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I am one of those people.
I'm sorry but I can't dedicate the time. Last time I tried to install it for someone else I went down a 5h rabbit hole of finding a driver for a scanner, and I was at the point where I had custom pkg repositories and needed to fix pkg dependency conflicts myself and I don't have the OS knowledge to do all this, and I didn't have time because I had to travel back again.
When I tried installing it for myself, I was missing critical software for a variety of things. For example, there's no good DAW on Linux, and even if there was, lots of VST plugins are only Linux compatible. Things like Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects have no solid alternative to this day for Linux and hence I'm struggling to replace them. Blender is on Linux (obv) but for example render engines usually only come with software for windows.
And then there's a bunch of things where I'm not sure how compatible they are even if they were to run on Linux. Office uses proprietary file format constraints to lock down their ecosystem. Sucks, but everyone uses it, so I'm stuck. Unreal Engine, lots games, my audio interface, drivers for obscure small devices I need? I just don't know and I have to dedicate time to researching all of it.
I hope you can see why someone like me has a very hard time just switching over. Yes I can just pull the plug and do it, but I will get no work done for a solid 2 weeks and even after that I will be heavily constrained.
And this all on top of the fact that I regularly set up Linux VMs for specific things which break way too often on regular use. Which also does not spark joy.
I hope you can understand why I'm fine debloating windows with Chris Titus for half an hour and then just enjoying 4 years on it without worrying about all of that is easier.
And believe me, I bought a notebook and will try to go CachyOS x KDE Plasma on that, but it will be an experiment and I have lots of doubt that this can replace my setup.
Funny how people write a long essay why they stay on Windows, claiming what a hassle it is to set up Linux. Sure, you might know how do deal with Windows, but don't expect that other systems work the same way. Windows is the odd one.
If you depend on Windows-only software, there is nothing wrong with sticking to it. Use the system that fits your needs the most.
I don't write essays often, but when I do it is because things are bothering me. Specifically, these memes are plenty and basically tell me someone like me doesn't exist. When this collides with people who say things like "I honestly can't imagine how you can use windows with all the crap" I get annoyed, and at this point I just wanted to make sure the people who write this know that there's lots of people like me who have good reasons.
Turns out the world is multi-facetted.
no good daw
Ardour!
What about my vst plugins though? That's what's holding me back. Native Instruments, addictive drums 2 and not wanting to touch gimp/Inkscape.
I have yet to encounter a VST that doesn't work at minimum with yabridge. I gotta admit though, since I switched (ca. 3 years ago now) I find myself using Linux native tools much more that the VSTs I used to depend on so much. I use airwindows (full Linux compatibility) much more on the VST front, and find myself replacing many windows VSTs with pure data or supercollider...
Some cool Linux tools I've discovered and are now dominating my workflow:
- Reaper (https://www.reaper.fm/), also super common in professional studios.
- airwindows (https://www.airwindows.com/), genuinely amazing and FREE!
- Pure Data L2Ork & Max (https://l2ork.music.vt.edu/main/make-your-own-l2ork/software/), literally infinite possibilities.
- Supercollidor (https://supercollider.github.io/), you can never have too much Supercollidor...
- Orca Sequencer (https://100r.co/site/orca.html), basically my default sequencer now.
- old-school tracker (my fav: https://schismtracker.org/)
- and much, much more!
Also audio management (routing, etc) is sooooo nice and faaaast with jack in Linux. Literally a dream. If anything, I think my experience has significantly improved since switching to Linux vis-a-vis audio production.
Thank you 🙌
VSTs work with wine. I use Neural DSP amps with Ardour through pipewire. yabridge is the goat.
Thank you. I'll add it to my research
And Reaper and Bitwig!
The potential pain with setups is a reason I like to point people at vendors like Slimbook, Tuxedo Computers or System76. Avoids a lot of possible problems for those who can afford it.
there's no good DAW on Linux
Now that's not true though. Bitwig Studio and Reaper f.e. support all the common plugins APIs and are excellent professional DAWs. And then of course you also got Ardour if you prefer FOSS.
Things like Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects have no solid alternative to this day for Linux
I'm not perfectly familiar with Adobe products, but I'm very positive that DaVinci Resolve, Lightworks (literally used by Hollywood), Blender and Natron offer all the functionality those two do. And most likely with less crashes, as far as I heard about Premiere Pro. 🙃
Office uses proprietary file format constraints to lock down their ecosystem.
Didn't hear about issues with Office Suites in more than a decade. Microsoft famously manipulated their docs to hamper third-party apps in implementing docx support, that's quite a time ago though.
Unreal Engine, lots games, my audio interface, drivers for obscure small devices I need? I just don't know and I have to dedicate time to researching all of it.
Yeah, hardware is always a thing especially during a switch. Once you made it of course you can pick new gear that's known to be supported on Linux by their company. At least with Unreal Engine it's known to work, and Games by now basically always do except for those with the most vile Anti-Cheat.
I bought a notebook and will try to go CachyOS x KDE Plasma on that
May I suggest to use a more general-use, Ubuntu-based distro? Those often offer way better hardware support for more devices out of the box. That's one reason they're called bloated, but damn is it comfy sometimes.
Didn’t hear about issues with Office Suites in more than a decade. Microsoft famously manipulated their docs to hamper third-party apps in implementing docx support, that’s quite a time ago though.
This is still a thing. Open up MS Office docs in LibreOffice, and more often than not formatting will be messed up.
Ok for personal use, unacceptable for professional use.
Does the same happen in ONLYOFFICE or Collabora? The documents I sometimes interact with might be too "basic" to notice problems. The worst issue I had was LibreOffice Draw freaking out over a PDF, which arguably it wasn't made for anyway.
Sucks if they still keep protecting their monopoly through software / document manipulation.
I haven't used Onlyoffice or Collabora so far. I'm only a very light office user and LibreOffice is enough for me, though I've had it often enough that it messes up some document I open. It's not a lot, usually just alignments being wrong or weird gaps between characters, but it's enough that I wouldn't want to use it for example in an important presentation for work if the PC I am presenting on only has MS Office.
Not something I have to do with any kind of frequency, so not an issue for my use case, but I can totally see that it is a big issue for someone who does that all day every day.
Seems like you already went through the journey :)
I would say though before switching to Linux, switch all your critical apps to the one available on Linux first. Get used to it and when your are finally comfortable, switch your OS. No need to switch all of them in one go. If for whatever reason you are never get comfortable with the trade-off, just stay on Windows. It is fine.
switch all your critical apps to the one available on Linux first.
Gimp and stuff is a nice toy for people like me who don't need anything, but it's a long shot away from being competitive with commercial software for professional use.