never used linux, I own a decent home recording studio based off of windows. I have a second computer that I plan to install linux on. which shoud I buy and why? linspire or suse I know that I can get these free online but I live less than 5 minutes from a mega computer store and I like to have the cd and books that come with retail programs. My main things wanted in either is ease of use and stability. please give opinions as i will be buying one of these in less than 24 hours.

you think i didn't. Hopefully others on this forum are not a??es like you

I think you are referring to his signature -- please don't take offense as it's attached to all of his posts.
Like mine only more subtle
It's not directed at you personally.

If you plan on buying a packaged Distro SuSE should be fine. However, if you read rickhs sales pitch and decide to try debian, I'd suggest checking out the AGnuLA project (DeMuDI) -- Debian Musicians Distribution.

http://demudi.agnula.org/

You could also take a look at Dyne:bolic
http://dynebolic.org/ -- It's a LiveCD option.

lol. If you think that's rude, you should have seen the stuff I used to write on threads like this. Decided that no matter what I said, people would keep opening 'Which distro' threads. Decided to write my own 'sales pitch' to link rather than telling folks to use the forum search facility. If you had used it, you'd have discovered about 1000 very similar threads on which most responders promote the distro they use.

You're lucky ... truthfatal actually gave you a thoughtful answer. You won't get many of those on a thread like this.

I'm using ardour on gentoo with an Maudio Delta1010 & 19" 8 channel breakout box. It was kind of a pain to set up but it works well and I can record 8 channels at 24bit 96khz if you are new to linux I would suggest something like demudi as many things would be done for you. what are the specifics of your set up

i also suggest DeMuDi as a music box
turning a standard distribution into a functioning music studio is a difficult task for a beginner (you would have to jump right into a kernel recompile)
when i first started i converted a fedora installation using apt into
Planet CCRMA (planet ccrma kind of sucked like all rpm based Linux)
i kept it a while till i learned
you can also i think convert debian into DeMuDi the same way
but it would be easier to just get DeMuDi from the start
anyway after a while you can stretch out and do it on your own

by the way it's very easy to get midi input through the gameport of a cheap SB live soundcard in Linux.

i'm sure you will find as i did after a rather long learning process
Linux is way better/more powerfull as a studio that winblows

just ignore those other people with the canned answers
what you asked was a rether specialized thing they know nothing about.

Since looking back thru the thread suggests that remark could only have been directed at me, and since it's late at night when I get crotchety, allow me to say in my own defense that, while don't know much about producing music on a professional level, I am an adept user of Goldwave on Windows, and Audacity on Linux. I also note that a forum search for 'studio', (titles only) turns up 73 threads with a LOT of information that makes it clear that which distribution one uses is not much of an issue. (Although I would certainly stay away from Suse & Linspire, if my goal was a professional and stable OS in which to do real work.)

thanks for all the info. know that i see it is you sig. lol

thanks everyone. my main setup on windows is flstudio6 xxl, reason3,ableton live5 and cubase sx3, sonar5pe and adobe audition 2 for mastering. I just wanted to set up something in linux to play around with. to rickh, know that i see it is your sig. kinda funny. sorry about the reply

decided to download and try obuntu

nothing could be further from the truth

like i said earlier, music production on Linux requires a different kernel with an extra security module. Something available from only two or three audio/media specific distributions.
also the various packages need to be available and set up properly
jack (requires a mounted tmpfs)
tools to use jack like qjackctl and qjackconnect
ladccad (audio session manager)
ladspa pluggins (effects)
ardour
jamin
muse/rosegarden
hydrogen
ecasound
ecaeffectspedal
and many many others
all setup properly

while it is possible to do this all on your own i think it is NOT possible for a newby to install and use for instance ubuntu and ever be able to record and master music tracks.

i personally think the "use the search engine" stuff is just useless crap.
what are we here children in need of a mommy.
if you don't have something usefull to say then say nothing.

I've turned one music producer on to Audacity so far - he's been using Pro Tools and Adobe Audition a bit less - because out of the box Audacity offers pretty much the same functionality but a TON more effects plugins.

As far as which distribution? Search. Read. Try several. Pick one. It's the same question everyone else asks. You can use ANY distribution which can run audacity, jack, rosegarden, and the scads of other audio applications for Linux. In other words: all of them.

once again people speaking without knowing whats involved and without having ever actually used these applications.
audacity is a sound editor that just dumps to /dev/dsp.
not suitable in any way for sound engineering.
nor is just any Linux distribution suitable for sound engineering.
(i have made my living for the past 30 years as a musician and i DO actually use these applications)
This is what you would get. for instance with ubuntu.
ubuntu Breezy's stock kernels doesn't even have CONFIG_PREEMPT enabled
the actually needed CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT used in audio distributions isnt available at all without patching the kernel yourself. so the sound quality will suck to the point of possible interuption and latency when things get complex. sound engineering needs all the audio apps to run at high priorities
with access to realtime kernel ticks but still remain responsive to GUI input.
next you will need a new version of realtime enabled PAM or use set_rlimits to allow realtime prioities for apps like jack. and/or use reltime-lsm module, have to get it through apt and use module-assistant to buld it and install. plus learn how to get it working.
none of the audio apps available in ubuntu will work at all without this step.
next breezy doesn't setup ALSA sequence to load at boot much less midi in and out etc. so you will have to do that as well by hand.
next you will have to test everything and contend with issues like sound latency and possible x-runs. (buffer overruns and underruns)
and figure out how to write your own ~/.asoundrc to enable capture and output mixing and get jack plugins to appear in alsa.


now that you have that done on to starting things up but...
the audio apps that are available in ubuntu are so poorly done,when you try to run and expect it to "just work" will yield this
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/archive/...p/t-76204.html
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu...lib/+bug/33903
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu...en4/+bug/36801

on and on.
when you are done 9 months later you will be an expert on Linux sound but you will not have recorded anything at all.

Hey,
Am i to assertain from the above reply that there is no viable music production suite that you can use on linux?? At the moment i use Acid Pro 5 and Cubase SX on windows, but i'd ideally like to move everything over. I only have a crappy laptop, Acid complains at the best of times, so its not viable running it through CXoffice or Wine. Any ideas, i just want a multi-track recorder/editor, that i can hook my Roland synth to. Sorry if this is off track of the original post.
Regards,
Graham