Hi,

I am getting all lost in trying to figure out the best linux builds for my purpose, as stated in the subject. Linux Mint or Ubuntu, or Ubuntu Studio, 32 bi or 64 bit? What version of pure data can I use? :/ Thanks!

The idea is to use a light window manager, but with a realtime kernel, that would be the best setup. I am not aware of such distribution (I recall vaguely a distribution named puppy but looks dead to me). It's always possible to install a realtime kernel on top of xubuntu but not easy AFAIK.

Ubuntu Studio is your best bet, it use xfce have realtime kernel.

As for pd, I would install purr data, but of course using vanilla is really easy too if you know how to build.

Thanks a lot. Even seems Pd is preinstalled in Ubuntu Studio.

Should I go for 32 or 64 bit? The computer can handle both, but I have read that 64 bit may be slow with only 2 gb ram.

I wanted to try out VCV-rack, and that is only 64 bit it seems. But it is at the same time probably way to cpu-heavy to be useable on this setup. :/

@cfry In 1990 I would have killed for "Intel Core 2 Duo, 2 gig ram, 150 gb hd".
I had just paid $349 for 1Meg of Ram for my Tosh 3100SX, and decided that I could not afford to double the hard drive to 80Meg...... as I would probably never use more than 40 anyway.
David.

@whale-av Yeah, I hope to get some glitches for free on this setup

It actually works good enough for some pd projects that I have run from raspberry pies or my macbookpro 2011. Got it for free, starts up without screen, keyboard and mouse and is the size of a thick laptop. No problem if it gets destroyed or stolen; I can leave it on site.

Just don't want to open a can of worms when starting to check out Linux... Rather spend time in the pd patch than in the linux os.

@cfry Pd is still 32bit only. VCV-rack = very cool piece of software but yeah might be a little bit cpu intensive.

another though, what would be the best distro to use for a live webcam streaming setup (on another computer)? I will use OBS studio. Would Ubuntu studio be the best here too?

@whale-av When talking about cpu, I always think about the frequency of the Apollo Guidance Computer: 2.048 MHz.

@EEight That was powerful...... and would probably have run Pd if it had had an 8086 instruction set.
I think my 3100sx was only 12Mhz....... 20 years later.
David.