UbuntuStudio has been launched, and for the first time today I actually got onto their website (Its been down pretty much since release - I guess I'm not the only one interested in this!) This is one slick package...

I was lucky enough to have found a mirror yesterday to download the DVD ISO, so I got to play with it very briefly today. For me the main appeal of this distro is the recording components, specifically ardour, but it also has apps aimed at both video and graphic artists. Highlights:

Ardour a multitrack recorder / DAW
Audacity a sound editor (THE sound editor)
BEAST music composition and modular synthesis
Hydrogen drum machine
Jack audio connector (and its gui: QjackCtl)
JAMin Jack audio mastering
Mixx DJ tool
MuSE Midi / Audio sequencer
Rosegarden Audio / Midi sequencer (ala Cubase)
Wired music production software

And that is only the Audio components. The video and graphics apps include:

GIMP Image manipulation
Blender 3D rendering
Inkscape Vector graphics editor
Scribus Page layout
CinePaint Motion Picture retouching
Kino Video editor
Stopmotion Stop motion animation

Did I mention one of the biggest highlights? Its Ubuntu – and that means its about as user friendly as Linux gets.

you can see the full list here

This type of distribution is exactly the type of thing that makes linux so appealing to me. A set of applications put together in a coherent package, easily installed, flexible and FREE. Like any distro of this sort, its success really depends on the individual components, but considering this is (I think) the first release, it is extremely promising.