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Proton[1] is the reason my next machine will be Linux. [1]: https://www.protondb.com/ https://www.protondb.com/

by olah_1 5y ago

seph-reed 5y ago
Yup. I've been running EOS (https://elementary.io/ https://elementary.io/). It's almost as pretty as my MBP, and vastly more usable than Windows. And I have everything I really need (with first class Linux support): * Gaming - Steam + Proton * Digital Audio Workstation - Bitwig * Video Editing - DaVinci Resolve * 3d Modeling - Blender * 2d Image - Gimp (this one could be a lot better) ----- The only thing I can imagine dual booting into Windows for is Oculus Link. But I don't really think it's worth it.
- liquidify 5y ago
  How does bitwig do with multi channel audio? I need 32 in and 32 out. I have Merging and RME available as audio devices, but I don't suspect that either of them would actually work with multi-channel recording, despite both of them offering drivers. If someone could guarantee rock solid stability, I *might be willing to switch, even though I'm fairly invested in the Ableton / VST world. 10 years of projects will likely force me to always run mac / windows unless Ableton decides to build for linux in the future. Who knows, maybe ARM will force their hand.
  - seph-reed 5y ago
    If you've got a tool you're used to, it's probably best to stick to it. That being said, Bitwig does support Jack, so routing should be pretty open ended. And there's this linux project (https://pipewire.org/ https://pipewire.org/) that's been doing really, really well. It (sorta) combines all the different audio servers into one.
    - scns 5y ago
      Even though i gave suggestions how to try out Linux, i would rate this higher. Stick to your guns, never change a running system/winning team. There is an amazing (IMSO) producer duo, highly recommend their liveset from Glastonbury, called Booka Shade. They produced a chart topping pop act on PowerMacs (G4 IIRC), which were allready ancient back then.
  - scns 5y ago
    May i suggest trying it in a VM? Then you could check if all 32 channels actually record, latency can be disregarded in this case i think. Second idea would be buying another SSD, and install Ubuntu Studio on it to get better data. If you can free me from the predjudice Bitwig only runs on Ubuntu, please do. I would suggest switching off, or removing in case of a laptop, the Windows drive. This makes reverting easier if it should be nonsatisfactory.
- olah_1 5y ago
  web based solutions are getting crazy good. Pixlr in the browser probably works better than Gimp for simple use cases. https://pixlr.com/ https://pixlr.com/
jason0597 5y ago
Honestly, the Linux desktop experience has come so far in the past 10 years. Sure I don't think it's perfect, but it's nowhere near as bad as it was in 2008 where Windows was still king and Linux had bugs everywhere in every distro and every desktop environment. I think people should seriously consider Linux now if they can't take anymore of Microsoft's shit
- krona 5y ago
  Anecdotal, but I have a 2015 Lenovo X1 Carbon running Ubuntu 20 (gnome 3.38), a 2020 MBP and a 2019 MS Surface Laptop 3 (windows 10). The recent Gnome experience on hardware half a decade older than the Surface laptop is so much snappier than Windows. I dred MacOS and Windows updates these days but I'm generally very pleased with updates to Ubuntu/Gnome. Furthermore everything just works, too, which is what I grew up to expect from Windows, but literally yesterday the Surface laptop bricked itself installing an update. I have daily problems using Windows with WSL, too. It's infuriating. I used to feel stable and assured using Windows, but these days Windows is an endless labyrinth of dialog boxes, it's hard to comprehend how anyone could take it seriously any longer. Maybe I'm getting old.
  - jcranberry 5y ago
    Imo gnome is better aesthetically and from a ux/feeling/default shortcuts perspective than windows and has been for seven or eight years at least. As far as I can tell the issues are graphics cards when you have both a dedicated gpu and an integrated one, and gaming/popular productivity apps. Both have been getting steadily better over time though.
  - midasz 5y ago
    I've got a Lenovo x1 xtreme and I dual boot Windows 10 + Arch. I haven't used Windows in so long, the last time I tried it was so insanely slow I don't know how people deal with it. Arch with GNOME is super snappy.
    - scns 5y ago
      1% of the time i boot into W10 to check the FW for my BT-Cans or something else. After a while, even while idle, the fans suddenly shift into overdrive. The CPU is undervolted by 0,095V.
Jach 5y ago
Between Proton and WSL we're getting closer to a true "write once run anywhere" world where host platform won't matter so much. Devs will be free to develop with whatever tech stack they like most, make a canonical build, and other platforms will be able to run it. What's going to be hilarious is that much like dosbox became the best way to run old dos programs even if they might still technically run on windows, wine/proton will be (and sometimes already is) the best way to run many older windows programs. Particularly I'm in love with proton's fullscreen magic that doesn't actually mess with your display mode, so e.g. I can run Touhou games fullscreen in proton with my display at 4k despite them only supporting 480p fullscreen -- running on Windows will try to set my display mode to that with varying success. At some point we'll be running old Windows programs on Windows with wine/proton through WSL.
- Bilal_io 5y ago
  Maybe with Proton, but WSL will not be an option when shipping software to general users.
  - trelane 5y ago
    Why not?
    - ripdog 5y ago
      WSL needs to be manually added to windows by the user before it can be used. Also a distro then has to be installed in the VM.
  - phone8675309 5y ago
    They said the same things about Java and .NET Framework
Kenji 5y ago
Why not your present machine? Don't delay, install Linux today.
liquidify 5y ago
Can proton handle ableton live or deal with audio device drivers?
- scns 5y ago
  Haven't tried, but i have a hunch that Windows in KVM with passthrough might work better for that. Just my zero cents.
npteljes 5y ago
I'm a happy user. I only have one game currently, for which I reboot into my win10, but only because it has BattleEye anti-cheat.
- olah_1 5y ago
  I suspect that Valve is actively working on anti-cheat solutions because of the upcoming Steam Deck console.
  - npteljes 5y ago
    I read that too that it's in the works. When they announce that it's official, I'll give it a try for sure.

