Thinking about using Linux? Read this first!

[Forgotten]

I was the one who asked for the tl;dr - I don’t think the concept in uncommon, and sometimes I would just like to know what the thread is about without reading every lengthy post.

The title doesn’t tell me much, and as others have noted, it’s in the same format as clickbait topic titles. I just don’t have the time to read every single post in every topic, so clear thread titles and summaries of very long posts are useful. I expect others would think similarly.

[dellboy]

The OP's posts are educational and informative - well worth the long read.

I had a recent delve into Linux and also concluded that Bitwig is the best native option for that OS.

[CasualHobbyist]

Well, this'll be fun. So I'll address some of your points @lmv

"No fact checking". Ok, so you go and tell us that " I've been using/testing/trying Linux audio applications for five years", " that would have made me write three times as much" and lastly "Ardour, for example, looks pretty good and it is indeed very capable for recording and mixing. Composing not so much. MIDI is less than stellar, to mention one problem. Why don't you run a search? You'll likely find hits coming from their own support forum. What would I have to gain from making stuff up? If it were really good enough, I would be just happily using it"

Y'know, is hard to believe someone who claims that they have had "5 years of Linux experience in audio production" yet claimed that LMMS didn't support VSTs, which is factually wrong. Is hard to believe someone who says "Composing not so much, MIDI is less than stellar, just do a search on their forums", but still didn't provide a technical or logical detail as to why the MIDI is flawed. I am not going to be saying that Ardour is perfect and can do everything as it obviously isn't, but most of the "problems" you say I encounter (in the forums) isn't with a lack of features but rather workflow differences, which people get used to. How is "less than stellar" is up to debate (And also, the workflows for MIDI is going to get better and with new features on 6.xx, as everything is constantly refined), because again, if you had 5 years of Linux audio experience, you could at least told us that, shielding with "That would've made me write 5x times longer" doesn't cut it here given the points I raised before (You also said that you can use Linux to make music, but "not the best way of doing it" is something that can also be debated, your experiences do not reflect everyone's else who uses other Linux audio setups)

Last point, and this is concerning Wine usage. Just because it works for you doesn't mean it'll work for everyone, this is not about "ideologies" or whatever problems you have had in a forum before. Using Wine, while amazing project, should not be a required piece of software to compose music, I'll still say that staying on native (while occasionally loading windows plugins with Wine) is still the way to go. Because when you use Wine, you don't know if the DAW works in the long-term, you don't know if something will be broken, you can't tell customer support "Look, I have a problem with this Wine setup of mine" and expect a reasonable and well-written answer for your problem since you're very outside of their scope. The customer is completely on their own and if the software breaks, they only have them to take responsibility for their actions. I'm not saying Wine can't be used or tested, you're free to use it because is free (as in freedom) software. But I'll still say that using native is the way to go because you have community, forums, FAQs and people that can help you out, along with tutorials on that side as well, and if I am recommending people (or newbies) to try another OS, I am going to tell them to use mostly native (at least for their most complex software)

If a Windows or macOS user does not cares or feels they can't do anything with native Linux software (or "80% of it"), then I don't think they are capable of composing to begin with, and are just hobbyists playing with shiny toys, that's my end on it.

So I still see your post as trolling and going with "What I think is the superior, only method and heed my words" is basically only ranting and lack of fact-checking in a lot of places. Informative is far from what I can tell in your posts. I'd continue with the "perceived problems" you have on other areas of Linux but see, that would make me "write 5x times as longer" and we wouldn't want that, would we!?

[vortico]

Our software VCV Rack has first-class support for Linux, just like Windows and Mac, and we'll be focusing on adding more DAW-like features such as a clip timeline, piano roll, 500-series-like compressors/EQs, etc. You'll be able to record your next pop album or whatever, while still having the flexibility of the modular synthesizer workflow.

Anyway, I agree with most of lmv's points. I typically only recommend using Linux for any reason if you either
- work in programming, IT, or STEM and consider using computers "fun"
- care about your personal privacy or are an activist for anything software-related
- dislike large corporations
- don't have $50 to your name

I suggest to avoid using Linux for
- live shows
- paid studio work

falkTX is a diety, but of course there are several other free open-source Linux software developers with their own projects.
Some random projects for Linux I find interesting: https://helio.fm/ https://www.zrythm.org/ http://non.tuxfamily.org/wiki/Non%20Timeline

[lmv]

I'll still say that staying on native (while occasionally loading windows plugins with Wine) is still the way to go. Because when you use Wine, you don't know if the DAW works in the long-term, you don't know if something will be broken, you can't tell customer support "Look, I have a problem with this Wine setup of mine" and expect a reasonable and well-written answer for your problem since you're very outside of their scope.

