Why Linux is Becoming Impossible for Audio Developers to Ignore

[Tiles]

I thought this was a music production forum, not a psychological human behavior essay... could we kindly get back to the thread main point? Thanks (yes, I know this is KVR but...)

- Mario

maybe if Tiles could use AI to summarise his AI responses this thread could be a little more succinct.

This is not part of my programming !

Even that was by the way a strategy to deal with his ongoing personal attacks. I thought i could stop it that way.

[BertKoor]

This is how far my brain parses the thread title:

Why Linux is Becoming Impossible for Audio Developers

[ahanysz]

...He doesn't know Linux and doesn't feel comfortable with it....the developer was not prepared for Linux and not comfortable with supporting it.

Right here is the problem. If you need to know in depth every platform that you develop for, then of course developers are going to minimise the number of platforms they support.

This isn't uniquely a Linux problem. There are already small developers who put out Windows-only or Mac-only products because they don't want the burden of supporting both.

Back in the day, Java promised "write once, run anywhere". Then they tightened up their security model, and now it's more like "write once, run nowhere". And you can't write audio plugins in Java anyway.

For the data analysis code I work with in my day job, I can write Python knowing the exact same code will run on any modern Windows, Mac or Linux system. But again this is easy stuff compared to building audio plugins.

In theory, the VST3 API or the CLAP API should abstract away all the annoying cross-platform stuff. Just write C++ that conforms to the API, and let the host DAW deal with all the annoying audio drivers. I've never tried to write a plugin myself, so I'm not totally clear on where this breaks down. I suspect the DSP is the "easy" part, interaction between the host and the plugin would get tricky, and the lack of a good cross-platform graphics library would also be a challenge. Anecdotes around here suggest that every DAW x OS combination has its own unique quirks. Every additional OS that you build for adds time for testing, not just fixing your own bugs, but adding workarounds for various DAW vendor bugs (or, to be charitable, "undocumented features").

To be clear, I'm a big fan of Linux (I've been using it as my primary OS at home for more than 20 years now), and I'm thrilled that some developers put in the effort and make Linux audio plugins anyway. But I completely understand why many would choose not to until there's a bigger market share (yes, it's a chicken-and-egg problem).

Somehow the Surge synth team make it look easy? What's their secret? (Or do they just work really really hard and not complain about it?)

[ahanysz]

...the Linux builds take me roughly five times as long to produce as the Windows and Mac versions combined.

I'm curious: is that 5x as long for the interval between typing "make" (or clicking the button or however you're doing it) and getting the binary, or is it 5x the effort for coding, testing and debugging?

[TechHaus]

Huge respect to Surge Synth Team and all of the great open source devs who support Linux with their plugins.

I also want to credit early commercial adopters like Audio Damage, u-he, Tracktion, Cockos, Renoise, Bitwig, Loomer (rip?), Inertia Sound Systems, Algonaut, DiscoDSP, TAL, Audio Assault, Modartt, Inphonik, Cut Through Recordings, Venomode, Audioblast, Tonelib, Overtone DSP (now ACMT) etc. The list goes on and on...I think all of these were around when I tried a first Linux audio setup in 2017.

Leaving out a lot...Auburn Sounds and Audiothing soon came over.

And some of the free old school bundles that filled in the gaps: LSP, x42, calf, soca labs, gvst.

Airwindows!

Ecosystem has been robust for a while.

And now the options are overwhelming!

Coming up on 9 years for me. I never wrapped Windows plugins. Always native.

[Tiles]

In theory, the VST3 API or the CLAP API should abstract away all the annoying cross-platform stuff. Just write C++ that conforms to the API, and let the host DAW deal with all the annoying audio drivers. ...

The DSP code is not the problem. It already starts with packaging. A VST3 is not packaged the same way on all platforms. On Windows it’s essentially a single compiled binary, while on macOS and Linux it’s a bundle with an internal directory structure. None of that is covered by VST3 or CLAP.

The formats solve the host compatibility problem, not the cross-platform problem. I’ve had my fun with it.

[stoopicus]

As a daily linux user, IMO linux users are really damn lucky any developer pays attention to them at all and if they want to see more linux support, should more uncritically support developers that even are willing to test the waters.

Unfortunately that is not the behavior of most linux users active on forums.

[TechHaus]

Interesting how do most linux users active in forums behave?

I've only been here and linux-musicians and it is all good vibes.

[stoopicus]

Yeah for music specifically that might be true but for software in general historically I have seen general distrust and zealotry pointed towards "closed source" vendors.

[hardyharrharr]

why would it be hard to ignore linux
is linus torvalds streaking a lot these days?

[hardyharrharr]

i tried to use the tor browser once
my tor mentor gave up on me

[audiojunkie]

Yeah for music specifically that might be true but for software in general historically I have seen general distrust and zealotry pointed towards "closed source" vendors.

I can't say that I haven't seen distrust and zealotry against closed source venders from some Linux users. I admit that there are some of those people out there. But AFAIK, the far majority of Linux users that I've seen--especially on this forum, have no problem with buying software from closed source developers. I buy software all the time. Hopefully this will become less and less of a problem over time, because I think it is mostly the old school Linux users that still retain the Richard Stallman-esqe view of software that act that way. Most new Linux users, especially those migrating from Windows to Linux, have no problem with buying software.

[TechHaus]

True, some people are "FOSS or die".

I've seen more and more POSS, lately. Which I'm cool with!