So I chose to install Ubuntu and Ubuntu studio on top (which as I understand is just adding a bunch of apps and maybe doing some configuring). I am a musician and visual creative. I’d like to know why I made the wrong choice in distro. Hit me with it!
Why is your distro of choice better than the one I picked at random for myself?
What bottleneck am I to expect due to my non archyness?
You made a great choice of distro for media creation.
Some background information and other options are below.
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Ubuntu studio is a distro targeted at creatives(audio, visual).
Ubuntu is touted as a ‘high ease of use’ distro, but as a company, it is a user-data collector and advertising injector.
For a similar audio/visual targeted distro, but one that is free/libre and includes no spyware or tracking, you could try Dynebolic.
Can be booted as a LiveUSB (or LiveDVD) to test.
* NB. Any hardware connected to your PC, that needs proprietary drivers, will probably not work because those drivers are not included in any Libre Distros.
Also NB, Dynebolic is made by friendly, neighborhood, activist, Rastafarians.
Users data collection… Eeeew. That’s why I’m leaving windows. I’ll have a look at dynebolic thnx. My audio interface already doesn’t like Ubuntu so far so I’m gonna have to get techie with it anyway
The first rule of Linux is that you always picked the wrong distro and here is why mine is better.
If it works for you then it’s good enough. Just focus on learning what you’re on and a lot of that knowledge will transfer to any other distro if you want to try others.
Exactly! Also many people especially early on, seem to think distros are vastly different. They’re really not, so much as they’re a different assortment of bits and pieces from mostly the same pool. Some things differ significantly across I wouldn’t say distros but across like, kernel bases? Like Debian, Arch, etc. The big thing is if it has 99% of what you wanted straightaway, then there’s nothing wrong with just using it, optimizing it for your preferences, and learning what distinguishes it, if you’re interested.
When I got a new laptop, I was psyched because it was not long after Debian had finally dropped that whole opposition to things that aren’t 100% open source, as of v 12. I like Debian but prior to 12 I often had driver issues. BUT: lo and behold, my laptop was so new that Debian didn’t have drivers for the audio yet. Nothing did except Ubuntu. They’re usually very quick to get stuff compatible, and so I installed Kubuntu so I could be on my fav desktop right off the start.
Now, quite some time later, Debian almost certainly has my audio drivers by now, but I’m not rushing to change because what I have works. End of story.
Whatever is working for you, enjoy it.
Totally agree with this and to add everyone’s tastes are different which is why there are so many different distros. It is true there are some tailored for specific things but no one distro is better then another. Any app you install on one can be installed on another
The biggest mistake one can make with Linux?
Using windows instead.
Ubuntu
Snaps
Agreed. I’d say Ubuntu is generally fine except for defaulting to installing snaps (which are terrible, the worst package management).
Yeah :3… I use pop which is ubuntu based, but they replace all snaps with flatpaks, and over the 4ish years I’ve been using it it’s been the most stable experience on the desktop I had. If not for snaps ubuntu/kubuntu would probably be one of my default distro recommendations for beginners
Ubuntu (and also Debian that it derives from) are always behind on the software release cycles and contain “stale” packages. This is desirable if you’re running a server, but if you’re wanting a modem day desktop experience a non-rolling release distro is just leaving performance/usability of your hardware on the table.
Think of Ubuntu/Debian and all their derivatives as the Jitterbug of the phone industry. They work perfectly fine, but if you want a real phone you’re probably going to be happier with an iPhone or Android phone just because they make use of newer technology and get updates constantly.
Oh very interesting. I wasn’t aware. Thank you.
Take the comment you replied to with a grain of salt. IOS and Android are not rolling release unless you use their beta versions, so the analogy is not correct. Ubuntu and its derivatives have slower release cycles in order to ensure they’re stable. But it doesn’t mean packages are “stale”. A rolling release distro will give you bleeding edge updates at the risk of something breaking once in a while. If you work on stuff like music production, you absolutely will be better off with a more stable distro.
ubuntu
Snaps
Canonical
A wild thing for me was installing reaper(a music DAW) from the website and not seeing it in my app list. then finding out it needs to be installed in a opt folder and then I gotta make a .Desktop file so it’ll show up in my ‘start menu’ like damn, is this how it really is out in Linux?
Get your head out of installing apps via their websites like Windows. While it’s often possible, it’s preferable to use your distros package manager. If it’s not in the repo, try flathub. Finally, if they have an Appimage, use that, many distros will integrate Appimages automagically. All that stuff gets taken care of for you.
Last resort is what you ended up doing and having to install/update manually. I mean, it depends on the package but if you’re using a common distro like Ubuntu/Fedora/Arch, there should be a package ready to go for nearly anything that supports Linux.