No, you can't expect newer versions of an application to work, but you can always expect THE CURRENT ONE to work, forever. Which is already more than you can expect from Linux, where applications will naturally expire with time. My original post addresses that. I have two Windows applications that I bought in the 1990s, including a very good dictionary that was made for Windows 3.11. They still work. That is my point.

* P.S.: In fact, while newer versions of an application may not work, it's not unreasonable to expect them to work after some indefinite amount of time as Wine gets improved. Granted, it may take a long time, but it's still more than you can expect from Linux.

[Touch The Universe]

Do they expire without upgrading anything? Why not just not upgrade ANYTHING once you get things going well.

[lmv]

Our software VCV Rack has first-class support for Linux, just like Windows and Mac

Thank you very much for your support, vortico. I obviously have this particular beef with Linux, but I always appreciate it when a developer treats us like, uh... like we exist. Thank you very much.

Do they expire without upgrading anything? Why not just not upgrade ANYTHING once you get things going well.

If you freeze the entire operating system, then they won't expire. But you may have security problems after some time. The browser will likely have problems as websites in general are always changing. With Wine, you have kind of a time-proof sandbox. You could accomplish that with Linux in a virtual machine, but I think Wine still is more convenient.

*Note: I changed the title a little. Just a little. I hope it's better, at least a little.

[CasualHobbyist]

Applications in Linux don't expire with time. If that was the case, then Windows 7 would be the most unusable and even "harder to use than Linux" OS since it is a much older OS than most Linux distros out there, yet it still has support and can work perfectly fine. But that's the difference between using a supported OS or not, Linux is a different beast in that matter. (Because different distributions will address support times differently and release-times too, you either go rolling or stable LTS, sometimes some are in between)

I'm not going to reproach anyone who uses Wine or not. Is free software and I wholly welcome it, and its compatibility with older software is amazing (arguably better than W10 tbh), but is not the first suggestion I recommend to newbies. If the latter don't want to use the available native Linux software for y or x (be it because the DAWs are too different, the workflows or they may "need" something that they are used to), then is ok to tell them to use Wine so long as they understand that they'll be on their own and that their choice of software may or may not work correctly. Along with losing all customer support, FAQs, etc. available for that program.

As for you @vortico VCV Rack is quite a cool piece of software I agree! how is its plugin support on Linux though? does it natively supports Linux VST or LV2? I sometimes get confused because it states that it is a synthesizer yet more DAWs features will just make it just, well, a DAW!

[vortico]

On the point "you can always expect THE CURRENT ONE to work forever", note that GNU/Linux/BSD/anything-free-software is even better at keeping old software running than any proprietary platform. If Linux's API changes, it's always just a matter of fixing an API call and recompiling. You're not stuck with an old ABI like proprietary binaries. There are a few good proprietary music programs from the 90's (ReBirth, VAZ Modular, Nord Modular G2, Antonio Tuzzi's Phoenix, etc), but what's impressive is that *most* of the core software in the GNU/Linux system are from a decade earlier: X11, binutils, TeX, GCC, glibc, bash, gdb, etc. This is because free software doesn't experience (as much) the rise and fall of products in the commercial world. For this reason, if someone releases free software (for any operating system, not just Linux), it'll be around for 1,000 years if it remains useful to someone.

how is its plugin support on Linux though? does it natively supports Linux VST or LV2?

Through VCV Host, it can host x86_64 Linux VST2 plugins. Early next year Rack itself will be available as a VST2 plugin (and possibly VST3/AU/AAX) for Mac/Windows/Linux, although the plugin version will be around $99. https://vcvrack.com/manual/FAQ.html#is- ... n-for-daws

[lmv]

On the point "you can always expect THE CURRENT ONE to work forever", note that GNU/Linux/BSD/anything-free-software is even better at keeping old software running than any proprietary platform. If Linux's API changes, it's always just a matter of fixing an API call and recompiling.

That is true and false at the same time. Although it is technically possible, compiling applications is mighty difficult. I have 18 years of experience with Linux, I can code in three scripting languages not counting Perl and PHP which I have forgotten because I haven't touched them in 14 years, but I have tried to compile about 30 to 40 items in my life and I only succeeded about two or three times, with very basic command line applications. Everything else failed and I didn't have a clue about what to do. I never learned C. What chance does a casual computer user have?

