Re: What about a regular MX Linux with AV Linux config?
Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2024 12:59 pm
As a studio muscian, sideman, touring musician for the last 50 years I've had numerous instances where I've needed to digitize, tweak, remaster, etc. audio files whether recorded by me or from media given to me from the venues I've played in. Other than that, I create audio/visual material for a number of university profs and lecturers who are doing online courses and require help.
As far as direct-to-disk recording goes, I'm very "old-school". For more than solo work, I have a small PA system that, once all is mixed to everyone's liking in the console, I can connect via usb, record, and then master in my DAW of choice. Similar with a solo recording, but often option for my H2 Zoom and then transfer the audio to the computer for touch-ups.
All of this work is done (now and in the past) on my rigs that utilize a Linux OS and FOSS software include in the standard repos. Since 2017, I've been using MX Linux as my daily driver. The present iteration (MX-23) has everthing I need to perform my audio/visual tasks. Exceptions from what I can install from Synaptic (e.g., Ardour, Audacity, Ladspa Plugins, LMMS, LV2 Plugins Qsynth, Qjackctl, Rosegarden) would be recent AppImages (Shotcut, CinelerraGG, Qtractor, Avidemux, Krita, Kdenlive, Musescore) along with Reaper on Wine-Staging with a few Vsts mostly Reverbs, Compression, and Mastering (all freeware .dlls). Absolutely no reason to use anything from MX's Test Repos ... Long-story-short, it's easy-peasy rolling your own MX multimedia provisions. For me everything just works, the only caveat being Ardour not being able to use Jack (as GMaq points out, use ALSA as the back-end). Qtractor (latest AppImage), Qsynth, Rosegarden, function perfectly with Qjackctl.
Given that a user is already familiar with MX Linux, and that their hardware flawlessly supports it, there's no reason whatsoever for someone not to be able to roll their own multimedia workhorse.
Now briefly to AVLinux ... GMaq has done an incredible job (actually, a herculean task!) in presenting the functionality of using Pipewire and also Qpwgraph as an alternative to Qjackctrl. This is an important and gargantuan step to take insofar as PW is the future Linux sound-server. His is the ONLY multimedia distro to have come to grips with this innovation. With the dated version of PW in MX-23 that he had to work with, it is quite remarkable. For many seasoned music-creators with compatible rigs, the system works perfectly OOTB. Given the fact that MX-23 has an EOL of 2028, GMaq would have plenty of time to reckon with the most recent version of PW for better all-round support, including Jack! Maybe it just might cure Ardour-Jack woes!
To all this, I say to GMaq that I hope you continue what you've begun ... tweaking PW (and Enlightenment BTW) with what's coming down the pike and that we'll eventually see a newer and greater AVLinux. Maybe more stripped-down, no more commercial software or plugins and a more-curated selection of some very basic free VSTs?
Finally, no need for another MX-variant. If XFCE/KDE users want to roll their own, they can ... XFCE users can already (forever ... as long as their hardware lives!) avail themselves of your MX-21 XFCE version.
Take care GMaq!
As far as direct-to-disk recording goes, I'm very "old-school". For more than solo work, I have a small PA system that, once all is mixed to everyone's liking in the console, I can connect via usb, record, and then master in my DAW of choice. Similar with a solo recording, but often option for my H2 Zoom and then transfer the audio to the computer for touch-ups.
All of this work is done (now and in the past) on my rigs that utilize a Linux OS and FOSS software include in the standard repos. Since 2017, I've been using MX Linux as my daily driver. The present iteration (MX-23) has everthing I need to perform my audio/visual tasks. Exceptions from what I can install from Synaptic (e.g., Ardour, Audacity, Ladspa Plugins, LMMS, LV2 Plugins Qsynth, Qjackctl, Rosegarden) would be recent AppImages (Shotcut, CinelerraGG, Qtractor, Avidemux, Krita, Kdenlive, Musescore) along with Reaper on Wine-Staging with a few Vsts mostly Reverbs, Compression, and Mastering (all freeware .dlls). Absolutely no reason to use anything from MX's Test Repos ... Long-story-short, it's easy-peasy rolling your own MX multimedia provisions. For me everything just works, the only caveat being Ardour not being able to use Jack (as GMaq points out, use ALSA as the back-end). Qtractor (latest AppImage), Qsynth, Rosegarden, function perfectly with Qjackctl.
Given that a user is already familiar with MX Linux, and that their hardware flawlessly supports it, there's no reason whatsoever for someone not to be able to roll their own multimedia workhorse.
Now briefly to AVLinux ... GMaq has done an incredible job (actually, a herculean task!) in presenting the functionality of using Pipewire and also Qpwgraph as an alternative to Qjackctrl. This is an important and gargantuan step to take insofar as PW is the future Linux sound-server. His is the ONLY multimedia distro to have come to grips with this innovation. With the dated version of PW in MX-23 that he had to work with, it is quite remarkable. For many seasoned music-creators with compatible rigs, the system works perfectly OOTB. Given the fact that MX-23 has an EOL of 2028, GMaq would have plenty of time to reckon with the most recent version of PW for better all-round support, including Jack! Maybe it just might cure Ardour-Jack woes!
To all this, I say to GMaq that I hope you continue what you've begun ... tweaking PW (and Enlightenment BTW) with what's coming down the pike and that we'll eventually see a newer and greater AVLinux. Maybe more stripped-down, no more commercial software or plugins and a more-curated selection of some very basic free VSTs?
Finally, no need for another MX-variant. If XFCE/KDE users want to roll their own, they can ... XFCE users can already (forever ... as long as their hardware lives!) avail themselves of your MX-21 XFCE version.
Take care GMaq!