Gentoo Studio is an actively maintained, source-based, 64-bit desktop real-time Linux audio production system based on Gentoo Linux. It is designed to allow users to have a broad range of audio applications out-of-the-box, and to allow a high level of customization not generally available to other Linux audio distributions – or to Windows or Mac, for that matter. An advantage of having Gentoo as the base for this distro is its package manager, Portage, which has a system of enabling/disabling compile-time options for applications. This means application binaries can be tailored to the user’s computer hardware and the user’s needs. This in turn means more efficient use of the computer’s resources, which is always helpful to running real-time audio applications.
While Gentoo Studio is not a commercial product – it is free – it is absolutely intended to be a full-fledged, professional audio production system for musicians, composers, audio engineers, computer music programmers, and anyone else needing an audio production system.
There is a sticky in the Multimedia section of forums.gentoo.org. (FGO.) Please post there if you need help or have any questions.
Before beginning an install, please make sure you are using a machine that does not contain any data you wish to keep, and that meets the following criteria:
- 64-bit architecture. 32-bit installs are not supported by Gentoo Studio.
- A modern, multi-core processor.
- High-capacity hard disks with a rotation speed of at least 7200 RPM and/or solid-state drives.
- As much RAM as you can manage.
Gentoo Studio comes with the following audio applications:
a2jmidid | A daemon for exposing legacy ALSA MIDI applications to JACK2 |
ALSA Plugins | Extra ALSA plugins |
ALSA Tools | Extra ALSA tools and loaders |
ALSA Utils | ALSA utilities such as alsactl and alsamixer |
Ardour | High-end digital audio workstation |
Audacity | Cross-platform audio editor |
Cadence | JACK control software |
Calf Plugins | Set of open-source instruments and effects |
Carla | Audio plugin host from KXStudio |
ChucK | Strongly-timed, concurrent, on-the-fly audio programming language |
Distrho Ports | Linux ports of Distrho plugins |
DPF Plugins | Collection of Delphi Plugin Framework-based plug-ins |
Drumgizmo | Open-source cross-platform drum plug-in and standalone application |
DSSI-VST | DSSI wrapper plug-in for Windows VSTs (vsthost) |
EQ10Q | LV2 parametric equalizer |
FFMPEG | Multimedia framework able to decode, encode, transcode, mux, demux, stream, filter and play pretty much anything |
Fluidsynth | Software real-time synth based on Soundfont2 specs |
Frescobaldi | Sheet music editor |
Hydrogen | Software stand-alone drum machine |
IDJC | Streaming audio client |
JACK 2 | Jack Audio Connection Kit, the audio subsystem around which Gentoo Studio revolves. |
Jack Rack | Effects rack for JACK |
Jamin | JACK mastering interface |
JAPA | Perceptual analyzer for JACK and ALSA |
Linux Sampler | Software audio sampler engine |
LMMS | Music production software |
MuseScore | WYSIWYG music score typesetter |
PureData | Real-time music/multimedia environment |
Qjackctl | Qt application to control JACK |
Qsampler | GUI front-end for Linux Sampler |
Qtractor | Audio/MIDI multi-track sequencer |
Rosegarden | Audio/MIDI multi-track sequencer and notation editor |
Sequencer64 | Minimal, loop-based MIDI sequencer |
SMPlayer | Linux media player with graphical front-end |
SuperCollider | Environment and programming language for real-time audio synthesis |
SWH Plugins | Collection of LADSPA audio plug-ins and effects |
VLC | Audio/video player and streamer |
The system and desktop are built with:
Lightdm | Lightweight display manager |
rt-sources | Linux kernel with patches for running audio applications at high priorities in real time. |
USBUtils | Provides lsusb, a utility needed to identify USB devices in a terminal. |
Xfce4 | Desktop environment. Some of the Xfce utilities are included, such as power manager and terminal. |
Not supported by Gentoo Studio:
32-bit installs | Only 64-bit architectures are supported by Gentoo Studio. |
Gnome/KDE | Monolithic desktops are resource hogs. |
JACK1 | Does not support multi-processor machines. |
Pulseaudio | Gentoo Studio’s audio system centers around ALSA and JACK. Use Pulseaudio at your own risk. |
Screensavers | Screensavers interrupt sessions and consume resources. If you need to leave your session unattended for a while, manually turn off the video monitor if you are concerned about it. |
Streaming servers/radio stations | Running a server of any kind is beyond the scope of Gentoo Studio. |
Systemd | Gentoo Studio uses OpenRC. |
Virtual machines | Running a digital audio workstation in a VM is not a good idea. |
Gentoo Studio is the brainchild of Damien J. Moody (a.k.a. audiodef), who owns the site and spends untold hours tweaking and refining this project out of love for Gentoo, music and audio. All of his personal works of music are done using Gentoo Studio. Gentoo Studio has existed in and evolved into various forms since 2007.
Fine Print
Gentoo Studio is not an official project of the Gentoo Foundation, of which I am a member. This site is maintained by me, Damien Moody, a.k.a. Audiodef. The Gentoo Foundation bears no responsibility for the content of this site. The Gentoo logo and Gentoo name are used according to the licensing guidelines set forth by the Gentoo Foundation. The name “Gentoo” and the “g” logo are currently trademarks of the Gentoo Foundation, Inc.The “g” logo in the background is a variant of the “Ripples Gentoo” logo found at http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/desktop/artwork/artwork.xml. This logo was modified under the CC-BY-SA license under which the Ripples Gentoo logo was published.
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