In 2014, I stopped using Macs, and in 2020, I stopped using Windows. But, this wasn’t supposed to be an article about the shortcomings of the platforms of my past. It was supposed to focus on the present, and the future. But before I get there, I really should explain how I got here…
I’ve used linux on laptops, on and off, since 2001 (SuSE Linux 7.1). I had been a Mac user from System 6.0.3 all the way through the macOS X Public Beta, but when my PowerBook G3 333 finally died, I couldn’t afford a new mac. So, I tried Windows 2000 Professional for a while and eventually moved from there to Linux.
I was happy on linux and blogged about it. If you search through the posts on this site, you’ll find some deep in the archives.
Eventually though, I hit an obstacle that I couldn’t overcome. A new employer mandated that work had to be done in specific software packages that were not available on Linux. So, with my choices being Windows or macOS, I went with Mac (OSX 10.3 Panther) because it gave me Logic Pro in the GUI and Unix at the command line.
Again, if you search the blog posts on this site, you’ll find a few pieces of macOS software that I put together along the way. But, by 2014, I was starting to feel that I was no longer Apple’s target customer. The machines became unnecessarily difficult to upgrade or repair. And, though the free OS upgrades were nice, they tended to render powerful hardware useless after only a couple of years.
Since I had moved from Logic Pro to Reaper during this period, I wasn’t locked into macOS. I could move to Windows. And, unlike ProTools, Reaper ran really well in Windows, so there was no reason not to.
Of course I had just moved to Windows 7 Professional right as the migration to Windows 10 was getting underway. So, eventually, my computers upgraded themselves to Windows 10 Pro.
Windows 10 Pro was actually a pretty solid experience for a while. The Pro designation allowed me to configure my computers to get bug fixes immediately while putting off feature changes for at least 6 months. And, audio production had matured enough that the performance gap between working on Windows and Macs had essentially closed.
An then, Microsoft announced Windows 10 X…
Diving more into the “containers” Anthony talks about in the video above, it turns out that there are 3 of them — a “classic” Windows container for your old standard Windows apps, a “hybrid” container that allows certain modified standard Windows apps to access features exclusive to Windows 10 X, and a “preferred” container for apps built for the new system that get all of the bells and whistles.
Anyone who lived through Apple’s transition from macOS 9 to OSX will recognize those three containers because they are strikingly similar to Classic, Carbon, and Cocoa — how Apple handled software during the transition. And supporting professional software for creatives during that transition was not fun — to say the least.
Though Microsoft said that Windows 10 X was only for dual screen devices, I knew that wouldn’t stay true for long. So, I decided to see if I could move back to Linux.
By the way, a few months later, Microsoft made an announcement and my prediction proved to be true. They do plan to eventually replace Windows 10 with Windows 10 X.
I needed a media production focused linux distribution. So, I decided to check out Ubuntu Studio. It comes pre-configured for professional audio production and is loaded with some of the best creative software that linux has to offer.
So, I downloaded Ubuntu Studio, copied it to a USB key, and booted my laptop into linux WITHOUT INSTALLING OR CHANGING ANYTHING.
Yes, that’s right. You can test run your current Mac or Windows computer using Linux without installing anything. You just boot your computer from the USB key instead of your computer’s internal drive.
The test run on my laptop went great. Studio ran well and recognized all of my computer hardware out of the box. I was impressed with the audio tools and plugins that were already configured and ready to go.
Though Ardour (which comes pre-installed on Ubuntu Studio) is an incredibly capable DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), my workflows revolve around Reaper. And, since Reaper now has a native Linux version, while still booted from the USB key, I downloaded and installed Reaper to that temporary live session to test it out as well (it did not touch anything on my hard drive).
Performance was great. Everything worked as expected. I found that everything else that I would need (i.e. LibreOffice (MS Office Compatible), GIMP (Photo/Graphics editor), video editors, a PDF reader/annotator, an ePUB reader, etc) were already installed in Studio.
The laptop would be fine, but what about the studio computer? I’d have to test that out. Ubuntu Studio would need to perform at least as well as Windows had or all thoughts of migration would cease.
Since I live monitor when I record, I need low latency.
The very best that I could achieve on Windows 10 Pro without any issues was 64 samples with latency being about 5.3 milliseconds (2.9 ms going into the computer and 2.4 ms going from the computer back to my headset).
On Ubuntu Studio, those numbers dropped to 32 samples and about 2.1 milliseconds (0.7 ms in and 1.4ms out).
Yes, you read that right. Without even being installed to my hard drive, Linux out performed Windows on a metric that truly mattered to my daily work by a little more than 60%.
So, I backed everything up and migrated both machines.
Once I was sure that everything was solid, I migrated all systems that we use over at Spoken Realms Studios to linux.
I’m planning future blog posts about how we produce audio (mostly audiobooks, podcasts, and audio dramas) using linux — specifically Ubuntu Studio.
And, as you can tell from my choice of DAW, I am not being an open source purist about this. That fact alone might make the content of future posts unique, since I tend to evaluate all software based upon their capabilities first, their ethos second, and their licensing third.
If there’s anything specific you’d like me to focus on in future posts, let me know in the comments!
The cool desktop wallpaper used as a featured image in this post was created by Garry Parker as Eternal Studio.