Hi @ all.
Ubuntu Studio is available since about a week now. Also since then their websites (www.ubuntustudio.com, .org or .net) are mainly not accessible. At least at the time I wrote this. The wiki is no problem though.
Last weekend I tried to download it because I'm interested how it will look like and work since I'm not just a computer dude but also a sound techie. But it seems like the world is going crazy after Ubuntu Studio. I had an estimated download time of 54h. I thought I try to be smart so I checked BitTorrent as well. No difference there.
The question that raises is, do we really need "another version" of Linux. It's possible to install every piece of software in each derivate, anyways. So, why another one? I for sure don't have all the answers but here is my guess:
First of all, Linux is about choice, so in that sense why not adding to the list to choose from. Not that it's necessarily needed, but it's a nice thing to have if you are media minded anyways and want to run Linux on your machine.
The actually more important thing seems to be the "low latency" kernel. Since (especially) multi track sound recording & editing is a "heavy" task I personally think it's good to have a special Linux version for that. Folks like me don't want to bother with kernel tweaking, settings here & there, etc but just use it.
If it's really needed, well, decide for yourself. When it's finally downloadable I will try it out and will see if it's easy to also run KDE instead of Gnome. Also hopefully soon the 64Bit version comes out since that is apparently better for sound editing. I'm not so much into this hardware stuff so that I could tell why a 64Bit architecture is would be better. I don't have a 64Bit computer anyways. But when it comes out now I might have a better chance to download the 32Bit version.
If you have it or want to check it out sometime I would love to hear what you think about it.
Comments
Tried it, but switched to 64Studio
Hi Neo,
I tried ubuntu-studio immediately when it got out. I was already a Kubuntu user at the time and had my system set up for audio processing. It might have been my PC (a PIV-1.8Ghz-750Mb-7200rpm pata), but somehow it responded slow and seemed bloated to me. I was kind of disappointed because Ubuntu is great as a workstation. I also tried Jacklab, but could not get past the installation process. I heard it is a decent 32-bit audio distro too (OpenSuse).
After some research I ran into 64Studio, a 64-bit Debian audio distro, that also had a 32-bit version available. I really started to like Debian, so I gave it a shot and guess what: it worked out-of-the-box, got lower latencies (because of their tweaked low-latency kernel) and the overall response was great. I also tried it on a lower-end machine (PIII-1GHz-256Mb-5400rpm pata) and it also performed very decent and left ubuntu-studio disappearing in the rear mirror. One of the contributors is a developer with Debian, so that must count for something. I now have 64-bit PC and am running the 64-bit version of 64Studio and am having a blast.
Out-of-the-box it comes with Gnome installed. But you might as well use it with KDE, because the case libraries of KDE are already installed. GNOME is a bit lighter on the memory so I like it better, but it is all a matter of taste basically.
64Studio
And it comes with a great variety of graphics tools, just like ubuntu-studio (somehow my previous post got in here twice and I can't delete it...so I edit it short sorry)
re: 64Studio
Hi Takabuntu,
I checked out UbuntuStudio when it came out, well, when it was downloadable anyways. But at the end of the day I couldn't really test it because I didn't had a extra computer for a test install and I didn't want to make it dual boot just to see how it looks like. So I made a VM which was of course unusable with the hardware I have. But I really just wanted to see it.
And guess what, I still don't like the Gnome Desktop. But that's another story. However, I liked the overall work they did with that distribution. I just realized that non of my hardware would be capable for sound recording & editing. Besides that fact that if I want to run any of this software I also could install that on my desktop.
If I would have got another laptop than the one I have now I would have had other plans. But I'm happy that God provided for this machine. It might be just not the time to get into more serious audio recording.
The 64Studio is a good find. I came across that as well. However, about the low-latency kernel I must say that this is nothing magic, that one is available for UbuntuStudio as well. Well, actually for every distro. Although it's nice that they have it in there as default. This is how it should be.
So, just for the record I add the link here to 64Studio, in case anyone is interested:
http://64studio.com
Greetings from the MatriX,
neo