A bit of a Linux journey (Dave's distro-hopping redux)

[Dave S]

On Sunday 16 Mar 2008, Jay Vaughan wrote:
> I've used Ubuntu Studio extensively for over a year now, and I don't
> know what you're talking about.  What are these issues, Dave?
>
> We just boot it up, fire up the 3 or 4 softsynths of interest (pd,
> zynaddsubfx, asynth, hydrogen), our sequencer of choice (seq24) and
> away we go.. instant jam, no fuss.
>
> So I'm very curious about your issues.

I've had it do the instant jam, no fuss thing too.  For that it's really good, 
but music on Linux isn't my priority just yet.

Maybe it's because I'm running it on an off-the-shelf laptop (which I 
inherited second hand), but I've had it lock up on me a fair few times.  
Could be wireless / ndiswrapper related - I don't know.

It also borked it's grub.conf several times somehow (some update messed it up, 
but I don't know which) and changed the UUID of the boot device to something 
completely wrong.  OK, I was able to boot anyway (by specifying it as a 
regular /dev/hdX device), but the first time it happened was at a rather 
inopportune moment and took me probably 15 minutes or so to figure out (due 
to rebooting and trying again in disbelief probably as much as anything 
else).  A newbie user would have been stumped at this point, and potentially 
left with a "broken" system without the help of a geek friend.  It wasn't at 
all user friendly at that point, if you ask me.

Finally, there's this annoying bug where the desktop settings often aren't 
loaded (something about gnome settings daemon failing, I can't remember 
what), which I've seen attributed to something to do with the realtime 
kernel.

> This 'perfectionism' I suppose is inapplicable to me, because I don't
> use UbuntuStudio as my main production system - just for music
> jamming when I'm at Stans place. Since I have a linux box at work (it
> freakin' rocks ass), and a Linux system at home for development
> reasons, I don't get too fussy about the way UbuntuStudio is set up
> and configured - it just plain works for me..

Yeah, and me too, but I don't think I want it as my main system.  It's cool on 
the laptop though.

> Realtime kernel?

I think so:

dave at astrochimp:~$ uname -a
Linux astrochimp 2.6.24-2.6.24.3.slh.6-sidux-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Mar 13 
22:39:06 UTC 2008 x86_64 GNU/Linux


I'm pretty sure that PREEMPT in there means it's got realtime capabilities (?) 
but if not, I know the realtime kernels are definitely available on Sidux 
through the standard Sid repositories.

> I'm interested in hearing your continued experiences with this
> distro.  I'm surprised - a little - that you've got this conclusion -
> for me UbuntuStudio is so far really a solid, stable Linux OS for
> musicians and artists ..

It's pretty good, but my feeling is that the amount of time I had to spend 
fixing stuff on it didn't make it feel like a Ubuntu distro.  If I'm going to 
have to fix stuff, then I might as well have a bit more raw power (with more 
options and edgyness) to play with in the first place.

I've seen people (though only in forums) say things like "Sidux is what 
Kubuntu should've been" - not sure I quite agree there, but Sidux isn't THAT 
hard to get up and running on, and is pretty user friendly as far as I can 
tell.

Recently I tried really hard to use and like Gnome, and it's got a lot going 
for it, but ultimately, the apps I use are mainly KDE-based, and I'm quite 
into the KDE way of doing things.  So although I could run KDE on top of 
Ubuntu Studio, I think Sidux is probably going to sit a little better for KDE 
stuff.  Still, that's just my feeling about the situation, and I could well 
be wrong.

There's not much in it really - it's just a personal preference and me being 
not entirely sold on Ubuntu Studio, I guess.  I could probably use either 
quite happily, but so far I really like Sidux.

> I just finished setting up my home studio, completely, for the first
> time since arriving in Vienna, and I've got a Mac OSX setup and a
> Linux setup for both options .. so stay tuned for more details about
> this too ..

Cool, keep us posted!

You should check Sidux sometime though dude - I reckon you might like it.

Cheers,

~Dave