Problems when using Linux as your home recording studio
You have learned a lot of benefits in the previous section regarding the use of Linux as your DAW operating system. Now below are the problems you might encounter when using Linux in your music recording studio:
1.) Lack of support for most USB and Firewire audio interface available. If you have checked the specs of reputable USB and Firewire audio interfaces, it only supports Windows and Mac machines. There are no drivers available for Linux for these audio interfaces. There are still some USB and Firewire audio interface that can work with Linux but it experiences a lot of issues and incompatibilities.
Of course with an exception to Focusrite and other leading Firewire audio interfaces thoroughly tested by FFADO. You can find the complete list here.
2.) Most recording software and plugins are written with compatibility to ASIO. However in Linux, its equivalent is JACK which is different from ASIO although it accomplishes the same purpose of lowering the latency. JACK is not supported by most Windows compatible software that you are planning to run on Linux. The only solution is to write compatible plugins that can work with Linux.
3.) Not all DAW are supported in Linux. Popular DAW such as Protools, Cubase, FL Studio are not known to work with Linux. Although Reaper is known to work in Wine, another challenge is finding a compatible audio interface with it as most of this hardware is written for PC and Mac.
The only official DAW in Linux is Ardour which can difficult to use and configure especially for beginners. Ardour offers a completely unique music production environment as compared to the common Windows based DAW. Any digital audio workstation in Linux like Ardour depends on JACK for low latency; if you do not in-depth knowledge of configuring JACK then you will find it hard to use them.
Final Recommendations
If you have very limited knowledge or even does not use Linux at all, then stick to Windows based home recording studio. Shifting to Linux can introduce a lot issues and you will be wasting a lot of time in the troubleshooting process because things can be very problematic at first.
Even if you are a Linux guru, you still have issues dealing with drivers for some common audio interface (USB and Firewire) that you would like to use but it cannot run properly in Linux. Things can be fixed in Linux if resources and support are available. However it can take a lot of time in some cases even you are already very good with this operating system.
I recommend sticking to your Windows based home recording studio whenever possible.
Content last updated on July 24, 2012
2 Responses
Great post! Thanks for the information it was definitely helpful. You give me insights about the compatibility of audio interface in Linux. Probably I would do some research on this matter and come up with a standadr list o audio interfaces that are supported by ALSA or FFADO. This would be helpful to a lot of the readers of this blog who are using Linux as the OS or their DAW.
A couple points to help understand things…
First, Audio interface support in Linux has nothing at all to do with Jack. Jack is simply a combination timeline-synchronization tool and analog-style signal redirector, meaning that you can use Jack to connect the outputs of devices and/or programs with the inputs of other devices and/or programs. This is probably closer to ReWire than ASIO. If your audio interface is supported by ALSA or FFADO, Jack will have no problems using it. As for latency, the only thing about Jack is that it attempts to keep a small enough buffer to balance low latency and lack of dropped frames.
In Linux, sound devices, such as audio interfaces, are handled by the sound drivers available in the Alsa (for PCI/USB devices) or FFADO (Firewire Audio Support). You can find the lists of supported devices on the following websites:
* http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Matrix:Main
* http://www.ffado.org/?q=devicesupport/list
DAW-wise, there are several available DAWs in Linux. These programs are Ardour (like you mentioned), Traverso, QTractor, and Rosegarden (the latter two are also also MIDI sequencers). If you want to spend a little, there’s also Renoise and Harrison Mixbus (the latter is based in Ardour, but with a Harrison-specific mixer control).
I hope this helps somewhat. I also give much more information on my own website, if you want to check it out: http://linuxhomerecording.blogspot.com.