> (best).
>

Not sure how just a virtual keyboard will help you but VMPK seems to be the most commonly recommended one.

http://vmpk.sourceforge.net/



> PS I have been doing a lot of sound recording and editing with Linux and
> a M-Audio interface (usually) and a PreSonus AudioBox 1818VSL when I
> have to mostly into audacity. When I am absolutely forced to (when
> using > 2 tracks where Audacity cannot cope yet) I use audacious. I
> find audacious endlessly irritating for the same problems I outline
> above, so many options, so many knobs, where do I start? But audacity
> pretty much just worked.
>

Audacious is purely a media player. A pretty simple one at that! How do you do any editing in a media player???