Really want an honest answer here and not a full blown Linux cult answer.
I’m a new dad (kid is 1.5months old) who used to game pretty hard and do music production in cakewalk and ableton, but the crotch goblin is getting in the way. With windows 10 support coming to an end, I’m faced with a choice to either jump on the Linux train or take the safe way out and eat win11. Please keep in mind that I run a super clean machine (no porn (that’s what mobile is for) or tormenting or anything sketch) and have no intention of doing anything unclean. I have a lot of music prod data that I don’t want fucked and a steam library that I want access to but don’t really care about the data associated with them (saves, profiles…i could care less). So it’s really my ableton and Cakewalk files I want to keep. There was a time I college 2010-2011 where I borrowed a CS majors Ubuntu laptop for a few months to just get work done (just webbrowsing and office app stuff). Shit was annoying and difficult to understand but I was able to make it work-ish.
I’m savvy enough where I can adult Lego a PC together but struggle when it comes to software and troubleshooting and really don’t have the time for that stuff.
Basically, I’m not in the position right now to learn a distro and struggle around with all that crap and I need to keep my music shit. I also despise Microsoft and AI in general but I’m perfectly fine just eating it for simplicity. Is there a low effort Linux solution to my situation? Looking for automatic updates where I just click “express install i don’t fucking care” and im not searching for drivers every day.
My build is basically what’s shown below minus the SLI’d 1080s and with 32gbDDR4. Any upgrade apart from the gpu would essentially mean a wholesale at this point. I used the 2nd card to build my wife a pc since SLI is effectively useless now.
Go ahead and update to the newest spyware. 🤷♂️
Debian 13 comes out in a week or so. I have 1 fewer corporation spying on me.
the crotch goblin
you’re disgusting
Sex trophy?
This is your own child you’re talking about.
Massive financial burden?
I use Windows 11 for work and honestly don’t know why so many folks complain about it. I like working in it better than 10.
The forced Microsoft login is absolutely a valid privacy concern - I get that. The copilot integration is annoying and not helpful but can be turned off. The general UI and compatibility is pretty good. I’d just go ahead and upgrade to 11.
I had my first kid a little over 2 years ago, and my interest in twiddling with my OS plummeted. I use Linux, and it’s great for what I do, but I don’t do any sound stuff. I bet you could do it but that there’d be a lot of twiddling with your OS.
Rather than leave another long reply to read, I’ll leave my thoughts simple: if you have another computer you’re not using, try Linux mint and see if it fits your needs. If it’s too much and you can’t get the time needed to figure things out, 11 might be the choice (for now).
But either way, keep Linux on the second and learn a little bit as you get time to! :)
Kick the can down the road. https://massgrave.dev/windows10_eol
Probably the best choice if OP is dreading 11. Put it off, hope that in 3 years Linux support has matured even more for their use cases.
MS support has used this software themselves in an edge case where they couldn’t get Windows to active properly.
You have two options here:
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Enable the extended support (no pay needed with this software but if OP absolutely refuses to run it they can pay Microsoft money directly though it takes work to find where to do that at) and run on that for 3 years until 2028.
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Upgrade to LTSC IOT using the method they outline at the link there. Again they have two options, one is free, the other is following that guide but paying for a gray-market key (G2a for instance) for LTSC IOT which would avoid running this software on their PC but would mean paying someone some money for a corporate volume key they’re not technically allowed to sell. Which means support until 2032.
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bro just grab a cheap ssd and enclosure, install linux on that, slowly play around and setitup, if you like it eventually swap ssds or install it on your main one
I went through the hassle of dualbooting and accessing my drive through linux (not that much hassle but as a beginner it was), ended up uninstalling windows, but i had time to tinker, which is key to making me like it, I was okay with not having a usable pc and I learned what I needed/wanted as substitutes. If you don’t have time experiment on a side device or using an ssd, they are fairly cheap now, you could even use a cheap fast usb if you don’t mind it shitting the bed eventually.
damn could usbs be used as disposable os, i guess thats why tails is used that way, since its bad for the usb to use it that way, they are getting pretty cheap for the fast ones, idk why youd need a dispoable os you could lose at any second tho, maybe if it was very connected to a cloud service
Yes but don’t use it for anything valuable. USBs have a high failure rate when used for heavy read writes.
You can get USB enclosures for M2 drives if you want to go that route a bit more reliably. Ensure you use USB3 (which will still be slow but not as boneachingly bad as USB2)
Of note: Microsoft is offering an extended support program for Windows 10 consumers. It’s $30, or free if you opt in to Windows Backup, or you can buy it with Microsoft Rewards points. I would see if you have any of those points and go that route. It means you can delay 11 safely for another year.
I would say the biggest problem is the music production on Linux. Especially VSTs - those are still hit or miss. And unfortunately the DAWs you mentioned doesn’t have Linux support.
