Linux Users, What's You Distro Experience?

[audiojunkie]

There are several next generation distros available. I just mention Silverblue, because I like Fedora. The following video uses Silverblue, but any of the modern next generation OSes can do the exact same thing. Even regular distros xan do this—the only difference is that the technologies are not automatically built in—you have to add them.

[WackyZoundz]

Did i mention the biggest problem of Linux? Trolls, morons, liars, character assassinators, Linux talibans ... in short the unbelievable toxic community. They will kill you for their faith and golden calf if they can. As you can see here once again. Doesn't understand a single word of what i say, but goes immediately toxic.

...which results in the second biggest problem: The lack of helpful unformation. What you get at best in the forums is heavily fragmented and incomplete which results in a tedious and long search that often leads to dead ends. It's not like with Windows were people tell you "To run this you need to install this framework first". You never get a step-by-step guide, even if something only requires two steps. What you get plenty of instead is personal attacks ("Lol, you don't even know that, you're an idiot"). What I always found interesting that you never get a working advice from those "experts" so it's safe to assume they don't know how to solve something themselves.

So who can you ask? Nobody, you have to figure everything out all by yourself with trial and error. This eats up so much time it's not worth the effort if you want to do something else than just tinkering around. I don't see the point in investing decades into Linux to maybe be on par with Windows 95 or ReactOS (!). Of course only with a single distro version that should never be updated, otherwise you end in the limbo of Linux reinvention which forces you to start from scratch because nothing works anymore.

I like Linux as a concept. But it's still not useful for anything that goes beyond simple office tasks. That's why you never see it being used in studios.

[audiojunkie]

Although Linux is nowadays mostly developed by corporations, there is still a large population of volunteers. Yes, proper documentation is lacking for some distros—especially smaller, unestablished distros. But there are also distros that are well established and have fantastic documentation. For example, Red Hat’s documentation is very well done. I buy books about Linux and Windows that contain fantastic documentation. But you are to some degree correct that forums are not the best places from which to get complete documentation. It is largely expected that users volunteer and help others along their Linux journey. Untrained volunteers aren’t always the best source or trained well enough to teach others. Admittedly it is an ongoing problem. But it is quite rewarding for those of us involved heavily enough to stick with it and conquer the learning curve. Linux is simply just not for you.

[audiojunkie]

thanks for the replies, guys.
i've been surprisingly happy with my distro for a change, but i can't help but wonder since there's like hundreds of other distros. thanks for the infos.

I had a list of specifically what I wanted out of a distro. I used that to discover that Fedora is my distro of choice. I’m very happy with my choice, but my list of things I want in a distro guided my choice. What specifically are you looking for in a distro? That’s the most important first question to ask yourself.


For example, this is what I wanted out of a distro:

* The most software (including 3rd party repositories)
* Independent—free of corporate influence
* Huge support community
* Excellent documentation
* Very flexible—can be minimal or full featured
* Numerous Desktop Environment choices
* Supports multiple chip architectures
* Between stable & bleeding edge (similar to #debiantesting)
* Dependable & requires little manual intervention (unlike #archlinux)

[uOpt]

MacOS is already doing the immutable OS thing.

I hate it. Just for starters I constantly have to reboot for updates that have only userspace changes and shouldn't need a reboot.

[WackyZoundz]

That's one of the few things Linux does right still. I don't understand why Windows and MacOS is forcing this so much, earlier versions did it better.

[glokraw]

But it's still not useful for anything that goes beyond simple office tasks. That's why you never see it being used in studios.

That's like saying you never see Ferrari's caught in the morning commute.
'Studios' have been re-defined, obsoleted, or relegated to a few big-name locations on memory lane. The tax burden, energy costs, wages, lack of qualified staff needed for running a 'traditional studio', in a small or medium sized town, with competetive gear and results, combined with the absense of money to be made by the low and mid-tier income musicians, has crimped the style of the local music biz enough, that the OS and software used in finishing a particular song, is the last thing on anyone's mind. People bring in their stems to whatever remnant studios remain in their area, and finish what little can't be done in their home, which ain't much these days, and the studio culture barely breaks even, and continues fading into the sunset. There are still quite a few studios in my area, but they're eating off the income of dedicated enthusiastic musicians with well-paying day-jobs, aka 'unknowns', who are more likely to be dazzled by (and need) a large console, racks of blinking lights, and a solemn acoustic space, than an OS logo on a laptop.
I greatly enjoy Rick Beato's interviews with stars, who used famed studios in the 70's thru maybe 2018, but most of them now record in their home studios.

As for Reaper, (assuming a jackd and qjackctl are installed) I title a new folder based on the particular version number, like /home/me/.718
I extract the downloaded archive contents there. I move the contents of the unarchived folder up to .718, and move or delete all the now redundant parts. I start qjackctl, and start Reaper with a simple command,
.718/reaper

[deepspeccode]

I find that the best option is to use the most minimal distro you can find and add only the tools you need, This makes performance so much better. I was using ubuntu studio and decided to do an arch install, made a huge difference

[EnGee]

I use Linux Mint (21.3 Cinnamon) installed on external SSD in a PC dual boot with Windows 11.

