Topic: Best Distro for Linux audio? (Read 19000 times)

zenpmd · « **on:** October 26, 2015, 02:37:53 am »

Hi All

Long time windows jriver user here, currently experimenting with Mint. As an OS its easy! However I am happy some audio issues with my Benchmark DAC. I got it up and running - oddly it mutes in alsa mixer, but once that is sorted it at least produces sound. Then I think I was having problems with usb shutting down. (Where is an authorative guide to investigate that?) But now it just goes silent from time to time, even though it always remains possible to see in the sound settings panel and the usb light never goes out on the dac itself. Anyway, before I spend too much time trouble shooting, I want to ask should I be using someother other than mint?

I also don't understad the random criticism of pulse audio. is it bad, should I get rid of it>? If so, what replaces it?

Thanks

JimH · « **Reply #1 on:** October 26, 2015, 02:44:18 am »

We formally support only Debian, but you could read other threads to see how people are doing with the other distros.

zenpmd · « **Reply #2 on:** October 26, 2015, 02:52:46 am »

Thanks Jim. Sounds like Debian it is, then! As a linux noobie I should not be making this uncessariy hard!

Awesome Donkey · « **Reply #3 on:** October 26, 2015, 06:07:00 am »

Ubuntu or Linux Mint would be good choices too as they're based on Debian (though not officially supported).

Plus there's pinned setup tutorial topics for Debian and Ubuntu/Linux Mint in this forum section.

zenpmd · « **Reply #4 on:** October 26, 2015, 08:35:24 am »

Actually, u turn that, I am going to try Manjaro, as Ive always wanted to do Arch. I will let you know how installation goes.

mwillems · « **Reply #5 on:** October 26, 2015, 08:51:08 am »

Quote from: zenpmd on October 26, 2015, 08:35:24 am

Actually, u turn that, I am going to try Manjaro, as Ive always wanted to do Arch. I will let you know how installation goes.

Vanilla Arch is a lot of fun, but it's also a lot of work (I've never messed with Manjaro). I've had good results with plain Arch and JRiver in general, although it is unsupported so you'll have occasional issues that you'll need to work through.

My main advice (not necessarily related to JRiver) is: don't ask for help with Manjaro on the Arch Linux forums; they'll close your thread and maybe ban you.

InflatableMouse · « **Reply #6 on:** October 26, 2015, 01:45:35 pm »

Quote from: zenpmd on October 26, 2015, 02:37:53 am

I also don't understad the random criticism of pulse audio. is it bad, should I get rid of it>? If so, what replaces it?

Thanks

Alright, unrelated to JRiver but here are my thoughts.

I believe a lot of criticism on Pulseaudio come from the days where it wasn't very good or even stable. I think today, Pulse works fine and, for all intends and purposes, makes Linux work more like Windows with regards to audio and outputting sound from multiple programs at once.

By default, Pulse is configured for 16-bit audio and 48 kHz sampling rate using an efficient and fast resampler (good enough for normal use). This is safe, works on most machines/soundcards, doesn't use a lot of CPU cycles, but can be tweaked/tuned to your personal preferences. You could increase the resampler to a higher quality (using more CPU) or you can choose another resampler. I have it set to 32-bit float and the resampler uses SoX-vhq set to 96 kHz. When I use MC in shared audio mode, I have MC configured to resample to 96 kHz so Pulse will simply accept MC's input 'as-is' and will only remix if another application outputs something.

Using my reasonably good PC speakers or headphones, I cannot hear something wrong with audio quality, even in shared audio mode (MC using Pulse).

I haven't recently tested it (no longer see the need as Pulse works fine for me), but you could create a direct HW device in ALSA and output to the hardware directly with MC. Pulse (or any other application) won't be able to output anything this way, but if you're concerned about getting the best possible audio output then this is the way to go.

