How To Deal with Linux Shortcomings...

[smccarthy945]

I made the switch over to Mint completely about 2 months ago. Deleted Windows off everything and moved forward. Since then, I am glad I did as I love Mint and have found replacement apps for almost everything except music production where I use 1 Windows machine. I have found some problems I can't find solutions to and I am hoping someone can help:

1. Outlook - I still miss it!
Although I have ThunderBird working, it can't use the ActiveSync functions on my email server so I am stuck using IMAP. I don't run Exchange Sever and do know about the exquilla plug in but it won't work for my purposes. I have an email server that licenses ActiveSync from MS to sync calendar, etc. Has anyone found a Linux email client that has ActiveSync support - true ActiveSync - not using OWA for syncing. I really miss Outlook in the fact it will sync everything and support any and all file servers and their Windows-based plug ins. I wish someone would write an Outlook for linux.

2. Music Software
Although there are a couple commercial programs that now run in Linux (Bitwig), there are very few VSTs for Linux which makes it all but impossible to produce music with Mint. I see progress being made and am sure it will happen in 5 years or so but it's not possible right now. It's just too limiting.

3. The "Polish"
I do admit that I do miss some of the "polish" of Windows and OS X. Although Mint looks amazing, there are still many inconsistencies I find in it. For example, when I use a Display Link dual monitor box, it works but leaves "fragments" of video around the screen. The driver still has problems. The Windows and Mac drivers work great b/c Linux is still an afterthought for development of HW support. My bluetooth mouse has never felt quite right in Linux I am guessing due to a driver problem. Linux is getting there but you can tell MS and Apple do a great job of keeping everything consistent because they have the money and people to do it. I just hope Linux is more consistent in HW support, look and feel. This one is really hard to explain. Linux has never felt as comfortable when I am working in it as I do in other mainstream OSs'.

4. Vendor Support
I know it's getting better but I hope vendors start realizing they have to support Linux at the same quality and commitment as you give Apple and Microsoft. I know it's a $ thing and am not naive, however, Linux is really coming along on the desktop and it's time for vendors to give it a chance. I would like to see more vendors get on board so we get the big name software designed for Linux.

Don't get me wrong, I love Mint and use it everyday. There are just some things I really miss from OS X and Windows that I wish Mint and other Linux distros had.

[richyrich]

Haha, just think, if Linux had their money to employ thousands of paid developers . .

Question 2 - Have you looked at Audacity ?

http://www.audacityteam.org/

[all41]

Regarding music production software:
Check out the tools link at:
http://libremusicproduction.com/music

[jimallyn]

I just looked in Audacity, and I have well over 200 plugins installed. No idea how many, if any, are VST. Doesn't really matter to me, they work. There is a utility that enables VST plugins in Linux, but I know pretty much nothing about that, either:

http://breakfastquay.com/dssi-vst/

[TooMuchTime]

Well, there is one thing I miss about Linux and that is Winamp. I know there are lots of other Linux music applications but not one of them comes anywhere close to Winamp. I use Audacious which is fair. All of the others I tried fall far short of Audacious.

Vendor Support will be less than fulfilling in Linux for some time to come. The vendors know where their bread is buttered and that would be the greater percentage of operating systems that are sold. That is, not Linux. Even at just over 5%, Apple commands somewhat of the market. Linux is just over 2%.

Code: Select all

Windows   91.4%
OSX        6.42%
Linux      2.18%

Remember, that is ALL versions of Linux. However, I remember when Windows was about 95% and Mac had always hovered just under 5%. Which means that Linux is making some inroads which is a very good thing. If Linux can get to that magical 5%, there will be a large demand and enough of a reason for much better vendor support. It IS happening, and the computer world will be better for it.

[sikejsudjek]

I don't see it as either or. I have windows for music production and stereoscopic gaming and linux for everything else. That way the windows system is stripped down with as much crap removed as possible. Less junk running in the background - less to go wrong and more cpu cycles available! That said, Cuckos is working on a native linux build of Reaper DAW which should get a lot of vst's working (it can work well in wine already with wineasio and jack). What would be interesting is a native linux build of reaper on its own linux tweaked distro, which has the potential to be ultra stable and very low latency.

Hardware is always going to vary between systems. I have more trouble with getting windows working as of late than linux - my hp printer was set up within 2 minutes in linux. In windows 7 after a day of messing about its still not installed correctly. Same with a usb soundcard that 'just works' in linux, but gives me a bsod in windows 7. I've still not managed to fix that one - and without new drivers being made for windows 7 I doubt I will. I've only ever had one lock up on mint. Windows by contrast often crashes - especially windows 10. What I have found is that all OS's vary with hardware compatibility. I've got hardware that won't run on windows 10, some that crashes on windows 7, and one soundcard that won't work on mint.

