Linux

"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.

I notice there are only a couple replies here that have experience with music production. Obviously core desktop stuff works great, gaming is pretty universally fixed, but music production is a different story.

I have extensive experience with linux and music production. You can use yabridge to run Windows VSTs. However, they can be extremely fussy with graphics compatibility. I estimate that I couldn't manage to get about 20% of my plugins to work despite hours upon hours of troubleshooting. This is coming from a Linux-native software developer. If you're just learning Linux, you could be in a world of pain.

I'm sure folks out there have gotten all of it working individually, but I doubt anyone has your exact setup working perfectly.

Ableton and FL Studio will have to be ran through Wine. I experienced major performance issues with FL Studio before switching to Bitwig.

Linux is great. But the music production industry is not kind to it. If you're cool with being a linux music producer you'll have to accept that some things just will not work well. But if you want 100% access to everything you're used to, stick with Windows.

The problem will likely be the warped perception of "low effort" users like you have, that I went in detail on here

This is indicated by phrases like these:

struggle around with all that crap and I need to keep my music shit

Which translate to me as "I don't want to learn or change a thing, so tell me how I change the most fundamental part of my computing without doing that".

As I wrote in the comment linked above, with an attitude like that you'd have a significantly harder time than some non-techy person who just wants to have a system that "just works" without preconceptions, not bother with the technical details, but is entirely open to using new programs and doing things differently, as long as they work reliably.

In your case, I'd say stick to Microsoft until you get your mindset and priorities straight. Because then you'd have an easy time without much tinkering at all. But as it stands I think you'd be setting yourself up for misery and failure.

You have a 1.5 mo old. You don't have time. Be a dad. Be a husband. Be a hobbyist.

Take the easy route now. Come back when your kid and family are in a flow state.

Really want an honest answer here and not a full blown Linux cult answer.

And so you ask in a linux community...

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.

If you move to Linux, you gotta be committed. I didn't learn Linux until I said "fuck it" and forced myself to use it exclusively.

You will run into problems. You'll have some days where you'll spend 10hrs fixing something that no other person on the entire planet has encountered before, only to realize you needed to type in 1 very simple command to fix it.

As much as people hate AI, it can help with Linux troubleshooting. There's also wikis and manpages.

If you switch at all, pick something that won't break. Debian will run on your hardware just fine. You won't have the latest and greatest packages, and as a newbie you DO NOT WANT the latest and greatest.

Nvidia drivers are a hassle, be prepared.

If all that sounds doable, send it.

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.

No idea about Cakewalk etc but your Steam games will almost all be fine and Linux is honestly great right now and always getting better.

Having used Linux Mint, Windows 10, and Windows 11, I can honestly say that Win10 is okay and Win11 is annoying dogshit. I'd recommend taking the Linux plunge of course, but if you're desperate for Windows I think paid extended support for 10 might be a thing?

But like I said 11 is dogshit and there's no time like the present to just grab 3-4 USB sticks at Microcenter, download a bunch of ISOs and Rufus or Balena Etcher, and just dick around. Linux Mint with Cinnamon or KDE will probably give you one of the slickest Windows-like experiences OOTB. Only recommendation: some wifi cards (with certain chips, I forget which) in my experience have required me to go hunt down a driver, so check reviews for any card you're looking at to see if people report it working out of the box.

If you're going to have to change OS anyway you might as well try Linux first. I'm doing a trial run on Bazzite and so far has gone pretty smoothly with the gaming stuff. There's other stuff I'm having to figure out but I'm pretty optimistic that I will not be putting Win 11 on my desktop.

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 hope you mean torrenting and not tormenting 😸

Just install Linux on an external SSD and test it.

Kick the can down the road. https://massgrave.dev/windows10_eol

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... 😿

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! :)

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.

Not the exact answer you’re looking for, but a $500 Mac mini would be a fantastic solution. That or an entry level MacBook Air.

I run Linux on my desktop for most things but all my music production is done on MacBooks. If you want a turn key solution, this is the way.

Every vst, midi device and mixing console I have just works. Well worth the sub $1000 investment.

Hell, my touring setup runs off a 8 year old MacBook Pro you could likely pick up for under $400.

Man, you're basically saying "I want to move to a new country, but I don't want to lose any of my friends, I can't change my job, I don't want to learn a new language, I want to bring all my furniture and appliances with me, and we just had a new baby a month ago so I'm sleep deprived and don't have any spare time. How do I do it?"

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.

If you want to dip your feet in without making any permanent decisions, try using a virtual machine or a live USB.

The virtual machine is effectively no risk but slightly slower. The live USB gives you a more realistic experience (except for boot times) but it is possible to erase your data if you miss the several warning messages and press the "I know what I'm doing, proceed anyway" button.

If you feel like Linux could work but you're not ready to fully commit, you can dualboot. I had both Windows and Linux for 2-3 years before I was comfortable enough to not boot Windows.

My personal preference is Linux Mint because it looks and feels very similar to Windows (I'm currently running LMDE). Any distro with KDE should also feel fairly familiar. Bazzite is more designed around gaming, but should still be adequate for most of your needs. It does have the reputation of being unbreakable.

