Would you like to see Linux version of Reason?

[antic604]

I am aware that the chances of that happening anytime soon - if ever - are very slim, but would you want this to happen eventually?

The music-production ecosystem on Linux is getting really strong, with Reaper, Bitwig, LMMS (FL clone), Ardour, Waveform and since v6.5 - Studio One; already present. I feel that we'll soon see Live working on Linux too, because Push 3 Standalone version is already Linux-based, so they've done the bulk of the work already. There's lots of native Linux plugins, incl. big names (like U-He) and there's tools that run Windows' plugins flawlessly. Also, in terms of audio performance Linux is better and more stable than Windows, close to macOS. The thing that's lagging is hardware / driver support, although even there there's clear progress being made, i.e. most stuff just works.

Reason, with its strong RE ecosystem and REs inherently being OS/hardware agnostic, would fit perfectly, too!

[jam-s]

Would be really nice to get linux support before Win10 support ends from M$. but I highly doubt it even though the migration to the new code base could possibly be mostly done during the R12 cycle and if they did it with portability in mind adding linux support could possibly not be such a huge task any more.

[DaveyG]

I think it is vanishingly unlikely, ever.
Look at how difficult it was for them to add hi-res graphics and M1 support and how many related bugs there were. Those tasks are trivial compared with porting a 20 year old code base to Linux. I doubt they would ever get their dev costs back.

And I think if desktop Linux was ever going to make it big it would have done so by now.

[antic604]

I think it is vanishingly unlikely, ever.
Look at how difficult it was for them to add hi-res graphics and M1 support and how many related bugs there were. Those tasks are trivial compared with porting a 20 year old code base to Linux. I doubt they would ever get their dev costs back.

And I think if desktop Linux was ever going to make it big it would have done so by now.

I was under the impression that the reason it took so long to:
- add high-res GUI,
- offload it to GPU,
- add VST3 support,
- add Apple Silicon compatibility,
- improve the audio engine (better multithreading), etc.

...was that they actually re-wrote most of the legacy code?

So maybe they don't have to "port a 20 year old code base" anymore?

Maybe it's just a matter of compiling it for Linux?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Anyway, the question was would you like to see it (and use it), NOT if you think it's possible

[DaveyG]

...was that they actually re-wrote most of the legacy code?

Nope, they'll have rewritten the bare minimum they needed to and nothing more, because they needed to release it. There will still be plenty of old code in there.

Anyway, the question was would you like to see it (and use it), NOT if you think it's possible

I answered that question with the vote.

I'd prefer them to target iPadOS rather than Linux.

[antic604]

...was that they actually re-wrote most of the legacy code?

Nope, they'll have rewritten the bare minimum they needed to and nothing more, because they needed to release it. There will still be plenty of old code in there.

You - and I - have no idea what they had to do and what they did. Sure there's some old code still there, but it seems like the audio engine and GUI had to be re-written.

Anyway, the question was would you like to see it (and use it), NOT if you think it's possible

I answered that question with the vote.

I'd prefer them to target iPadOS rather than Linux.

IMO, porting Reason to iPad would be a much bigger task than Linux version, because none of the Reason's GUI was designed with touch i mind - there's way too many small, tightly packed elements in there. It's often difficult to control stuff with the mouse pointer.

Frankly, Bitwig is the only DAW that's sort of (and just barely...) comfortable on touch screen, with several dedicated features implemented there:

[DaveyG]

IMO, porting Reason to iPad would be a much bigger task than Linux version,

Oh, I agree. In reality neither are ever going to happen but an iPad version would find a much bigger and a much faster growing audience than a Linux version and, you know:

https://www.apple.com/uk/logic-pro-for-ipad/

[tewoc]

Yes, if development invest is not too much. First worflow/sequencer.

[avasopht]

I think it is vanishingly unlikely, ever.
Look at how difficult it was for them to add hi-res graphics and M1 support and how many related bugs there were. Those tasks are trivial compared with porting a 20 year old code base to Linux. I doubt they would ever get their dev costs back.

And I think if desktop Linux was ever going to make it big it would have done so by now.

I'll bet my brightest burgundy hat they've had Linux builds for the last 5 years.




Their hi-res graphics was 100x more complex than porting to Linux. It's a really complicated problem - especially when you've not done anything like it before.

Some things are much harder than they look. Read up on how complex just rendering the text was for the Zed editor.

In the past, this was all done on the CPU. But there are too many pixels to do that now. This is tricky because you can't render with a GPU the same way you would with a CPU.

And then the nuances of rendering an image at different resolutions while maintaining definition.



The fact they have already developed a version that runs in the browser (there was a demo many years ago) as well on embedded hardware that I think ran on ARM, ... ... it's unlikely their codebase will have any difficulty supporting Linux (and as a worst case scenario, they could use the same web version to run on Linux).



I don't see them doing it, but it's likely they maintain a Linux build if they are pursuing hardware (and they have a demo of that too running Rack Extensions on an embedded device).

---

AKAI MPC Standalone runs on RT (Realtime) Linux (powered by a similar ARM CPU that's in the Raspberry Pi).

Korg Wavestate runs on RT Linux (powered by a Raspberry Pi).

And because they run on a Realtime OS, they are able to get minimal latencies and a level of stability unimaginable on a PC or Mac.

[Bes]

maybe reason should develop an entire OS

[sycon]

Absolutely! Then I would finally be able to switch to Linux entirely.

[Kilsane]

yes a bootable image for Raspberry pi 5 (System and Reason) all optimized lol

[benjified]

Didn't Propellerhead have Europa available in a web browser at one point? REs could be deployed in a browser experience and probably could run in Linux no problem. I think the Reason application is the only thing holding it back.

