2 November 2025
DO NOT RUN SCRIPTS THAT YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND.
I am presently using Linux Mint Vanessa - Cinnamon as my preferred distro. This is because I am using the YouTube creator Tux Audio's Linux Mint 21 (Vanessa) installation script get a variety of audio features installed and configured. As of writing this, there is an issue with the script where the calls to KXStudio's Cadence repo are out of date and this needs to be updated. The updated portion of the code needs to look like the following. Previously it had been requesting kxstudio-repos_10.0.3_all.deb but this package no longer appears to be available and the script will error mid-way through running. I replaced the calls to this with the following package name call as found on the KXStudio repository website.
# ---------------------------
# Install kxstudio and cadence
# Cadence is a tool for managing audio connections to our hardware
# NOTE: Select "YES" when asked to enable realtime privileges
# ---------------------------
notify "Install kxstudio and cadence"
sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https gpgv -y
wget https://launchpad.net/~kxstudio-debian/+archive/kxstudio/+files/kxstudio-repos_11.2.0_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i kxstudio-repos_11.2.0_all.deb
rm kxstudio-repos_11.2.0_all.deb
sudo apt update
sudo apt install cadence -y
I then followed the steps instructed in the Tux Audio video to configure the Cadence Audio settings. I found that I need to ensure that the ALSA Audio settings need to have the Bridge Type set to ALSA -> PulseAudio -> JACK (Plugin). Making any changes to the Cadence settings requires a restart of your system for the changes to take effect.
My next steps have been to get multiple versions of Bitwig Studio installed so that I can switch between them for development work and testing purposes.
In order to be able to easily develop my presets I like to have several versions of Bitwig Studio installed at one time. Ubuntu/Debian Linux distros (such as Linux Mint) typically only allow for one version of an application to be installed at a time. A specific advantage to installing from an application manager is that any software dependancies needed will be installed automatically so I would recommend installing at least one version this way and any development versions can be installed as per the steps below.
First you need to download the installation packages meant for your system. Bitwig Studio maintain a release archive where you can easily get these. I leave my release versions in the Downloads directory and the below steps make this assumption.
The next steps requires a little bit of work in the Terminal. Adjust to suite your needs.
# Step 1 - create needed directories...
mkdir -p ~/Bitwig_Versions/Bitwig_Studio_4.0/
mkdir -p ~/Bitwig_Versions/Bitwig_Studio_5.3.13/
mkdir -p ~/Bitwig_Versions/Bitwig_Studio_6.0_beta_5/
# Step 2 - extract packages to their respective locations...
dpkg -x bitwig-studio-4.0.deb ~/Bitwig_Versions/Bitwig_Studio_4.0/
dpkg -x bitwig-studio-5.3.13.deb ~/Bitwig_Versions/Bitwig_Studio_5.3.13/
dpkg -x bitwig-studio-6.0-beta-5.deb ~/Bitwig_Versions/Bitwig_Studio_6.0_beta_5/
And finally you will need to create an executable shell script to launch the different versions. You can also change out the icon for the Bitwig Studio icon so that you have something familiar looking to click on. All executable Bash scripts require some basic code to tell the interpreter which code is being run. Adjust accordingly to match your needs.
#!/bin/bash
~/Bitwig_Versions/Bitwig_Studio_[X]/opt/bitwig-studio/bitwig-studio
# Replace "[X]" with the actual location. The set permissions (righ-click the file on the Desktop) to be executable and set the icon to be the Bitwig Studio icon