Hi Jason,
I've been writing and recording music in Windows
now for about a year
and a half (if you want to hear my music - some mp3's can be found at
http://www.ldscompanion.com/music/artists/PI/ )... I got completely
sick of windows, and switched to Linux, and for about 5 months now, I've
been trying to successfully get my computer to see my keyboard through a
Sound Blaster Audigy's front-panel MIDI connectors with no luck.
Gnu/Linux has evolved so much, but it still can give you pains. My experience
has also passed through times of trouble, but recently I've been dealing with
it almost in perfection, since installing and updating the planet-ccrma
packages at
http://www-ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/
This is RedHat based, so it would force you to change distro!!!
It is apt based so most installs and update are automatic and in fact a breeze.
If you want to try it out, I think it's one of the best sites around...
Let me know if it works out!
Cheers,
Carlos