Customisations & extra features
How much does each distro add?
All the distributions, apart from Fedora Design Suite, have the JACK system installed and configured, which is what most Linux audio apps expect. Of those four, only Fedora Jam lacked the customisation of adding the user to the ‘audio’ group, something that makes audio apps run more smoothly. A slight wrinkle affecting them all is that their base distros now run on PipeWire, a new audio system. This means you may still have to tweak your system for best performance.
AV Linux uses the Liquorix Kernel (https://liquorix.net), a special build of the Linux kernel that is tuned for multimedia work in areas such as swap usage, process scheduling and CPU frequency. The compromise is that it gives lower throughput in some situations and consumes more power, something to bear in mind if using it on a laptop. Having a non-standard kernel could throw up some unusual problems in rare cases, but overall, having Liquorix Kernel installed is a boon for multimedia work.
As AV Linux is based on MX Linux, it comes with MX Tools, a set of GUI configuration tools that cover many areas that tend to be left for the user to tweak manually in most distros. These include a tool to show various aspects of system and hardware information, a tool to install media codecs, and a tool to mount iPads and iPhones, and many more. Its inclusion adds to the feeling that AV Linux is something of a tweaker’s distro.
Ubuntu Studio uses the low-latency kernel. This is an officially supported variant of the standard kernel, meaning that it’s a little closer to a standard setup than one that uses the Liquorix Kernel, and it does offer improved performance for realtime multimedia tasks. Ubuntu Studio is the only one of the distributions that comes with a GUI tool to remove PipeWire if you prefer to revert to the older-style setup until PipeWire becomes more mature.
Modicia OS runs the standard ‘generic’ kernel, but the developers have applied some system tweaks in areas such as swap file usage to improve multimedia performance. Usefully, Windows emulation layer WINE is installed and configured.