Greetings Everyone,

I'm considering a Distro and DE for a workstation I have. I made the workstation from computer parts I had hanging around, and decided to do a "make use of".

Computer specs:
i5-2500
P7z88 - Mobo
24 GB RAM
2 x Samsung 500GB SSD
2 x external monitors.
Steinburg UR12 - audio interface (sound card - external via USB)
Digital Piano - via USB

Components to be added:
GPU (video card)
Wifi/BT card (maybe)

I'm a semi-newbie. I don't at what point you stop being new LOLOLOL.

This is my second machine with linux on it. The first one is Centos 7 - server - with a xeon cpu / 8GB ram (used as an NFS / SMB).

I've loaded centos 7 on the workstation (hardware specs above); I've done alot of "tweaking" to get the desktop just right, added cairo-dock. I have to DE's - so far I'm favoring Xfce - over KDE Plasma; but KDE had BT intergrated easier, perhaps its part of the Gnome utilities is draws from. But I must say, trying to get Ardour / Audacity / BT function in centos7/Xfce - is a challenge. Everything seems to need compiling from source. Rpm's aren't easily available, etc. For some reason i've lost the "prntscrn" button, its not longer tied into screen capture. I get an error on it. For KDE it had panels going everywhere, which drove me nuts. I've been slowly migrating over from macOSX to linux over the last 2 years. I got introduced to linux CLI in mac for web development pkg installs. SO that kinda brings me to the point of this post.

I've been doing some research and from what I can tell openSUSE is reported as being very stable. People rav about KDE Plasma, but I'd have to figure out a way of tailoring it to 1 panel on 1 screen like macOSX nice n' tidy n' all that. Because I do web development and design, I was also readying that openSUSE is favored for development and adminstrative stuff. I just don't know how well it would do for music production. I"d prefer a DE that's not resource heavy and highly customizable, I don't mind doing all the tweaks myself; not looking for a WinXX thing, but something where I can at least follow threads that work - LOL.

I've also heard Arch / Mint are also very stable. SO I don't know. Maybe I'm looking for too much out of one distro. Its the everything computer. Web dev, web design, graphic design (blender / gimp / adobe - I did see something about installing adove on linux). Music creation, and general everyday house computer.


Anyway look forward to reading everyone's thoughts.

Thanks so much,

Best Wishes,

-Scatterbrainz

That would be easy. You can configure how many workspaces you have in System Settings. Plama defaults to one panel, but that is also configurable. Plasma is also much lighter-weight than most persons think it is.

As for which distro, I'm not wading into that one, other than to say stick to a mainstream distro. If you ask 10 Linux users for distro recommendations, you'll get 20 recommendations.

Regarding Arch, I've not used it regularly, but I understand that most important thing to do to keep it stable is to keep it updated. If you want to go with a *buntu, pick an LTS.

Just my two cents.

Consider AVLinux, Debian plus audio processing software.

You need to be aware of this disclaimer:

https://software.opensuse.org/package/ardour lots of choices for TW users
https://software.opensuse.org/package/audacity ditto
What BT means I have no idea.

I'm guessing BT is bluetooth, not something I use much

pretty much all the major distros are capable of what ask

a lot are based on Debian ( Ubuntu, Mint and many others )
https://www.debian.org/derivatives/

and some Redhat ( CentOS )

of course, there are notable exceptions like Arch, Gentoo.
Intel's Clear Linux is worth a mention.

But that all do pretty much the same thing
and many distos offer a choice of DE
However, a disto's default DE is likely to be more up-to-date

KDE Plasma is based on Ubuntu , and is curated by KDE

Debian probably has the largest collection of available packages
and even more with
https://wiki.debian.org/DebianRepository/Unofficial

tl;dr
https://www.debian.org/blends/

https://wiki.debian.org/DebianMultimedia

Greetings,

Thank you for reply; BT = bluetooth wireless connectivity.

Best

-Scatterbrainz

You got it - BT = bluetooth - I do have it connected - I'm flipped into KDE Plasma desktop. I have to enable it somehow from login though (should be easy), but there's a package called "touchegg" which also allows for gestures; that I can't seem to get working right.

