m-dist project is a small, 140 MB, embedded Linux system tuned for MIDI and audio use. There's no software to install; you download the ISO, burn it to CD, pop it in your computers cd drive and reboot.

m-dist is distributed as an ISO image, so you will need to burn this to a CDROM. As it's quite small it fits nicely onto an 8 cm mini-cd. The PC being used needs to be able to boot from CDROM, most systems these days will be able to do this but you might have to enable this in the BIOS.

A minimum of 64 Meg RAM is required for m-dist but 128 Meg or greater is strongly recommended. If the PC has more than 256 Megs memory you can load m-dist fully into RAM, making it faster to load applications. At the boot splash type (without the quotes) "linux copy2ram eject" and then press enter/return.

Here are some key features of "m dist":

· Linux 2.4.25 kernel with Andrew Morton's low latency patch
· ALSA - MIDI API (check your soundcard here.)
· Kaconnect - ALSA MIDI connetor
· JACK - Linux Audio connection kit
· Ecamegapedal - Realtime Audio Processor
· Vkeybd - ALSA virtual MIDI keyboard
· QSynth - QT frontend to Fluidsynth Soundfont player (with a few free soundfonts from HammerSound)
· MuSE - MIDI sequncer
· Ardour - Digital audio workstation
· JAMin - JACK Audio Mastering Interface
· Hydrogen - Drum Machine

m-dist is based on Linux-Live!, Slackware 9.1, AudioSlack and XFce.

For normal usage you should not need to use the System Console (right mouse click on the desktop to bring the System Menu up). m-dist run's as root so you do not need a password.

What's New in This Release:

· Upgraded to ALSA-1.0.5. driver, libs, oss, tools, utils, firmware
· Upgraded to X.org's X11R6.7.0 from XFree86
· Upgraded to XFCE-4.0.5
· Reduced ISO footprint by 20 MB. copy2ram works with 256 Meg
· Changed USB kernel config (now module)
· Altered boot timeout value (making reading the bootsplash easier)