I didn’t dare yet to upgrade mesa. I think I continue using Renoise with compton and if I still get freezes I might use MX Linux. I just booted a live stick and it looks really nice. It’s based on Debian Stable, but it uses more recent kernels and also mesa 18. I try to get renoise runiing on the stick and make a test if I still get the same issues.
MX Linux is legit. I definitely would recommend it. Their repo has a ton of up to date software that really complements the Debian base, without the headache of a gazillion PPAs and constant updates borking your install. Compiz seems to be the preferred compositor based on what I’ve read in the forums. (Compton and Compiz are both available in their package installer, which is simple but quite nice)
Reminds me of what happened when I tuned my workstation for renoise. I had weird “soft” x-runs…after lots of research and tuning and perf tracing it turned out to be the nvidia open source driver clinging to the cpu under certain circumstances, and updating the whole kernel fixed it (and with it xorg/nouveau), as some new version was improved to be more respectful to realtime/interrupt priorites…
I just was testing it on an older laptop with:
Graphics: Card: Intel Mobile 4 Series Integrated Graphics Controller
X.Org: 1.18.3 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1280x800@60.0hz
GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Mobile Intel GM45 Express x86/MMX/SSE2 GLX Version: 2.1 Mesa 11.2.0
-> no issue here. It’s working perfectly.
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I made some more tests today with two other window managers: Awesome and Openbox
With openbox I get the Renoise issue without Compton and even with Compton. And even more funny, only when the Renoise window is 100% maximized. When there´ s a small frame of the desktop left it works, i.e. no higher DSP load. Under XFCE the DSP load was more or less proportional to the visible Renoise GUI.
In Awseome it works even without Compton.
Ran into this somehow after 4 years 
Can anyone on Linux please check how fluent it feels when changing the size of the spectrum analyzer window as shown here 2023 07 02 16 14 57 - YouTube ?
I have MX Linux (MX-21.3_x64 Wildflower September 18 2022 ) on two machines (Dekstop and Laptop) installed and on both it feels very sluggish In the video it is extreme, because OBS was open.
inxi from the desktop PC
System: Host: fox Kernel: 5.10.0-23-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Xfce 4.18.1
Distro: MX-21.3_x64 Wildflower September 18 2022
Machine: Type: Desktop Mobo: MSI model: H81M-E34 (MS-7817) v: 3.0 serial: <superuser required>
UEFI: American Megatrends v: 17.5 date: 03/30/2015
CPU: Info: Quad Core model: Intel Core i5-4460 bits: 64 type: MCP cache: L2: 6 MiB
Speed: 3253 MHz min/max: 800/3400 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 3253 2: 3271 3: 3243
4: 3236
Graphics: Device-1: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics
driver: i915 v: kernel
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa
resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 4600 (HSW GT2) v: 4.5 Mesa 20.3.5
I also have an AMD Lenovo Laptop and there’s no such issue. Maybe it comes from the Intel onboard graphics.
The resizing speed does not seem to be normal, indeed. But the analyzer speed just looks like using Windows or Mac, since it’s is drawn fully by CPU AFAIK, and a CPU is very slow in drawing graphics.
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Analyzer speed is fine, yes. Only when rezising it’s sloppy. You also have Intel onboard graphics?
No, using m1 pro. But the resizing was fine, too, on macos, various intels. Does not look normal in your recoridng.
Hello. Currently on a core i7 Intel/Nvidia hybrid laptop on a tuned kubuntu running renoise in intel mode (can also run apps with nvidia 3d chip on demand, but it’s not useful for renoise and would just burn electricity for no good use…), and the spec analyzer is usually resizing completely fluently or only slightly choppy and always displaying smooth - even in tlp power saving mode when I already have xruns in the song due to audio CPU overload. The analyzer in itself does take a little more CPU when it is fully expanded - one could think you maybe have a weak CPU, and when you expand it it will just get a little too much for your machine, on the other hand a i5 with 3.4mhz should be fine. If I run a loop, and resize the spectrum analyzer with full res, full speed, instant falloff etc like I usually use while tracking, the cpu usage reported by renoise maybe rises by 5-10 percent when compared to when it is not visible, but I take this is not only because of the gfx, but maybe also because of the workload the audio analyzer has to do for the higher resolution display. I guess it can also be a problem with screen resolution when there are more pixels to calculate, on the other hand your screen does not seem very high res.
I believe maybe there is probably just some weird bug with your hardware on Linux, where renoise craps out due to some weird chance. Or there is some “nonestandard” or not usual way renoise does something, where your specific software/hardware config causes problems. Is renoise really the only software causing these problems? Intel graphics drivers on Linux aren’t the best in my experience, as well, depending on the chip you have, in the past I also always had one problem or another with some (consumer grade) machines.
You can try to research it, trying different kernel/xorg/compositor/driver combinations, to find which one makes the most problems. Often such bugs happen when a hardware is new, or not widespread enough to prevent a regression in code being noticed, and then such bugs can be longstanding until they are fixed in some version. Maybe if you look into things a lot, you might even find the culprit and the associated bugs that are already up somewhere. Just if only renoise is affected, this will be hard to find out. Sometimes a hardware was just new, and it takes some months or years until it works as expected. That’s why it is usually the best bet to use machines for Linux that are widespread in corporate and professional use with Linux, and not the newest models, because then people will have paid for all the kernel bugs etc. to be fixed, and even the manufacturer of the hardware will take care it is all compatible for their customer’s demands.
