[LAU] Debian DAW experiences

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Thu, 2014-09-18 at 08:47 +0200, Atte wrote:
> On 09/01/2014 07:42 AM, David Christensen wrote:
> > linux-audio-user:
> > 
> > I've been running a Debian Wheezy DAW (i386, Xfce, realtime kernel,
> > Audacity, Rosegarden, various synthesizers, etc.) for the past week or
> > two.  It sort of worked.  But, it's clearly not ready for taking on
> > stage for a performance.
> 
> Say what?
> 
> I've been running debian stable for ages (brief detours to arch and
> ubuntu), and I just love it for the stability. What I *don't* want is an
> update to break the system a day (or even weeks) before a gig. Yes, you
> might have to compile some stuff yourself, to get bleed on some
> software, but in my experience that boils down to about a handful of
> packages.
> 
> YMMV

I guess we all have a different kind of worldview regarding reliability.
I remember that even a respected developer from this community and audio
engineer once reported that he lost a few minutes of a concert. I'm
aware that several people dislike me, especially if I write something
like: "Linux is for hobby usage only". Privately I use Linux only for
audio, for more than a decade. I never ever would use a computer
(excepted of special stand alone devices) for professional work, or on
stage. What ever OS you use, resp. assumed you are using Linux, what
ever distro you're using, with or without updates, modern computers are
not reliable and much of the Linux software is version 0.x, not version
>= 1.x. JFTR Xfce is a good choice. I switched from Xfce to JWM. What I
dislike with Xfce isn't audio related and Jwm is also very good. Tests
with openbox I'm doing at the moment shows that openbox at least on my
computer is buggy. I reported a few issues here, but in the meanwhile
there were serious crashes. Xfce IMO is a very good choice. I use
Qtractor instead of Rosegarden. I use rt kernels too, some versions
caused issues on my machine, perhaps you should test different versions
of rt kernels or test a full preempted non-rt kernel (the Ubuntu folks
call it lowlatency kernel). Audacity is known to cause issues. It's
important to know what you are using, when you say "etc.". Linux could
be relatively good reliable, but you need to avoid usage of some
software, e.g. plugins.

Stay with Xfce, but test different applications. If a host (Rosegarden
or Qtractor or Ardour or what ever) should run into issues, test the
same host with using different plugins.

By my experiences Ubuntu and Arch Linux don't cause that much issues as
Debian does cause. You also should consider to multi-boot and test what
distro does fit best to your needs.

2 Cents,
Ralf