Linux specifically for Music & Video Production

[Leepshin]

I've been toying with moving to Linux for a number of years now and recently that decision has come a lot closer to reality when Microsoft and it's beloved Windows 10 had it's 3rd strike with me when it's latest round of updates not only screwed my laptop up for the umpteenth time resulting in a complete re-installation of my system but it managed to lose some valuable synthesizer plugins in the process so I decided to move back from a laptop to dusting off my old desktop and went out and bought a brand new ASUS X370-F motherboard (as the old A7N8X-e had died in it) with the intention of futureproofing my system as much as possible so that for the next 7 years at least, I won't have to worry about any hardware problems.

As a regular viewer of Chris Barnatt's "Explaining Computers" youtube channel, he recently introduced me and the rest of his many subscribers to the Linux Mint system and I have to say I was quite impressed with the hasslefree setup but what he didn't mention was how music and video software might interact with it. Are there any media producers of either music or video content in the community that can provide me with a beginners giuide to using Linux with software for use with music DAW's, software synth's, or video editing suite's?

There's no way I'd ever entertain those [crude wording removed] at Apple with their "do it our way or no way plus all your content belongs to us whether you paid for it or not " attitude as I find their "planned obsolescence" quite distasteful not to mention environmentally irrespopnsible. I believe in keeping tech operational as long as it's able to and not because "new and shiny" gets released for the sake of making money. So Arsey hole, I mean.... App hole is a no go for me and with Microsoft's bloatware and system resource hogging background processes slowing down critical music production software where "latency" is a critical factor, I need an OS that will be musician friendly but I've read that there are many different "builds" to choose from depending ion what you want to use the system for like KODI and Clockwork Mod android builds so is there a Linux build that could be subtitled a "Multimedia Moguel" build or can I trust in and rely on mint to be musically "minted"?

[Derek_S]

Maybe you should consider trying Ubuntu Studio: https://ubuntustudio.org/ -OR- AV Linux: http://www.bandshed.net/avlinux/

[AscLinux]

For audio: https://gentoostudio.org/

[Petermint]

Read up on low latency Linux. The studio versions of Linux have improvments that reduce the latency for closer to real time operations. The improvements eventually filter through to the rest of Linux. The current status is worth investigating.

[smurphos]

Regarding low latency kernels in Mint 19 you can switch the updater to prefer the low latency version via this terminal command.

gsettings set com.linuxmint.updates use-lowlatency-kernels "true"

[Hoser Rob]

.... Are there any media producers of either music or video content in the community ...

I've been searching in vain for real media producers who use Linux for years. YouTube doesn't count for me though.

[phd21]

Hi Leepshin,

Welcome to the wonderful world of Linux Mint and its excellent forum!

I just read your post and the good replies to it. Here are my thoughts on this as well. There are many posts in this forum on this topic.

- There are a few excellent free and paid for Linux video editors to install and try, and having powerful computer hardware (multi-core CPU with a lot of system memory ram) and a good video card (GPU) certainly would help: Kdenlive, Lightworks (lws) - get paid for version, Openshot, Cinelerra-gv, shotcut, Lives, DaVinci (if you have an nVidia graphics card), etc...


+1 for using a low-latency Linux kernel if you are not using really powerful computer hardware. Some people recommend using a low-latency Linux kernel even if you have really good hardware.

System configuration [Linux-Sound]

Kernels >= 2.6.31 seem to work pretty good without RT patch, also for real-time pro audio usage. It's not strictly necessary anymore to install a real-time ('rt') kernel to get good results. Although the best results are still expected when using a real-time kernel. Try it, test it and decide for yourself.

https://wiki.linuxaudio.org/wiki/system ... the_kernel

Any music producers out there using Linux DAW's???? - Linux Mint Forums
viewtopic.php?f=48&t=277768

Installing Low-latency Kernel on Ubuntu 16.04 - LinuxMusicians
https://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?t=16624

UbuntuStudioPreparation - Community Help Wiki
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ubunt ... reparation


Hope this helps ...