The linux DAW thread

[limitlesssss]

Would there ever come a day when we'd be able to install Windows softwares natively on GNU/Linux distros? What does it take for that to happen?

[audiojunkie]

Would there ever come a day when we'd be able to install Windows softwares natively on GNU/Linux distros? What does it take for that to happen?

You can install Windows native plugins now on Linux, through using WINE and yabridge. However, I suspect you really are asking if the day may come where you don’t need to deal with WINE and yabridge when installing Windows apps and plugins. I won’t say that is beyond possibility, but I believe that it is unlikely to happen in the immediate future.

[dellboy]

Would there ever come a day when we'd be able to install Windows softwares natively on GNU/Linux distros? What does it take for that to happen?

The best place to run Windows native plugins,is on Windows. It is better by far that developers make their plugins Linux native.

[FapFilter]

truly native is impossible, unless at one point every single OS will just be large chunks of "Windows" rebranded to macOS, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.
it's like asking for an italian novel to be natively portuguese.
translated ("ported") from italian to portuguese would not be native italian anymore either

i never tried Wine or other translation layers, but as far as i'm aware, those can be pretty darn good nowadays, as i think i've heard that Windows games quite often actually have higher frame rates on the same hardware, when run on Linux via the Proton (i think it's called) translation layer than on an actual Windows system.
to be fair though, those games natively on Windows are said to have the more consistent frame rates.
Rosetta 2 on macOS to run Intel apps on ARM is also pretty impressive, but of course i still vastly prefer native versions.

personally, i would just stick to actually native plugins, which of course can already be done on Linux, despite being relatively short in some options like good algo reverbs or limiters (though i can say that Reaper's recent addition is actually pretty good)
on it's plus side: this will keep you from buying tons of completely unnecessary shit and help you concentrate on the actual process of music production
though of course one could also just use Ableton's, FL Studio's or Cubase's, etc. stock plugins 90% of the time, if your will is strong enough (or just ignorant enough ) to ignore the "OMG, there's another compressor, channel strip and first and foremost REVERB!!! plugin emulation with some photo realistic GUI that has been used by Michael Jackson or Dave Pensado! that i need, because my music production sucks, but THIS one more plugin will finally change that!"

of course you can use translation layers for your plugins, but in my opinion, if you really depend on some options, i'd rather stay on Windows or macOS and run my plugins natively

[limitlesssss]

I’m trying to leave Windows behind, but I need the software packs I’m currently using on Windows. I’m not interested in alternatives to my DAW (Nuendo), audio editor (WaveLab), u-he / Kilohearts / Soundtoys / Pianoteq / S-Gear. So if WINE works acceptably well, and I can run everything I mentioned on GNU/Linux, then that’s a compromise I’m willing to make. By compromise I mean the fact that all of them except for the u-he plug-ins need this WINE thing to run.

How bad is recording latency when using WINE by the way?

[FapFilter]

that's a good question i'd like to hear the answer too

[farlukar]

all of them except for the u-he plug-ins need this WINE thing to run.

The U-He ones too, as you can't run Nuendo natively

Maybe you'd be better off dual-booting, using windows just for music production?

[dellboy]

truly native is impossible, unless at one point every single OS will just be large chunks of "Windows" rebranded to macOS, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.
it's like asking for an italian novel to be natively portuguese.
translated ("ported") from italian to portuguese would not be native italian anymore either

i never tried Wine or other translation layers, but as far as i'm aware, those can be pretty darn good nowadays, as i think i've heard that Windows games quite often actually have higher frame rates on the same hardware, when run on Linux via the Proton (i think it's called) translation layer than on an actual Windows system.
to be fair though, those games natively on Windows are said to have the more consistent frame rates.
Rosetta 2 on macOS to run Intel apps on ARM is also pretty impressive, but of course i still vastly prefer native versions.

