Hello community,
I am tired of windows slowing down my laptop, and I tought I’d give linux a chance. So I learn, that there are many linuxes, and I wonder if it really matters. which one to choose. Can all linux apps be run on all distributions? Is it just a matter of the ‘app store’ supporting them or not?
I am producing media art for theatre plays. So I have to rely on a stable system as well as the following tools:
- Blender 3d
- a DAW
- Design Software (adobe alternatives)
- Video Editing & compositing
- Projection mapping (I fear, there is just mapmap under linux)
- audio cuing (linux show player)
- maybe also light show programming (artnet / dmx)
The machine would be a Gigabyte Aero 15x with a dedicated nvidia gfx card, and 8 gigs of ram.
What would you recommend me?
Ubuntu LTS
You seem to have actual work to do on Linux and a large suite of software to get working. This will be your most significant challenge. Ubuntu is one of the default targets for nearly all software projects, open source or proprietary and if there’s any documentation or information, Ubuntu will be in it. This alone will give give you a ton of mileage. You probably don’t want to add the difficulty of figuring out why something written and tested for Ubuntu doesn’t work on another distro. Resources like wiki.ubuntu.com, help.ubuntu.com, askubuntu.com and discourse.ubuntu.com are there to help.
Ubuntu Studio could be a good start. It’s a multimedia oriented distro so you will have a lot of tools already pre-installed.
I agree with this, but Debian is closely related to Ubuntu so most guides will work. I am just throwing this out there because I don’t personally like a lot of the proprietary stuff Canonical has added to Ubuntu.
This is true, but there’s still a bit of a gap between the two such as versions and or the existence or lack thereof of some packages here and there, along with default packages and configs. It’s why I wouldn’t throw a complete novice on a productivity mission at Debian. If they’re able to get productive on Ubuntu and learn to use it, the switch to Debian is easier.