Linux Music Setup Thread

I'm using a distro based upon ubuntu 10.10 and I'm most likely sticking with it for nearly a year until 12.10 comes out and the new version of elementary OS follows. I've got high hopes for this distro, they seem to have a really nice philosophy.

I actually massively prefer xwax on linux over traktor scratch for digital vinyl. It's seriously one of the best programs I have ever had the pleasure of using. ;)

I really want to delve into arch, buy a shitty netbook and build a really stripped down machine that I use for nothing other than vinyl control so I can open the laptop and be ready to go in seconds with a latency of about 2ms.

As for production + games... Eh I never was any good with wine. I have a desktop running windows 7 for that. It's ok, I like both operating systems for different reasons.

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Originally Posted by MrPopinjay

I'm using a distro based upon ubuntu 10.10 and I'm most likely sticking with it for nearly a year until 12.10 comes out and the new version of elementary OS follows. I've got high hopes for this distro, they seem to have a really nice philosophy.

I actually massively prefer xwax on linux over traktor scratch for digital vinyl. It's seriously one of the best programs I have ever had the pleasure of using. ;)

I really want to delve into arch, buy a shitty netbook and build a really stripped down machine that I use for nothing other than vinyl control so I can open the laptop and be ready to go in seconds with a latency of about 2ms.

As for production + games... Eh I never was any good with wine. I have a desktop running windows 7 for that. It's ok, I like both operating systems for different reasons.

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You won't regret going with Arch! The only negitive is that there isn't any preset config for laptops, so you gotta make sure you set things up like laptop-modes (go here for more). The funny part for me was that I got like 30 minutes of battery life out of the box. :p I get more like 5-6 hours now.

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Originally Posted by dripstep

Second note: tarballs suck.

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Why? That's how everything is
really packaged...

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Originally Posted by zestoi

interesting thread. both my laptops dual boot between kubuntu and windows - but tend to use windows these days for traktor. tbh hadn't really thought about trying to get it (or ableton) to run under wine.

i still remember when wine could just about run windows solitaire - long long time ago :p

for work i'm ssh'd into various linux (or freebsd) servers all day - but wouldn't mind spending less laptop time with windows too...

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If you're still dual booting you aren't enjoying Linux as much as you could. Delete that Windows partition. ;) Wine runs just about everything but things that rely on special drivers.

Bullshit! WINE is a pain in the ass :P

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Originally Posted by DavidManouchehri

If you're still dual booting you aren't enjoying Linux as much as you could. Delete that Windows partition. ;) Wine runs just about everything but things that rely on special drivers.

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i won't on this one as it's my main/work laptop and being able to run what i need with the least hassle is more important than how much i like (or not) the desktop. my other laptop rarely gets booted into windows any more, tho it has XP on it instead of win7 which is useful for compatibility testing. also have a 3rd laptop that has a linux hdd as well as a windows one, but is only ever really used for linux.

installing putty+cygwin on my windows machines makes them usable anyway.

i actually started out with yggdrasil linux with a pre 1.0 linux kernel years and years ago while working at ibm. then moved onto slackware, which i still love. tried mandrake for a while. had to use redhat+suse for work for a while. suse seemed to have the most commercial support - so our customers prefered it and we had to support it. use debian on all my linux servers tho prefer kubuntu on my laptop. also used to use xubuntu on a lower end laptop a while ago. might look into some other distros soon tho as keep seeing different ones mentioned.

personally im quite happy with twm and a single xterm tho :p so not generally too bothered about desktop managers.

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Originally Posted by MrPopinjay

Bullshit! WINE is a pain in the ass :P

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last time i think i used it it came packaged with some software at ibm to allow to run the windows client on linux. i should have a play with wine again sometime - never really had to try and configure an app for it myself.

Anybody who's doesn't run Linux as their primary OS (or at least used to) should stop making false claims as to what makes Linux bad. All the negative Linux comments so far are either 5 years out of date, uninformed, or totally ridiculous.

I've used Linux every day for the last 3 years after I deleted my Windows partition because Vista was so horrible. There's nothing missing - really - in fact there's more, especially when you consider that most things you want are both free and installed in about 2 clicks.

All this talk of tar-balls in particular is about 5 years old. Any Linux distribution worth its salt these days comes with a package manager that makes installing software easier than turning on a Windows computer.

Linux also has some amazing out-of-the-box hardware capabilities. In fact just about the only thing you're likely to have to look into driver wise is obscure WiFi cards.

</rant>

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Originally Posted by MrPopinjay

Bullshit! WINE is a pain in the ass :P

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Maybe a few years ago...