I spent about 1/2 of my time on Linux Mint and I like it a lot. It is very stable and fast. I installed Bitwig Studio (now it is 5.2), Reaper (latest), several synths from u-he and TAL (also TAL-Drums). Also Vital and Surge XT. All are native linux plugins.

I tried Wine and Yabridge, but I didn't like the idea, I just could boot into Windows (or use Mac) better. Anyway, I don't feel I'm missing something big with my setup as only Bitwig is more than enough for me as a whole production software

I use Alsa with very low latency (less than in Windows!). Novation launchkey 49 mk3, ATOM and two hardware synths. Everything works perfectly fine in Bitwig and Reaper (but I mainly use Bitwig).

[Tiles]

I use Alsa with very low latency (less than in Windows!)

This is technically not possible. At Windows ASIO drivers operates very close to the hardware in a way that is not possible for ALSA. ALSA has a software layer inbetween already. And is slower in any case. Everything on top of ALSA, Jack or Pipewire, adds even more latency.

The curious part is that ALSA with Jack can be faster than pure ALSA. But it cannot be faster than the fastest mode of ALSA plus the Latency that comes with Jack, which is in any case slower than ASIO.

Let's say it is enough for your needs

[EnGee]

I use Alsa with very low latency (less than in Windows!)

This is technically not possible. At Windows ASIO drivers operates very close to the hardware in a way that is not possible for ALSA. ALSA has a software layer inbetween already. And is slower in any case. Everything on top of ALSA, Jack or Pipewire, adds even more latency.

The curious part is that ALSA with Jack can be faster than pure ALSA. But it cannot be faster than the fastest mode of ALSA plus the Latency that comes with Jack, which is in any case slower than ASIO.

Let's say it is enough for your needs

Yes you are right. Apology for the misinformation.

I have just tested Bitwig on the three systems and it is the same on the three OSes (Edited):

Bitwig - Linux 128 samples.png

Bitwig - Windows.png

Screenshot 2024-07-28 at 9.25.34 PM.png

Anyway, for the best usage (for me) it is on Mac, as when I switch to YouTube (for example), I can hear the sound normally, but in Linux (Alsa), I must quit Bitwig and in Windows the ASIO driver for Tascam is problematic in Bitwig especially (I must quit Bitwig and run Reaper (or other DAW) to free the sound driver!). Although, it doesn't happen with another two ASIO drivers for another Audio interfaces! I have another glitches with Tascam ASIO driver, but it doesn't occur all the times!

[Tiles]

Thank you for confirming. And thanks for the other insights. In the end allowed is what works

[ghettosynth]

So who can you ask? Nobody, you have to figure everything out all by yourself with trial and error.

LLMs are really helpful here. This is the way of the future. I would argue that LLMs have replaced about 90% of my web searches. You have to have enough experience to know when they're hallucinating or mismatching version info, but that's true with humans as well.

They can also help you post better forum questions by helping you to refine your question and get to the parts that actually matter.

[j_e_g]

Windows ASIO drivers operates very close to the hardware in a way that is not possible for ALSA.

Actually, this is not true. Alsa has several different ways for an app to play/record audio. One ALSA choice is very high level (SndWrite and SndRead APIs), This does software mixing (so all running programs can simultaneously play/record audio), and bit resolution and sample rate conversion on-the-fly so everything mixes together correctly, and separate volume control per application, etc). This is ideal for most programs that want an easy way to play/record audio, and don't need low latency.

But ALSA also offers a "low latency" approach called "MMAP mode". Like ASIO or (WASAPI's "direct mode"), MMAP doesn't do mixing of audio, bit/rate conversion, etc. It requires the app to do all of that stuff (which a pro music app would want to do anyway). MMAP is just the lightest code needed to get audio data from an app to the audio hardware's device driver. So, it serves the same purpose as ASIO (although not compatible with ASIO).

JACK uses ALSA'S MMAP mode. So do linux pro audio apps, which can be set to use ALSA directly, such as Ardour, QTractor, Muse, the linux version of Bitwig, etc.

ALSA with Jack can be faster than pure ALSA.

Only if the app that uses "pure ALSA" is using SndRead/SndWrite (like Audacity) instead of MMAP mode. JACK with MMAP mode is faster than ALSA's high level API.

But MMAP mode is the fastest you get on Linux, and comparable to ASIO and WASAPI direct mode. That being said, some hardware has better driver support on Windows than Linux, and that too can factor into performance.

ALSA plus Jack... is... slower than ASIO.

Right. Jack inflicts process switching overhead on audio I/O. But a Linux app that directly uses MMAP (rather than JACK) is comparable to a Windows app using ASIO (or WASAPI direct).

[Tiles]

Actually, this is not true. Alsa has several different ways for an app to play/record audio.

And all of them are slower than ASIO. I talked about the extra software layer already, which does not exist at ASIO. It's the way the ALSA driver is written. You can't outsmart physics.

Either way, thanks for the details. Even when imho some of it is more wishful thinking and theory it's for sure of interest for some.