What OS Should I Install?

[nbpf]

2 hours ago, Jud said:

I've got a third of a TB sitting here unused in my desktop. I currently have Windows 10 and Xubuntu running on it. I also have Catalina running on an old MacBook Pro laptop.

 

So what should I install in the empty space to play around with? I used and liked FreeBSD in the past, but stopped when I got into computer audio because it doesn't have enough users to have the latest audio drivers made for it. I'm not averse to peering around "under the hood" of an OS (using the command line/shell) - in fact I occasionally enjoy it a lot - though as I get older, I find myself tending toward convenience a little more.

 

Shouldn't be so GUI-oriented I can't play around a little, but I don't want to spend all my time with CLI either.  And must have up-to-date audio drivers.

 

Suggestions?

I run Debian/Raspbian on all my systems. For serving and transporting audio streams I meanwhile use almost exclusively Raspberry Pi devices. On these, I run MinimServer (https://minimserver.com/) and/or MPD and upmpdcli (https://www.lesbonscomptes.com/upmpdcli/) in a minimal (about 500 packages), headless Raspbian Lite distribution. On RPis that host transports such as the Allo DigiOne Signature, I typically turn off HDMI. Bluetooth, USB, LAN and the internal sound card. This reduces the power requirement of a RPi 3B+ to about 200 mA when the CPU frequency is fixed at 1 GHz and has turned out to be a very stable and reliable setup. I do not have time to play around with OS tweaking: I typically install a system by cloning an image saved on my laptop and run that system without upgrading for years. Audio Linux, Volumio and DietPi seem obvious candidates for filling in the space in your drive. I tried them a bit but mostly disliked their user interfaces and found them too complicated.     

[nbpf]

2 minutes ago, Jud said:

...

 

Also, thanks for the suggestion, but Raspbian and variants are no go because there's no reason to be running a stripped down ARM-oriented OS on a desktop with an Intel 8700K CPU that sends music to my system wirelessly in another room via UPnP/DLNA. Apologies for not clarifying a bit more about my computer and audio system.

I see the point. In this case, I would suggest that you run your preferred UPnP/DLNA server in the OS you feel most comfortable with. I do not expect the OS to have any significant impact on the sound quality as long as the wireless data transfer to the renderer is managed well and the CPU frequency scaling is off in all systems. I might be very wrong, of course and, if you play around with different operating systems, I would be interested in your findings.