Changing to Linux for music making

[dellboy]

The story so far. I had a working usb ssd drive with mint installed and yabridge and vsts working. I read that Fedora was better and nuked Mint to install Fedora. I found I did not like this distro and rather than re-install Mint, I installed the latest Ubuntu 22.10 with pipewire. I have been trying to get yabridge installed on this distro without success and have given up. It can be done, I have done it before, but it is hard, too hard for this particular Linux newbie. I have given up and gone back to windows.

[audiojunkie]

I feel really bad that you had that experience! I still truly believe Fedora is great. However, I also recognize that I've been playing with Linux since it was first released in the 90's and I have been using it for home use for over 15 years, and have been using Linux for audio this past 5 years. I STILL am learning things almost daily. However, I have to remind myself that not everyone is as comfortable with Linux as I am. Fedora is simply plug and play if you know what you are doing. If you don't, there are lots of things that could cause someone to struggle. I recommend AV Linux for those who are not comfortable with Linux.

BTW, what was it that you didn't like about your Mint installation that made you decide to nuke a working setup? What was it that you were dissatisfied with? Or were you simply seeking an easier experience than what you had with Mint? I'm just trying to understand.

[dellboy]

BTW, what was it that you didn't like about your Mint installation that made you decide to nuke a working setup? What was it that you were dissatisfied with? Or were you simply seeking an easier experience than what you had with Mint? I'm just trying to understand.

I couldn't get pipewire to work in Mint, and you mentioned it is installed by default in Fedora. In windows I always have a recent backup image to reinstall, but look as I may I could not find an easy way to back up Mint in Linux. There was an app could "Clonezilla" or something, but it defeated me, so I gave up and nuked Mint as it was occupying my only hard drive.

[audiojunkie]

BTW, what was it that you didn't like about your Mint installation that made you decide to nuke a working setup? What was it that you were dissatisfied with? Or were you simply seeking an easier experience than what you had with Mint? I'm just trying to understand.

I couldn't get pipewire to work in Mint, and you mentioned it is installed by default in Fedora. In windows I always have a recent backup image to reinstall, but look as I may I could not find an easy way to back up Mint in Linux. There was an app could "Clonezilla" or something, but it defeated me, so I gave up and nuked Mint as it was occupying my only hard drive.

That makes sense. Indeed, Fedora has pipewire integrated and working beautifully. However, it looks like you are getting hung up on something else. What was it about the Ubuntu beta you were using that didn't work?

Edit: I also believe there are apps that do just that for linux. As I understand it, you get everything set up and configured how you want it, and then create a restore image of that setup. It one of those things that I've wanted to explore when I have more time. I believe AV Linux is even built similarly.

[classic]

Is there a download for all the stuff I need, that has everything ready to install, so that I can start.
I have no real clue about Linux.........or windows for that matter , and If there would be an installation
to install, with everything ready to use.
I mean this Wine and the other stuff for the plugins.

I hope I am lucky

[glokraw]

AVLinux is a great distro, with useful configs, wine and wineasio and yabridge in place for plugins, with demos of daws and plugins. And contains most of the standard native linux audio softwares. Burn the iso to a dvd, reboot using computer 'early boot menu', and see how you like it. It's based on MX Linux, a debian system, that has lots of handy tweaks and custom tools to make life easier.

Out of the box, starting qjackctl patchbay-connections app launches the pajackconnect script, and most everything is i/o ready and recordable from there!

Set up your audio interface, and begin exploring. It will be the easiest and least painful intro, and be ready to press the record button. Iso is at

www.bandshed.net

(yabridge plugin wrapper steps are in fairly recent posts in the other two linux topics nearby)

Heading out of town now, hope you give it a try! I have two versions installed,
and both are excellent fun
Cheers

[audiojunkie]

I agree with Glokraw. AVLinux is probably the best distro to start with. There is no question that there is a learning curve when using Linux--even with AVLinux. The nice thing is that with AVLinux, most everything is already set up. You'll still have to learn the Linux way of doing things, however, so don't judge initial failures (or even successes) to quickly. The more you know about Linux, the easier and less problem free it gets. Things are getting constantly better for Linux, but go into it with an open mind that you will have some intense learning to do before you become completely comfortable with it. Otherwise, you'll walk away disappointed. Start out with a spare hard drive or something that won't mess up your computer when you inevitably have to reinstall after experimenting and messing things up. That's how you learn.