Proton[1] is the reason my next machine will be Linux. [1]: https://www.protondb.com/ https://www.protondb.com/

by olah_1 5y ago

Proton[1] is the reason my next machine will be Linux. [1]: https://www.protondb.com/ https://www.protondb.com/

Yup. I've been running EOS (https://elementary.io/ https://elementary.io/). It's almost as pretty as my MBP, and vastly more usable than Windows. And I have everything I really need (with first class Linux support): * Gaming - Steam + Proton * Digital Audio Workstation - Bitwig * Video Editing - DaVinci Resolve * 3d Modeling - Blender * 2d Image - Gimp (this one could be a lot better) ----- The only thing I can imagine dual booting into Windows for is Oculus Link. But I don't really think it's worth it.

liquidify 5y ago
How does bitwig do with multi channel audio? I need 32 in and 32 out. I have Merging and RME available as audio devices, but I don't suspect that either of them would actually work with multi-channel recording, despite both of them offering drivers. If someone could guarantee rock solid stability, I *might be willing to switch, even though I'm fairly invested in the Ableton / VST world. 10 years of projects will likely force me to always run mac / windows unless Ableton decides to build for linux in the future. Who knows, maybe ARM will force their hand.
- seph-reed 5y ago
  If you've got a tool you're used to, it's probably best to stick to it. That being said, Bitwig does support Jack, so routing should be pretty open ended. And there's this linux project (https://pipewire.org/ https://pipewire.org/) that's been doing really, really well. It (sorta) combines all the different audio servers into one.
  - scns 5y ago
    Even though i gave suggestions how to try out Linux, i would rate this higher. Stick to your guns, never change a running system/winning team. There is an amazing (IMSO) producer duo, highly recommend their liveset from Glastonbury, called Booka Shade. They produced a chart topping pop act on PowerMacs (G4 IIRC), which were allready ancient back then.
- scns 5y ago
  May i suggest trying it in a VM? Then you could check if all 32 channels actually record, latency can be disregarded in this case i think. Second idea would be buying another SSD, and install Ubuntu Studio on it to get better data. If you can free me from the predjudice Bitwig only runs on Ubuntu, please do. I would suggest switching off, or removing in case of a laptop, the Windows drive. This makes reverting easier if it should be nonsatisfactory.
olah_1 5y ago
web based solutions are getting crazy good. Pixlr in the browser probably works better than Gimp for simple use cases. https://pixlr.com/ https://pixlr.com/

