I'm looking into dual booting both Mac OSX and Linux, or possibly foregoing a lot of my software and just using LInux. Anybody rocking the Linux on their system?

 

It depends a lot on the software you use and what features you need. For DAWs is still very green for instance.

 

do you only have Mac computers? I'm trying to think of possible reasons there would be an upside to trying to do audio on a Mac using a linux distro dual booted. I'm sure some exist but they would be such specific purposes that you would have asked it that way.

what are you trying to do with it?

 

I use Linux, a lot. For work and for personal stuff, storage, web presence, local services (like firewalls, VPN endpoints, name servers) and so on.

I've dabbled on and off with Linux audio for 20+ years and for me it's just not worth it for that, not all of my hardware is supported and the software available is hit and miss. Now that PipeWire is a thing I might try it out again one of these days though.

If you want to give it a go then start with a media oriented distribution, like Ubuntu Studio or AVLinux.

 

Thanks for input. Everything said resonates what I've heard from other users. I was thinking of just running Harrison Mixbus for 2 track stuff.

As far as WHY I'm doing it is...Security. I'm much more concerned about that in my country now, than using the latest DAW plugins. I'm fine with just simple 2 track singer songwriter projects for now. I want to focus on my security and privacy while I'm on the web - and if I can run a DAW for 2 track stuff and an RME interface (it runs Class Compliant on any Linux). I"m fine w/ that.

I'm leaning towards an Ubuntu distro at the moment and am definitely staying faaar away from Wine distro. I've hard horror stories about it getting hacked.

 

Give Ardour (the basis of Mixbus) a go, and there's also Bitwig if you're into that. Thanks to VST3 there's plenty of plugins to go around, just not the big hitters.

Sounds like your plan could be done with Linux, but do remember that security is a process, not a project. Linux can be made secure, and in some cases it's more secure by default than others, but it's not a silver bullet.

 

The one thing that I do use on all my projects that I can't seem to find for Linux is a convolution Reverb plugin. If anybody knows of one, that would be great!

 

KlangFalter is a convolution audio plugin, e.g. for usage as convolution reverb.
https://github.com/HiFi-LoFi/KlangFalter
IR: LV2 Convolution Reverb
https://tomscii.sig7.se/plugins/ir.lv2/

The safest thing to do is to do a full backup from hard drive C: / in an emergency, you can restore your entire hard drive using the Emergency StartDisc. (Example: O&O DiskImage Professional) You should save your projects and important files on CD or BluRay.

 

Last edited: May 25, 2021

Easy Convolver works fine and works on Linux and Windows.

 

so, I still don't "get it". why Linux would be beneficial for audio, when you already have a Mac? I understand there are some nice open source programs for Linux based audio work; but most are also available for Mac. Linux users as a whole are certainly more into very low level computing, so I could see there being programs like Fre(a)koscope, as an example program or even much lower level computing where they are testing drivers or whatever. I also understand why it would be nice to run something like Reaper without Windows ever booting if on PC hardware!

When it actually comes to security, this becomes another subject. If I want an actually secure computer for audio, I will lock my doors, turn off the wifi router, and pull the ethernet cable out of the machine. physical level disconnection. Barring physical disconnection, a hardwire firewall and maybe even a machine running as nothing but an IDS with something like Snort, etc. in between the internet and the audio computer.

To the one user discussing authoritarian countries and needing security, my trust in an operating system layer only goes so far. With that level of an outside threat, with no physical barriers; I would not trust a "hardened" linux distro any more than a decently secured Mac OS machine.

@plumb-reh, my question is not why I would love linux! I do ;] I typically have one machine running gentoo, and another running Kali. But not on my Macs

 

Last edited: May 26, 2021

A thing that might be of interest: yabridge.

Note: I've not had time to try this as I've not a media Linux installation at the moment, but it promises much.

 

Sorry Xupito [since I usually find your posts either good or at least funny ], but being able to run Reaper, Bitwig, Waveform, Harrison Mixbus, Ardour, and I'm pretty sure there are others, is not really green. ;)

I've been using both W7 and Linux for audio lately because I figured that most of the software I use works with Linux, but I still miss some to go fully Linux. I'm sure it will happen at some point, though.

When it comes to choosing between MacOS and Linux, I'd still push for Linux, but my humble opinion is that MacOS is excellent and there is more programs, DAWs and plugins for it than for Linux.

Unfortunately, I'm not a fan of running plugins through an emulator layer like WINE due to additional CPU overhead, but if I was I would be able to run everything on Linux.

Cheers!

 

Last edited: Jul 15, 2021

Since you have a RME interface, all you want to do is absolutely possible, and if you install Reaper, it comes with a ton of plugins, so you don't need to install a lot of other plugins. It comes with a really good IR processor, for instance, and everything else you might need for a completely decent sounding production.

Thanks for all the nice links people. Especially @BEAT16, @phumb-reh ones aren't bad, either.

 

Replying to this message running (Live) AV Linux MX Edition (MX Linux 19.4 -Debian based) in Firefox 18.7 (custom MX version).

System is crisp looking and responsive. Will test further over weekend. If all goes well, I will install on old Mac SSD after upgrading to either 512GB or 1TB.

 

I have Altiverb 7, but never use any of the features on it; just slap on the IR and leave everything default.

Is there any difference between that an Reaper's IR plugin in this case? I guess the only difference would be available IRs, since I can't use the Altiverb IRs in Reaper's IR plugin?

 

i just had pop os 21.04. had bitwig running flawless, midi keyboard and presonus itwo was working perfect. i'm back on w10 though..

 

Just simple use Yabridge (a VST Wrapper for Linux). Works great with almost all VST plugins. I use it a lot to load ValhallaDSP plugins.

 

If you want to move to Linux, based on what you've said about your needs, you'd be more than covered with Reaper.

You can even do it on a Rasperry Pi these days.

 

Don't forget that most of the u-he products are available for Linux, including Diva and Zebra.

Linux builds overview (2021-08-10) (on KVR) (click the Linux version on the u-he site)

 

Last edited: Sep 21, 2021