Hi all,

I am very interested in Studio 13.37 but my current machine is a mac mini intel 1st generation (Core 2 duo processor, 1Gb RAM). I have tried and I am still using successfully a few Debian and Ubuntu-based distros on this machine, so I guess Studio 13.37 should work, but the Systems Requirements on the home page "A Windows-compatible PC" are a bit worrying.

Any advice? Should I try a regular Puppy first, for example, before buying Studio 13.37?

Thanks

on the web page, not much technical info. ok, it's based on slacko puppy.
other than that - "nobody else gets latency this low" - wow, big empty promise.
and that 1337-speek makes me really wary.
basically you'd be buying the cat in the sack.
and why, there's a few studio distros out there that don't cost. maybe AVLinux?

the youtube video has been uploaded 2014.

generally, installing gnu/linux on macs can be tricky, i hear, but not impossible.

but you are right to make an extremely lightweight choice if you want to make audio production on this.

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Thanks for replying. I agree with your comments.
Music / audio production is a hobby for me at this stage and I don't want to invest much (yet). Studio 13.37 looks interesting but the overall lack of transparency is a concern (well, in a context of FOSS system).
AV linux has some downsides - it's a sort of hack on top of Debian, you can't apply system updates for example, otherwise the system can be broken...
Not sure how Studio 13.37 works in this respect, again this is not really documented...

what do you think studio leet is? a hack on top of something else.
AVLinux are just more open/honest about it.

this is an upside if you want a functioning media production machine.
if you want to use AVLinux as your main distro, it's a downside.

The low latency is real, see this comparison video of popular Linux audio distributions, for example.

And the name "13.37" is because it was originally based on Slackware version 13.37.

Actually, while Studio 13.37 is based on Slacko micro-Linux, Slacko only comprises about 15 percent of the finished product. Studio 13.37 is built almost entirely from source code.

Please get your facts straight before commenting on things you know nothing about.

OK thanks both for taking the time to reply. I am sure there is a lot of work into Studio 13.37, it's just not very transparent so I find difficult to put some money into a black box.

Any chance to get some clues about my initial query? :-)
Cheers

As noted in the release announcement, Mac support is still experimental. So, no guarantees.

ok, my fault, i kinda missed that.
but, now i really have to get something off my chest...

------------------------------

wow, a promo video. made by the people responsible for one of the distributions in the "comparison".
well, i never said it's a false claim, but without any numbers to back that it's an empty promise, isn't it?
never thought to look for the numbers in a youtube video - because i certainly did not find them on the web page itself.

from your web pages:
"Studio 13.37 (pronounced leet)"

i wasn't the one who brought up the word "hack". there's no definition for "a hack", so really anything anybody "hacks" is a hack, or what? and almost everything is a hack on top of something else. hell, even the linux kernel could be defined as a hack.

my statements did not exceed my knowledge at any point.
you just misinterpreted something and are hurting now.

by all means, try to sell it.

I never said your statements exceeded your knowledge. I said that you didn't know anything. Obviously.

you surely know how to endear yourself to potential customers.
should i ever want to spend money for a linux multimedia system, i'll know where not to look.

you know, i never said anything bad about your stuff in the first place, you just started throwing accusations at me.
like i said: misinterpretation.

That's nice. Are we done here?

Interaction between LQ members is always encouraged.
The best way for all is to focus on technical aspects and keep the dialogue open and constructive.
Keep from posting comments you can not back up technically or otherwise or will regret later on.
Please remain respectful always.

@truscellino, Hello fellow music lover I originally came to this forum to ask a question, but upon reading through posts to see if my question had already been addressed, I noticed your post and thought I might offer my two hundred cents.

While I'm no Mac systems aficianado by any stretch, I can tell you about Studio 13.37. I'm no expert on anything, but I do make a lot of mistakes and learn from them. When it comes to music though, I want to spend my time making music, not learning software and messing with the technical curve of it all.

I grew up in a recording studio, 2" Ampex and 24 fat tracks of analog. As an adult, when I began recording professionally, the engineer used a Mac G4, and of course ProTools. I got the itch for a home studio. Because I'm a pc person, my intial options were Logic & Cubase. I've since used Reaper, FLStudio, Ubuntu Studio, Audacity, Ardour, and too many more to list in both Windows & Linux...always running the latest processors and fattest, fastest ram and ASIOs available. Underruns, buffer static & stutter were just a given one had to deal with by limiting audio tracks on playback. Latency was somewhat tolerable after enough tweaking and with direct monitoring, but still audible, and something that had to be adapted to, especially if you've experienced the big, boomy, real-time luxury of analogue recording.