I learned to ski years ago from a friend that was part of the local ski patrol. He gave me a piece of advice that has been useful to me. He said that "if you're not falling down on a regular basis, you're not pushing yourself hard enough. Essentially, as I understand it, real improvement involves falling down regularly, and getting back up and trying again. I think if you apply the same advice to linux, it works well:

"Don't be afraid of messing up your system. Messing up your system at times is part of the process one goes through when learning Linux. If you aren't actively trying to learn and improve your skills, and if you are too afraid to try anything, then you'll seldom mess things up--but then again, you won't learn--you won't improve--you aren't pushing yourself hard enough."

[classic]

Very wise.
Someone must be willing to fail while working on what ever in his life. Means not to have the feeling of having lost after the fact, but just recognizing that you have failed.
Makes you learn.
Just don't let the emotion of having lost take place and ruin everything for the future.

[havran]

@audiojunkie: Thank you for the tips and info you have dropped in this thread.

Especially cool to learn about Fedora having pipewire fully integrated. I think I'll give it a try!

(I do have some Linux experience, starting with RedHat 4.1 some years ago.)

@glokraw: Thank you for your tips and info, too!

[audiojunkie]

As long as you don't let yourself get discouraged if things don't immediately work for you, I'd say go for it. I just don't want people to have a bad experience when they try it.

[havran]

As long as you don't let yourself get discouraged if things don't immediately work for you, I'd say go for it. I just don't want people to have a bad experience when they try it.

I complete agree with that advice, as a somewhat seasoned Linux user and troubleshooter in general.

My additional advice for someone new to Linux is to be prepared to do web searches re: how to fix things or how things are done.

Also: have a second device with internet access handy just in case. Last year I installed Ubuntu on my desktop, and the first problem was that my fresh installation did not include the driver for my network card, so there was no direct internet access (desktop PC with a LAN cable, not wireless) -- huge obstacle! But I still had web access through phone and tablet for research, and eventually tethered my PC to my phone for internet access (which increased my phone bill!) to download and install the network-card driver (I already knew about loading and unloading kernel modules).

So far so good with Fedora 36 installed dual-boot alongside Windows 10. I think dual-booting is a good-enough solution for my case, instead of spending time trying to get the few difficult (or impossible) things to work in Linux. Looking forward to trying out the music-making apps. I might even make a track this year!

[audiojunkie]

Sounds good! Thanks for posting your experiences!

[audiojunkie]

By the way, to prevent the OOM Killer from killing your memory intensive audio software, and to get lower latency, do the following ( https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire ... nce-tuning ):

RLIMITs
Real-time priority limits are usually stored in /etc/security/limits.conf and /etc/security/limits.d/. The best option is to add a new file 95-pipewire.conf in /etc/security/limits.d/ with this content:

# Default limits for users of pipewire
@pipewire - rtprio 95
@pipewire - nice -19
@pipewire - memlock 4194304


Then add your user to the PipeWire group so that you can use these priorities.

[havran]

By the way, to prevent the OOM Killer from killing your memory intensive audio software, and to get lower latency, do the following ( https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire ... nce-tuning ):

RLIMITs
Real-time priority limits are usually stored in /etc/security/limits.conf and /etc/security/limits.d/. The best option is to add a new file 95-pipewire.conf in /etc/security/limits.d/ with this content:

# Default limits for users of pipewire
@pipewire - rtprio 95
@pipewire - nice -19
@pipewire - memlock 4194304


Then add your user to the PipeWire group so that you can use these priorities.

I would not have known to beware of the OOM Killer. (I have used Ubuntu for my Linux installs over the past decade or more.) Thanks for the tip!

[audiojunkie]

Oh yeah. It's been big news for Ubuntu. It has hit everybody, but Ubuntu especially hard--because it's new to their distro. The OOM killer is actually a very good thing. It is designed to keep the system always stable. However, it is lately tweaked to be a bit more heavy handed with what it does. Work is being done to change things to not be so heavy handed with it.

Also, kernel v. 6.1 will likely manage things even better with the MGLRU. But either way, when working on pro audio, it's always good to configure your limits for rt privileges and memlock.