Ubuntu Studio Review: My Favourite DM, Compositor, Workflow, Latency… Part 1

So recently I have been using Ubuntu Studio as my primary OS, mostly to benefit from its support for creating MIDI music, and also its support for the myriad of devices I own, some of which not even Windows easily supports anymore.

Now, back when Ubuntu Studio first came onto the scene, it used Xubuntu (or the XFCE desktop environment) as its base. This made sense; it offered virtually everything that Gnome did, just a bit flashier. So that hardware power could be devoted to music making. Or photo-editing. Or whatever floats your boat. It was also seen as the “lightweight” desktop environment at the time.

Since then, however, things have changed. The “lightweight” monicker has now been taken by Lubuntu/LXDE… which has in turn moved over to QT, now being called LXQT. This also makes sense; I have always found QT very lightweight when I have used it on Windows. Meanwhile, there have been constant wars over the direction of Gnome and KDE for the last 5 or 6 years, with Gnome fragmenting more it appears… With Mate, Cinnamon, Gnome-Shell and now Gnome-Flashback on the scene.

Just to complicate matters… I personally loved the Gnome-Shell environment. I loved swiping to the top left corner to find my apps and windows; I loved the removal of the minimise button; I loved the translation of the mobile metaphor to a desktop environment. I acknowledge not everyone liked this… And admit I used Cinnamon rather than the official Gnome-Shell in the past, only because it was the first to receive extensions and meant I could customise it just that little bit more. In this environment, XFCE feels a bit homeless.

So, I decided today: I would install, and try out every sensible combination I can think of, in order to decide which one works the best. There won’t be any scientific basis to my conclusions, so please accept them merely as a hobbyist music maker. I don’t intend on doing clean installs or going the whole way. Just go with the combination that feels right.

Despite not being scientific, I aim to evaluate each interface/environment combination based on these headers:

• Performance: How does it run? Are there many slowdowns? Am I still able to do what I need from the software?
• Ease-of-Use: This will be rated based on how much setup is required after booting up. Potentially, I may include how hard it was to get the system into the state I wanted to as well.
• Graphics: This overlaps with the previous two a little bit. Does the interface look nice and consistent, across GTK and QT/KDE apps? Even if it requires some extra initial setup. Also, does it just look… nice? Here, I compare with MacOS… Or at least, how people describe it. I have only owned one Mac in my life, and I’ve never liked the Apple fetishism. Really, here, I want to be able to show that Linux/Ubuntu can be a decent alternative to a Mac.

So, that is my basis. I think to begin with I will be using SDDM + KDE as my starting point. Additionally, I am using the kxstudio repository, as I prefer using Cadence for managing my JACK/ALSA audio.

Finally, I wish to repeat, there is nothing scientific about this. It is likely you may be more technically minded than myself, or alternatively more audiophile than myself. This is an experiment for me as much as you, the reader! Enjoy!