One of my give-back hobbies is supplying refurbished computers and musical instruments to schools that have no music or tech programs. My usual OS flave is some version PuppyLinux. Small footprint, it is easy to navigate, and makes old computers seem to run as fast as new ones. I've always preloaded Audacity and Hydrogen so the kids could record. If they wanted midi, I gave them rosegarden or LMS.

One of the music teachers wanted to start an after-school music program and asked me if I could give them software that would tie it all together instead of having to record drum or midi tracks as audio and import them. Hence my discovery of Studio13.37 V1. Mind you, it was absolutely free.

I had to write a tutorial for the students (or so I thought) and sat down with one of the donated machines, a Dell 3000 with 2G ram and an Mtrack usb interface running off the system sound card. I popped in the disc. It loaded lightning fast. A little welcome splash told me how to start Jack, setup Jack Control, and route all instruments and programs via drag and connect virtual cables. My card was recognized and set up for me. I opened Audacity and Hydrogen immediately since I already knew them well, but neither uses Jack, so I started messing with virtual synths and Ardour. Ardour had always been glitchy in the past, but ran flawlessly now. Within an hour I was multi-tracking guitars/vox/synths and drums and decided I really didn't need to write a tutorial. Everything was done for me. Everything was lightning fast too, not just recording and sync, but wifi and other programs as well.

I can honestly say that out of the box this program does more for music, and does it better, than anything I've used under any system. I've used the older free version on many machines, different chipsets, different soundcards and audio interfaces. Everything really does "just work." Latency and underruns simply don't exist. Many of the programs are self-updating, and irregardless, the author puts version updates out.

<I realize the link for the free copy of 13.37 is broken, but I'll bet if you email him/her they'll gladly send you a try of the old version.>

I recently bought the new version :-) I emailed the author and asked what to do about flash since I planned to use Studio13.37 as my main OS, and only Firefox is offered. Not only did I get my download instantly, but he/she sent me Chromium with pepperflash built in, and an executable script to make it run alongside Firefox. I really can't say enough positive things about this program and its proprietor(s).

I hope you find what works for your Mac. I know what its like to have a fave machine you just want to squeeze for as long as you can. But even if it doesn't work, you couldn't go wrong with finding an old p4 somewhere for a few bucks and using 13.37 on it as a designated recording machine. I've been buying off lease M50's with 4gb ram from MicroCenter for $80 and I see tons of them on their website. Or, you could just record in the cloud like I do on my grandma's Kindle, haha :-)

1 members found this post helpful.

Thank you all for your time and replies. Sorry that ondoho and l0wt3ch had a bit of an argument; as the moderator says, we all can have our own view and still respect one another.

@BreAsop, this is very interesting feedback (I notice you are a new member of the forums, hope you are not actually one of the two aforementioned :-)), much appreciated.

I think any decent 10-years old machine has enough power to do some basic audio (& midi) editing / mixing, if we can get rid of all the fat that exists in current mainstream OSes. Hence my interest for this distro, although I regret that source code is not publicly available as it should be (on my opinion).

I think I will give it a try and feed back on this forum, based on my actual experience...

1 members found this post helpful.

@truscellino, haha, no madam/sir, I am not affiliated with anyone, just an unofficial Cheerleader I suppose :-) I've actually been a forum member for a while but I was formerly logging in through the puppy linux and Ubuntu One forums and only reading this forum.

I'm am familiar with l0wt3ch (along with RussDoodle, Smokey, BarryK, Tuxxx, PizzaGood and all the other contributors from the old puppy forums.) These guys have always helped us greatly with advice and hosted pages of downloads even when bandwidth for such things was ginormou$. I have nothing but admiration for l0wt3ch's work because he/she is the only one out there still keeping the RT Kernel in use for music. The RT project has stated that as 32bit machines become obsolete, any 64bit kernel is fast enough for music making, and now development efforts are focused on proprietary devices and POS systems. I disagree. Recording in RAM rivals analog tape. I'm not your average consumer, so free Ubuntu means nothing to me. I'm not a business, so cash register software really doesn't help me either. I'm a musician. I have proprietary needs, but a creator's paycheck :-)

No need to apologize for disagreements on here. It is to be expected where $ is involved with Linux. The mods keep it friendly enough here. Step on over to Canonical forums if you want to see some real mud slinging :-)

Do let us know how your experience goes! In 2011 I was stranded up North for a month with nothing but an old Asus p4, 1G sdram, a kiddie microphone, drums from RockHero, and an old beater acoustic. I used the old version (studio4) and recorded 16 tracks, then mixed it down into quite an impressive little tune that made me sound so much bigger and better than I am, haha! I'd love to hear your tale...might give me cause to play with the old Mac in my basement ;-)

Break a leg, not a string!