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Originally Posted by zestoi

i won't on this one as it's my main/work laptop and being able to run what i need with the least hassle is more important than how much i like (or not) the desktop. my other laptop rarely gets booted into windows any more, tho it has XP on it instead of win7 which is useful for compatibility testing. also have a 3rd laptop that has a linux hdd as well as a windows one, but is only ever really used for linux.

installing putty+cygwin on my windows machines makes them usable anyway.

i actually started out with yggdrasil linux with a pre 1.0 linux kernel years and years ago while working at ibm. then moved onto slackware, which i still love. tried mandrake for a while. had to use redhat+suse for work for a while. suse seemed to have the most commercial support - so our customers prefered it and we had to support it. use debian on all my linux servers tho prefer kubuntu on my laptop. also used to use xubuntu on a lower end laptop a while ago. might look into some other distros soon tho as keep seeing different ones mentioned.

personally im quite happy with twm and a single xterm tho :p so not generally too bothered about desktop managers.

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Why not use VirtualBox for those few rare programs that don't work? That's what I do, works great.

I haven't tried twm, it looks alright. I'm still a hardcore i3wm fan though, I get so much more done with it and my workflow is great. I stopped using xterm awhile ago and moved to urxvt. Any reason for using xterm?

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Originally Posted by zestoi

last time i think i used it it came packaged with some software at ibm to allow to run the windows client on linux. i should have a play with wine again sometime - never really had to try and configure an app for it myself.

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There's really not much config to do yourself, just check winehq because everybody has done it before you.

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Originally Posted by fsck

Anybody who's doesn't run Linux as their primary OS (or at least used to) should stop making false claims as to what makes Linux bad. All the negative Linux comments so far are either 5 years out of date, uninformed, or totally ridiculous.

I've used Linux every day for the last 3 years after I deleted my Windows partition because Vista was so horrible. There's nothing missing - really - in fact there's more, especially when you consider that most things you want are both free and installed in about 2 clicks.

All this talk of tar-balls in particular is about 5 years old. Any Linux distribution worth its salt these days comes with a package manager that makes installing software easier than turning on a Windows computer.

Linux also has some amazing out-of-the-box hardware capabilities. In fact just about the only thing you're likely to have to look into driver wise is obscure WiFi cards.

</rant>

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Agreed 100%. For me, Linux has always have better out of the box drivers for all my systems for the last few years.

Package managers are useful, but I wouldn't say you need them for everything. There's lots of times where I have the option of using a package manager but choose to manually do it myself. The main perk to package managers is mass updating and uninstalling.

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Originally Posted by fsck

All this talk of tar-balls in particular is about 5 years old. Any Linux distribution worth its salt these days comes with a package manager that makes installing software easier than turning on a Windows computer.

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indeed. windows doesn't have anything close to the amazing package management in distros like debian etc. plus ofc it can't really - since windows is just the OS/desktop whereas a linux distro is a massive set of apps all put together that u can choose from.

just to add a flame to the fire tho... the freebsd package management is amazing. possibly even better than distros like ubuntu. it does build from source each time, but makes maintaining a server even a bit simpler than a debian one. debians package management is also amazing. package management was never great in slackware - but it was also more meant for uber geeks anyway.

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Originally Posted by zestoi

indeed. windows doesn't have anything close to the amazing package management in distros like debian etc. plus ofc it can't really - since windows is just the OS/desktop whereas a linux distro is a massive set of apps all put together that u can choose from.

just to add a flame to the fire tho... the freebsd package management is amazing. possibly even better than distros like ubuntu. it does build from source each time, but makes maintaining a server even a bit simpler than a debian one. debians package management is also amazing. package management was never great in slackware - but it was also more meant for uber geeks anyway.

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Debian has a excellent package manager, I can't really say anything bad about it! It's so easy, you can't get it wrong. Much more user friendly than Windows.

I wasn't crazy about ports, but that might simplely be because I haven't worked with it enough. I ran FreeBSD as a IRC server on a old Pentium 3 computer for about a week before the hard drive died. :p

Also to anybody who says I haven't worked with Windows enough, I've taken a few Windows admin courses. I'd like to think I know how things work. ;)

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Originally Posted by DavidManouchehri

Debian has a excellent package manager, I can't really say anything bad about it! It's so easy, you can't get it wrong. Much more user friendly than Windows.

I wasn't crazy about ports, but that might simplely be because I haven't worked with it enough. I ran FreeBSD as a IRC server on a old Pentium 3 computer for about a week before the hard drive died. :p

Also to anybody who says I haven't worked with Windows enough, I've taken a few Windows admin courses. I'd like to think I know how things work. ;)

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true re: debian and i used to think debian made the perfect server but these days i'm in two minds whether it's debian or freebsd. freebsd just seems to need less maintenance and is generally easier to setup. the ports stuff is fantastic and is just easier to find/install stuff than debian. both are great tho. i'm also very new to freebsd - only a couple of years experience - compared to a long time with linux.