Far from windows being more 'polished' I find that a huge amount of bloat is added to the software a lot of the time. I use linux for music tuition now and its nice not having to deal with spyware, nag screens, ads, a worse file manager, virus checkers, defragging, etc. etc. Don't get me started on windows 10! I have it in a virtual box for one program that doesn't have an alternative on Linux, and I hate it. I left a windows 7 box on for five hours the other day to get five updates - it was still stuck on 0% when I came back. So for the few times I boot into it - its missing vital security patches. I don't consider that polished - its a disaster waiting to happen.

[millpond]

Some idle thoughts as I wait a program to finish up.

1. Whereas I delete Outlook on sight, you probably have a good use for it. Or should. For a decent, if heavy PIM, you can try out the goodies that come with KDE. Akonadi by name.

2. Linux is late to multimedia, though I find VLC blows anything Win out of the water (I also use it there) with video, sound support has historically been somewhat spotty especially with one of the major packages being PulseAudio, which is written by an overrated script kiddy.
The thing to understand here, is that Linux has historically been an institutional/corporate OS, meant to smash atoms at CERN rather than play Smashing Pumpkins. Canonical took the first real steps to being it to the popular market, to the unwashed masses. But they heavily rely on Debian which is more server oriented, while at the same time encouraging popular additions often poorly written and vetted. I have seen some absolutely dreadful PPAs. Stuff released that could never in theory work unless hacked.

3. Historically, the Linux interface sux. Recently, the DE's and WMs have made great progress. You can have all kinds of great desktop effects with Compiz, but by human engineering perspective it still sux. I avoid the problem by rarely seeing the desktop. Except to click on a multimedia/browser icon. I run my systems out of terminals. As far as looks - KDE and Mandriva are at the top of my list. Mint Cinnamon gets a yawn.

4. Dont expect the concept of vendor support on Linux. Here the main idea is *community* support. This is a problem, of course with hardware. And it will always be somewhat of a problem. I believe the 2% number for Linux use is pure nonsense. And mainly of the US, possibly Five Eyes countries.
The Third World is moving quickly away from the Win platform. Putin just outlawed it in his government, and China has stated it intends to replace the Win platform, apparently with a Linux variant. There they manufacture totally open source laptops. Eve the hardware. Its what Stallman uses. Asia and Africa are exploding online, and a great percentage of their machines are not Windows. Soon Linux will be taking the world by storm when M$ tries to drive everyone into the cloud, and folks will not be wanting to rent their own desktops. Hardware support will increase greatly then.

However, the simple truth is that with newer machines these days, an invisible line has been crossed that effectively make them multi-OS, with the popularization of VMWare and Virtualbox. You dont even need to choose. You can run both. Use Linux as a host, as let it face the net, force Win into a sandbox as a guest, and wall it off if you wish, and use it for creative apps that dont need to tweet, twit, or twot.
This, from a system running mintt18 and Win7 at the same time.
Not sure which one I'm in right now. Getting late...

[millpond]

Some idle thoughts as I wait a program to finish up.

1. Whereas I delete Outlook on sight, you probably have a good use for it. Or should. For a decent, if heavy PIM, you can try out the goodies that come with KDE. Akonadi by name.

2. Linux is late to multimedia, though I find VLC blows anything Win out of the water (I also use it there) with video, sound support has historically been somewhat spotty especially with one of the major packages being PulseAudio, which is written by an overrated script kiddy.
The thing to understand here, is that Linux has historically been an institutional/corporate OS, meant to smash atoms at CERN rather than play Smashing Pumpkins. Canonical took the first real steps to being it to the popular market, to the unwashed masses. But they heavily rely on Debian which is more server oriented, while at the same time encouraging popular additions often poorly written and vetted. I have seen some absolutely dreadful PPAs. Stuff released that could never in theory work unless hacked.

3. Historically, the Linux interface sux. Recently, the DE's and WMs have made great progress. You can have all kinds of great desktop effects with Compiz, but by human engineering perspective it still sux. I avoid the problem by rarely seeing the desktop. Except to click on a multimedia/browser icon. I run my systems out of terminals. As far as looks - KDE and Mandriva are at the top of my list. Mint Cinnamon gets a yawn.

4. Dont expect the concept of vendor support on Linux. Here the main idea is *community* support. This is a problem, of course with hardware. And it will always be somewhat of a problem. I believe the 2% number for Linux use is pure nonsense. And mainly of the US, possibly Five Eyes countries.
The Third World is moving quickly away from the Win platform. Putin just outlawed it in his government, and China has stated it intends to replace the Win platform, apparently with a Linux variant. There they manufacture totally open source laptops. Eve the hardware. Its what Stallman uses. Asia and Africa are exploding online, and a great percentage of their machines are not Windows. Soon Linux will be taking the world by storm when M$ tries to drive everyone into the cloud, and folks will not be wanting to rent their own desktops. Hardware support will increase greatly then.