Here's a dad's reply in a similar place - Win 11 is fine. I put it off for a very long time and just upgraded a couple weeks ago. It hasn't really been an impact.

Is Linux better? Yes. Does win 11 just work without too much fuss? Yes.

I still have Linux on many machines in my house except for my gaming rig, just because I don't want to have to break it and spend time refreshing it because my Linux skills aren't up to par. I have a full time job and young kids and don't have as much tinkering time as I used to.

That being said, I'm migrating ALL machines that aren't compatible with win 11 to Linux to avoid tossing them in a landfill like many will do, like my son's gaming PC.

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

if you're going to be too time pressured to have fun with Linux, probably don't for now

Just gonna add that Windows 11 Enterprise IoT Edition is Windows 11 without all the bloatware, and it's easy to get it for free from the massgrave.

I started with a dual boot. Very easy to do, if you have two hard drives. I have landed on Bazzite because I just game and watch movies at home. It does those things very well.

Kick the can down the road and download the MASgrave Win10 script (I think that's it, I don't use windows) that puts you on the Long Term support - iirc that gives you until Jan 2027. That's enough time to get through the zero parental sleep phase and be able to think clearly...

If that's of interest I'll dig the correct details out (ping me) or I'm sure someone else knows what I'm waffling about & will drop the link

I use my desktop primarily to play online shooters, so I don't see Linux really being an option in the timeframe I have to decide. If Proton/Bazzite/whatever gets the anti-cheat shit for games like Call of Duty and Battlefield together by mid-October, I'll probably do an about face. But as of now, it just doesn't make sense to make it so I can't use an expensive thing for its intended purpose just to stick it to the man or whatever.

I mean Windows 11 can do annoying things, but it's not gibberish. Reminds me of XP to Vista, but less about performance issues and more about incessant GUI tweaks no one asked for.

I'd say update it and make do, then move to Linux down the road if it annoys you enough to motivate that decision.

It's not all bad, I am enjoying the HDR features, which is the only reason I updated before the Win10 EOL.

That said, I do plan on making a Linux VM and playing around to get a feel for it.

In short: I jumped on Mint some months ago and it just works.

The first time I jumped on Linux, I got burned haaard. I picked openSUSE, and I'm not sure if my hardware was crap or that distro is finicky, but nothing worked and it was just issue on issue on issue and I hated it.

Fast forward a couple years and Mint is nothing like that. It worked as it should out of the box and the only real tinkering I had to do was update the driver for my GPU manually because it was still so new.

Sure, some things work differently, but it's not too complicated to get into.

You can enable automatic software updates and configure the built-in backup program Timeshift, so you can revert the system to a previous snapshot if ever something should go real wrong.

But with all that said, I see that neither Cakewalk or Ableton are easy installs, as they're not officially supported on Linux. Will require some tinkering to get working. So maybe for that reason only Win11 would be the better choice. Or try dual booting to get a feel for it, best of both worlds.

I don't know what all these doomsayers are doing. I installed Bazzite and it just worked. I decided I didn't want an immutable system so I switched to Garuda, and it just worked. I have Nvidia and didn't have to do anything extra.

Your win10 computer doesn't get nuked from orbit after magic date. Others pointed out music software is not portable enough.

I got a new win11 computer with space for linux. Can remote desktop (free options) into old computer. This is more convenient than dual booting. If you don't use internet or install new software, not much will break on it. My old computer didn't work for linux because of waking from sleep issues. My new computer is $450usd minipc 7840hs dual lan, 2 usb4 ports, that allows me to expand from 3 to 4 monitors with a desk edge portable touchscreen usb monitor. win11 is not that bad because it allows for a single task bar on the front monitor. The iGPU is a big upgrade over 1650super I had, and 32gb/1gb nvme is also an upgrade that gives me the room to install linux. I haven't yet.

Linux is pretty easy for software installs. Mint is a good choice, because google will have the most hits. There are some distros that come with closed GPU drivers, but that is not particularly difficult to do yourself. win11 on a new computer can be ok, though, but I have had issues with every monitor waking from sleep every time (unplug/replug solution), or sleep command not lasting more than 3 minutes. Boot time is much quicker on new computer though, so shutdown not as painful. But if sleep worked flawlessly on this one in linux, would be good reason to go with.

I recently sucked it up and upgraded Windows 10 to 11. Music production is getting better in Linux, but there is still a whole lot of existing music software with no Linux support. Cakewalk for example has no Linux support, and I imagine getting it working in WINE with VSTs and whatever else would be an immense chore. Same story with Ableton.

That said, if you don't mind migrating to a DAW with Linux support like Reaper, Bitwig, or even Ardour - which is open source and free - producing music with Linux is the easiest it's ever been. Just don't count on Linux support from a lot of VST makers who often require you use their software to install their VSTs. You can usually still install those VSTs, but it sometimes requires less than legal methods, and may be a hassle.

