I’m running Ubuntu Studio and Ardour on my aging HP laptop, and I’m considering getting something better.

When I bought the laptop I wasn’t doing anything with audio production and was on a tight budget. Now that I do more with audio (and a bit with video) I’d like something more powerful.

I travel a lot for my job so a laptop is much preferred. Any tips for good, midrange machines or specs I should look out for?

  • eucalyptam@waveform.socialEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    FWIW from a Linux newbie, I ended up going for a gaming laptop. I was originally going for a Thinkpad, but honestly, after doing some reading on how Linux runs on various laptops, everything seemed to have people stating they had no real issues and people stating they had lots.

    So I took a risk and got myself a Gigabyte G5. Three storage slots (good for separating samples or recording, virtual instruments etc.), decent enough cpu, up to 64gb ram (nice to know the option is there just in case), and gpu that will let me edit some stuff in Resolve.

    The CPU (i5-11400H) has very similar specs to my desktop PC, which is about 4 years old now, but has never once broken a sweat with many, many tracks of audio, multiple instances of Serum and other softsynth, reverbs and delays etc, and Addictive Drums 2. So I don’t think you need a high end cpu, but something with a few cores.

    For video editing, I seem to remember that will depend a lot on your software of choice, and how much you’re pushing it. For example, I use Resolve, which draws a lot from gpu, whereas other software might need better cpu specs.

    I haven’t used Reaper, my DAW of chioce on it yet, but Pd and SuperCollider are working perfectly.

    I’m not an expert though so take all of this for what it’s worth!