What's been going on in the Linux audio world lately, I haven't serious tried tinkering with it it for like a decade. I heard something about Pipeline taking over Pulseaudio and possibly even Jack for low latency audio. Ardour seemed fine, but I was never happy with MIDI in Linux. LMMS never took off. I only considered Linux when I heard Bitwig supported it, but I wanted to stay with Reason. Then I got a MacBook, and then an iPad and iPhone and got sucked into the magical Apple ecosystem.

I'm not too loyal though, so Linux is always an option, though I don't want to dick around with getting the suspend state working so my laptop battery doesn't drain.

[aeox]

I was able to run Reason on linux a few years ago via wine integration. I imagine it's a lot better now, but haven't tried.

As a huge linux fanboy I've always wanted this but.. for now it's windows for productions stuff

[avasopht]

Didn't Propellerhead have Europa available in a web browser at one point? REs could be deployed in a browser experience and probably could run in Linux no problem. I think the Reason application is the only thing holding it back.

What's been going on in the Linux audio world lately, I haven't serious tried tinkering with it it for like a decade. I heard something about Pipeline taking over Pulseaudio and possibly even Jack for low latency audio. Ardour seemed fine, but I was never happy with MIDI in Linux. LMMS never took off. I only considered Linux when I heard Bitwig supported it, but I wanted to stay with Reason. Then I got a MacBook, and then an iPad and iPhone and got sucked into the magical Apple ecosystem.

I'm not too loyal though, so Linux is always an option, though I don't want to dick around with getting the suspend state working so my laptop battery doesn't drain.

Linux is used by the Akai MPC/Force line and Korg Wavestate (both running on Raspberry Pi processors or equivalent ARM CPUs).

They use a Real-time variant of Linux that allows it to run at lower latencies with much more timing stability.

Whenever you see someone using an MPC or Korg Wavestate, remember that they are using a bog standard RT Linux on a bog standard ARM CPU you can buy for $50.



My interest in Linux support is that it's an inevitable milestone on the way to running Reason on a tiny $50 device that can fit in your pocket.

[antic604]

Whenever you see someone using an MPC or Korg Wavestate, remember that they are using a bog standard RT Linux on a bog standard ARM CPU you can buy for $50.

Push 3 Standalone runs Ableton Live on a 13th gen Intel i3 and a bespoke Linux version, but that one costs $2k w/o Live license, so I guess it's less impressive

[kurtg]

I'm huge fan of linux for running on servers. However, I do not believe in a succes for reason on Linux. Because most linux-users want the app to be free and/or opensource.

[avasopht]

Whenever you see someone using an MPC or Korg Wavestate, remember that they are using a bog standard RT Linux on a bog standard ARM CPU you can buy for $50.

Push 3 Standalone runs Ableton Live on a 13th gen Intel i3 and a bespoke Linux version, but that one costs $2k w/o Live license, so I guess it's less impressive

Ah, ... I was mixing up Push 3 with Maschine+, which iirc runs on Windows!

But great, that's another one to add to the list.

[bxbrkrz]

I want my RME card (and others) to work flawlessly natively on Linux first. I want ASIO and VST 3 etc. fully open and libre first.
Live Push 3's version is already a Linux port because Ableton controls the software, hardware, and i/o.

I just found out about Cardinal.
Open source + you can use it in your browser or your DAW, unlike the free version of VCV Rack.
https://cardinal.kx.studio/

[antic604]

Push 3 Standalone runs Ableton Live on a 13th gen Intel i3 and a bespoke Linux version, but that one costs $2k w/o Live license, so I guess it's less impressive

Ah, ... I was mixing up Push 3 with Maschine+, which iirc runs on Windows!

But great, that's another one to add to the list.

Maschine+ is also using some variant of Linux and an ARM processor, like MPC One/Live/X do.

[antic604]

I'm huge fan of linux for running on servers. However, I do not believe in a succes for reason on Linux. Because most linux-users want the app to be free and/or opensource.

That's just a consequence of Linux mostly being used originally by paranoid, skimpy geeks

Since Ubuntu and other Gnome-based distros, this started changing.

Foe Bitwig for example, last time I checked it (on KvR Forum, which might be skewed, admittedly) the OS shares were something like ~40% Win, ~30% macOS and ~30% Linux.

[avasopht]

Maschine+ is also using some variant of Linux and an ARM processor, like MPC One/Live/X do.

Hmm, ... Maybe I just assumed it was

But that's quite a lot of Linux support!

[antic604]

But that's quite a lot of Linux support!

My guess it's because of licensing and performance.

Linux is free and much easier to optimize for single-purpose devices like groove boxes, so they can get away with low-level, mobile-grade CPUs and small RAM providing enough capacity, performance and stability. And apparently, those benefits are so big, that it justifies the cost of porting the DAWs and plugins to Linux, because neither MPC or Maschine by itself run on Linux

[joeyluck]

I think the spam bots have a new favorite lol

bot friend.png (46.53 KiB) Viewed 17689 times

[avasopht]

But that's quite a lot of Linux support!

My guess it's because of licensing and performance.

Linux is free and much easier to optimize for single-purpose devices like groove boxes, so they can get away with low-level, mobile-grade CPUs and small RAM providing enough capacity, performance and stability. And apparently, those benefits are so big, that it justifies the cost of porting the DAWs and plugins to Linux, because neither MPC or Maschine by itself run on Linux

Plus it's got support for WiFi, audio interfaces, filesystems, various hardware drivers, etc.

And then there's the added benefit over Windows of having a real-time OS version available.