When we talk about editing, the first thing that comes to mind is Windows and macOS. These two operating systems, being the most used (and being commercial), are the ones that have the most popular programs, such as Photoshop, Premiere or Final Cut. However, although it is not the most popular software, Linux also hides great power when it comes to composing and editing multimedia content. Especially if we know how to choose the right distro, as is the case with AV Linux.
AV Linux is a distribution of this operating system based on Debian. Specifically in Debian 10 “Buster”, in the stable branch. In addition, it includes the KXStudio repository, very popular among lovers of multimedia content, and also has a series of its own packages, such as Polyphone, Shuriken and Simple Screen Recorder, among others.
Main features
In addition to being based on the stable Debian branch, one of the main characteristics of this distro is that it has its own low-latency real-time kernel . This is very important especially if we are introducing audio from an external source (an instrument, MIDI keyboards, etc.) or video since what we will see or hear on the PC will be what we are playing, without any delay. The CPU usage settings are configured to always give maximum performance and thus avoid bottlenecks. In addition, this Kernel has a number of optimizations to maximize the performance of the entire distro, such as IRQ (Trulan Martin’s Custom Realtime Preempt) yarn.
AV Linux desktop is XFCE 4 . This is a well-known desktop, used and loved by the community, especially for the low resources it consumes. In addition, it comes by default with a series of customizations to make it more attractive for users who dare to try this distro.
Another of its main qualities is that it has a large number of tools to have absolute control over audio and video . Especially for audio inputs, which are controlled by PulseAudio to avoid all kinds of problems.
Of course, this distro has a Live mode that we can run from a USB without having to install anything on the hard drives. AV Linux is available for both 32-bit and 64-bit, which is welcome considering that the trend is towards the disappearance of 32-bit.
Tools included
Being an operating system focused mainly on creating and editing all kinds of multimedia content, the first thing we should know is that it has a wide variety of software of this type. For example, we can find audio editors like Ardor, Harrison, Mixbus and Blender, and video editors like Cinelerra, Kdenlive, Openshot and LiVES.
We will also find programs that will allow us to convert files from one format to another (to be able to adapt any type of file to our needs) and programs like GIMP and Inkscape for image editing, and day-to-day programs such as LibreOffice, Firefox , Transmission and Thunderbird to give it a little more utility.
Download AV Linux
This distro is totally free, and to download it we can do it from the following link . The download consists of an ISO image of just over 3 GB, which we must burn to a USB memory to start any PC that we want with it, or mount it on a virtual machine.
We remember that the default users and password of this distro are:
- User: isotester
- Password: avl64 (alv32 for 32-bit image)
- Root password: avl64admin (avl32admin for 32-bit image)
And if we don’t know where to start, here we have a complete manual that explains all the ins and outs of this great multimedia distro.
Upgrade to the latest version
If we already have AV Linux installed on our computer, but we want to have the latest version of the distro, the Kernel and all the programs, we can do it easily from a Terminal window. In it, all we have to do is run the following commands:
sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade -y sudo apt dist-upgrade -y
When the process ends, we will have our Linux AV fully updated.
Other Linux for multimedia editing
In addition to AV Linux, we can also find other alternatives online that are also focused on the production and editing of multimedia content:
- Ubuntu Studio . One of the most popular. It is based on Ubuntu and is usually upgraded from LTS to LTS, offering users 5 years of support. It is specialized in all types of editing, both audio and video, image and even for making magazine and book compositions.
- Fedora Design Suite . This is another excellent distro for designers, especially for graphic designers. It comes with a large number of photo retouching programs, such as GIMP, Inkscape, Darktable, Krita and Blender.
- KXStudio . Another distro based on Ubuntu, but this time focused on audio production and editing. It has a KDE desktop and a large number of programs (including its own programs, such as Catarina, Catia and Claudia) to carry out all kinds of work with audios.