Using current stable kernel and xorg, avoiding older versions, when an older versioned setup failed, is also a good thing to try. I strongly suppose it must be some glitch in the graphics driver that will cause big delays somewhere in the graphics server when the compositor is disabled. Just try some current distros that are suitable for you until you find one you are happy with for your renoise use.
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Here’s a test to test the performance of xinputimage, which is used by Renoise to draw the GUI.
For a fullsized window 1920x1016 I’m getting 280fps with the XFCE compositor
190fps with compton and 530 fps without any compositor. Whatever that tells me, but I think the values look ok.
I really settled with Debian / MX Linux and don’t want to use any other DAW. Especially I don’t want to use something Arch based.
Maybe someone without any issue in Renoise can try this test also.
I don’t have any issues when I resize the analyzer while a complex project plays.
I tried the tool above and I get an average of 650 fps and 3200 MB, with a fullsized window of 1600x812. Compositing is on.
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Good joke aside, what is actually the best Linux distribution for audio or multimedia currently? And what is the best audio system? How does Bitwig run on it?
I was thinking about buying a Mac, but I don’t like the company and their price policy. I think I’m going with a Cirrus 7 as my next PC
These are fully Linux compatible and dead silent (no fans). Bitwig runs fine, but it eats a huge amount of RAM. With 8 GB and Firefox being open at the same time it starts swapping. I have more fun with Renoise or SunVox and don’t get the hype about Bitwig. For me it feels kind of bloated.
I used Ubuntustudio before and there’s also AVLinux. Both distros are configured for Audio and should work out of the box, including Pulse Jack bridges. Meanwhile there’s also Pipewire.
I switched to MX Linux, because it’s lightweight and based on Debian. Works perfectly since 6 months now. No issues at all. Configuration for RT audio is quickly done.
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I fully agree with your feeling about Bitwig. Would prefer a solidly coded GUI and low memory usage instead bloated with niche features. I only mentioned it, because it’s the only (crossplatform) DAW I know besides Renoise which works on Linux…? That Intel PC indeed looks nice. Only if you configure it similar to an Mac Mini M2Pro (sometimes around 1350), it is about the same price as the Mac. But yeah, you can replace the ssd 
So in 5 years, the Apple user will throw the whole computer into trash, while the PC user simply replaces the ssd.
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Have you already tried resizing with different fft resolution parameters (i.e. turn quality of spectrum analyzer down)?
Maybe you can try disabling or changing graphics driver options on startup, disabling kernel mode setting or acceleration options, to see how it is a difference.
My final guess would be just you’re using a distro with too old kernel (debian stable is old ware), and should try newer kernel/xorg to get things going.
Tested all of this. I also tested Ubuntustudio with 22.04 LTS which is more recent. MX Linux is also a bit more recent than Debian. Can test Manjaro just out of curiosity…
Same with Manjaro. Guess it must be the CPU then…
System:
Host: manjaro-gnome Kernel: 6.1.30-1-MANJARO arch: x86_64 bits: 64
Desktop: GNOME v: 43.5 Distro: Manjaro Linux
Machine:
Type: Desktop Mobo: MSI model: H81M-E34 (MS-7817) v: 3.0
serial: UEFI: American Megatrends v: 17.5
date: 03/30/2015
CPU:
Info: quad core model: Intel Core i5-4460 bits: 64 type: MCP cache:
L2: 1024 KiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 3280 min/max: 800/3400 cores: 1: 3261 2: 3244 3: 3360
4: 3256
Graphics:
Device-1: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics
driver: i915 v: kernel
Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.21.1.8 with: Xwayland v: 23.1.1
compositor: gnome-shell driver: gpu: i915 resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
API: OpenGL v: 4.6 Mesa 23.0.3 renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 4600 (HSW
GT2)
Audio:
Device-1: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio
driver: snd_hda_intel
Device-2: BEHRINGER GmbH UMC204HD 192k driver: snd-usb-audio type: USB
Device-3: AKAI Professional M.I. MPK Mini Mk II
driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid type: USB
API: ALSA v: k6.1.30-1-MANJARO status: kernel-api
Server-1: PulseAudio v: 16.1 status: active
Network:
Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
driver: r8169
IF: enp2s0 state: down mac: d8:cb:8a:e8:e9:99
Device-2: Realtek RTL8153 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter driver: r8152 type: USB
IF: enp3s0u1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full
mac: 00:e0:4c:00:01:76
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 523.05 GiB used: 50.69 GiB (9.7%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Samsung model: SSD 850 EVO 250GB size: 232.89 GiB
ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Samsung model: Portable SSD T5 size: 232.89 GiB
type: USB
ID-3: /dev/sdc vendor: SanDisk model: Ultra size: 57.28 GiB type: USB
Partition:
Message: No partition data found.
Swap:
Alert: No swap data was found.
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 37.0 C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info:
Processes: 228 Uptime: 10m Memory: available: 7.21 GiB
used: 4.08 GiB (56.6%) Shell: Zsh inxi: 3.3.27
What CPU do you have?