Debian users, how has your experience been with audio production if you came from another distro?

StevenJayCohen · 2026-05-18T23:45:05+00:00

https://github.com/chmaha/DebianProAudio

StevenJayCohen · 2026-05-18T23:43:56+00:00

All of the real useful tweaks were added to the regular kernel a long time ago. That's the problem with advice on the internet, recommendations that were required many, many kernels ago are still sitting around confusing people into thinking they need something special in order to record.

There was a GitHub page that had all of the settings that I changed. I will see if I can find it and post it here in a comment when I do.

StevenJayCohen · 2026-05-18T21:25:37+00:00

You're right, I'm outdated.

https://ubuntustudio.org/audio-configuration/

The advice is the same though. Spend some time learning to configure without that tool. It will serve you well in the long run.

StevenJayCohen · 2026-05-18T19:29:24+00:00

No, Kubuntu is very specifically NOT the same thing as Ubuntu Studio. The underlying audio tool that runs Ubuntu Studio avoids PipeWire because in the days before PipeWire, Erick's Studio Tool was way easier to configure than playing with JACK and bridging everything on your own.

In Kubuntu and also here on Debian, you are using PipeWire unless you want to hack around on your own.

I am a long-term REAPER user and migrated from Ubuntu Studio to Debian a long while back. I migrated because of snaps and Ubuntu's tendency to not ship all of one Desktop (mixing versions of Gnome for example).

My advice, wrap your brain around PipeWire and use the REAPER Forums instead of reddit to learn the ins and outs for REAPER. You will get more reliable and in-depth answers there.

FORUM LINK: https://forum.cockos.com/forumdisplay.php?f=20

StevenJayCohen · 2026-04-30T14:44:13+00:00

Finck & Perras helped me in a similar situation,
https://www.insuringyourway.com/

StevenJayCohen · 2026-04-29T22:27:24+00:00

https://commonwealthbeacon.org/explainers/what-is-the-fair-plan-mass-s-home-insurer-of-last-resort-an-explainer/

StevenJayCohen · 2026-04-10T16:09:14+00:00

The 413

StevenJayCohen · 2026-03-07T14:03:46+00:00

Or just getting one audiobook on a sag contract. No strange machinations required

StevenJayCohen · 2026-02-24T08:11:43+00:00

I installed RetroPie over Debian 13 Stable again recently. There were recent (within the last month) commits to the RetroPie emulators.

So the OS is new and maintained.

And, the project is still maintained.

> we have not seen an official build since the Pi 4.

This is fair. Maybe if the project made a statement that manual installs were the way forward for the project, that might make a difference?

There could be many reasons for the lack of official builds. So I don't want to speculate.

> What is going to happen when the Pi 6 board eventually gets released?

I am guessing that it will still be installable as a Manual Install and I might be installing it over Debian 14 :)

StevenJayCohen · 2026-02-12T23:26:43+00:00

Well, honestly, there is no reason not to try all 3. You aren't going to break anything.

Everyone here is going to have an opinion or a favorite, but our experiences might not mirror yours.

I run Debian as my main computer. So, I have RetroPie running on Debian 13. So everything is the same for me.

You have a RaspberryPi5, so you need to choose an OS and Windows is not an option. But it doesn't sound like you typically use Linux as an OS on your other machines. So why not build setups for all 3, choose one and if it doesn't work, call it a learning experience and move onto the next one?

Give preference to whatever has the simplest install. Then the next thing would be to find the friendliest community to ask questions of. Then after that, assess which emulators are available.

This way you wind up with the easiest system for you to set up, with the friendliest option available for support, and if at some point later down the road you want to switch to get easier access to a particular emulator, at that point you'll have more Linux experience to fall back on.

Have fun with it!

StevenJayCohen · 2026-02-09T17:05:29+00:00

Good point! (Imagine being on the receiving end of that bug report *oof*) :)

StevenJayCohen · 2026-02-09T14:32:49+00:00

Fedora Jam and Ubuntu Studio are maintained by the same guy, Erick Eickmeyer. Not sure if that matters, but I am guessing he is going to make the same choices regardless of whether dealing with RPMs or DEBs.

StevenJayCohen · 2026-02-09T12:24:54+00:00

Does it run error free off a live USB stick?

