playback tab of that mixer whereas before I had only one. That is unless my UMC202 was plugged in. Then I had two playback interfaces to chose from.
I suspect the kernel (v6.17) or Pipewire (v1.4.9) is now misconfiguring the audio devices because of the detected EDID from my three monitors. I will try rearranging them in the near future to see if it fixes this.
Hello I tried out several distros - and Linux Mint was as fast as e.g. ubuntu Studio, if you make some Settings like the Governor etc - not so difficult
I wrote at that time a tutorial: Install Ardour on Linux Mint 21 Cinnamon - Tips and Tricks
I use Ardour on Manjaro linux with xfce desktop environment, for a decade now, without any problems, and it is still working fast.
I have been using Linux since RedHat 5.1 which I purchased boxed at a Staples store in the mid-nineties. Of course it’s known as Fedora now, or RHEL on the professional side.
Fedora Linux by default uses a very capable kernel with realtime dynamic enabled by default. You just need to add a grub option to get to full preempt and a few other minor tweaks. They even offer a Spin called Fedora Jam which is audio ready. You can of course add this to any Fedora installation even if you have not installed it in the beginning.
No distribution is perfect by any means. We just try to get the best we can with the tools provided. In my opinion, Fedora comes pretty close, as does AV Linux.
I use AVL myself and I think it’s alright. I didn’t like the Enlightenment DE though, so I switch to Fluxbox.
