Transition from Windows10 to Linux OS (as a normal, and as a musician/sound tech)

[spocks]

Well. Hi!
Can someone please provide me vital tutorials for transitioning between the 2 OS's?
More specific- I want knowing more about the general idea of Linux, The second part is of course DAW's, recordings &mixing.

I work with Ableton and Cubase (which none of them has a license )
I don't have ton of equipment, but haven't done anything in a while so that's acceptable.

here's what I have:
Lenovo Thinkpad P52
Dell Monitor 27"
Two KALI Audio 6" monitors
Motu MicroBook IIC
2 Rode Mics
1 M-Audio Axiom 49 keys, 1st Gen
1 Akai MPK mini

Thanks for adding me! :O

[tseaver]

@spocks

Most of your hardware presents no issues. The crucial bit for compatibility is:

Motu MicroBook IIC

This page https://motu.com/products/motuaudio/microbook states:

As the "c" in its name implies, the MicroBook IIc is USB audio class compliant.

which would seem hopeful: "class compliant" USB interfaces tend to work more often than others on Linux.

I would suggest downloading e.g. the most recent version of AVLinux (https://www.bandshed.net/avlinux/, installing it to a USB thumbdrive, and testing by booting from the thumbdrive: if you can lauch Ardour and record something from one of your mics plugged into the MicroBook (enabling 48v phantom power), then you should be golden.

[Linuxmusician01]

[...]
I work with Ableton and Cubase (which none of them has a license )
I don't have ton of equipment, but haven't done anything in a while so that's acceptable.
[...]

With all due respect: then why switch? There's no Linux version of Ableton or Cubase. Or are you prepared to switth to Qtractor or Ardour?

And what @tseaver said: run Linux from an USB thumb drive first to see if your Laptop even works with Linux. Desktop PC's usually ain't no problem but laptops can be. Thou art warned.

Another tip for a beginner: choose a Linux distro that is very popular (like Ubuntu, Debian, etc.) so you can get help everywhere easily. Do not use an exotic distro that has been made by somebody in his bedroom.

[Impostor]

Well. Hi!
Can someone please provide me vital tutorials for transitioning between the 2 OS's?
More specific- I want knowing more about the general idea of Linux, The second part is of course DAW's, recordings &mixing.

I work with Ableton and Cubase (which none of them has a license :shock: )
I don't have ton of equipment, but haven't done anything in a while so that's acceptable.

here's what I have:
Lenovo Thinkpad P52
Dell Monitor 27"
Two KALI Audio 6" monitors
Motu MicroBook IIC
2 Rode Mics
1 M-Audio Axiom 49 keys, 1st Gen
1 Akai MPK mini

Thanks for adding me! :O

Congratulations with regaining your freedom!

To make the transition, well, just wipe windows from your harddrive. Then you have no choice but to dive into Linux head first.

If that sounds too adventurous or risky to you, you could start with dual booting. That way you can wade into the shallows, and have the comfort of seeing Windows when you nervously glance back over your shoulder at times when it gets cloudy, and the water gives you a momentary displeasing chill.

By the way, I used to use Cubase a bit back in the nineties, and when I started using MusE on Linux, I felt right at home with it.

[Michael Willis]

Do not use an exotic distro that has been made by somebody in his bedroom.

... Unless it's AVLinux, made pretty much single handedly by @GMaq. Feel confident using that.

[Impostor]

1 M-Audio Axiom 49 keys, 1st Gen

And you can probably forget about "direct-link" and "Axiom instrument mode": A.f.a.i.k. there's no Linux DAW which supports such features. You'll have to do it the oldschool way of assigning midi cc's to your faders and knobs, if necessary (I hope that can be done on the keyboard itself?), and then assigning midi- controllable parameters of your DAW to those cc's.

[GMaq]

Do not use an exotic distro that has been made by somebody in his bedroom.

... Unless it's AVLinux, made pretty much single handedly by @GMaq. Feel confident using that.

Thanks @Michael Willis

AV Linux has been made somewhat un-exotic-ly and boringly in my office for about 15 years now... maybe that's better..?

[tseaver]

@Impostor

@spocks wrote: ↑1 M-Audio Axiom 49 keys, 1st Gen

And you can probably forget about "direct-link" and "Axiom instrument mode": A.f.a.i.k. there's no Linux DAW which supports such features. You'll have to do it the oldschool way of assigning midi cc's to your faders and knobs, if necessary (I hope that can be done on the keyboard itself?), and then assigning midi- controllable parameters of your DAW to those cc's.

FWIW (and that ain't much, given my minimal focus on keyboards), I use the exact same keyboard @spocks has all the time, driving Pianoteq, setBFree, and the many VST instruments I use from time to time in Ardour / Mixbus32C. At one point I made a stab at getting M-Audio's Windows-based Enigma software running, but quickly realized I could program the keyboard at least as easily using its own hardware buttons and knobs.

[Impostor]

@Impostor
At one point I made a stab at getting M-Audio's Windows-based Enigma software running, but quickly realized I could program the keyboard at least as easily using its own hardware buttons and knobs.

Yes, I have a simpler M-Audio version (Keystation 49 MK3), and I can, from the keyboard itself, assign cc's to my single fader too. And I can even use the transport buttons with MusE. So I guess those features as "direct link" and "instrument mode" are not so interesting after all..

