Linux discussion

[Grzesiek11]

Creating this thread for people (like me) to not derail other threads with the topic.

 

[Grzesiek11]

MagicalMiku made this overview for people looking into it in another thread. As someone who has used Linux for years, I think it's pretty good:

Except Vocaloid5, all the other Vocaloid engines work perfectly on Wine, in fact they are ranked as "Platinum" on the application database:
https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=13074
Probably Vocaloid 5 is working too (I should test it when I have some freetime), since the tests published on the appdb website are based on a very old Wine version (4.8, released about 7 years ago), and with Wine 10 and the new Wine 11, lots of improvements have been made in terms of performance and compatibility for programs and games.
Also the MMD editor and Piapro Studio NT work so well! And OpenUTAU has native Linux version.
For audio editing software, LMMS is open source, Audacity too, then FLStudio works too, while Cubase depends on the version/plugins (but my version of Cubase LE with Miku NT2 works perfect).
You can search on the appdb the software/game title you're interested about:
https://appdb.winehq.org/
If you don't find it, probably nobody has made an entry about it yet, but that doesn't mean that is not working. And when you see some results based on very old Wine versions (like the Vocaloid 5), it's still possible that now the software is working.
There is also Protondb website, which is similar, but is about Proton game compatibility layer (which is a modified Wine with some tweaks by Valve, then usually those tweaks are added on Wine too):
https://www.protondb.com/
If you're an Apple user, you might have heard of Rosetta compatibility layer for their arm-based Mac: yes, that's based on Wine too.
Anti-cheat issues, that really depends on the software house, but recently Electronic Arts said that they'll support Linux too for their anti-cheat in the next months.
The problem with Windows is that is getting worse, and worse, everyday. Linux is getting better, and I know that probably it'll never have 100% compatibility (especially with some software heavy on DRM or like Adobe), but using it just feels better. I have 1 pc with Windows 10 and 1 pc with Linux, and I use the one with Linux more and more.
I can recommend a few things: if you want to try Linux with your software, try it on a different computer. Find a cheap old one, so you can experiment anything with it, or install it on an external ssd/hdd usb. Never do a dual boot with Windows on the same drive, there are always issues.
You can try Debian, Ubuntu Studio or Fedora:
https://www.debian.org/distrib/
https://ubuntustudio.org/tour/audio/
https://fedoraproject.org/
https://fedoraproject.org/spins/

How to make a bootable/live usb pendrive to try and install Linux:
https://pendrivelinux.com/
And you can watch some videos of Distrotube and Linux Cast to learn more, they are very good nerds! hehe
https://www.youtube.com/@DistroTube
https://www.youtube.com/@TheLinuxCast

I have a correction as to this part:

If you're an Apple user, you might have heard of Rosetta compatibility layer for their arm-based Mac: yes, that's based on Wine too.

Rosetta has nothing to do with Windows software, it is a compatibility layer for x86-64 macOS software. Wine can be used for Windows software on macOS though (it works for any unix OS, not only Linux, and macOS is an unix OS), and with Rosetta for specifically x86-64 Windows software, so maybe you got it confused with that.

In the same thread, Vector mentions VST compatibility:

My assumption is VST compatibility is going to be an overall dice roll though, since most only officially support Windows and MacOS.

You can run Windows VSTs via Wine on native Linux DAWs with yabridge, but yeah, it does depend as with any Windows software. It's best to just see for yourself I guess.

Ardour and Waveform are other DAWs not mentioned yet that have Linux builds.

 

[MagicalMiku]

Thank you for making the thread, and also quoting my words, I appreciated that!
I would like to add some other suggestions:

- DistroWatch:
https://distrowatch.com/
There are many kinds of Linux distributions ("distros"), but 90% of them are based on Debian (like Ubuntu), Fedora and Arch (like SteamOS). The website Distrowatch is a very great resource to check the various distributions available, with lots of information, screenshots, reviews and much more.

- Wine:
https://www.winehq.org/
Official website of Wine, which is the translation layer for running Windows applications and games on Linux. It is even able to run programs from Windows 3.11 era. On the main page you can check both latest stable and development version of Wine. Stable is the most recommended, but you might need to download the latest development if you're having issues with some software. A new development version is released about every 2~3 weeks.

- CrossOver:
https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover
It is the paid version of Wine, made by CodeWeavers, the same team behind Wine (since 1994). Available both for Mac and Linux, it offers a slightly better interface, settings and compatibility compared to Wine. A free trial (fully-functional 14 days) is available for the download.

- Virtual Machine:
https://www.virtualbox.org/
https://www.qemu.org/
In the case a Windows software you're trying to run on Linux with Wine or CrossOver doesn't run at all (or has lots of issues), you might try to run a virtual machine on your Linux setup with VirtualBox or QEMU. After creating a virtual machine (you can choose how many CPU cores, how much RAM and HDD space), you can install Windows like a normal installation with a ISO image.
You can download official ISO of Windows 10 and Windows 11 from Microsoft website:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11
If you need to run Windows XP in the virtual machine, you can download the XP 2009 evaluation ISO (120 days) from Microsoft website:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=11196

- ReactOS Project:
https://reactos.org/
ReactOS is a reverse engineered operative system that aims to be a free, open-source alternative to Windows. Currently, its kernel is reporting NT 5.2 (which is for Windows XP applications and games), but in development there is a new kernel for support of Windows 7+ software. You need to run it into a virtual machine, and is good for trying to run some software made during Windows XP, like Vocaloid 2.
Here is a video demonstration about ReactOS (from the video channel ExplainingComputers, which I recommend):