I think the above is valid for any recent Linux distro. I don't think one distro is better for playing audio than another. The only exception here is if you're into music production/editing, you might want to switch to an real time kernel (I think Ubuntu studio uses that?). I have no more info on that as I never used it and don't need it.

zenpmd · « **Reply #7 on:** October 28, 2015, 02:19:10 am »

Thanks for sharing.

What, conceptually is alsa mixer and what, conceptually (as in, in the architecture) is pulse mixer? I dont understand the arch linux page

Jay Fora · « **Reply #8 on:** November 07, 2015, 02:23:03 am »

Hi ZenMPD, (If you are still around), I too am new to Linux, only a few weeks before you, and Linux Mint Cinnamon 17.2 Rafaela is my first Linux distro. I also am a big fan of MC in windows. Like you, I was considering switching to another distro if I couldn't get MC working properly. I learned that I was much better off staying with mint and persisting with asking for help on the forums than hopping too quickly to another distro. I had a high cpu issue with MC, and thought it was due to pulseaudio because like you i was influenced by outdated complaints. In fact it was a driver that needed updating, and which was done easily in the driver manager in Cinnamon, and an oversight on my part that Bob pointed out. This may also be something to check with your USB /DAC problem.
I also learned that reading about issues, and how to fix them, outside the Mint forum - even on ubuntu forums that are just a year or two old -can be misleading and potentially disastrous if you act on it. For instance, any advice you folow to uninstall pulseaudio would render Mint cinnamon inoperable.
I found phrasing my questions clearly, and sussing out the best place to ask them took me a while, but have received all the help I needed.
Good Luck!

SandsOfArrakis · « **Reply #9 on:** November 09, 2015, 10:23:54 pm »

MC works flawless here in Debian 8.2. And I never had problems with it back when i was using Mint

Jdunbar · « **Reply #10 on:** November 12, 2015, 08:05:25 am »

When doing the setup - I use the USB audio out of the QNAP into the Devialet 120 (a high-end amplifier & DAC).
Within JRiver there is a bunch of audio devices available:
front: card=d20, dev=0 [alsa]
hw: card=d20, dev=0 [alsa]
hw: card=pch, dev=3 [alsa]
hw: card=pch, dev=7 [alsa]
as well as iec958

What is the difference between the above ones and which will provide best (bit-perfect) audio quality?

Jdunbar · « **Reply #11 on:** November 16, 2015, 10:46:44 am »

No one got an idea?

mwillems · « **Reply #12 on:** November 16, 2015, 11:08:31 am »

Do all of the listed output modes work? I use the output labelled "front" on my machine; The "front" connotes a hardware 2-channel output which should be bitperfect. The iec output is probably digital output so is probably not a good choice, but any of the other hardware outputs (that work) should also be bitperfect.

Awesome Donkey · « **Reply #13 on:** November 16, 2015, 11:24:51 am »

hw: card=d20, dev=0 [alsa]

That'd be the one I'd try first.

mattkhan · « **Reply #14 on:** November 16, 2015, 12:01:16 pm »

Quote from: Jdunbar on November 16, 2015, 10:46:44 am

No one got an idea?

I would use d20 too but if you want to get a bit more detail on what is going on then

aplay -l will give you a bit more info on what the devices are
there is also http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-info.sh which will dump a load of info out

bob · « **Reply #15 on:** November 16, 2015, 01:50:09 pm »

Quote from: mattkhan on November 16, 2015, 12:01:16 pm

I would use d20 too but if you want to get a bit more detail on what is going on then

aplay -l will give you a bit more info on what the devices are
there is also http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-info.sh which will dump a load of info out

you can also do:
/usr/lib/jriver/Media\ Center\ 21/alsacap
from the command line.

Jdunbar · « **Reply #16 on:** November 16, 2015, 06:43:53 pm »

Thank you for the input!!
Any idea when the QNAP version will be out?

JimH · « **Reply #17 on:** November 16, 2015, 06:45:15 pm »

Any day, we think.

