64 Studio is developing a collection of software for digital content creation on x86_64 hardware (that's AMD's 64-bit CPUs and Intel's EM64T chips).

It's based on the pure 64 port of Debian GNU/Linux, but with a specialised package selection and lots of other customisations.

64 Studio has Debian Pure 64 with X.org, the Gnome desktop, kernel 2.6.12 with realtime preemption patches and a selection of creative applications. Please note that this release is provided for testing only, and comes with no warranty.

Problems in this release include useful packages missing or not installed by default, confusing Gnome menus and assorted warnings during installation. There are probably plenty of other things wrong with it as well, which is why we're calling this an alpha release. But it does actually install and run on our Opteron and Athlon 64 test hardware.

Anyone who is interested in getting involved with the 64 Studio project would be most welcome. Our aim is to create a distribution with full (but completely optional) commercial support, which will generate revenue to pay free software developers.