PROduction Audio On Linux With Debian 12

This how I configure Linux workstations for realtime audio utilizing Debian 12 and Jack. If you’re interested by doing any of this to your Desktop PC, don’t.

See the system in motion dwell on Twitch.

0. Disable world c-state management and configure the all-core frequency. This retains the CPU locked on the chosen frequency.

After configuring the system I’ll dial again the CPU frequency till the system begins producing xruns.

1. During the set up I choose the XFCE Desktop Manager. This prevents Debian from putting in Wayland and PipeWire.

2. After the preliminary set up the it’s time to get a realtime kernel. If you’re on AMD / Intel this course of is comparatively simple. NVIDIA customers might want to obtain and set up the *.run driver package deal immediately from NVIDIA.

Find the present Linux kernel model.

uname -a

Locate the matching realtime kernel

apt search linux-image-KERNELVERSION

Install the realtime kernel

sudo apt set up linux-image-KERNELVERSION-rt-amd64

3. PipeWire is an incredible challenge but it surely’s underneath heavy growth. Not one thing you need on a manufacturing machine.

sudo apt purge pipewire*

4. Install Jack, Pulseaudio Bridge, nonfree firmware, and rtirq.

sudo apt set up jackd2 qjackctl pulseaudio-module-jack firmware-linux-nonfree rtirq-init

5. Enable threadirqs and disable Spectre / Meltdown mitigations.

sudo nano /and so on/default/grub

6. Hardware timers

sudo nano  /and so on/udev/guidelines.d/40-timer-permissions.guidelines

Add the next

KERNEL=="rtc0", GROUP="audio"
KERNEL=="hpet", GROUP="audio"

7. Set max person frequency

sudo nano /and so on/tmpfiles.d/maxfreq.conf

Add the next

w    /sys/class/rtc/rtc0/max_user_freq     -    -    -    -   3072

8. Swappiness and watches

sudo nano /and so on/sysctl.d/99-sysctl.conf

Add the next

vm.swappiness = 10
fs.inotify.max_user_watches = 524288

9. Setting useful resource limits

sudo nano /and so on/safety/limits.conf

Add the next

@audio - rtprio 99
@audio - memlock limitless

10. Add the person to the audio group

sudo usermod -a -G audio replacethiswithyourusername

11. Default values for Pulseaudio

nano ~/.config/pulse/daemon.conf

Add the next

default-sample-format = float32le
default-sample-rate = 48000
alternate-sample-rate = 44100
default-sample-channels = 2
default-channel-map = front-left,front-right
resample-method = speex-float-10
enable-lfe-remixing = no
high-priority = sure
nice-level = -11
realtime-scheduling = sure
realtime-priority = 70
rlimit-rtprio = 90
daemonize = no

12. Update initramfs and reboot the system