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Lack of Linux compatibility is no longer acceptable

EZdrummer Help
Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • confundido
    Participant

    I think there are still insurmountable issues delivering a product to Linux. I use Linux extensively for my web sites but I’m not a Linux guru by any shot so folks correct me if I’m wrong.

    1. Overall market share of Linux is still too small to make it financially feasible to developer for it.  I don’t want to assign it a number but I think you’d usually think of it as having in the very low single digit percent of the desktop market.  Huge in server, but still no desktop.
    2. There are a number of popular distros and they’re all slightly different: Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, CentOS, RedHat (used to be pretty huge, now not sure), and many others.
    3. There is no single desktop environment across all those distros. And the user usually has to become pretty nerdy to get a desktop set up on Linux. In the server market where it’s very popular you access servers via terminals programs and other fairly low level tools and everything is heavily CLI (command line interface) and manually editing config files.
    4. Even if you could navigate all the differences and somehow figure out what to do desktop-wise there is (now correct me if I’m wrong here) no single binary format that runs on all.  And I’m not aware of a spec for VST (the music plug-in interface that is widely used for music products like EZD).

    Maybe a Linux guru can talk about how to skin these cats but Linux has been claiming “this is the year of the Linux desktop” for probably 20 years now and I still don’t think we’re there.

    Again, like many others I use Linux on the server and don’t have personal experience with it on a desktop, but even server use requires you to still be pretty techy.

    confundido aka Dennis


    Operating system: Windows 11
    confundido
    Participant

    I re-read the bottom of your post. You’re already set up using WINE but does that work for a program as complex as a DAW? DAWs typically really need to use every ounce of the OS’s hardware device access APIs. I do see a number of DAWs listed for Linux and I’ll be darned there’s a bunch of stuff about VST for Linux.  I’ll still go back to the fact that Linux is a teeny fraction of the desktop market and it’s financially unattractive to develop for for that reason. Maybe the US government will change that and finally make Linux desktop a reality!

    confudido aka Dennis

    KimJung
    Participant

    I use the Linux version of the DAW, in my case Reaper. All the plug-ins I use have a Linux-compatible plug-in, except for EZDrummer… which unfortunately does not. That’s why I run Reaper and all other plug-ins directly on Linux. I try to load EZDrummer into Reaper as a PlugIn using Bottles (Wine can also be used) via yabridge. This is unstable; some have managed to do it, but most have problems. I’ll give it a try and set myself a limit of three hours. If I haven’t got it working by then, I’ll look for another Linux-compatible plug-in for my drums.

    And: Linux Desktop is already existing since years now. My recommendation: Take a look at Linux Mint.


    EZdrummer version: 3.1.1
    Operating system: Windows 11
    • This post was modified 19 hours, 3 minutes ago by KimJung.
    confundido
    Participant

    Well you’re a braver man than I. I spent a huge amount of time just getting my DAW to behave on straight up Windows. Once I did that, EZD just worked.

    Maybe some of that other plugs just happen to work without the companies having to devote resources and testing to it. EZD seems to be a pretty complex plug though and then they’ve also got a raw .exe of it as well. I doubt it makes financial sense for them to devote limited dev/test resources to vetting their product on a single digit market segment.

    As a software developer myself I’ve always got people passionately asking me for a particular feature that would only be used by a small number of people. And I have to weigh importance against a feature that will benefit lots of folks.

    My son works without a drum plug, just gets free drum packs from the Internet. Lemme ask him how he does things.

    confundido aka Dennis

    confundido
    Participant

    OK my son uses FL and admittedly he’s more about “making beats” which I’d say is not the focus of EZD. He says he just searches for “future drum kit Reddit download” and Future is a rap artist so he’s looking for similar sounds. And then he says “I can use all my downloaded sounds in FL”. I’m not familiar with FL so I don’t know what FL uses to “play” the sounds but maybe Reaper has some facility.  So I’m not affiliated in any way with EZD but as a software developer I’d guess their pushing the platform pretty hard and have a pretty big API “surface area” to give all the EDZ functionality and it might be a bit tricky to port that to Linux. Well not “port it do Linux” but verify that it all works under WINE.

    I’m going to try to attach 2 videos he made explaining how he does things in FL. Totally foreign to me.  And apologies to toontracks, don’t mean to be promoting a free way to do things, just trying help this guy. Feel free to delete if I’m crossing a  line.

    confundido aka Dennis

    P.S. Oops, no attachments. It says “too big” even tho they’re not a whole lot bigger than a modern hires JPG.

    • This post was modified 12 hours, 54 minutes ago by confundido.
    confundido
    Participant

    OK here’s a bit more from my son. Can you tell he’s 19?

    Yeah but I think this way of doing drums is really good because there’s sm free downloads out there on the internet. If u wanna be rly picky tho the sounds aren’t always the highest possible quality but they’re good enough that I don’t rly notice

    So he did two 1 minute videos showing how he imports these downloaded drums into FL and if you’re interested I’ll find some way to share those (if’n it’s OK with toontrack)

    confundido aka Dennis

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

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