[PD] Ubuntu vs. ubuntustudio?

[Lukasz Jastrzebski]

Hi!

If you are really lazy, take Ubuntustudio with LTS (8.04). And do not
change 8.04 to 8.10 (or other) untill next LTS release. Or switch to
8.10 when 9.04 will be near-ready. With normal release (not LTS)
you'll get pissed off twice a year "just because" you'll loose your
software untill someone will make packages for you (developers wait
with packaging untill last moment or longer, everything can change
with every beta release and it may cause errors, as it was with
pd-extended and Intrepid AFAIR). And you'll have to wait some time to
get your packages done. Every version now is a major rewrite, so using
LTS is the only way to have your packages quite fresh and in working
condition without much effort.

You can also consider other, audio- media- or pd-oriented distros (or
distros supported with packages of what-you-need and/or rt kernel),
Musix, dyne:bolic and pure:dyne come to my mind. Or tweaked Debian
(pure:dyne?). With d:b please wait for upcoming release, 2.5.2 is very
crude now.

I'm in general very pissed off with Ubuntu. It is fat and it breaks my
toys. I have to compile tones of stuff every half a year. It is not
always possible to compile it all...
I'm under Slack now. But I don't need rt kernel. It is possible to
install rt in any major distro.

You always have to choose if it is:
specialised (Musix) or general-purpose (*buntu*, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Debian),
fat, but out-of-the-box (OpenSUSE, *buntu*) or light, but DIY-ish (Slackware),
modern (*buntu*) or with clear and obvious UNIX-like, well documented
architecture (Debian, Slack)
installed ONCE, forever (almost any mature release), stable (Slack,
Debian - stable branch), slightly unstable, but with newer software
(Ubuntu, Debian testing) or in beta stage - with newest tools but
almost always something cracks (Ubuntu beta releases, Debian sid)
ready to use out-of-the-box (in your case - specialized distros only),
after a short while (ubuntustudio or any bigget thing with rt kernel
in packages) or after heavy tweaking
(installing/compiling/gathering/tweaking software, kernel, desktop
env., hardware recognition and many others - like in Gentoo or
Slackware).
have such fancy thing like mounting your pendrive or camera in easy
way, integrated mixer, network reckognition tools (avahi), so KDE,
Gnome or Xfce-based or lightweight (fluxbox, IceWM). enlightenment -
17 - sorry, but I think it is unusable (I've tried it last month), it
needs much more work to simply do the job with it. 16 is good.

After you'll answer to yourself - the choice will be much easyier.
In my case I needed something:
easy on resources
stable, not so modern, but reliable software, to have live
performances and many hours of efficient work without ventricular
hypertension. (I'm still quite happy with Gimp 2.4)
to set up once a year or two or three, with mid-size repository, with
my must-have software working in 100% (It is a nomadic graphic
station, so Gimp, Inkscape, Cinelerra, Scribus, Fontmatrix, Veejay,
PD-vanilla, Processing and Synfig Studio is a must, with java and
python software)
to have pendrive, camera and tablet working in reasonable time
to have my wireless card supported with high connectivity (I'm a
wireless safety tester too) and some network tools (ftp client and
Skype)
easy to repair or tweak in ANY possible way when needed, so well
documented, clear and clean in terms of architecture.
easy to compile stuff on it

So Slack with KDE was the one. Debian is pretty good but it is
developed much too fast for me. With Slack my tools are supported
within few years. Or I can compile things on my own. Settings,
additional packages, tweaks are left untouched after reinstallation,
which is also a big plus.
I have plenty of time (I'm working on of 1/4 full time), so having my
tablet working in three days and camera in two was OK for me. This
should be ready out-of-the-box, but whatever... I also like the
mind-bending style of Slackware configuration, it teaches a lot.

Cheers,
Luke