Okay, I still do not understand the technical details, I do understand that it is better to use VST2 above VST3 since I do not need the extra benefits of VST3. Thanks @PulseWave and @saccamano and @liluglymonsta!

One thing I would like to add. Since I use Reaper as DAW, I have both Reaper under Wine and native Linux with Yabridge. That leads to some strange things that a plugin will not run in Reaper under Wine but does run under Reaper Linux. For example Melodyne. And sometimes it is just the other way around. By using both Reaper versions I have a bit more chances to get a plugin running.

 

Hi @paul_audioz, let me try to explain it another way. VST2 was the standard for years, then the shortcomings, bugs, poor performance, and slowness were identified, and the decision was made to rapidly improve the VST2 standard. All that knowledge and technological advancement went into VST3. Overall, with VST3, you have a better product than VST2. Take part in the technological progress and use VST3.

 

And to write, "Stop torturing yourself and others by typing stupid commands on several lines, without access to any suitable music, graphics programs, or modern games - don't mess around, switch to Windows" - do you need to start a new thread?
Oh, my God, religious wars are endless...

 

Stoking a religious war and complaining about religious wars in the next sentence. Another impressive display of cognitive brilliance.

These village drunkards just can't stand the notion of a polite company having a calm, constructive discussion.

 

I don't use Apple either

 

@PulseWave VSTi2 allowed me to perform advanced and almost automatic sampling of any instrument that supports this format. With VSTi3 this is impossible due to the lack of compatible software, this format is also useless for me.

Edit: Windows 7 still reigns supreme for me, but I gave Linux a chance for other tasks, performs them in the same way as Windows.

Link to the free software: https://pkgforge-dev.github.io/Anylinux-AppImages/

 

I always wondered how it must feel to have no friends and no purpose in life. I guess that's the reason why you absolutely want to
convert everybody to the one and only true faith of Windows. Hail m$! Amen!

 

... I think they were trying to mock folks coming in here and shit-talking Linux, but did it in a really unclear way..

or maybe I'm just being way too cheritable lol

 

It would be nice if someone created a separate thread describing audio configuration methods (pipewire / pro-audio profile) in detail. There are a lot of parameters in the pipewire.conf settings.

 

For posterity, in case someone interested in this topic stumbles upon this discussion, I have updated the list of audio plugins working on Apple silicon Macs under Asahi Linux (page 6, post #111).

There have been some welcome additions in the past two weeks, notably the ZL Equalizer 2 and ZL Compressor. Like other ZL plugins, they are now available as binaries for the ARM64 architecture (Mac, Windows, Linux).

 

This is my little trick for quickly changing the buffer in PipeWire using a terminal.

Code:

# ---------------------------
# Pipewire aliases
# ---------------------------
# Script to add PipeWire aliases to .bashrc
# Usage: ./add_pipewire_aliases.sh

# Define file paths
BASHRC_FILE="$HOME/.bashrc"
BACKUP_FILE="$HOME/.bashrc.backup.$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S)"

# PipeWire quantum aliases to be added
ALIASES='
# PipeWire clock.force-quantum shortcuts
alias pw0='\''pw-metadata -n settings 0 clock.force-quantum 0'\''
alias pw64='\''pw-metadata -n settings 0 clock.force-quantum 64'\''
alias pw128='\''pw-metadata -n settings 0 clock.force-quantum 128'\''
alias pw256='\''pw-metadata -n settings 0 clock.force-quantum 256'\''
alias pw512='\''pw-metadata -n settings 0 clock.force-quantum 512'\''
alias pw1024='\''pw-metadata -n settings 0 clock.force-quantum 1024'\''
'

echo "Adding PipeWire aliases to .bashrc..."

# Check if .bashrc file exists, create if not
if [ ! -f "$BASHRC_FILE" ]; then
    echo ".bashrc file doesn't exist. Creating new file."
    touch "$BASHRC_FILE"
fi

# Create backup copy
echo "Creating backup: $BACKUP_FILE"
cp "$BASHRC_FILE" "$BACKUP_FILE"

# Check if aliases already exist to prevent duplicates
if grep -q "pw-metadata -n settings 0 clock.force-quantum" "$BASHRC_FILE"; then
    echo "PipeWire aliases already exist in .bashrc!"
    echo "If you want to replace them, please remove them manually first."
    exit 1
fi

# Append aliases to the end of .bashrc
echo "$ALIASES" >> "$BASHRC_FILE"

echo "Aliases have been added to .bashrc"
echo "To apply changes, run: source ~/.bashrc"
echo "Backup saved as: $BACKUP_FILE"

# Display added aliases information
echo ""
echo "Added aliases:"
echo "pw0    - sets quantum to 0 (auto)"
echo "pw64   - sets quantum to 64"
echo "pw128  - sets quantum to 128"
echo "pw256  - sets quantum to 256"
echo "pw512  - sets quantum to 512"
echo "pw1024 - sets quantum to 1024"

 

I thought I would post a little add-enum to my story about having to re-install my Debian 12, because it's pretty important, and most people who use Linux for audio follow this thread here .

