Please Recommend a STUDIO/ARTIST Distro!

[dancapp]

Hi everyone. There are several articles, questionairres and forum threads around the net helping newbies to Linux choose a distro, but there appear to be none which specifically help people choose one suitable for design, studio or home recording. If anyone knows of any useful website please let me know. Otherwise, I'd really appreciate some recommendations.

My situation:

- I'm a professional graphic designer who also dabbles in music production in my own time.
- I currently use Vista 64 on a reasonably powerful HP desktop.
- I'm not afraid of dabbling in basic programming, but overall I'm a beginner in that area.

My criteria:

- A OS that runs smoothly and reliably.
- Has a concise range of applications, but includes the best of the best. Quality over quanity.
- Has good hardware support. I don't want to spend weeks trying to get my audio interface, scanner and graphics tablet working.
- Is very secure. The main reason I'm moving to Linux is because my laptop eventually became riddled with Trojans despite my best efforts at keeping it clean.
- Preferably supports 64 bit.
- Looks slick (yes I know that's a bit superficial and it's not necessarily what Linux is about, but if I'm gonna be staring at a screen all day every day it might as well be attractive).


I've done a bit of research, and looked elsewhere on this forum for advice but it's strangely lacking (or I'm missing it). So far Ubuntu Studio, Sabayon, ArtistX and PureDyne look pretty promising. GNUartist, Open Artist and AV Linux also seem worth considering.

Obviously I'm prepared to try a few different ones to see which one i gel with. I just wondered if my above criteria screams out for one or other of the available distributions, so that I can have a good starting point.

Thanks in advance,

Dan

[nujinini]

Ubuntu Studio seems to be a good choice, IMHO

[dancapp]

Hey thanks nujinini. Ubuntu Studio does seem the obvious choice - I just didn't want to be one of those Linux newbies who goes for Ubuntu just because it's the most popular, at least not without investigating the alternatives.

[dancapp]

Well there's a relatively new distro for artists called KXStudio (can't post link).

It's based on Ubuntu, but with improvements on Ubuntu Studio. Looks great and everyone seems to be raving about it so I'm going to give it a go. Just thought anyone searching the net with the same questions in mind that I had/have might find this useful.

[anchorschmidt]

I've used Ubuntu Studio and it's simply superb. You can also give 64 studio a try.

[dancapp]

Thanks anchorschmidt, but I went with KXStudio and it's great! Suits me just fine.

[nujinini]

I've used Ubuntu Studio and it's simply superb..

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nujinini