However, the simple truth is that with newer machines these days, an invisible line has been crossed that effectively make them multi-OS, with the popularization of VMWare and Virtualbox. You dont even need to choose. You can run both. Use Linux as a host, as let it face the net, force Win into a sandbox as a guest, and wall it off if you wish, and use it for creative apps that dont need to tweet, twit, or twot.
This, from a system running mintt18 and Win7 at the same time.
Not sure which one I'm in right now. Getting late...

[kc1di]

I Haven't tried but I think Evolution Suite may be the answer to your e-mail needs.
Check it out it's in the repositories.

[jimallyn]

How To Deal with Linux Shortcomings...

Linux has shortcomings?

[Seff]

Yes, it does. Like having to jump through hoops to install software, instead of "download a file and run it". But that's just my opinion...

[Moem]

having to jump through hoops to install software, instead of "download a file and run it".

I've totally done that. I've also taken the even easier one-click route through the Software Manager. And in specific cases I've added a PPA, which is easy too,
What hoops are you talking about?

[Seff]

I want to install MonoDevelop, but doing so requires a whole new type of archive. Going through apt produced no result- I thought the Mint 17 repo's didn't have the current version of anything?

[Moem]

I thought the Mint 17 repo's didn't have the current version of anything?

They have the current version of some things, but not of most things.

[Seff]

If you want, I'll PM you with an explanation of what I'm up to.

[Hoser Rob]

... 1. Outlook - I still miss it!
Although I have ThunderBird working, it can't use the ActiveSync functions on my email server so I am stuck using IMAP. I don't run Exchange Sever and do know about the exquilla plug in but it won't work for my purposes. I have an email server that licenses ActiveSync from MS to sync calendar, etc. Has anyone found a Linux email client that has ActiveSync support - true ActiveSync - not using OWA for syncing. I really miss Outlook in the fact it will sync everything and support any and all file servers and their Windows-based plug ins. I wish someone would write an Outlook for linux.

Personally I don't think Outlook is any better than Thunderbird.

2. Music Software
Although there are a couple commercial programs that now run in Linux (Bitwig), there are very few VSTs for Linux which makes it all but impossible to produce music with Mint. I see progress being made and am sure it will happen in 5 years or so but it's not possible right now. It's just too limiting.

Agree 100%. It's useless. It's ridiculous that after more than 20 years you can't get a decent music program with support for groove templates. Anyone who thinks they can properly produce music on a Linux box is in for a rude awakening.

3. The "Polish"
I do admit that I do miss some of the "polish" of Windows and OS X. Although Mint looks amazing, there are still many inconsistencies I find in it. For example, when I use a Display Link dual monitor box, it works but leaves "fragments" of video around the screen. The driver still has problems. The Windows and Mac drivers work great b/c Linux is still an afterthought for development of HW support. My bluetooth mouse has never felt quite right in Linux I am guessing due to a driver problem. Linux is getting there but you can tell MS and Apple do a great job of keeping everything consistent because they have the money and people to do it. I just hope Linux is more consistent in HW support, look and feel. This one is really hard to explain. Linux has never felt as comfortable when I am working in it as I do in other mainstream OSs'.

I think you may have a video hardware issue with the driver or the config.

4. Vendor Support
I know it's getting better but I hope vendors start realizing they have to support Linux at the same quality and commitment as you give Apple and Microsoft. I know it's a $ thing and am not naive, however, Linux is really coming along on the desktop and it's time for vendors to give it a chance. I would like to see more vendors get on board so we get the big name software designed for Linux. ....

Agree 100% but I have zero hope it's going to change. I don't have any Windows partitions anymore but if I needed to use something like Photoshop or a serious pro DAW I would still have at least some Windows.

[UltraViolence]

Anyone who thinks they can properly produce music on a Linux box is in for a rude awakening.

Doubly so when they find the audio subsystem introduces latency not present in windows.

Linux is late to multimedia, though I find VLC blows anything Win out of the water

I prefer media player classic on windows but VLC does OK there. In linux, VLC won't even play some of my files.

Linux is actually EARLY to multimedia, ie if you have the newest NVIDIA or sometimes AMD GPU and a modern processor that can handle CPU decoding things are fine. On older machines its now better to install windows as you don't have to worry about your graphics driver being deprecated and uninstallable among dozens of other glitches.

Historically, the Linux interface sux. Recently, the DE's and WMs have made great progress

I'd argue the opposite. Within the last few years DEs and WMs have backslid into a disjointed mess. Add the init system wars on top and the whole thing is in disarray. Again, if you're crunching numbers or serving things not much has changed; Desktop use requires you to tweak and pray or deal with iron fisted choices made by out of touch developers who's only answer to your issues is: If you don't like it, code your own.