You are just dragging us back to the very beginning of my whole point. Linux software is abandoned. I can't bring it back to life. Who is going to do that for me? No one, because that's the definition of "abandoned."

There is NONE of that problem with Windows applications that run on Wine. They just work out of the box even if they're literally older than many forum members. I have a dictionary I bought in 1993!

Plus, the number and diversity of plugins available for Windows is immensely huge. Linux will never achieve that in my lifetime, not unless we count Wine as part of it!

[vortico]

You're missing my point. An experienced programmer can take a codebase and "modernize" it pretty easily to work on newer systems. All it takes is one person, and the software can be usable again and adopted into package repos.

[dellboy]

You're missing my point. An experienced programmer can take a codebase and "modernize" it pretty easily to work on newer systems. All it takes is one person, and the software can be usable again and adopted into package repos.

Easy-peasy then -just go and find yourself an "experienced coder".

On the coder shelf at your nearest Walmart

[vortico]

No need to find a developer, they've already found the software. I don't know of a single "vintage" libre music software project that isn't in the repos of Arch Linux for example.

[Forgotten]

You're missing my point. An experienced programmer can take a codebase and "modernize" it pretty easily to work on newer systems. All it takes is one person, and the software can be usable again and adopted into package repos.

There’s also a ton of code out there that requires almost no work to get it up and running on modern Linux. Not to mention the various repositories of compiled code (often with maintainers) where some of it originated from when Bill Gates was still in diapers.

[lmv]

You're missing my point. An experienced programmer can take a codebase and "modernize" it pretty easily to work on newer systems. All it takes is one person, and the software can be usable again and adopted into package repos.

I can safely say you are the one missing my point.

READ THIS IF YOU'RE A NEWBIE!

Here, ladies and gentlemen, is a VERY TYPICAL example of a knowledgeable Linux user, the kind who can or could maintain things and defends Linux tooth and nail: they just assume that everyone knows as much as they do, or that you can learn just as much in less than a couple of years.

Their most common, usual, template response to this is: "The code is free and open source. You can just change it and compile it yourself."

Exactly as in "hey, what's stopping you?"

That is just the kind of people you will have to turn to for help, and that's the kind of help you are going to get 96% of the time.

An experienced programmer can take a codebase and 'modernize' it pretty easily

All it takes is one person

requires almost no work to get it up and running

All variations of the Official Standard Reply.

Finding someone who will "adopt" a package is never easy. Either way, you will depend on someone's free time and willingness to do something for you, a complete stranger. How does that sound?

I don't know of a single "vintage" libre music software project that isn't in the repos of Arch Linux for example.

Ah, yes, Arch does have a very good repository. However, I kindly ask that you immediately stop reading this post altogether and absolutely forget about it, UNLESS YOU ARE A NEWBIE. If you really are a newbie, then yes, keep reading.

READ THIS IF YOU'RE A NEWBIE!

As stated previously, I have 18 years of experience with Linux. Well, I tried to install Arch Linux on a virtual machine just a couple of months ago... And I gave up! I could have accomplished it, but I was too appalled at the installation procedure. Even very basic files such as /etc/hosts and fstab have to be created and edited manually! You don't understand? I will translate it for you. It's not very different from rubbing sticks to make fire. Here is the installation procedure in detail. Go ahead, take a gander:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_guide

Yes. I know.

Q: Are all Linux distros like that?!
A: No. Many are a lot, lot easier. But I use Debian, the second largest repository in the world, a close second to Ubuntu. And I have seen packages get abandoned. It happens. The "experienced programmer" loses interest or has other priorites, and that's it. Game over. Maybe it will come back, but you will have to do without it in the meantime.

That was my whole point since the beginning.

Q: Why do people here act as if they didn't understand, as if we didn't speak the same language?
A: That is extremely common in the Linux community. Linux is never bad or wrong for them. It's always the user's fault. And you will have to ask for help in one of those communities when you use Linux. So be prepared for it.

Or do as I do now: install any Linux you really like, even Puppy for example (which has a very limited repository but probably has Wine because Wine is a staple everywhere), and run all the music software on Wine. You will thank yourself later and the "experienced programmer" just might thank you as well.

The Puppy user community is very nice, by the way.