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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • I agree with what others have said about using reaper. It really is a great DAW.

    That said, a lot of good vst use stuff like ilok or other crap that makes it impossible or very difficult to use on Linux at least in my experience.

    I made a windows box specifically for making music because its just way easier. Making music on Linux sucked for me due to crashing and the plugins I bought before I switched to Linux on my main machine.

    Reaper should be fine for you, there are plenty of good Linux compatible VST but if you ever get “serious” about music production, Linux isnt quite there yet IMO. Windows would be my recommendation or if you can afford it, a Mac is good too from what ive heard.








  • Tldr, I recommend sticking with Windows or using two separate machines, one for music production running Windows, the other for running everything else with Linux.

    Music production isnt great on Linux in my experience at least right now. If you use any paid plugins that are windows only, there’s a good chance they won’t run. I haven’t used ableton or cakewalk but I use reaper which has a native Linux version, and even that had a lot of issues. Anything with ilok is a no go, even plugins that dont, I had a hard time getting working or if they did work, they crashed A LOT.

    Gaming and other general use has been fine for me, ive even done video and photo editing on Linux and been happy with it.

    If you want the easiest experience, I typically recommend Fedora KDE spin or kubuntu. KDE is a desktop environment that is very similar to windows and highly customizable. You’d likely feel at home on it. Immutable distro might also be a good option if you really want the “IDC just do the update” path. Harder to break, easier to manage from what ive heard but I haven’t used them personally so maybe others that have can chime in.

    I made a windows only box for music production and use Linux on my main PC. It runs windows 10 and is rarely connected to the internet except when I need it to be. If you wanna run Linux and make music, it can be done, but I had a terrible time with it and have given up for now.

    So make a separate machine for music production and run Linux on your main pc or just run Windows is my advice. So far, this has been the best setup for me. I don’t worry about my privacy, I can make music when I want, and I don’t have to worry about incompatible plugins, crashes, stupid nonsense that gets in my way when i wanna make music.


  • I don’t disagree that snaps aren’t the best thing but Ubuntu does allow you to turn off auto updates now if you want and although it took a little extra setup, I also use the .deb version of Firefox right now. It works well. I’m running Kubuntu 24.04.

    For servers especially, Ubuntu can be a really good option. I’ve heard some people actually like snaps for servers because the auto update so its one less this to worry about. Yea you can setup a script to do that too but its a nice to have for some folks.

    All that said, its not for everyone, but for servers I think Ubuntu is a good option just for compatibility alone, not to mention the documentation, tutorials, etc.

    Thats just my opinion though.


  • I agree. I tried Fedora first, then Pop!OS, and then settled on Kubuntu.

    Kubuntu has been the most stable so far, no big issues. I chose it for that and its Wayland support. Snaps can be disabled or even have auto update turned off which is what I did and I had no real issues with Ubuntu past that so overall a good distro.

    Widely supported, plenty of tutorials, has my favorite DE as a spin, it just does what I need it to.








  • Anything to help a fellow Linux user my dude. I’m not as skilled as some of the other folks on here but I try when I can.

    I think I saw someone mention hyperland which may be up your alley but you also mentioned you’d like to stay away from Arch so not sure if that’d work in this case.

    KDE has changed quite a bit, you might like it better now. I think the recent changes have been good but I guess I dont change it as much as you might want.


  • TL:DR, Kubuntu or Fedora with KDE

    Everyone will have their own opinions on this. Just speaking for overall desktop environments, KDE is my top pick. Pretty easy to pick up and change. Works well, feels like Windows but actually good and very customizable. And extensible.

    As for the distro behind it, pick your poison. I think either Fedora or Ubuntu. KDE spin would be Kubuntu which is what I currently use. Both are pretty popular and supported well.

    Some people dont really care for Ubuntu but coming from Fedora with KDE, its been a much smoother experience personally. Yes, I’m not a fan of snaps, but they can be turned off. In all, I’m using Linux, I’m much better off on Ubuntu than Windows privacy and security wise which are the main things I care about aside from being able to change whatever I god damn please.

    I struggle less with shit not working on kubuntu. Fedora for the most part was very solid but there were more than a few times Steam for whatever reason gave me issues on Fedora. I’d consider steam a pretty easy thing to install and use but I had lots of issues with it just not starting or crashing, hanging when downloading updates. Really annoying.

    Could be im just better at using linux now than I was back then as Fedora with KDE was my first real jump to Linux from Windows.


  • For gaming and browsing, you should have a very similar if not the exact same experience on Linux save for a few cases.

    Most browser stuff just works, no real issues with anything in browser in my experience over the last 2 years or so since I switched. Only thing I’ve noticed is some streaming platforms dont allow you to stream in full HD like Hulu for whatever reason, likely piracy concerns. I’m sure theres other minor things too that I may have missed over the years but nothing that really made a difference.

    For gaming, aside from multiplayer games with anticheat, its been great. I haven’t had any issues with playing games in my library. Proton is fantastic for steam games and from what I’ve heard, lutris is great as well.

    I’m a musician/artist and Linux has been a bad experience for me with music production unfortunately. Between most VSTs not working for me even with yabridge, things would crash, not work at all or would load but then crash in the middle of production. I actually used Reaper and was running PopOS, (great daw BTW, good choice) and while Reaper itself was great, most things, even native Linux VST didn’t work for me. I hope your experience is better than mine but I ended up building a 3rd machine just for music production running Windows 10 with no internet access. I also had Windows only VSTs that I spent a considerable amount of money on so that was also another big thing for me.

    Aside from music production, other creative workflows like photo editing have been good with Krita. I’ve heard good things about kdenlive, and davinci resolve Ive heard is good on Linux as well. Ive used davinci resolve myself on windows and its a good video editing software IMO.

    The popshop kinda sucks. I went to kubuntu recently just for ease of use and not being so tied in to PopOS’s weird system. I wasn’t able to do simple things like change the file manager without it breaking a ton of shit, even after editing configs. If you dont need to mess around with stuff like that, PopOS is good.

    All in all, I’m glad I switched from Windows.


  • Is linux ready for the education sector? Kinda depends on the tools involved.

    If its a google classroom kind of workflow and or everything is done in the browser, absolutely. Theres a reason Chromebooks got popular for schools, not just cause they’re cheap, but being more locked down and basically only useful for in browser work made them a good alternative to Windows machines.

    However, some stuff specific to certain courses or classes may not be compatible with linux. Something like a photo editing college course that requires adobe (ew) would be an example.

    I’d personally love to see Linux in the education sector more. With immutable distros, no licensing costs, and lower hardware requirements, Linux is likely going to be really attractive to schools that are looking for alternatives.

    So sick that you were able to do this. Kudos for taking the initiative and making your community better.