So I chose to install Ubuntu and Ubuntu studio on top (which as I understand is just adding a bunch of apps and maybe doing some configuring). I am a musician and visual creative. I’d like to know why I made the wrong choice in distro. Hit me with it!
Why is your distro of choice better than the one I picked at random for myself?
What bottleneck am I to expect due to my non archyness?
Using Linux isn’t something you need to defend towards others.
As long as something is comfortable for you, keep using it.
You made a great choice of distro for media creation.
Some background information and other options are below.
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Ubuntu studio is a distro targeted at creatives(audio, visual).
Ubuntu is touted as a ‘high ease of use’ distro, but as a company, it is a user-data collector and advertising injector.
For a similar audio/visual targeted distro, but one that is free/libre and includes no spyware or tracking, you could try Dynebolic.
Can be booted as a LiveUSB (or LiveDVD) to test.
* NB. Any hardware connected to your PC, that needs proprietary drivers, will probably not work because those drivers are not included in any Libre Distros.
Also NB, Dynebolic is made by friendly, neighborhood, activist, Rastafarians.
Users data collection… Eeeew. That’s why I’m leaving windows. I’ll have a look at dynebolic thnx. My audio interface already doesn’t like Ubuntu so far so I’m gonna have to get techie with it anyway
Good choice, man. Good choice. I have Arch and Manjaro, they’re good, but there was a time when I was doing photography as a freelancer and I used Ubuntu Studio back then. The codecs are ready and instead of configuring, you can get to work.
If you like “unlikely to break, don’t mind my software and kernel a bit behind”, anything Debian or Ubuntu based will be fine. Now, if you want cutting edge, even if you have to get pissed and confused a bit, Arch or Fedora based, in my opinion.
At the end of the day it comes down to taste and need. They all work (mostly 😋).
I’m pissed and confused with Ubuntu already. I think arch might shorten my lifespan even further.
@phonics Your distro of choice is right for you:
- As long as you are still getting used to it
- As long as the important things work for you
- You can live with the downsides
- It is your choice(My distro is Arch for my riced laptop by the way, but also Debian for servers and Garuda for gaming.)
I would suggest you keep your home directory on a separate partition and maybe use etckeeper. This way you can distro hop your way when you are ready for your next hop while still being able to reverse hop.When you’re trying out distros, I usually say to just go for it. Install the one that grabs your attention. Save everything to a NAS or cloud because the distro is going to break and you’re going to want to try another one. However, Ubuntu is actually the wrong one to start with for this trajectory because it’s the least likely to break.
The first rule of Linux is that you always picked the wrong distro and here is why mine is better.
If it works for you then it’s good enough. Just focus on learning what you’re on and a lot of that knowledge will transfer to any other distro if you want to try others.
Exactly! Also many people especially early on, seem to think distros are vastly different. They’re really not, so much as they’re a different assortment of bits and pieces from mostly the same pool. Some things differ significantly across I wouldn’t say distros but across like, kernel bases? Like Debian, Arch, etc. The big thing is if it has 99% of what you wanted straightaway, then there’s nothing wrong with just using it, optimizing it for your preferences, and learning what distinguishes it, if you’re interested.
When I got a new laptop, I was psyched because it was not long after Debian had finally dropped that whole opposition to things that aren’t 100% open source, as of v 12. I like Debian but prior to 12 I often had driver issues. BUT: lo and behold, my laptop was so new that Debian didn’t have drivers for the audio yet. Nothing did except Ubuntu. They’re usually very quick to get stuff compatible, and so I installed Kubuntu so I could be on my fav desktop right off the start.
Now, quite some time later, Debian almost certainly has my audio drivers by now, but I’m not rushing to change because what I have works. End of story.
Whatever is working for you, enjoy it.
Totally agree with this and to add everyone’s tastes are different which is why there are so many different distros. It is true there are some tailored for specific things but no one distro is better then another. Any app you install on one can be installed on another
Just get endeavoros. It’s Arch with an install process like any other easy Linux distro.
Aur is useful for people that don’t want to build packages.
That combined with flatpak and you can basically have an easy install of anything.
You’re good. If you like your setup please don’t feel like you need to change. Ubuntu will serve you just fine.
Now if you just like tinkering or configuring…
The main drawback of Ubuntu is mainly that people don’t like Canonical, the company behind it. They can be very opinionated in their decisions. Also many prefer rolling-release distros (like Arch, or OpenSUSE Tumbleweed) where you get much quicker software updates over Ubuntu and other traditional distros.
I think everyone’s basically hit my complaints with Ubuntu. It’s a very bloated OS with a hard dedication into snaps, which I dislike(but I also hate flatpak so yea)
Being said if this is your first Linux distribution, you can’t go wrong with Ubuntu. It’s a very beginner-friendly distro. The only other one that I would have recommended aside from that would have probably been Mint. But Ubuntu is going to have quite a bit more tutorials and guides for it.
The biggest mistake one can make with Linux?
Using windows instead.
you did nothing wrong. ubuntu is a perfectly fine distro for beginners. the reason i dont use ubuntu anymore is the age of the packages started to bother me. also its kinda annoying that releases hit eol at some point. i like arch for the rolling release (no eol) and the fresher packages.
if ubuntu worka for you, keep using it. there is no correct distro.
If you’re looking for a change, there’s AV Linux, which is also Debian-based. Might be worth checking out.
Av for audio video I presume. Thanks will look into it
The biggest problem of ubuntu is snaps.
However, if you’re into audio, you can install linux mint, which is ubuntu-based, and then install the ubuntu-studio-pipewire-something (sorry, can’t remember how the package is actually called), which FIXES pipewire to work properly with high end audio apps. For example, on my vanilla Linux Mint, Bitwig Studio would not make a peep! After installing that package, it produces sound. With that fixed, you can do everything on Mint.
Eh, every distro is trade-offs. There’s not a straightforward “better or worse”.
The worst mistake you could make? Making it hard for you to change your mind later.
So take notes on what you modify, try to keep your data/configs consolidated so you could easily migrate to a new distro, etc.
And ideally have your hardware set up so that you can try booting a new distro without losing your existing setup.