[Death]

For me, I had to just do it and commit to it which worked out really nicely in the end. Life on Linux is also a lot easier these days and certainly so compared to some of the previous times I'd tried to switch but failed. I definitely had some struggles though.. Once you get into the Linux way of things and stop thinking like a Windows user, it becomes a lot easier (It's not actually all that different though!).

There was some preparation I did which really helped to ease the transition; Start finding software replacements now! I would find software that I could use on Windows which also had a Linux version. This way, when I switched to Linux I could jump straight into using software I was already familiar with. This made all the difference (I'd had previously failed attempts to switch to Linux where I did not do this). Let us know if you need replacement software suggestions!

As for music software; That's the one thing I never really got sorted out on Linux. I'm an FL Studio user and nothing on any platform compares to it for me so after trialling lots of other DAWs, I just went back to FLS. Luckily for me it actually works really well on Linux so I'm happy And on that note, seeing as you're an Ableton user, you might like Bitwig Studio which has a native Linux version! I'm not a fan of their subscription policy though.. Or you could just try installing Ableton with Lutris, for example: https://lutris.net/games/ableton-live/
Otherwise there are a bunch of other Linux native DAWs to try out but I'm gonna be honest with you, you might find them a bit lacking compared to what you're used to using.

As for distros, a general purpose one is fine for music creation so don't think you need a music focused distro, although they can be a good idea depending on things; What is your computer for? If you just want a stable, music creation machine then the music distros may be ok, but if you appreciate something that has more up to date drivers and software in the repositories with newer features etc, then you will probably want something different - This is why I don't use music focused distros.

I hope that helps!

Edit: Oh, by the way, I would recommend KDE Plasma for the desktop environment in whatever distro you choose. It's a modern GUI which'll be easy to get used to and it has lots of good functionality and customisation abilities. A lot of distros seem to like using XFCE which is good because it's light on resources but it's kinda boring to look at and use, if that bothers you..

[Linuxmusician01]

[...]
There was some preparation I did which really helped to ease the transition; Start finding software replacements now! I would find software that I could use on Windows which also had a Linux version.

Second that. I think that's very good advice.

[...] you could just try installing Ableton with Lutris, for example: https://lutris.net/games/ableton-live/

Doesn't Ableton work in Wine or Wine Staging?

[tavasti]

Doesn't Ableton work in Wine or Wine Staging?

Ableton works with wine, but at least I could not get decent latency. And have asked everybody who runs windows daws with wine if they can run with decent latenly. And nobody has claimed that they can. So if latency on range 300ms is ok, then it is fine. With such latency it is possible to play real instruments and record, mix, etc. But try connecting midi keyboard, and play with it, horrible.

[Death]

Doesn't Ableton work in Wine or Wine Staging?

Ableton works with wine, but at least I could not get decent latency. And have asked everybody who runs windows daws with wine if they can run with decent latenly. And nobody has claimed that they can. So if latency on range 300ms is ok, then it is fine. With such latency it is possible to play real instruments and record, mix, etc. But try connecting midi keyboard, and play with it, horrible.

Yes, this is also the issue I have with FL Studio; Latency. The fix is to install and setup 'wineasio'. However, every attempt I've had at this over the years has failed. I did have it working on Linux Mint at one point years ago thanks to another FLS, Linux user who was kind enough to write a script for me so I'll post that script here if it's of use to anyone (Note that I was running FLS via 'PlayOnLinux' at that time):

Code: Select all

#!/usr/bin/env bash

basedir="$HOME/.PlayOnLinux/wine/linux-amd64"
WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/FL_Studio_64bit"

cd $basedir

for winedir in */; do
    if [ ! -f "$winedir/lib/wine/wineasio.dll.so" ]; then
        ln -s "/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/wine/wineasio.dll.so" "$winedir/lib/wine"
        ln -s "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/wine/wineasio.dll.so" "$winedir/lib64/wine"
        chmod +r "$winedir/lib/wine/wineasio.dll.so"
        chmod +r "$winedir/lib64/wine/wineasio.dll.so"
        WINEPREFIX=$WINEPREFIX "$winedir/bin/regsvr32" wineasio
        WINEPREFIX=$WINEPREFIX "$winedir/bin/wine64" regsvr32 wineasio
    fi
done

Maybe I should have another go at setting it up seeing as I haven't tried for a while now. I could get it registered into my system as far as I could tell, I've just never managed to get it to show up as an option in FL Studio..

[tavasti]

Doesn't Ableton work in Wine or Wine Staging?

Ableton works with wine, but at least I could not get decent latency. And have asked everybody who runs windows daws with wine if they can run with decent latenly. And nobody has claimed that they can. So if latency on range 300ms is ok, then it is fine. With such latency it is possible to play real instruments and record, mix, etc. But try connecting midi keyboard, and play with it, horrible.

Yes, this is also the issue I have with FL Studio; Latency. The fix is to install and setup 'wineasio'.

I got wineasio working ok, and needed to set frames/period in jack to 4096 or 8192 to stop xruns. No, it is not the fix.

[wjl]

Yeah, pretty much what the others said already - I gave up on emulating a Windows environment when dealing with realtime stuff like music. So for me it's Ardour, there's also Qtractor for people who prefer that, and of the commercial ones I remember out of my head, there's Reaper or Bitwig (which is more Ableton-like I think).

So if the priority is Ableton and Cubase, I'd stay with Windows, like with Logic on a Mac...