I have used linux reguarly for the past 20 years. There was even a time I entirely switched to it from Windows (but came back for video editing, gaming and music production). This year I've tried linux for music production and it works...HOWEVER, there are some caveats.

1. You should get a linux supported audio interface if you're serious about it; I have a Focusrite Clarett which is not supported, as a consequence I can not setup routing or other interface related settings (such as the 'air' mike feature).

2. Latency in Windows is better, no way around it; I can use buffersize 64 in Windows with no issues at all but in linux 128 or 256 is required (using Jack). I have tested this with 3 different linux distro's: Ubuntu Studio, Linux Mint Cinnamon and a barebones Debian: no difference at all.

3. I love Reaper but loading the linux supported U-He VSTs crashed it

4. I had the best results with Bitwig since it's a real cross platform DAW, but I had to disable its VST isolation feature: it resulted in latency spikes.

5. Setting up my midi keyboard was strange: one way it worked for Bitwig, the other way Reaper, but I couldn't get it to work for both DAWs. I forgot the details.

6. I'm pretty comfortable setting up various linux distro's and working with them, but if you're not it's going to take some time to learn the ropes. Sure, the standard Ubuntu setup is as easy as Windows but when you want to do more specific things, the going gets tough(er).

7. For 20 years I have heard people saying that linux is the best OS and that everyone should switch. Well... it hasn't happened, and realistically, it will never happen. So the majority of the music industry will keep focusing on Windows.

At the end of the day most people will use Windows because it just works, and in the end: so do I. Producing music is difficult enough as it is, people don't want to cope with an additional roadblock. Linux will always require fiddling, which is great if you're an IT nerd like me, but it's not for the majority. And I'm saying that as someone really liking linux

 

Last edited: Oct 16, 2020

Are there meanwhile audio drivers for RME Audio Interfaces ? I woudl love to try BITWIG under Linux !

 

I would love too learn especial the backend its what AWS runs on 001 I will contact you but first i will try the links
and set up a old computer and start that way

 

Just here to echo a lot of the points already made, having been around LINUX on and off since it was first released to the public back in the day, and writing drivers for the hardware I had back then.

Sometimes I wonder if instead of being focussed on warez, some of todays up and coming talented coders and release groups could turn their attention to help porting the Audioz community over to LINUX, (drivers especially), by making it a more audio friendly enviroment.

 

Last edited: Oct 16, 2020

Fun fact: the popular two DAW's Pro One and Live are built on the old linux qt framework, and can be switched to linux with little effort.
Not sure way is so scary, lots of closed source software run on Linux e.g. Maya3D. Audio quality depends only on the audio driver and audio interface.
Maybe start as an experimental and unsupported version.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Oct 16, 2020

Yes, RME cards have always worked with Linux for as far as I remember. Well, you won't have much problems to setup HDSP Hammerfall and Digi cards, at least. I'm using HDSP 9652 with Debian 10 and MATE DE with Reaper 6.54.

 

Lol, you thought the framework that handles drawing windows and menus on the screen is the bulk of a DAW's code, how cute. The real work there is API calls to the audio subsystem for the respective OS, as well as calls to the system scheduler to handle multithreading - and for Linux this would have to be written completely from scratch. Same with MIDI likely, and all the file management (folder locations etc) would have to be rewritten from scratch as well.

And on Linux there's usually no audio driver at all, or a community written one based on reverse engineering. As for an experimental version, this is exactly what Cockos are doing with Reaper right now.

 

NOT in my job, programming, arranging, producing music (Studio one, Pro tools, Logic, Nuendo).
I have deadlines and can't use a 'Jugend forscht' (Science Talent Search) OS, otherwise the rent would not be paid and the fridge would remain empty.
YES, I'm using Linux in my 'VU+ Ultimo 4K Sat Receiver and another media box.

 

I kind of agree here, but Qt has a lightweight crossplatform wrapper for native threads, so in theory they could use that, don't know if they do, but it's there.

Also being already for Windows and Mac they would have abstracted rest of the stuff you mentioned so (again, in theory since I've no idea about the internals) they would have to add a Linux-specific audio handler but rest of the application would stay the same and so on.

*edit:* Forgot to mention that a lot of Live's internals are implemented using Python, so that oughta work almost out of the box.

