NB: According to some of the suggestions below, this post has been made into a community:
https://lemmy.ca/c/software_alternatives_linux
Hope to see many of view posting software alternatives there!
Many members of this community are computer users who recently moved to Linux from other OSs, Windows in particular. Having established their work and hobbies on a particular software base, they often encounter difficulties trying to find similar software on Linux.
I'd like this to be a sort of board where members comment about some software alternative they're looking for, and other members sub-comment with possible solutions.
What's a solution? It's important to be broad-minded about this when switching to Linux:
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Exactly the same software could be available for Linux.
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Different software but with similar critical features could be available for Linux.
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It could be possible to use emulators (such as Wine) of the old OS.
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Finally, one can change one's perspective or workflow, in such a way that the old software is not needed any longer, but is replaced with other software of a different kind (this may actually lead to much improved workflows).
(Moderators: feel free to take over this post. Also please let me know if a similar board exists already here, so I delete this.)
I don't think there's a clear best here. If you find using wine easier than learning new music software, then sticking with what you know is best. If you're flexible about your process, there are a lot of amazing free tools and you'll probably have a more seamless time developing a workflow around them.
Personally I think learning different software is a great way to build a more flexible understanding of the fundamentals of music production, but everyone has different needs so I don't think there's a one size fits all approach.
Ardour recently go a lot of Ableton style features in version 7. Zrhythm looks pretty solid. Reaper isn't foss, but is run by a small & trustworthy team and is my main DAW, though I'm exploring less daw heavy workflows recently. VCV Rack is an incredible piece of software that has thousands of modules and is like having an entire warehouse full of modular synth gear but digitally. Cardinal is a fully self contained version of VCV Rack that works as a plugin and has ~1000 open source modules built in. Bitwig isn't foss, but borrows heavily from the Ableton paradigm, has their own twist, and has always natively supported linux. Tracktion Waveform isn't foss but looks pretty cool, depending on what suits your workflow.
thanks your thorough response! I'll have a look!