Re: [LAU] [Bulk] Debian DAW experiences

Hi David,

On Sun, 2014-08-31 at 22:42 -0700, David Christensen wrote:
> I've been running a Debian Wheezy DAW (i386, Xfce, realtime kernel,
> Audacity, Rosegarden, various synthesizers, etc.) for the past week or
> two. It sort of worked. But, it's clearly not ready for taking on
> stage for a performance.

trying to fix issues often makes more sense, than to switch from one to
another distro. Sometimes just replacing one tool by another does solve
a problem.

> I started by downloading the 288 MB "netinst" ISO image. This was
> followed by 100's of MB of downloads to install the base system,
> graphical desktop (Xfce), laptop packages, SSH server, and print server.

I prefer another distro, but what happened here is absolutely ok.

> I fed my list of desired general-purpose, kernel, and DAW packages to
> Apt and it wanted to download another 1+ GB of files (!). I shook my
> head and lit it off.

My Arch Linux install takes around 30 GiB, but it's possible to keep an
install very small.

> Since when is documentation a *required* package?

Perhaps it's just an optional dependency.

> For that matter, when is 288 MB a "small" installation image?

https://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/

It just enables you to install from the Internet, but it provides all
kinds of even nowadays exotic way to connect to the Internet, such as
PPPoE and they are easy to set up. Is there a valid reason to make such
a CD smaller?

> So, it's time for me to look for another Linux distribution. Are there
> any recommendations for a Linux distribution that:
>
> 1. Works correctly.
>
> 2. Is efficient in both space and time.

The Linux philosophy is self-responsibility, because this enables to
customize user space to the users needs. Something pre-build could fit
to your needs or doesn't fit to your needs. You still need to test
several available audio distros.

> 3. Offers a kernel suitable for DAW use at install time.

Arch Linux, but you won't like the KISS principle and that packages
aren't split, so you would lose a few KiB for headers you perhaps never
will use.

> 4. Offers current DAW software binary packages.

Arch Linux does, but it ...

> 5. Provides simple OOTB *user* and *administrator* experiences -- e.g.
> minimal technical wrenching around under the hood.

... isn't an OOTB solution. OOTB are Ubuntu Studio, AVLinux, KXStudio
and some others.

http://ubuntustudio.org/
http://www.bandshed.net/AVLinux.html
http://kxstudio.sourceforge.net/

But if you always want to get the current "stable" versions from
upstream, than AVLinux might be not a good solution, but the rolling
release Arch Linux would be. Audio distros based on other distros might
conflict with official repositories. Ubuntu Studio isn't just based on
*buntu, it's an official *buntu distro.

> The apparent favorite, Arch Linux, fails criteria #5

I'm an Arch Linux user and I agree.

> The runner-up, Ubuntu Studio, is 2+ GB and therefore fails criteria #2.

Yesno. It's not a clean audio distro. After installing it, you could
remove all the packages that aren't related to audio or perhaps somebody
could explain you how to make a *buntu expert install with installing
just the Ubuntu Studio audio meta-packages.

It's simply impossible to provide an OOTB distro + community for 1000
and more different needs.

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Received on Mon Sep 1 16:15:05 2014