If you're a producer who mostly just uses a DAW as a recorder for hardware, it would barely be a change to your workflow at all. If you are reliant on Cakewalk and Ableton specific processes and VSTs, it would be much more difficult

There's no reason to hope that you can change to a new operating system and you can copy paste exactly what you did in the other, completely different operating system. However that doesn't mean its hard. There are distros that make it really easy to transition too. I had a really easy moving over, but I was fine with adapting to new workflows and software and OS.

I run Linux while having 3 kids, my fiancee, a full time job that has a lot of OT, family health issues I have to support etc. Life is always busy and will always be busy. I pace myself with what I want to learn based on how busy my life is at that time. Not pacing I would burn out. I advise the same.

I also think being pissed off at Microsoft isn't enough to get into Linux for the long term. Its enough to just start. You need to be able to want to learn something new because if you make the switch, run into an issue with some distro, can't get past it, you'll end up right back where you left off.

Best of luck either way. Definitely do your research first and follow good rules for backing up your data.

Stay on win10, if so the choice comes. Just get it debloated and maybe a better protection. If you are sure, get mint or other stable distribution, which I would recommend if you can have some spare time to figure out your setup. Most of the stuff should work out of the box

The kid is 1.5 months old and you don't have time? Once that kid gets mobile you'll really not have time! And I don't mean crawling or walking, I mean rolling and scooting.

When my kid figured out how to get places by rolling I had gotten up with her early on a Saturday morning and was letting my wife sleep in... I went to the basement and turned on the Xbox to pay some Rocket League and in the middle of a game she started to roll out of the room. I put the controller down and went to pick her up... 4 years later that controller was exactly where I had put it. She's now almost 9 and is a great gaming partner, and is getting into robotics, 3D printing, and is interested in programming, so I get to jump right back into my old hobbies, and pick up some new ones.

All that to say, Linux is only going to get better and Windows will continue to get worse, but there's more important things for you to have to worry about in the very near future than troubleshooting an OS that you're not familiar with, stick with Win 10 for as long as you can and some day you'll sit down at your desk and realize you have time to look back in at Linux and you'll find that it isn't nearly as difficult to use as you remember. Congratulations on the kid, it can be an incredible journey watching, and helping, a person emerge.

Hey there! I'm an avid music producer and gamer.

I made the jump to bitwig while I was still using Windows in 2019, and made the full jump to Linux as my daily driver late last year.

My mint journey was Mint (Cinnamon) > Debian (KDE Plasma) > Garuda (Dr4g0niz3d KDE plasma)

I think mint was great and I was still able to do a fair amount of gaming on it and Cinnamon desktop environment is very similar to windows so it's not too big of a jump.

Debian was fine - I wanted to use Plasma as the desktop environment because I wanted a touch customization for how I can set up windows, widgets, and different desktop panels. I had issues with some games on this though.7

I like Garuda but I would not recommend if you're not too familiar with tinkering and troubleshooting. In hindsight I probably should have gone with Kubuntu (Ubuntu with KDE plasma as its desktop environment). I have experienced some odd bugs with the desktop environment and I think it has to do with how nvidia and Wayland play with one another.

I haven't had a game that didn't run, the only odd bug I've had is some games won't recognize my new soundcard from bitwig.

using WINE and yabridge I've gotten all my plugins to work seamlessly as well - and that includes Omnisphere which is a beast on resources.

I was really fed up with the direction that windows has been heading for quite sometime.

TL;DR: I think mint or some Ubuntu distro would be a good fit for right now, and any future GPU upgrades consider something from AMD.

I would suggest installing Fedora Kinoite, poke around it for 20-30min and if you find it too confusing then just putting windows back.

My point is that it's not a big decision/commitment. And it's trivial to undo!

Tldr, I recommend sticking with Windows or using two separate machines, one for music production running Windows, the other for running everything else with Linux.

Music production isnt great on Linux in my experience at least right now. If you use any paid plugins that are windows only, there's a good chance they won't run. I haven't used ableton or cakewalk but I use reaper which has a native Linux version, and even that had a lot of issues. Anything with ilok is a no go, even plugins that dont, I had a hard time getting working or if they did work, they crashed A LOT.

Gaming and other general use has been fine for me, ive even done video and photo editing on Linux and been happy with it.

If you want the easiest experience, I typically recommend Fedora KDE spin or kubuntu. KDE is a desktop environment that is very similar to windows and highly customizable. You'd likely feel at home on it. Immutable distro might also be a good option if you really want the "IDC just do the update" path. Harder to break, easier to manage from what ive heard but I haven't used them personally so maybe others that have can chime in.

I made a windows only box for music production and use Linux on my main PC. It runs windows 10 and is rarely connected to the internet except when I need it to be. If you wanna run Linux and make music, it can be done, but I had a terrible time with it and have given up for now.

So make a separate machine for music production and run Linux on your main pc or just run Windows is my advice. So far, this has been the best setup for me. I don't worry about my privacy, I can make music when I want, and I don't have to worry about incompatible plugins, crashes, stupid nonsense that gets in my way when i wanna make music.