A Good Linux Distro For Music Production?

[dellboy]

Pipewire has been a bit of a disappointment for me. I was expecting it to make the audio behave in a similar fashion to OSX audio and be multiclient, but out of the box its not working like that. So watching a youtube video and having a DAW open at the same time is not working on my system.

Are you connecting the DAW to alsa in it's setting? That will make the DAW be the only thing you can use. If so, connect to JACK, you'll be connecting to pipewire that way.

I thought the idea of Pipewire was to eliminate JACK and automatically configure the audio interface to be multiclient, similar to how "CoreAudio" works in OSX? If you have to start JACK to configure stuff, its hard to see what has changed? It was always possible to do that before Pipewire came along.

[Boone777]

the Linux gods must be smiling on me as i've now been purely avlinux for three weeks with only one real issue (native chow tapemodel plug won't initiate) and that's with next to no previous experience. My cheapo class compliant interface just worked, my arturia kb and novation launch control just worked with no drivers (easier than windows for the latter...) , just about all the windows plugs i bridged work fine (but that's a bonus, can't moan programs designed for a totally different OS don't work)

Haven't even had to really configure anything either, my IF showed up in Jack, tweaked the buffer as you would in windows and that was it. Probably are things I can tune but even hogs like large Cardinal patches run fine currently.

I think you just need to take your time, ask on forums, get to know the file system (approaching it with a Windows mentality is bad, I found that out )

So, yeah, totally possible to make music with Linux, sorry some people have so much trouble but a blanket statement 'it doesn't work for music' is just not true.

This might clarify Chow plugins not working under Debian I opened this issue on Github:
https://github.com/Chowdhury-DSP/BYOD/issues/258

[Largos]

I thought the idea of Pipewire was to eliminate JACK and automatically configure the audio interface to be multiclient, similar to how "CoreAudio" works in OSX? If you have to start JACK to configure stuff, its hard to see what has changed? It was always possible to do that before Pipewire came along.

You are not connecting to JACK, you are connecting to Pipewire. Pipewire is compatible with JACK applications (by virtue of a module called pw-jack). Some applications when you set to connect to ALSA, bypass pipewire so it takes over the hardware.

[audiojunkie]

Pipewire has been a bit of a disappointment for me. I was expecting it to make the audio behave in a similar fashion to OSX audio and be multiclient, but out of the box its not working like that. So watching a youtube video and having a DAW open at the same time is not working on my system.

Are you connecting the DAW to alsa in it's setting? That will make the DAW be the only thing you can use. If so, connect to JACK, you'll be connecting to pipewire that way.

I thought the idea of Pipewire was to eliminate JACK and automatically configure the audio interface to be multiclient, similar to how "CoreAudio" works in OSX? If you have to start JACK to configure stuff, its hard to see what has changed? It was always possible to do that before Pipewire came along.

No. Pipewire is a single server that sits on top of ALSA, and replaces PulseAudio and JACK. Pipewire supports the following applications:

ALSA
JACK
PulseAudio
Pipewire ---> like Bitwig does

It is compatible with all of the apps that you always used before moving to Pipewire. Apps that support JACK still use JACK, except they use it through pipewire-jack, which is the Pipewire compatibility channel for JACK apps. The same for ALSA and PulseAudio. They use pipewire-alsa and pipewire-pulse.

In other words, Pipewire does what the two servers (PulseAudio and JACK) did before, but without the conflicts and problems that were had when trying both of those servers on top of ALSA at the same time.

You should never have to start JACK or JACKCTRL or any of those tools. You can now connect streams from PulseAudio apps to JACK. Etc., etc. Everything is simplified and you have to worry much less about it.

[Skrappjaw]

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Having struggled with windows being total garbage in it's audio handling. I've been full time on linux since 2017. Starting with Ubuntu based distros then hopping to fedora, and others.... Now I've found myself happily sitting with OpenSuse Tumbleweed. The base audio server is pipewire. My software toolkit consists of jack_mixer (compiled from source because OpenSuse has not updated it in the repo), carla, qpwgraph, and a handful of virtual audio devices (sinks and sources) handled by pipewire. That's before I open up reaper or sunvox or discord or OBS. I use a script that sets the bitrate and buffer, loads the virtual devices (much like virtual audio cables on win), then pulls up jack_mixer(with preset channels), carla(purely for VST hosting), and then qpwgraph for keeping everything plugged in where it ought to be.

This sounds complicated but once you know what you're doing and why, you can pick and choose how you use these apps. in your workflow. OpenSuse tumbleweed might be a rolling release but I've not had issue with anything breaking. Pipewire works exceptionally well and there's a nice app called PipeControl that allows you to change the bitrate and buffer on the fly. Unlike with Jack that required stopping and starting the whole audio stack when changing these settings to get your latency right.

Here's my startup script if you're curious. The Pipewire documentation is available as well to go see if there are other things you wanna implement.

