cross-posted from: https://lemmy.studio/post/3409116
Ideas and Tips for Dual Boot and Audio Things on Linux (2011 Laptop)
Research post
--> Before you contribute anything to this post, please be aware that I research a Music Production related topic on Lemmy/Mastodon.Hi there,
not even sure if this community is still active, but I will give it a go ;) I’m looking for distro ideas and tips for setting up Audio.
So, here’s the situation: I’ve been thinking about switching DAW for a while now and just tried LMMS so far, which I didn’t like at all. I’m curious to check out Reaper and/or Ardour next while also considering Bitwig as another option.
Currently I use an old MacBook Pro (~2011) for Music Production - running MacOS and Ableton Live 10. The plan is to Dual Boot this machine for now, but I’m unsure which Distro to go for. SSD is new, I can dedicate around ~250 Gigs to this install, which is a lot since I mainly use external storage usually. 4 GB of RAM, I think some swap space would be ideal.
On my main machine I’ve so far tried Ubuntu Studio for about 3 Weeks, so this is absolutely not an option. Then I’ve tried Mint for literally just 3 Days because I really hated the look of it (maybe no surprise as a long-time Mac user). I’m on arch-based/Arch with Plasma 5/6 + pipewire now since around 2 years. Haven’t been touching on anything Music Production related on here, just the average everyday use to play Videos and Music (which just worked out of the box) so I’m not really familiar with anything Audio-related on Linux.
I want the Music Laptop to just be pretty minimal, a bit of Note-taking and Office stuff besides the DAW’s. The Laptop is usually offline, so I think going for Arch/ a rolling release is not very ideal. I thought about just Gnome or Plasma 6 on Debian, as I wanted to try out Debian for future projects anyways. Not sure how this will play out on that old Laptop, so just thought I’d ask if there’s any experience with older machines before I get into it. Also open for other recommendations in case I missed some other good distro option, I feel like I’m also in an experimental phase currently and wouldn’t mind distro-hopping for a bit.
Then, I feel a bit overwhelmed by the whole audio thing, so I would be very thankful for useful tips, videos, websites or similar that might help me to figure things out.
I own a Focusrite Audio-Interface, and it will be a problem if I can’t get this running, but I will definitely try it out before I buy a new one. Another issue with this Laptop is that the Audio jack broke years ago inside the machine, so it’s not even possible to get any sound out of this thing if not via the Interface lol. Well, actually there is: Bluetooth Speakers, which I also do own but… meh. Usually on Headphones for Music Prodcution, so I kinda need the Interface. Not a huge VST user, so this is less of an issue for me. I mainly use my Interface to record Instruments/Mics or just my field recorder and Samples.
Hope I can get some feedback on my throughts and recommendations, thanks a lot in advance!
Thanks so much for answering, this is really helpful, even if I feel pretty indecisive now.
What do you think about LMDE? This would have been my second idea. I’m also not mad about going with Mint for a second time as you recommend. My disliking was purely because of aesthetics, which wouldn’t be as important for this Laptop.
As I mentioned in the reply to Noo, I have already changed my mind about DE’s. Honestly, I always assumed this Laptop had 8 GB of RAM just like the other - and there I’ve had the Laptop freeze installing stuff from the AUR - seems this is always the worst part of these Macbooks, but I’m never gonna buy one again anyway. But yeah, I dont have any clue about how much those 4 GB affect my Distro/DE choices, I’m here to learn :D I also saw your post on Mastodon about RAM on Debian Gnome a few Days back, which was one of the reasons why I began second guessing my initial ideas.
I know if I’d look for a substitute for Ableton it would probably be best to just go with Bitwig. But there’s also aspects of Ableton I’m not happy with. I generally got bored of it a bit tbf, so it’s allright if I feel I start from scratch for a while. Reaper was recommended to me by a few people already, so Reaper it is. Shortcuts and navigation will be hard for a while I assume, but nothing you can’t get used to ;)
Yeah LMMS really felt close to FL Studio, used FL a bunch in my youth.
Ubuntu ran really bad on my other Laptop, and I felt overwhelmed by the amount of stuff pre-installed. So I doubt it will be better.
Concerning the Interface, I don’t have the extra money to buy a new one currently, so this either works or not.
Ok, so I’ll maybe wait on your opinion on LMDE in case you will have time to reply. Will keep Mint on my mind!
Because LMDE runs on Debian, you won’t have the extra fixes for audio that ubuntustudio offers (mint runs on the same repos as all ubuntu flavors). Also, LMDE is debian, and their packages are older.
Regarding ram, reaper uses way, way less ram than any other daw, because it’s the most optimized of all. The creator of it, who also did winamp back in the day, is known for his optimization black magic.