I was always a little wary putting all of my pro audio eggs in the Windows basket. Past experience has shown me that Windows will die like a moth in the shower. One minute you’re scooting little boxes around on a field of green and the next you are standing over a wasteland of blue kernel blood with a sensible error message like: 0xOOAUWONEAHAOYWUFLHTOALUYWHFTOEIN please contact Windows support.
But now Microsoft schedules death. Even if somehow my Windows 10 box would carry me for many years it doesn’t matter. In less than three years Microsoft is pulling the plug on Windows 10.
My computer doesn’t have a processor that will work with Windows 11. Yeah yeah, I hear you, the box will keep working without Microsoft support.
Even if the box keeps working without Microsoft support it will only be a matter of months before it’s full of unpatched security vulnerabilities. You’d be mad to keep using it.
Well I’m Not Waiting
This isn’t the first time Microsoft has messed me over. I did consider getting a Mac for music production. But honestly, I trust an iMac less than I do a Windows box. The software on a Mac may be superior but the hardware will fail without warning.
I’m going to go on and start setting up a Linux box with a low latency kernel. Most of the software and plugins that I use are linux native anyway:
- Reaper DAW
- Vital Synth
- Surge XT
- TAL-U-No-LX
- HY-Plugins Sequencers
- Decent Sampler
There is a lot of horsepower in that list. Most of the other plugins that I use are in Reaper itself. Basic things like; compression, auto tuning, eq, etc. All that is built in.
There are a couple of plugins like VocalSynth 2 and Portal that do not have Linux support. I will need to set those up with WINE and yabridge. Is it time consuming? Yeah. Is it annoying? Doubtless. Is it manageable? You bet.
Maybe at one time you had to have Windows or Mac for professional audio. That sure doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.
To be fair, I will make another entry after I have everything going in Linux to record my experience. As a software engineer
with more than 20 years Linux experience I’m not expecting anything I cannot handle.
What Happens with All This Hardware?
There’s going to be millions of computers with no upgrade path. They will flood craigslist like neckbeards looking for a date. Optimistically they could have Linux installed on them. That is what I’ll have to do with this box that I’m typing on.
This machine that was once used every day for business will be my wife’s new gaming box. She loves Linux.
Realistically, however, most normal people will not install Linux. Most normal people do not even know what an OS is.
Was this planned? Who does it benefit? Millions of computers going into the waste bin is hard to imagine but that is what I
see going down.