[linux-audio-user] Best distro for Audio??

[The Other]

On Sat, 07 Aug 2004 09:10:48 +0000, LinuxMedia  
<linuxmedia4 at netscape.net> wrote:

> Maybe I'm confused about this. When I think of "audio distrobs"  
> like Planet, I picture wipeing out my hard drive and having just a  
> dedicated recording environment. But do these run along side an  
> established distrob (like debian, redhat...)? Do they coexist with  
> them?
> Rocco

Hello Rocco,

Has anybody mentioned this other idea yet?

Using GRUB for the boot loader, you can have multiple Linux systems  
on your computer.  This allows you to have a general Linux system  
for non-music topics, and a dedicated Linux system for the music.

Personal data point:

I have 2 hard drives in the desktop.  Hard Drive A (HDA) has Windows  
95B on 2 partitions and 1 Linux partition.  Hard Drive B (HDB) has 2  
Linux partitions.  I installed GRUB to the Master Boot Record (MBR)  
of HDA.

When I boot up, I can select Windows 95B, Mandrake Linux 9.1, or  
Linux From Scratch (LFS) 5.1.1.  (Set up GRUB's menu.lst file on HDB  
in the Mandrake system correctly.)  Windows 95B still has some  
legacy music programs that I use, Mandrake Linux 9.1 does all the  
email, web browsing, and office work, and the LFS I'm currently  
building will be a dedicated music box.  I'll be using IceWm for the  
window manager on LFS, and I plan to build everything from tarballs;  
no package manager of any kind.

The Windows system can't see the Linux partitions, but the Linux  
systems can see the Windows 95B partitions.  I've discovered through  
LFS crashes that the Windows partitions are very robust and don't  
seem to experience any problems when not unmounted properly.  This  
has given me the idea to use the Windows partitions as a safe backup  
area for Linux tarballs and configuration files.

For LFS to see Mandrake, it was necessary to adjust the fstab file.   
You have 2 fstab files: one for the Mandrake system and one for the  
LFS system.  In the Mandrake fstab, / uses the Mandrake partition  
and I used /mnt/lfs for the LFS partition.  In the LFS fstab, / uses  
the LFS partition and I used /mnt/mandrake for the Mandrake  
partition.  All other partitions remained the same.

The LFS system will only have the minimal programs needed to build  
and support the music applications.  (I'm on a PII 350MHz machine.)   
More information on LFS can be found at:   
http://linuxfromscratch.idge.net/lfs/news.html

Regards,
Stephen.