Wybe · « **Reply #18 on:** November 25, 2015, 03:04:18 pm »

I'm testing for a while now the Linux version of JRiver on a small computer (HP dc7800), but plan to build a more high-end system in a Streacom housing with an Asus motherboard (probably the CS-B), i5 processor and 8 Gb internal memory and the OS installed on a SSD. In this case, is there really a difference in performance (only running JRiver) between Debian Jessie Gnome desktop and Debian Jessie Xfce desktop? At this moment I installed the Gnome desktop and like the way I can configure remote desktop. It always boots, monitor connected or not. Some of you guys prefer Linux Mint, but I assume that Mint uses even more resources than say Debian with a Gnome desktop.

BryanC · « **Reply #19 on:** November 25, 2015, 03:27:48 pm »

Quote from: Wybe on November 25, 2015, 03:04:18 pm

I'm testing for a while now the Linux version of JRiver on a small computer (HP dc7800), but plan to build a more high-end system in a Streacom housing with an Asus motherboard (probably the CS-B), i5 processor and 8 Gb internal memory and the OS installed on a SSD. In this case, is there really a difference in performance (only running JRiver) between Debian Jessie Gnome desktop and Debian Jessie Xfce desktop? At this moment I installed the Gnome desktop and like the way I can configure remote desktop. It always boots, monitor connected or not. Some of you guys prefer Linux Mint, but I assume that Mint uses even more resources than say Debian with a Gnome desktop.

There's going to be no discernible difference, save for 100-200MB of RAM. Mint uses the Cinnamon DE which is on par with Gnome for resource usage.

Wybe · « **Reply #20 on:** November 25, 2015, 03:52:48 pm »

Thanks for your reply. Forgot to mention that I will use this computer for audio-only.

audiodandy · « **Reply #21 on:** August 04, 2016, 06:26:52 am »

Personally I think that the best Linux distro for audio is that one that doesn't do
anything with the digital audio signal.
But only transports the digital signal straight to the external DAC.
So forget Pulse audio, sound cards, etc.
I think that you only need a operating system that is UAC USB compatible, and a DAC
that is also UAC compatible.

I have very good results with an “Intel NUC” with SSD, with Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS
with JRiver Media center installed, in combination with an “Audio-Gd Master 7 DAC”

Ubuntu sees the DAC as an external sound device, and transports the digital straight from the kernel to the DAC.
This is the purest and fastest way,
You really should avoid Pulse audio, it's a mess, it's made by the same guy that is now
making “systemd” and that is also something that you don't want in your OS
because it's full of bugs, en potential security issues...

Therefore stick to Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (no system-d, and has UAC USB support)

Wybe · « **Reply #22 on:** August 04, 2016, 02:29:01 pm »

I don't use a usb connection, but connect to my PS Audio streamer with Bridge II using a lan connection. Already a couple of months I'm enjoying my silent audioserver which consists of a Streacom FC10S housing, SSD's, i5 processor, 8GB internal memory with Debian Jessie installed and JRiver MC21 (always the latest stable). The Asus CS-B motherboard that I use has 2 lan connections: one for my home network, the other for a direct link to the Bridge II. I'm very happy with the sonic quality. An audiophile friend that came over to listen to some music, bought and built an exact same copy of the server. JRemote as a control point is the best!

BryanC · « **Reply #23 on:** August 04, 2016, 03:49:11 pm »

Quote from: audiodandy on August 04, 2016, 06:26:52 am

You really should avoid Pulse audio, it's a mess, it's made by the same guy that is now
making “systemd” and that is also something that you don't want in your OS
because it's full of bugs, en potential security issues...

Nonsense. I'll take up the defense of Lennart here. He has provided solutions to some of the oldest and most fundamental issues in the Linux environment. If his solutions were as terrible as you are pretending they are, EVERY major distro would not have abandoned the alternatives.

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Author Topic: Best Distro for Linux audio? (Read 19000 times)