There's the unofficial Live API: https://structure-void.com/PythonLiveAPI_documentation/Live11.0.xml

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jan 19, 2022

I would love to switch to Linux but Linux is far from being reliable not just for music production.
Gave up when I saw what you have to do to get latencies nearly close to what you get on Windows. Still hoping Linux makes it.

 

All Linux distros are pure garbage as a desktop OS. Don't let any lying Linux fanboy scum tell you otherwise

 

i moved to linux last fall. it's much harder to learn than windows.
you don't need to get a specific distro for audio.
don't use a realtime kernel (i experienced a lot of crashes from that)
yabridge will make most of your windows plugins work

only go to Linux if you can handle lots of learning curve and frustration.
if you're a music professional, moving to linux is not a great idea right now.

i think linux will end up being the default operating system eventually, it's gotten exponentially better in the past 15 years.
after all, android is essentially linux, so the main problem is development, and many major pro audio devs are releasing linux installers and it's not going away.

 

Bit harsh there, but you are somewhat correct. I use Arch (btw) for my entertainment system and prefer it over Windows in every way.

When it comes to my work however (production/mixing/mastering), Linux is 100% a no-go. Not until Studio One, the majority of major VSTs and audio drivers are fully supported.

Every 2 years I get excited for the new technology or promised improvement, but then go back to what works. Despite its myriad of flaws, Windows still gets the job done.

 

I wonder how many people know the history of Apple MAC's and Windows?

The Microsoft HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) first showed its face in Windows NT after Microsoft purchased VMS and tried to rewrite it atrociously. This is a type of UNIX (Linux core is UNIX). They eventually fixed most of it.
The Apple is a GUI sitting on top of a Steve Jobs altered UNIX Free BSD. If you can do terminal commands in a MAC, most are identical in Linux - chmod, ls, ifconfig ....etc etc etc - The windows equivalents is attrib, dir and ipconfig....etc etc - As I said they altered it.

It's not that simple but anyone who wants to read up on their history can get the nitty gritty.
That's why crapping on Linux or Windows or MAC is actually a form of cyclic humour because they're all indirectly crapping on themselves.
They're all a form of UNIX. Windows being the most GUI resource heavy closely followed by MAC.
The operating system is actually what is underneath the hood. Basically - The rest is an attached GUI for people to point and click at so they do not have to type commands, but each click is actually executing a command..

As you all were..

 

Linux is closer to Win it never have been. There are still major problems but they're trying hard to make it happened.
I will always support people behind Linux, Not Linux evangelists though.

 

Looking at the dates, this thread was created 9 years ago (!). Since then it seems that very little has happened: the issues are always the same, the result is that using Linux for professional audio activities is impractical. The only possible alternative is to use macOS, which is nothing more than a foolproof version of Linux. In real life it is hard enough to find good musicians, experienced sound engineers and also, talented IT, hoping that all these qualities reside in a single person is probably impossible.

 

i tried with renoise, but the problem was to find the right driver for my apogee and rme cards....no time if only for fun...we need the support of developers..

 

Linux is over 30 years old and still garbage for serious creators. That should tell you everything about open source and free software.
I cannot use my thunderbolt Quantum audio interface, I cannot use Ableton, I cannot use my favorite plugins, I cannot use Vegas or Premiere for video editing, I cannot play FIFA online with friends......should I go on?
And Linux defenders always trying to blame somebody else. Adobe for example would be making software for Linux if there was a marked there and not just nerdy hobbyists. Also making software for hundreds of distros is a support nightmare and almost impossible to make money on.

I'm not shitting on Linux in general cause it is excellent on servers, small pc's like Raspberry Pi and stuff like that. But again as desktop OS pure garbage

 

Last edited: Jun 9, 2022

Yes man it's cool but I don't use it because my digiface usb don't work with this OS unfortunately

 

Granted, Linux is much more stable, less of a resource hog then any version of windows etc.., but lack of drivers as has been the case for a number of years prevents it from reaching the masses! For the average user it will be an overall frustrating experience due to lack of hardware support (drivers). As others have said, until developers really get behind it there's no way it will be adopted by the general public, and rightly so!

 

Last edited: Jun 9, 2022