We are in a bit of trouble, guys, with Yabridge. I am going to try to make it work with WINE 10, but I doubt it will. Trouble is that I cannot install WINE 9 on my Debian 12 anymore, so if I want to make it work, I will have to re-install Debian 12 over re-installed Debian 12.

I made a mistake updating it to "backports"-the newest possible packages for Debian 12 with kernel 6.12 that I think is awesome. This also means I cannot update to Debian 13 Trixie ever if I want to keep working with Windows plugins. We're stuck, guys, because Yabridge is not being developed any more, it seems. Last version, 5.1.1 that works with WINE 9 up to 9.21 is from November 2024. LinVST is even worse. Last version of it is from 2023. I'm very worried about the future of Windows plugins on Linux...

So I'm going to re-install my Debian 12.12, Install WINE-staging 9.21, Yabridge 5.1.1, DXVK 2.6.2 (last version that works with WINE 9) and use it like this for the time being. Be careful with updates, guys, especially kernel updates if you're running this configuration to be able to use Windows plugins.

Another idea... Maybe "Carla" could run Windows plugins with WINE 10... ? ;)

Another edit... I discovered that my troubles have nothing to do with the kernel. I actually had this 6.12 kernel installed in my beloved 11yo Debian! [stooopid...]. It's the dmn libsystemd0 library... and very probably some other backported files that hold half of the packages hostage. That's great news regardless of having to reinstall! Because I'm having an eye on an Intel Arc GPU and it can't work without the newer kernel. So my main mistake was not installing WINE 9 before updating to "backports". Next time, I'm going to install WINE 9.21 first thing after installing Debian 12. d= ;) Cheers!

 

Last edited: Dec 7, 2025 at 2:54 AM

There may be a work around when using Reaper windows. I discovered Bottles and I managed to get EZDrummer3 and Yamaha Montage running with Bottles and Reaper windows under Linux MX25. Although the Yamaha is working (license and so), the performance is impossible because my PC is not very capable. But the R2R authorization is working. The trick is of course to put everything in one bottle. Then you start the bottle and then you start Reaper that uses plugins installed in that bottle. Also, the advantage is that you can create separate bottles in case a VST(i) is using conflicting .dll's with other VTS(i)'s.
Is it an elegant solution? No, I guess not, but it works. But....I can already hear the windoozzz fanbois shouting disapprovingly.....

 

When I was using windows, I bought Winrar. It still works under Wine. Also, DoubleCommander has built in unrar that works.

 

@paul_audioz I know, but I'm a huge fan of the appimage file format

 

Ahhmmm....I am a bit ashamed to admit that I only heard about it, but I don't know how to use it.....

 

Many interesting apps come in Appimage format. Appimage contains everything the app needs to run, so you don't have to worry about dependencies. I frequently use a few Appimage apps like: Audacity, Double Commander, LosslessCut, Shotcut <-- great video editors!, PCSX2, rpcs3 <-- great Playstation emulators!, Endless Sky <-- cool game and some others. It's pretty great you can try these apps without any worries about dependencies, and dependencies/tons of different libraries are in my opinion the biggest Linux problem. As is in both Windows and MacOS, too, in fact. ;)

You just download the .appimage file, set executable permissions and run it. That simple!

 

Last edited: Dec 6, 2025 at 6:55 PM

Wow, I did and it's amazing. I have winrar v6 or so installed because I did not need most recent, but the appimage runs Winrar v7.13. It is sort of a portable program. Nice! But I don't get it? Winrar is shareware so I bought a license. But this appimage seems to be freeware?

@SineWave :what do you think about bottles?

 

Are you kidding? You know I like bottles! Especially with yummy red content. On the serious side, I never had a need for bottles. I use QEMU for running suspicious programs and testing content. I understand it's something like ... dmn I can't remember what it's called, it's a Windows thing so no wonder. :P Like running a program in a confined RAM space, so it can't harm the system thing, right? That's always good. I may need it, so it's good to know it exists!