personally, i would just stick to actually native plugins, which of course can already be done on Linux, despite being relatively short in some options like good algo reverbs or limiters (though i can say that Reaper's recent addition is actually pretty good)
on it's plus side: this will keep you from buying tons of completely unnecessary shit and help you concentrate on the actual process of music production
though of course one could also just use Ableton's, FL Studio's or Cubase's, etc. stock plugins 90% of the time, if your will is strong enough (or just ignorant enough ) to ignore the "OMG, there's another compressor, channel strip and first and foremost REVERB!!! plugin emulation with some photo realistic GUI that has been used by Michael Jackson or Dave Pensado! that i need, because my music production sucks, but THIS one more plugin will finally change that!"

of course you can use translation layers for your plugins, but in my opinion, if you really depend on some options, i'd rather stay on Windows or macOS and run my plugins natively

By the term, "Linux native", I meant plugins like u-he which have been translated to run natively on Linux. There are completely Linux plugins that were built to be Linux exclusive, but I do not mean those. As far as I understand it, Rosetta 2 on Mac runs native Mac plugins.

[dellboy]

How bad is recording latency when using WINE by the way?

I am not sure that Wine is used anymore for Wine asio. Most people just use the native Linux Alsa drivers which can achieve very good latency if you own a compliant audio interface.

[FapFilter]

of course, u-he and some others do "native" Linux versions (which then are not Windows native versions anymore)

i'm no programmer myself, but as far as i understand, at least if you are using "clean" programming languages and don't rely on too many third party tools which do not work too great on other platforms without quite some tinkering, it is in principle mostly "running the code through the compiler for each operating system" and most things will work out of the box.
there will be some differences in "details" like in the files handling (good luck telling Linux to look for C:\Program Files\VST, as Linux neither has letters for drive names, nor does it use backslashes for directory separations, as it uses "forward" slashes
also the windowing systems are probably handled differently on each OS.

Rosetta 2 uses native macOS code, which has been compiled for a different CPU architecture, so a bit like if an Amiga 500 and a C64 were sharing the same operating system, but the Amiga with a Motorola 68000 architecture could translate the code written for the 6502 (or whatever the C64 actually was using, i forget )
and just to make it clear: neither did the Amiga and C64 share the same OS, nor was the Amiga capable of running native C64 programs

[dellboy]

IBy compromise I mean the fact that all of them except for the u-he plug-ins need this WINE thing to run.

Wine is not necessarily used to run plugins, it can be used that way, but generally something like "Yabridge" temporarily uses Wine to convert Windows VST plugins into Linux ".so" plugin format.These converted plugins do not need Wine to run them. (as far as I understand it)

[FapFilter]

How bad is recording latency when using WINE by the way?

I am not sure that Wine is used anymore for Wine asio. Most people just use the native Linux Alsa drivers which can achieve very good latency if you own a compliant audio interface.

yes, but what if one is running Windows apps like Kontakt inside Cubase?
how low can you reliably go stable?

in theory, there should be some penalty for these translations, preventing it from being as fast, and / or reliable, no?

[dellboy]

yes, but what if one is running Windows apps like Kontakt inside Cubase?
how low can you reliably go stable?

in theory, there should be some penalty for these translations, preventing it from being as fast, and / or reliable, no?

I am not a Linux expert, but I have used it a lot, and I have often seen it said that "Wine is not an emulator." In fact "WINE" is an acronym for that phrase, so I guess in theory at least it could run windows programs at a similar speed, but in practise I expect it would be slower, and less stable.

[FapFilter]

haha, didn't know about the actual meaning of WINE!

now tell me that Bottles is an acronym too!

[farlukar]

WINE is indeed not an emulator, it's a compatibility layer.

Wine is not necessarily used to run plugins, it can be used that way, but generally something like "Yabridge" temporarily uses Wine to convert Windows VST plugins into Linux ".so" plugin format.These converted plugins do not need Wine to run them. (as far as I understand it)

Nope, yabridge acts as an intermediate between the plugin host and wine, it creates a token .so file that the host will recognize as a native plugin. The plugin will still be run through WINE.

(If you run a Windows host in WINE you don't need yabridge or whatev, because the Win host will just load the Win plugins)