Code: Select all (#)

#!/bin/bash
#Kill audio apps. python3 is jack_mixer
killall -9 python3 carla qpwgraph
wait
#restart pipewire
systemctl --user restart pipewire
wait
#set audio clock rates
pw-metadata -n settings 0 clock.force-rate 96000
pw-metadata -n settings 0 clock.force-quantum 128
wait
#Load Sink Devices
pactl load-module module-null-sink object.linger=1 media.class=Audio/Sink sink_name=SYSTEM
pactl load-module module-null-sink object.linger=1 media.class=Audio/Sink sink_name=MUSIC
pactl load-module module-null-sink object.linger=1 media.class=Audio/Sink sink_name=GAMES
pactl load-module module-null-sink object.linger=1 media.class=Audio/Sink sink_name=VOIP
pactl set-default-sink SYSTEM
#Load Source Devices
pactl load-module module-null-sink object.linger=1 media.class=Audio/Source/Virtual sink_name=VOIP_MIC
#pactl load-module module-null-sink object.linger=1 media.class=Audio/Source/Virtual sink_name=OBS_AUDIO
#pactl load-module module-null-sink object.linger=1 media.class=Audio/Source/Virtual sink_name=OBS_MUSIC
pactl set-default-source VOIP_MIC

#load apps and their presets
jack_mixer -c /home/skrapp/Audio_configs/UMC-Korg Main-Mix &
sleep 6
jack_mixer -c /home/skrapp/Audio_configs/Sub-Mixer Sub-Mix &
sleep 6
carla /home/skrapp/Audio_configs/UMC-Korg.carxp &
sleep 6
qpwgraph -a /home/skrapp/Audio_configs/UMC-Korg.qpwgraph &
exit

[3lu5iv3]

Archcraft

[Kott]

.... Now I've found myself happily sitting with OpenSuse Tumbleweed. The base audio server is pipewire.

Glad to see another openSUSE TW user. Do you know about proaudio repo https://build.opensuse.org/project/show ... a:proaudio ?
And I'll take a look what can we do with "jack_mixer", as it's packman's rpm is a bit old, yeah.

[GaryG]

This might clarify Chow plugins not working under Debian I opened this issue on Github:
https://github.com/Chowdhury-DSP/BYOD/issues/258

Thanks, Chowtape did actually install fine for me on AVLinux but then either failed to scan (Reaper) or initiate (Ardour).

However... I had a few issues with a number of native linux plugs so, being early on in this adventure, tried UbuntuStudio out of curiosity and Chowtape works fine in that, as do the native plugs that were misbehaving, guessing some dependancy missing in AVL. So sticking with US for now, seems to handle my hardware better too (remembers monitor orientation better, wifi connects everytime without being nudged etc)

[THE INTRANCER]

Humble Bundle deal for anyone who wants to get to grips with Linux and likes to read.

https://www.humblebundle.com/software/l ... xjan24_ann

[webmob]

Audio can now be used very well with all standard distros.
openSuse TW works very reliably. But it consumes far too much bandwidth for me and you have to update very often. Arch is a bit better, but you have to know what you are doing or be prepared to read a lot to understand how it works. Endeavouros is like Arch, but with an extremely helpful community. I now use Manjaro. Very up to date for new hardware. In the stable channel there is not as much download as with openSuse and arch and if you need it you can switch to testing channel and go back to stable when the needed drivers are there.
I am very happy with Manjaro.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

[fedexnman]

I'd like to see a distro based on Arch for audio and video . For Videogames SteamOS used to be Debian and they switched to Arch ( I believe) ChimeraOS is basically an Arch version of SteamOS to . I think " us " musicians are missing a golden opportunity to get away from MacOS and Windows . I know folks like to dish on Linux for audio but things could be better , I hate what Windows11 has turned into and also iOS and Android has got very spyware like too . Do we really need a bunch of crap running in the back ground . I'm on Windows11 and. I fell like I have NO control over the OS anymore from when I used XP , 7 and 10 .

[sQeetz]

Linux is all gibberish to me. So.. if you have a PC and it runs Windows fine, why would you want to jump through so much hoops to get your DAW running? If you don't like telemetry just turn the shit off. Windows allows you to do so

[Largos]

Linux is all gibberish to me. So.. if you have a PC and it runs Windows fine, why would you want to jump through so much hoops to get your DAW running? If you don't like telemetry just turn the shit off. Windows allows you to do so

Same reasoning I prefer to make a roast dinner rather than order a pizza.

[fedexnman]

Linux is all gibberish to me. So.. if you have a PC and it runs Windows fine, why would you want to jump through so much hoops to get your DAW running? If you don't like telemetry just turn the shit off. Windows allows you to do so

well if you have seen what SteamOS and ChimeraOS ( same thing in a way ) has done for gamers and Steam users , then you'd know what Linux could do for DAW if done right . Yes , I use Windows11 and it works but it's so invasive now , along with Apple Google Facebook you name it they are so into your personal info .

[sQeetz]

Linux is all gibberish to me. So.. if you have a PC and it runs Windows fine, why would you want to jump through so much hoops to get your DAW running? If you don't like telemetry just turn the shit off. Windows allows you to do so

Same reasoning I prefer to make a roast dinner rather than order a pizza.

But you'll be making a roast dinner where all the main ingredients are missing (major plugins). It'll be a shitty roast... should have ordered in the first place