Hey,
atm i am considering switching over to linux on my main pc. I have some experience with different distros ( i have fedora on my laptop) but i am not sure if it is really worth it. I mainly use my PC for Music Production, some Gaming and graphics stuff (Affinity Suit).
For my music production i use a lot of stuff from Native Instruments. I have a Maschine mk3 as my hardware DAW (in combination with Maschine Software) and NI Komplete with lots of vsts. I also have some Arturia vsts and vsts from smaller companies (all paid). My Software DAW is Bitwig (wich has native Linux support). After some research i found out that there are ways to get at least some software from NI running with yarbrigde, but this does not account for my Maschine mk3 and seems very tedious and unstable. Also it is suggested that i have to use older versions of my software as the current version of Native Access does not run at all. I am willing to put in some effort but all of this seems a little bit too much. I also found out that you can run windows in a vm and give it direct access to hardware so i could Use my Maschine mk3 and all of the software of course. My main concern with this is, that i will end up using windows anyway so why bother switching to linux if it is basically just a host for Linux in this case.
Do any of you have experience with the soft and hardware i use under linux? Or maybe some suggestions how i could solve my problems? Is running windows in a vm a viable solution or should i just stick with windows? Any input is welcome and much appreciated!
Sounds like you have some investment into hardware and software not really designed with linux in mind. Running windows in a VM could work. There might be issues with graphics though if your VSTs/DAW have a lot of eye candy, as you’ll usually use a virtual GPU with a VM. You could always try a windows VM inside windows whether it works OK, before committing to linux + VM. An alternative could be to have a dual boot setup. You could use linux for day to day things, and reboot into windows to do music production.
This is a great comment. If it’s dabbling then absolutely, have fun! But it’s a real self-administered kick in the nuts to squander serious investment in SW/HW just for bragging rights, cool as they are.
Dual boot is probably the (annoying) answer. Not sure on the efficacy of a windows VM for music production.