jason0597 5y ago

Honestly, the Linux desktop experience has come so far in the past 10 years. Sure I don't think it's perfect, but it's nowhere near as bad as it was in 2008 where Windows was still king and Linux had bugs everywhere in every distro and every desktop environment. I think people should seriously consider Linux now if they can't take anymore of Microsoft's shit

krona 5y ago
Anecdotal, but I have a 2015 Lenovo X1 Carbon running Ubuntu 20 (gnome 3.38), a 2020 MBP and a 2019 MS Surface Laptop 3 (windows 10). The recent Gnome experience on hardware half a decade older than the Surface laptop is so much snappier than Windows. I dred MacOS and Windows updates these days but I'm generally very pleased with updates to Ubuntu/Gnome. Furthermore everything just works, too, which is what I grew up to expect from Windows, but literally yesterday the Surface laptop bricked itself installing an update. I have daily problems using Windows with WSL, too. It's infuriating. I used to feel stable and assured using Windows, but these days Windows is an endless labyrinth of dialog boxes, it's hard to comprehend how anyone could take it seriously any longer. Maybe I'm getting old.
- jcranberry 5y ago
  Imo gnome is better aesthetically and from a ux/feeling/default shortcuts perspective than windows and has been for seven or eight years at least. As far as I can tell the issues are graphics cards when you have both a dedicated gpu and an integrated one, and gaming/popular productivity apps. Both have been getting steadily better over time though.
- midasz 5y ago
  I've got a Lenovo x1 xtreme and I dual boot Windows 10 + Arch. I haven't used Windows in so long, the last time I tried it was so insanely slow I don't know how people deal with it. Arch with GNOME is super snappy.
  - scns 5y ago
    1% of the time i boot into W10 to check the FW for my BT-Cans or something else. After a while, even while idle, the fans suddenly shift into overdrive. The CPU is undervolted by 0,095V.

Jach 5y ago

Between Proton and WSL we're getting closer to a true "write once run anywhere" world where host platform won't matter so much. Devs will be free to develop with whatever tech stack they like most, make a canonical build, and other platforms will be able to run it. What's going to be hilarious is that much like dosbox became the best way to run old dos programs even if they might still technically run on windows, wine/proton will be (and sometimes already is) the best way to run many older windows programs. Particularly I'm in love with proton's fullscreen magic that doesn't actually mess with your display mode, so e.g. I can run Touhou games fullscreen in proton with my display at 4k despite them only supporting 480p fullscreen -- running on Windows will try to set my display mode to that with varying success. At some point we'll be running old Windows programs on Windows with wine/proton through WSL.

Bilal_io 5y ago
Maybe with Proton, but WSL will not be an option when shipping software to general users.
- trelane 5y ago
  Why not?
  - ripdog 5y ago
    WSL needs to be manually added to windows by the user before it can be used. Also a distro then has to be installed in the VM.
- phone8675309 5y ago
  They said the same things about Java and .NET Framework

Kenji 5y ago

Why not your present machine? Don't delay, install Linux today.

liquidify 5y ago

Can proton handle ableton live or deal with audio device drivers?

scns 5y ago
Haven't tried, but i have a hunch that Windows in KVM with passthrough might work better for that. Just my zero cents.

npteljes 5y ago

I'm a happy user. I only have one game currently, for which I reboot into my win10, but only because it has BattleEye anti-cheat.

olah_1 5y ago
I suspect that Valve is actively working on anti-cheat solutions because of the upcoming Steam Deck console.
- npteljes 5y ago
  I read that too that it's in the works. When they announce that it's official, I'll give it a try for sure.