Depends on how you install it
You basically chose one of the more complicated ways to do it, short of compiling the source code lol
@phonics Your distro of choice is right for you:
- As long as you are still getting used to it
- As long as the important things work for you
- You can live with the downsides
- It is your choice(My distro is Arch for my riced laptop by the way, but also Debian for servers and Garuda for gaming.)
I would suggest you keep your home directory on a separate partition and maybe use etckeeper. This way you can distro hop your way when you are ready for your next hop while still being able to reverse hop.Good choice, man. Good choice. I have Arch and Manjaro, they’re good, but there was a time when I was doing photography as a freelancer and I used Ubuntu Studio back then. The codecs are ready and instead of configuring, you can get to work.
My most used distro in the past few years is CachyOS.
Recently swapped to Bazzite because I got tired of the papercuts of running Arch. I also wanted to move to one of the official supported Distros that is supported by my laptop in case I ever need to make a support ticket.
Ubuntu Studio is an excellent choice to get you
startedbusy doing your things. It’s a work of love, from passionate people, going at it for many years now.The only drawback is that the bundle is overstuffed, for my use case there’s just too much stuff in there lol (sound eng)
Enjoy yourself, test your creativity against the available tools, and make stuff. That’s the important part: making!
Yeah I’ve noticed that. Tryna work out how to delete most of them now lol. Cool to open them up and see what the are though
Just get endeavoros. It’s Arch with an install process like any other easy Linux distro.
Aur is useful for people that don’t want to build packages.
That combined with flatpak and you can basically have an easy install of anything.
Eh, every distro is trade-offs. There’s not a straightforward “better or worse”.
The worst mistake you could make? Making it hard for you to change your mind later.
So take notes on what you modify, try to keep your data/configs consolidated so you could easily migrate to a new distro, etc.
And ideally have your hardware set up so that you can try booting a new distro without losing your existing setup.
If you like “unlikely to break, don’t mind my software and kernel a bit behind”, anything Debian or Ubuntu based will be fine. Now, if you want cutting edge, even if you have to get pissed and confused a bit, Arch or Fedora based, in my opinion.
At the end of the day it comes down to taste and need. They all work (mostly 😋).
I’m pissed and confused with Ubuntu already. I think arch might shorten my lifespan even further.
When you’re trying out distros, I usually say to just go for it. Install the one that grabs your attention. Save everything to a NAS or cloud because the distro is going to break and you’re going to want to try another one. However, Ubuntu is actually the wrong one to start with for this trajectory because it’s the least likely to break.
I went for Nixos (distro) with Plasma (desktop environment). Nixos has a great package manager (99% of the things there just work)and the way you install things is essentially having a list of your packages/apps. Deleting them is just as easy and the best part is that it’s totally gone, no lingering random files that could bite me in the future. If you mess up your configuration bad it’ll force you to stay the working version if you don’t like what you did you’ll revert it. Plasma has incredible defaults and you can click around in it to fine tune to your liking. Plug things into plasma is just works at least for me. I’ve plugged midi controllers, audio interface, dock, hdmi, game controllers first try no fuss. Oh I’m sure other distros have this as well but fun fact if your bt is on and the laptop is connected to a speaker you can just connect your phone (or any other bt source) and use your laptop as a bt speaker. And I mean it just works again. Yeah sure you need to pair it first. But boy oh boy Im playing on the tv and i can just bt to it and play my tunes like it’s nothing. Back to the question in hand. I have a windows version of Ableton 11 that I installed there with 3rd party vst 2 and 3 plugins figuring that one out took me longer but it was in front of me all the time so in hindsight that wasn’t too hard either. So that was my new generation Arch btw xD aka NixOS btw. The tl dr is that I find Nixos with KDE Plasma 6 having very friendly defaults that can be built on if and when you ready
Completely dodged the question to crow about nix. I’m 90% convinced nix users are the new “arch BTW” users.
What was the question then? Wasn’t it about the distro of my choice and how it handles packages specifically about media creation? I fell like you folks just saw nix decided “nah f this guy” but ok I get it. Ps.: Im self aware if you read the last few lines
You just went on about how easy nix is to configure, then about adding bluetooth devices, then jumped to installing ableton on windows.
Op specified they are a musician using a studio distro for studio tasks. You didn’t address any of that.
I get that you’re impressed with nix and want to share, and nothing wrong with that. But let’s at least stay on topic.
Ableton - Digital Audio Workspace MIDI - Musical Instrument Digital Interface Scarlette 2i2 - Audio interface
Compatibility,dependencies are the most important things when it comes to digital studio machines. At least that’s what my 15yrs of audio engineering experience taught me. Not sure how I didn’t addressed any of that my dude but if you wanna hate I’m here for it. You hate my choices for the sake of it I love yours for the same reason
