Hey,
atm i am considering switching over to linux on my main pc. I have some experience with different distros ( i have fedora on my laptop) but i am not sure if it is really worth it. I mainly use my PC for Music Production, some Gaming and graphics stuff (Affinity Suit).
For my music production i use a lot of stuff from Native Instruments. I have a Maschine mk3 as my hardware DAW (in combination with Maschine Software) and NI Komplete with lots of vsts. I also have some Arturia vsts and vsts from smaller companies (all paid). My Software DAW is Bitwig (wich has native Linux support). After some research i found out that there are ways to get at least some software from NI running with yarbrigde, but this does not account for my Maschine mk3 and seems very tedious and unstable. Also it is suggested that i have to use older versions of my software as the current version of Native Access does not run at all. I am willing to put in some effort but all of this seems a little bit too much. I also found out that you can run windows in a vm and give it direct access to hardware so i could Use my Maschine mk3 and all of the software of course. My main concern with this is, that i will end up using windows anyway so why bother switching to linux if it is basically just a host for Linux in this case.
Do any of you have experience with the soft and hardware i use under linux? Or maybe some suggestions how i could solve my problems? Is running windows in a vm a viable solution or should i just stick with windows? Any input is welcome and much appreciated!
I would like to add that if you’re eyeing switching to Linux in the future you may want to check before buying whether something supports Linux going forward. Also, you might want to make some noise on the forums so that companies understand that there’s a growing demand for Linux support. I’ve been making music on Linux for quite a while but I’ve always bought DAWs (like Reaper, Bitwig, Renoise) and VSTs (U-He, ToneLib, etc) that already support Linux… trying to migrate a workflow from Windows to Linux could be pretty hard.
Second this, take it slow. As you buy new stuff, include Linux support in your decisions. If you have the option of two PCs, try Linux on one of them and keep a separate music production PC with windows.