Ubuntu Studio vs Desktop Ubuntu at 20.04

Where to start? This article discusses the PC version of Rivendell 4.0 on Ubuntu, not the Raspberry PI version

At version 20.04 LTS, the very first decision is whether to use UbuntuStudio or Desktop Ubuntu with the UbuntuStudio Installer is one of whether you like the low overhead XFce desktop or the pretty Gnome 3.  Please note that UbuntuStudio version 21.04 and later will use the KDE Plasma desktop of Kubuntu. Version 20.04 LTS (Long Term Support) of UbuntuStudio will not be up-gradable to later versions without a complete reinstall. I do not recommend using the 6 month interim updates for a production machine.

XFCE is a very low overhead desktop, but it is ancient. Desktop Ubuntu’s Gnome3 is very pretty, but pulseaudio is baked into it pretty tightly, so that you lose control of system audio when you shut it off to tighten latency. (For production environments, system sounds are problematic, and losing them is probably a good thing )

I don’t recommend non-LTS versions of Ubuntu as they must be upgraded regularly to avoid “end of life”. This is a bad thing in a production environment as upgrades can break all your setups. ( As I learned recently on a windows machine) This is a deal breaker in a on-air or tight schedule production environment.

My take for now, is to use Ubuntu desktop with the add on UbuntuStudio package. It requires some adjustment to keep pulseaudio from adding latency to Jack, and a few reboots to get the low-latency kernel installed. Don’t forget to remove the generic kernel after everything is working, as the boot partition can fill up (not a good thing) with unused old kernels of both the low latency and generic kernels when updating around 2028.

The new Rivendell 4.0 radio automation system is packaged to install easily into UbuntuStudio 20.04 LTS, so that will be the easiest path, as all the dependencies are met. If you use Ubuntu Desktop, the upgrade to Ubuntu Desktop 22.04 LTS that you will want to do in 2023 will be painless. OS upgrade to 22.04 LTS would be a complete reinstall however.

Bottom line: Use Ubuntu Desktop 20.04 and install the UbuntuStudio addon package audio features. Spend the extra time to get things set up properly and things will be easier in a few years.