I mean I like Garuda, but I would say it has taken a bit more to set up. I think if you’re running AMD you’ll be fine, it just depends on how much tinkering you want to do. Honestly the biggest reason I switched was that I had moved to Debian and games were not working too well for me - gaming has been much smoother but my desktop environment is a bit glitchy and buggy (likely due to my nvidia / Intel stuff)

Bitwig has better support on debian-ish distros, which mint kinda is (at least it is able to download and run .deb files).

Bitwig has been my favorite DAW since I began using it more in 2019, and as my only DAW fully but EoY '19; I enjoy all the flexibility I have with modules and the like.

I am unfamiliar with the Black Lion audio interface from what I’m reading it looks like they have class compliant interfaces so it should work with pipewire.

Ubuntu studio with the audio suite may be a good way to go too.

Depends on the total use case tho. I’m a newbie too in Linux but am happy to answer what I can

RE: Audio stuff I switched to bitwig long before I switched to Linux. Having familiarity with a DAW that ran natively was awesome; I also had a lot of plugins that ran as windows only VSTs. Yabridge + Wine was the answer.

You do have to downgrade wine to an older version (but this also helps you learn some Linux stuff) and works fairly well. I can even run omnisphere through yabridge (I do have a wild desktop tho so maybe not. the best point of comparison).

Mint is the first distro I used and most everything was really easy for getting audio stuff up and running quickly. I’m now using Garuda which I mostly like; there are issues that I’m still trying to work out.

Not too long ago I broke down a the costs between Ableton and bitwig, and they are quite similar over time.

Ableton has the big #'rd updates where as bitwig you get all updates within a year from license activation.

Since BW will still run after the license runs out (you just cant update to any new versions) I don’t always update until there is a new feature that I want to work with drops in an update.

I also limit purchasing licenses to sale periods as a license can sit on the shelf until you’re ready to activate it - this significantly reduced the cost for me.

I think there are other ways to go about this though on the vast sea of the net if your sails catch the wind right ;). If you’re making stuff for fun and not for profit I think everyone should have access to creative tools.

If you make money than it’s worth considering sending some. money their way. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Someone in here mentioned bitwig.

I started on abelton and moved to bitwig around 3.X and have been with it ever since.

I love all the different modules and the grid which has give me a lot more expressive control over my sounds.

they are similar yet different; I believe the core bitwig team were ex ableton devs who wanted to take things in a different direction.

I know it’s silly but one of the biggest things that I like about bitwig is customizable shortcuts; this is especially good if you’re coming from ableton because if your a shortcut key wizard you can easily remap similar functions.

if you’ve got an extensive VST collection you can run them with wine + yabridge.

Bitwig is not the only option, but coming from ableton if you want to run single boot it is the most similar (IMO) to Ableton.

Happy to answer any questions you may have about it as well.

All it takes is a cursory glance at US history to realize “yes” is the only valid answer in this case.

Well the link there should take ya to rhe project, always curious what people think

I’ve got it hosted on bandcamp, rn my URL redirects to bandcamp. The project is Aμq and I know it’s not everyone’s cuppa.

what year is it?!?

Nothing I suppose - I just like having options

🤣 free, I’m willing to put in a little leg work

100% this. good idea to be on the irc and get your account verified when you find one as the IRCs usually stay up when ships sink