On Wed, Jul 04, 2012 at 11:41:53AM +0100, Dave Malham wrote: > I'm looking for recommendations on a preferred (small) Linux > distro for surround work. To start with, I'd like to run on a Asus > 35 M1-M Pro motherboard as I have one handy. Unfortunately, my > current Ubuntu distro seems to have difficulties picking up its > built-in 8 channel audio but my relatively poor knowledge/experience > of Linux means I can't be sure if I'm doing something wrong (most > probable scenario) or if it's a distro or hardware limitation. As I > only went for Ubuntu because I had some experience with it already, > I thought it would make sense, before going further, to seek advice > about optimum-for-audio distros and concentrate on one of those and > preferably one without much bloat.
Ubuntu comes with the Gnome desktop which uses PulseAudio as its 'audio server'. PA has many qualities for the typical desktop user but is completely unsuitable for any serious audio work, for one it doesn't handle real multichannel interfaces (because the underlying ALSA layer doesn't provide any info that would enable PA to find out 'standard' channel mappings). For anything serious you need to run Jack as the sound server. It's not possible to 'uninstall' PA on a system with Gnome (it's a hard dependency) but you can tell PA to get out of the way when Jack needs access to the sound card, and you can even configure PA to become a Jack client so your 'desktop sounds' continue to work. I can't provide any reliable help on how exactly to do this (since none of my systems have PA installed), but you could ask on the Linux Audio Users or Developers mailing lists, see http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user/ http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-dev/ for how to subscribe etc. If you want a 'lean and mean' and generally unbloated linux distro I could recommend ArchLinux (used on >10 systems here). Compared to e.g. Ubuntu it has a rather steep learning curve, you will need to learn a lot about system administration (the docs on the Arch Wiki are quite good), but you'll be rewarded with actually knowing how your system works and remaining in control of it. But I admit it can be a bit hard the first time. Ciao, -- FA A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia. It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow) _______________________________________________ Sursound mailing list Sursound@music.vt.edu https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/sursound