[smccarthy945]

In terms of the issues I was having before, I did make some progress and found solutions to the issues after much time trial and error. The best solution to replacing Outlook is to use Evolution. The latest versions of Evolution have fixed all the ActiveSync issues and Evolution works great now. I actually prefer Evolution over Outlook now and no longer need to use Outlook. Thunderbird is nice but it's missing key features for someone who works in the corporate world. For example, it's not possible to convert a calendar appointment with invitees to an email. In Outlook, there is a button you can click to quickly email all attendees from the meeting on an email. Evolution added this feature and can now do the same thing. I haven't been able to get Thunderbird to do that. Thunderbird also has many other issues like this. Evolution seems to be a great replacement to Outlook now.

In terms of music production, Bitwig is a newer company that now released a Linux version as well as Reaper. There are now some great commercial music software that is starting to release Linux versions that is now viable. I am still waiting for Ableton to release a Linux version as that's the program I use on a regular basis and cannot switch off it. It's written in C++ so it shouldn't be that difficult to port. Now there are some real options for making music on Linux - finally!!

The polish of Linux has really come a long way now. With the AMD and Nvidea drivers built in, it runs and looks great now! What a difference a little bit of time can make. I actually think Linux Mint looks better than Windows 10 now! I think Mint is a real viable alternative for desktop use now. It's so much better than Windows 10 in every area and so many software vendors are now releasing Linux versions which is great.

Vendor support is so much better now and Lenovo is now fully supporting Linux on their machines so there is now a major hardware vendor willing to fully support Linux. Vendors are releasing Linux versions now and standing behind them. The driver support is now absolutely excellent. My Canon all in one laser printer/scanner works better on Linux for scanning than on Windows with the included software. It blows my mind that the built in Mint software works so much better for scanning than the included Canon software on the Windows side. Amazing!

Also, I find that Linux just works 100% better than Windows 10 in terms of stability, general tasks (IE. Copying files, networking) and it's so much more flexible because of the file system support (EXT4 vs. old ass NTFS & FAT). Everything I throw at it now Linux handles with grace and nothing crashes it. I have my main workstation running backup software, file sharing, camera video surveillance, games, software etc and it NEVER crashes. It's just amazing to me how much better Linux is compared to Windows now.

If I was Microsoft, I would be really worried about competition from Linux on the desktop side because Linux is so much better than Windows and there is so much more software support now. Microsoft better come up with a plan B because I can't see Windows holding back Linux for 5 more years given the quality of Linux Mint and others. I am very impressed now! I converted all my machines from Windows to Mint and love it.

[diapason]

1. Outlook - I still miss it!
Although I have ThunderBird working, it can't use the ActiveSync functions on my email server so I am stuck using IMAP. I don't run Exchange Sever and do know about the exquilla plug in but it won't work for my purposes. I have an email server that licenses ActiveSync from MS to sync calendar, etc. Has anyone found a Linux email client that has ActiveSync support - true ActiveSync - not using OWA for syncing. I really miss Outlook in the fact it will sync everything and support any and all file servers and their Windows-based plug ins. I wish someone would write an Outlook for linux.

You should definitely check out Evolution (it's in the Software Manager). Be sure to download Evolution EWS (for MS Exchange support) and also all the plugins (note there are lots of extra plugins as well as the standard ones but you need to scroll some way down the Software Manager page to get to them.

Once you have installed Evolution, open the Help menu and search Sync and you will see what it says about Active Sync.

Stick to the Software Manager version of Evolution and avoid the Flatpak if you want to use plugins which call external resources (eg the "Compose with External Text Editor" plugin. The Flatpak version is sandboxed so it can't open LibreOffice Writer or any other text editor.

I have used Evolution for years now and don't miss Outlook at all. Infact, when I see the bloated, cluttered mess Outlook is these days, I wonder how people can be bothered with it. You will fine Evolution is very similar to the Outlook of the Windows XP days and if you spend a bit of time exploring how you can customise it you will come to love it. In my view, it is way better than Thunderbird.

EDIT: Too much wine tonight! I didn't realise the original was an old post. I should have seen your update immediately above my comment before I wrote. Anyway, there may be something of interest there for you.

[Hoser Rob]

The OP is 100% correct about Linux DAWs, they're an embarrassment by pro standards. If you don't have decent VST plugin support they're just useless for pro use. The truth is that when aspiring musicians ask about Linux production software on these sort of forums they're ususally just directed to linuxmusicians.org and that's the last we hear from them on that subject. It's a joke.

The answer is to still have some Windows, either dual boot or another machine.