Wednesday, August 13, 2008

7 Best Linux Distributions for Multimedia Enthusiasts

Free operating systems tailored towards being creative.



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7 Best Linux Distributions for Multimedia Enthusiasts

By noreply@blogger.com (jun auza) on free/open-source

Graphic designers, movie editors, music composers, and multimedia addicts have specific needs when it comes to software. That is why there are specialized Linux distributions that cater to them.

Here are 7 Linux distros that will surely win the hearts of multimedia enthusiasts:

Ubuntu Studio
Ubuntu Studio is an officially renowned offshoot of the Ubuntu Linux distribution which is clearly geared to general multimedia production. It contains an amazing list of audio software for editing and playback such as ardour, audacious, mixxx, and much more. Graphic design and modeling applications are also included such as GIMP, Inkscape and Blender, along with plugins like dcraw to help with RAW camera files and wacom-tools for people with Wacom drawing tablets. PiTiVi, Kino, Cinepaint are included for video creation.

Get Ubuntu Studio HERE

GeeXboX
GeeXboX, as described from its website, is a free embedded Linux distribution which aims at turning your computer into a so called HTPC (Home Theater PC) or Media Center. Despite its tiny ISO image size, the distribution comes with complete and automatic hardware detection, not requiring any driver to be added. It supports playback of nearly any kind of audio/video and image files and all known codecs and containers are shipped in, allowing playing them through various physical supports, either being CD, DVD, HDD, LAN or Internet.

Get GeeXboX HERE

ArtistX
ArtistX is based on Debian GNU/Linux and contains nearly all the available free audio (Rosegarden, Ardour, TerminatorX, Cecilia/Csound, Gnusound, Mixxx ) 2D graphics (Gimp, Inkscape, Nip2, Krita, Cinepaint, Synfig, Rawstudio, Skencil ) and 3D graphics (Wings3D, Kpovmodeler + Povray 3.6, K3D) and video software (Cinelerra, Kino, Openmovieeditor, Kdenlive, Pitivi, Avidemux) for the GNU/Linux computing platform. It doesn't need to be installed, and boots directly into a running system without touching hard drives.

Get ArtistX HERE

dyne:bolic

dyne:bolic is shaped on the needs of media activists, artists and creatives as a practical tool for multimedia production: you can manipulate and broadcast both sound and video with tools to record, edit, encode and stream, having automatically recognized most device and peripherals: audio, video, TV, network cards, firewire, usb and more; all using only free software. It is optimized to run on slower computers, turning them into full media stations.

Get dyne:bolic HERE

Musix

Musix GNU+Linux is a Live CD and Live DVD Linux distribution based on Knoppix, Kanotix and Debian GNU/Linux. It contains a collection of software for audio production, graphic design, video editing and general purpose apps. Some of the programs included are: Rosegarden and Ardour (audio processor), both for musicians; Inkscape for vectorial design; GIMP for manipulation of images; Cinelerra for video editing and Blender3D for 3D animation.

Get Musix HERE

64 Studio
64 Studio is based on Debian designed for creative users on x86-64 and legacy 32-bit hardware architectures. It intends to serve as an all-in-one solution for audio and video recording, editing, and other forms of media production. An alternative installer is available for systems with 32-bit processors.

Get 64 Studio HERE

StartCom MultiMedia Edition
The StartCom MultiMedia Edition is most famous for its audio and video manipulation capabilities, but also for the wide range of the delivered applications. StartCom Linux is using the latest in open source technology and with its advanced audio and video manipulation capabilities makes this operating system an excellent platform for music and video production. It contains outstanding applications like Cinelerra, Rosegarden, Audacity and many,many sound manipulating effect tools, synthesizers, samplers, sequencers. It also has a TV/Video/File streaming server and client for easier audio and video sharing.

Get StartCom MultiMedia Edition HERE



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