Also I seem to get these errors when I try and load up Ardour (its music creation software). (see Attachments).

Also since I'm using KDE plasma this morning (i have both Xfce and KDE on the system). Prnt Scrn all of a sudden works again. SO not sure what's up there; maybe i did something in Xfce. That said, This desktop panel seems crazy glued to the top-right of each display. Can't move it - hide it - or anything to it.

Can't figure out why my images didn't load hrm...

Thanks for reply,

Best...

-Scatterbrainz

(PS: Its generally a good idea to hit [Upload] button if your trying to share a picture - D'oh (well it is 3:30am haha).

Attached Thumbnails

     

@ Scatterbrainz:-

You might be interested in this:-

Studio 13.37

Originally put together by one of our members over at the Murga-Linux 'Puppy' Forums - using the handle 'lowt3ch'! - it's a totally portable, dedicated DAW-on-a-stick. It's not exactly free - lowt3ch doesn't charge a lot for it, though understandably he wants something to cover his time, effort and purchasing the supply of USB drives, on which it comes ready pre-installed. Plus the costs of web-hosting, shipping, etc.

Like all Puppies, it's essentially a frozen 'snapshot in time'. (You can update things if you want to, but Pups don't have a regular upgrade/update path & mechanism as such, so it's very much more manual.)

More info is, I believe, available at the website:-

http://studio1337.pro/

Just an idea, like..... Perhaps worth considering? (Although, like most LQ.org members, at the mere mention of the words 'Puppy Linux' your eyes will glaze over, and your mind will immediately dismiss the possibility.....so feel free to ignore this post. I'm sure you will..!)

*shrug*


Mike.

Pretty much.

You read my mind...

scatterbrainz, your username basically sums up trying to work out what your actual question is... I assume it's something along the lines of "what distro is best for music production?" ? Beyond that, I really have no idea what your exact question is...

If I was right in what I assumed above, then you would probably want to ask yourself "is music production the only thing I want to use XXXX distro for?". If the answer to that question is yes, and you're sure you don't have any other use for that machine, then I'd say either berndbausch's suggestion or perhaps something like Ubuntu Studio are likely the winners here.

If you DO also want to use it for other things apart from multimedia/music production, then I'd suggest you look at our sticky thread in this very forum and make up your own mind...

The Workstation - is many things. I did read through the sticky thread. But it didn't really help with the answer. I already have centos 7 loaded with about 5 DE's. The challenge I run into is this. I can't seem to get the "packages" via rpm or wget and if I can, I can't seem to be able to install them, into centos7.

#1 - Ardour - Music creation - software / I've got errors, and I can't seem to find how a package filed misses dependency packages/files on install (via yum install / groupinstall).

#2. Bluetooth is running, but there's a package called touchegg - that I'd like to add in for gestures, but I can't seem to find any rpm; but other distro's seem to have it available.

#3. Music creation is OFF SPEC - primary spec - is web development and web design (which means gimp / blender / adobe).

#4. Cairo-dock seems to have bugs and errors in centos 7 - I have it running, but all I'm looking for is a simple centered task manager / panel / dock that has EVERYTHING in it, not scattered around the screen all over the place or duplicating itself. Yes I investigated Pantheon - but its in dev stages, and is riddled with bugs. So then maybe budgie - but does budgie work with centos or debian for that matter? How secure is it? What about Latte as a dock. But in all the DE's I cant seem to remove that panels that it wants to stick everywhere. Top / Bottom / left / right, for me I just need one i the center as a focal point - done.

That's all. So when i throw that all together, its not that i'm against centos, its that alot of the packages aren't easily found or available for it, unless I have to start compiling from source code, and I'm not at the compile from source experience level yet.

So After doing more reading this morning - I'll probably go Debian. The only question now is - which DE is not gonna stick panels everywhere, that I can marry to Debbie.

Appreicate all the answers,

Best...

-Scatterbrainz