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Crosspost: Ideas and Tips for Dual Boot and Audio Things on Linux (2011 Laptop) (lemmy.studio)
submitted 1 month ago by audiomatter@lemmy.studio to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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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.

Check out more info here

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!

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[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

i used to have a 2013 macbook air from the electronics disposal bin and used it for five years as my daily driver. i don't know how well it would do considering all your audio related constraints; but in your shoes i would do some quick and dirty testing with a live linux distribution on usb drive.

i would go with elive because it comes preinstalled with proprietary software; including things for multimedia, like codecs. you could also do it w any other distro, but why not save yourself the extra steps; since we're only looking for breadcrumbs to follow anyways.

i used to use a headset w a usb audio dongle circa 2002 on red hat linux and the breadcrumbs i found back then led me to discover that getting it to work required the proprietary software that the distros wouldn't carry because of the licensing. so i spent days tearing apart my new installation trying to get it to work with the help of strangers on internet linux forums and ultimately failed; i later succeeded with mandrake linux and ran with that for about 3ish years before switching to debian and later elive.

elive has already figured out all the intricate details necessary to get that software to work and i'm inclined to believe that they made significant improvements over the last 20ish years. you can use the fruits of their labor for a quick and non-invasive test that can be the first breadcrumb that leads you to whatever you end up using for your two machines while ensuring your audio requirements will be met; maybe elive can also help with other proprietary software or maybe it's people on the software that they use that are like yours.

also: you lost me on Focusrite Audio-Interface paragraph so i don't understand how it fits into any of this.

[–] audiomatter@lemmy.studio 2 points 1 month ago

Thanks for the input! Testing is a good idea. I'll take a look at elive but from what you mention, it's probably not what I'm looking for. Not a huge fan of reading "it comes preinstalled with proprietary software". I'm up for learning the extra steps, I'm actually really interested in it, so this isn't really a big deal for me -- just, well, time-consuming. It's a helpful reply nevertheless, I'll think of this as a solution in case I would really fail. Oh and I probably mentioned the issues because I could not get Wifi/Bluetooth to work before and because I don't use one of the mainstream ones of the focusrite product line, and this could be an issue, maybe not.

[–] Navigator@jlai.lu 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

On the DAW, the three are good, I use Ardour cause it's a free software, but I've been told the other two are good, specially for people coming from ableton who want something close. Ardour is really a old-fashioned saw like pro-tools.

Check Librazik it's a distro based on debian made for musicale production.

I'd say you don't need a specific distro for what you want to do : a Debian or Arch with KDE could do the trick, but I would recommend to use a lighter desktop environment like Xfce. You may not like it coming from mac but it will preserve machine resources for your audio work.

Ardour runs pretty much on it's own on any distro, you can still do some conf, I suggest to go to linuxmao.fr the website is mostly in French but have a lot of configuration documentation.

This audio interface will not be an issue as it's plug and play on Linux since a while now.

[–] audiomatter@lemmy.studio 1 points 1 month ago

Thanks for mentioning Librazik. I'll take a look at it later.

You are right with KDE as DE, and I am happy you mention it. I guess I'm just being lazy with this as I am familiar with it and I like the looks of it. But true, given I really won't do much else on there, it's pretty much a waste of resources, so I'll take that into account.

I will go with Reaper first and hope this will be a good Ableton alternative. Ardour I'm generally just really curious to try out, so I will give it a shot too, maybe later. The website you mention will be great for this, hope I will be able to read through this ;)

It's good to hear about the inteface just working, will see how it goes. I remember searching info on that model I have back on reddit and there was one person who tried to get it to work on linux and it sounded complicated, but that was already a few years back

[–] eugenia@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

With 4 GB of RAM you will be limited, so either XFce or Mint are your best bet (and edit their StartUp pref panel to disable some services -- that will save you 200 MB of RAM). I wouldn't put Gnome on a machine with 4 GB of RAM, it'll start swapping before long.

Not sure why you say that "ubuntu studio is absolutely not an option". You don't give any reason why it's not an option. Ubuntu studio has special scripts to make things like jack2 work in pipewire correctly, for one. I couldn't get Presonus StudioOne to get any sound on my Mint installation without that ubuntu studio setup script, for example.

Reaper is nothing like Ableton, it's its own thing, and you'll need to get used to it. Ardour is another option, Bitwig, and some others I mention here: https://mastodon.social/@eugenialoli/113358203445896735

LMMS is mostly for electronic/midi music (the UI is like FL Studio's). For recording, you'll need to download their .appimage dev-build (they implemented it a few months ago). Still no vst3 support in it though.

And you'll need to get a supported audio interface, you can't judge audio quality via BT.

Personally, I'd go for Linux Mint and do these things: 1. Install a theme that pleases you visually, 2. Edit startup sessions to not load useless things (I've even turned off bluetooth) 3. Uninstall fwupd (you don't need that on a mac), 4. Uninstall the evolution-data-server 5. install the ubuntustudio pipewire config script, 6. install the daw you like, and use the pipewire connection kit to make sure you get sound out of it.

On my Mint, I've been able to get it down to 700 MB of RAM on a clean boot (out of 1.3 GB by default). That gives some headroom to do better web browsing or media work.

[–] audiomatter@lemmy.studio 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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!

[–] eugenia@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago

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.