For example I was really trying to do music for several years on Linux, but in the end I gave up and now I’m dual booting Windows… 😿
Vst works fine with bitwig and yabridge I am not music producing but of curioosity I was trying to make this things works,even cracked paid big one part of plugins I maid to work
It works fine until it doesn’t … Some of the plugins were working fine but for example Line 6 Helix Native doesn’t… Also Yabridge stopped working for me few months ago because the developer didn’t have time to update some dependencies. 🤷🏻♂️
Dad of 4 kids here, I would say use the system that let you concentrate more on the kid and less on tinkering the OS.
Fedora could be a nice successor since it runs extremely stable, best way to be clean and safe are doing the updates, but I say this with 15 years of Linux experience.
Better stay on win 10. Family first.
not a dad, signed in just to upvote
Dad of 4 kids here, I would say use the system that let you concentrate more on the kid and less on tinkering the OS.
Dad of 3 here with 20something years on Linux already. This is the correct answer. Just go for win11 if that’s the simplest route for you, Linux will be there once you have the capacity to learn it. With a new baby you’ll be exhausted, you have a crapload (sometimes quite literally) new things to learn already and you just won’t have the time to do all the things you used to (as you already know). Making things more challenging for you by switching to something completely new just eats the very little time you have for yourself.
My work laptop has 11 running on it and it’s good enough. OS on that thing is not my call anyways, but at least on my workload it gets the job done.
If you’re not in a position to change your workflow and deal with new stuff, you can simply use windows 10 lts for a longer support and postpone the decision between linux and windows 11.
Personally, I’d recommend trying linux some day. It can drain some free time at first, but in the long run, you will find yourself dealing with much less bullshit than windows, and actually saving time in your life. Some linux users like to make things complicated and pass their time tinkering with the system, so it passes an image of linux being like that, but if you run a simple and stable distro, things will work nicely and will rarely require your time. I’m running fedora for a few years, and my laptop became so boring. I just use it for my work and hobbies, and turn it off when done. No bullshit.
“Basically, I’m not in the position right now to learn a distro and struggle around with all that crap and I need to keep my music shit.”
If you don’t want to have to learn anything new, then switching your OS to something you don’t know how to use is a stupid idea.
Thanks for the tl;dr
I hope you mean torrenting and not tormenting 😸
Just install Linux on an external SSD and test it.
Autocorrect is OP. Thinking of going that route. I have a 2tb SSD I’ve been meaning to install for a while now
Nothing to learn if you’re just doing desktop stuff.
Really want an honest answer here and not a full blown Linux cult answer.
And so you ask in a linux community…
Not all of us have been absorbed yet. I’ve used Linux in passing for years, but only now have tried just diving on outright. Previously my issues were RAM leaks, having to run commands on a laptop on every startup just to initiate wifi, and WINE performance. The former seem to be fixed, the latter seems to be about 89% there with Proton (I even use it for nongaming). Lutris drove me nuts, so Ijust use Steam to do the hard lifting.
For music production on a hobby level? Linux is not what you want.
The VST availability is abysmal. For a DAW, you can choose between Reaper and Ardour. Both are reasonably good, but without decent third party VSTs you’ll suffer. You won’t get iLok working, you won’t get any commercial plugins working. Your old project files won’t open.
Now, if you are exclusively working with Airwindows plugins (look it up!) in Reaper, you could get away with a Linux migration. Cakewalk and Ableton? Not a chance in hell.
Go buy a cheap used 16GB M1 Mac Mini. Music production stuff ”just works”. Given your config, looks like that could be within budget. Or upgrade your old machine to Windows 11, pick your poison.
I will have to disagree with that, as you can use Yabridge for the Windows VST’s when using Wine, provided they don’t require iLok. While yes, there is an issue with iLok (because I think they hate Linux users), you could still get a great selection of things specifically for the likes of Ardour, Reaper, Bitwig, LMMS, and other options. My producer, Neigsendoig, and I use Ardour and Zrythm. As for Cakewalk and Ableton, I could see how they don’t work. Apparently, FL Studio can with WINE ASIO from what Neigsendoig researched.
Neither of us would recommend a Mac at all, due to Mac being basically BSD, but with code that could raise major privacy concerns. I think Sendo (Neigsendoig) has tutorials on CoculesNation about setting up Linux for music production.
Also, I hadn’t talked about this yet, but I’d recommend OP look into Ardour, Zrythm, Reaper, and maybe Qtractor as the DAWs of choice.
I know it’s possible to run music production on Linux, in fact it’s better than ever.
But:
- OP explicitly asks for keeping his Cakewalk and Ableton files working.
- OP has a small child and just wants a working music production machine with minimal fuff and time investment.
- Like 95% of people doing any kind of music production (outside of our Linux bubble) will have an iLok licenced favourite plugin somewhere. Never seen a professional without several.
Please stop recommending Linux to people who aren’t ready for it yet. Find the people who are, get them over. The rest will follow.
As far as I’m aware (I could be wrong on this), there’s no way OP will be able to use Ableton and Cakewalk on Linux. That’s why I recommend OP look into the DAW’s I mentioned.