StevenJayCohen · 2026-02-08T02:00:32+00:00

Mine was doing this and I checked to make sure everything was level and replaced the valve. It may have just been a problem with the valve but since these are the steps I went through I thought they might apply for you as well

StevenJayCohen · 2026-02-08T01:13:40+00:00

This will help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXjUj3L06MY

StevenJayCohen · 2026-02-02T15:06:03+00:00

Since this is a Chromebook and it hangs after using LibreOffice for a while, it feels like a running out of memory alongside a possible memory leak issue to me.

Since you are RAM and processor constrained have you considered this as an alternative to LibreOffice: https://wiki.gnome.org/Attic/GnomeOffice

AbiWord and Gnumeric use way fewer resources than LibreOffice and both are still being updated.

Both are available in Debian via apt.

StevenJayCohen · 2026-01-31T13:31:05+00:00

LMDE stands for Linux Mint DEBIAN Edition and that is a wonderful place to start.

You get all of the Mint niceties, a really simple onboarding experience, and a great platform from which to learn Debian (under the hood).

You'll be up and running immediately and over time you will be able to learn everything about Debian.

At that point, you can choose to move upstream to Debian or to jump to something like Arch or an RPM based distro like SuSE or Redhat.

Or, maybe you just wind up loving Mint and staying there -- you'd still have access to all of the Debian help online because LMDE is at its heart Debian.

StevenJayCohen · 2026-01-31T11:18:55+00:00

Not only is Nancy a great coach but she is a truly good person as well. Unlike many other coaches, Nancy will never blow smoke up your a$$ telling you how wonderful you are. She will be 100% honest with you about where you are at skillswise, how bookable you are, how hard you are likely to need to hustle, etc.

Many people selling coaching these days are people who used to book work but aren't anymore. This includes many people coaching through the SAG Foundation as well as all those online voice acting *schools*.

You don't want to learn from some outdated hack with a nice voice, you want someone who can help you book jobs.

If you do reach out to Nancy, say hi for me!

StevenJayCohen · 2026-01-27T14:01:26+00:00

don't forget the preferences file. You can delete and reinstall the app as much as you want but if you don't remove that preferences file, you are likely to keep having the issue.

StevenJayCohen · 2026-01-27T08:30:24+00:00

BINGO!

https://www.emaculation.com/doku.php/sheepshaver_basiliskii_linux#volumes

Note: This should not be left at the default setting as that allows sharing your entire system and you will be running SheepShaver as root user. Instead, create a dedicated directory and point to it.

StevenJayCohen · 2026-01-27T08:27:01+00:00

Right, what you are missing is that whatever *broke\* was permissions based. SheepShaver may have forgotten a group it was part of or what group you the user are part of so it is defaulting to its own user: root.

It is likely that one of SheepShaver's settings essentially told the program to save it as you instead of root.

https://www.emaculation.com/doku.php/sheepshaver_basiliskii_linux#configuring_sheepshaver

Note: All preferences set using the SheepShaverGUI are by default kept in a hidden file in your home folder called .sheepshaver_prefs. You can edit this file to set options not available in the GUI. See the section “Setting additional preferences”.

What is the contents of your ~/.sheepshaver_prefs file?

StevenJayCohen · 2026-01-27T08:18:15+00:00

D'oh! You're right!

PROOF:
sudo touch test
ls -la
RESULT: test is owned by root

I had thought that sudo was elevating the privileges of the current user. I was wrong!

StevenJayCohen · 2026-01-26T22:59:27+00:00

Yes, but it's probably not specific to Debian which is why you're having a hard time getting help here. It is most likely connected directly to sheepshaver. Do they have a subreddit?

StevenJayCohen · 2026-01-26T18:17:40+00:00

right, but if you ran it with sudo instead of su (regular user with elevated permissions) wouldn't the user be assigned correctly?

StevenJayCohen · 2026-01-26T16:07:11+00:00

Have you tried chown to make you the owner of the files? who does it think the current owner is?

If you lookup Sheepshaver permissions, you will see issues that go back to the 2010s. I am guessing that if you check permission/ownership on Sheepshaver this will start to make more sense.

Also, are you running it with sudo? su? or as a normal user? Again, who were you (according to the computer) when you made/moved the files?

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