Choosing a distro: what does Harrison recommend??

[jonetsu]

And so, the answer would be: AVLinux.

[mikrotek]

Ubuntu gives me nightmares ... but I admit that it's mainly because I'm a hardcore CentOS user from way back.
Now leaning towards trying with AVlinux, and I hope it proves to be somewhat more CentOS-like than say, Gentoo-like!

[sunrat]

Ubuntu gives me nightmares ... but I admit that it's mainly because I'm a hardcore CentOS user from way back.
Now leaning towards trying with AVlinux, and I hope it proves to be somewhat more CentOS-like than say, Gentoo-like!

For a RedHat type distro, there is Planet CCRMA which is a repository of audio software you can install on Fedora - http://ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/

I haven't tried it myself, being a happy AVLinux user.

[mrskytown11]

I use elementary OS, 5.1, works very well, no issues that are caused by the OS.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[sunrat]

MX needs a bit of tweaking to be a good audio production system. I did that about 18 months ago using much of AVL configs for MX-18 and posted it on Sourceforge but haven't updated it for MX-19.
AVLinux is possibly due to have a new Buster-based release but I think it's still a secret. I'm still happily using its Stretch-based version.

[sunrat]

MX needs a bit of tweaking to be a good audio production system.

Do tell! I'm just using it in default with the Liquorix kernel and satisfying the Cadence stuff like user in audio group and selecting "performance" vs "ondemand". What am I missing?

You've done most of it already then. I ran the Realtime ConfigQuickScan script and tweaked according to its suggestions. Liquorix kernel is good, you don't need the full RT kernel. I also added the KX Studio and AVL repos although I haven't set up a new system for a while so you'd need to check if they still work in MX.
There are some useful free impulse response reverb sets on the net and many for amp modelling etc. Big Gee's Lexicon 480L set is good and there's a Bricasti M7 set somewhere too. I've been using Dragonfly Hall and Room Reverbs a lot more lately though. You can set up WINE and LinVST to run Windows VST plugins although you need to try them to find out which ones work as some are difficult.
I also made a list of possibly useful extra packages although installing all of them would be total overkill:

Code:

a2jmidid ardour audacious audacious-plugins audacious-plugins-data audacity audacity-data autotalent avldrums.lv2 cadence cadence-data cadence-tools carla-bridge-linux64 carla-bridge-win64 carla-bridge-wine64 carla-data carla-lv2 carla-vst catia claudia dexed-lv2 dexed-vst distrho-plugin-ports dpf-plugins dragonfly-reverb drmr drowaudio-plugins-lv2 drowaudio-plugins-vst drumgizmo easyssp-lv2 easyssp-vst easytag eq10q fabla ffado-dbus-server ffado-mixer-qt4 ffado-tools fluid-soundfont-gm fxload guitarix gxplugins helm hydrogen hydrogen-data idjc infamous-plugins invada-studio-plugins-lv2 jack-capture jackass jackd jackd2 jackd2-firewire jalv juced-plugins-lv2 juced-plugins-vst kxstudio-lv2-extensions ladish lsp-plugins lufsmeter-lv2 lufsmeter-vst luftikus-lv2 luftikus-vst mda-lv2 mediainfo-gui midisport-firmware mixxx mpv mudita24 musescore obs-studio obxd-lv2 pulseaudio-module-jack qjackctl qtractor radium-compressor rtirq-init rtkit rubberband-cli simplescreenrecorder sndfile-tools sorcer tal-plugins-lv2 tal-plugins-vst tap-lv2 tap-plugins teragonaudio-plugins-lv2 teragonaudio-plugins-vst wolpertinger-lv2 wolpertinger-vst x42-plugins yoshimi yoshimi-data zam-plugins zynaddsubfx

Extra-
rosegarden fluidsynth fluid-soundfont-gs meterbridge hydrogen-drumkits hydrogen-doc

But as I've said before, AVLinux is still my No.1 for audio work. GMaq has done all the hard work for us!

[sunrat]

I'll have to read up to see if any of these items make a blind bit of difference to a UR44 or UMC series running 2-8 tracks with a handful of plugins

I'd say you're good to go. Swappiness =15 should be fine, some systems default to 60 which is possibly not fine.
max_user_watches (< 524288) doesn't matter, until it does and audio generally won't tax it. I did have to up it for Syncthing on another system syncing with a second computer but then it's watching over 1TB of stuff in many files.

[sunrat]

The main thing that put me off using MX for audio is it comes with hundreds of extra packages and applications that are unnecessary for audio. It would be good if you use it for everyday plus audio but I prefer to multiboot and have a separate dedicated audio system. Also the custom MX apps and tools are great but as a Debian user of over 15 years I tend to know how to do nearly everything they do via CLI.
One thing MX does better than nearly every other distro is their Live USB system which enables you to make a bootable device to run MX from and includes persistence so you can save all your changes and personal files directly back to the USB device. It should work fine for audio too so you can take your MX with you to use on any computer you have available. But then AVLinux can do that too.

PS. MX will periodically automatically check for upgrades. You don't want that to happen during a critical recording session so disable it if you can.

[sunrat]

Liquorix won't make any difference but performance governor will max your CPU speed.
See my added note about upgrades above too.

[Klaus]

I'm trying out
https://stuff.mattgadient.com/linux-mac-...nt.com.iso
on a Macmini1,1>2,1 processor upgrade ( has 32bit boot EFI )
Could you please comment on bottlenecks or other ...with this
And how should I format a USB external drive for use with Mixbus projects
and interchange with Mac hfs+ formated disks
Sorry for the beginner questions
TIA
Klaus