Subject: Re: [linux-audio-user] Fresh PC waiting for basic installation - Advice?
From: Fernando Pablo Lopez-Lezcano (nando_AT_ccrma.stanford.edu)
Date: Mon Jul 05 2004 - 19:30:56 EEST
> Basically, you guys have recommended:
>
> -Mandrake + Thac's RPMs (Robert)
> -DeMuDi (Tim and Stefano)
> -Planet CCRMA (Jan)
>
> ..Which basically boils down to: Mandrake vs Debian vs Redhat. Not sure if
> it's a wise decision, but I'm then thinking about choosing the distro based
> on:
>
> -Is ALSA supported on the distro or did you have to download and install
> ALSA separately?
Planet CCRMA: for RedHat <= 9 and Fedora Core 1 ALSA is not included in
the base distribution. But for Planet CCRMA you have to install a
specialized kernel anyway for best latency performnace and realtime
operation as a non-root user, so adding ALSA is not that big a deal (I
use alsaconf for the configuration step).
Fedora Core 2 comes with kernel 2.6.x and ALSA. You still need to
install a separate kernel to be able to get the best latency and be able
to run the Jack server with realtime priority as a non-root user. There
are still some issues with Jack and the new nptl threading model that is
now standard in FC2.
> -Did you find the kernel easy to patch for low latency? (I assume all
> Thac's, DeMuDi and Planet have some patch set for this).
Planet CCRMA comes with prebuilt kernels for low latency, you don't need
to apply patches yourself (as is the case also on Demudi and Mandrake -
on Mandrake there is a separate "multimedia" kernel, I think).
> Any thoughts much appreciated.
If you have the time and bandwidth you could just do some trial installs
and pick the distro that appeals to you most. All of them are good
(although of course you'll find strong advocates for all of them as well
that will suggest that _that_ one is the best :-)
-- Fernando
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