This is a very nice curated list of software / plugins for linux (updated 12-2025)
A DAW for recording and mixing I’ve been using lately is n-Track Studio which is now available on linux:
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Yeah I’ve been checking it out! Also have a few LSP plugs installed but haven’t tried them yet…
TL:DR; switched from Windows 11 to Linux (Fedora Jam), excited to get started recording music and uploading videos on youtube with open source software 
A few days ago I backed up my Elektron and FL Studio project files, videos, samples and important documents on my laptop then nuked my entire windows installation.
Tried out Fedora KDE and Linux Mint but had a hard time troubleshooting audio stuff. I downloaded Ubuntu Studio and realized I didn’t have a USB stick big enough for the iso file, but saw Fedora Jam get recommended in a few threads. So I installed that and Ardour worked out of the box together with my Motu M4 audio interface!
I’ll miss my orchestra and piano VSTs. If I can get them running on Linux it’ll be a nice bonus, but I’m considering them inaccessible for the time being.
At first I was really disappointed with KDENLIVE, because playback was incredibly choppy even when following the usual fixes (using proxy clips, disabling compositing, lowering preview resolution). Creating proxy clip kept failing, and I learned it might have something to do with the video codecs I had. I replaced Fedora’s included codecs with proprietary ones, and suddenly KDENLIVE was as smooth as DaVinci Resolve was on my Windows installation 
I learned juuust enough Ardour to record my Elektrons and add FX, and I’ve made a little “”“mastering”“” template using the included plugins and a couple of AirWindows plugins.
Oh, and I tried arch on a VM and couldn’t get past the disk partitioning part of the installation guide 
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Nice, I was using 64Studio long time ago (debian based if I remember well) and enjoyed a lot the process. The linux environnement is more toward connecting softwares together than using one big soft.
Use jackd with QJackCtl (GUI for jack server) and you can connected midi and audio from one soft to another one.
I remember using seq64 as midi sequencer, sequencing some hardware synth and a soft sampler I don’t remember the name (was integrated in the dist)
For simple recording I was using audacity or sometime ardour (was not very stable 15 year ago)
Use only “audio” distrib to have the realtime kernel or you have to recompile linux kernel with realtime feature (reduce audio latency)
Have fun!
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@blaize as I mentioned on Music production on Linux - #47 by icaria36, good Linux audio advice from years ago doesn’t apply anymore. Anyone starting with Linux audio today doesn’t need to know about JACK or specific kernels. Whatever generic distro they pick will come with a kernel and audio framework ready to go. Just plug your audio interface, USB / MIDI instruments, your DAW… Whatever you need that supports linux or is USB compliant.
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I’m too oldschool 
I don’t use computer to make music anymore, I just record my elektron with audacity on Debian. But it’s good to know there is a mature ecosystem now.
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I’ve got an M4 at work and an M2 at home and both are plug and play in Linux! Delighted it’s all working for you.
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Yeah, that’s the tough one… They did add an installer to the live medium a few years back though: archinstall - ArchWiki
They don’t exactly advertise it
You could give yabridge a try: GitHub - robbert-vdh/yabridge: A modern and transparent way to use Windows VST2, VST3 and CLAP plugins on Linux
And in case you ever need something more sophisticated: Reaper, Renoise and Bitwig run natively on Linux.
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I use Yabridge all the time with Manjaro (an easy to install fork of Arch) and have a reasonable success rate with getting Windows VSTs to work.
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There is Pianoteq too, native Linux and amazingly good.
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Also tracktion waveform, plus a bunch of their plugins (but not all of them) like daw essentials, wavetable, collective, biotech3, atraktive and f’em. All of it runs very solid, no crashes or gotchas. Like the others in the above list, requires about 10m to setup and config.
Studio one (now fender studio pro 8) also runs natively, but personally it’s not very stable for me.
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Has anyone here crossgraded (if that’s an accurate description) Ubuntu to Ubuntu Studio?
https://ubuntustudio.org/ubuntu-studio-installer/
I have my machines set up running vanilla Ubuntu 25.10 and both are stable, but I wonder if it would be beneficial to give this a try, for the latency tweaks especially. Or maybe I should leave well enough alone…
There are a few arch based distros that come with a simple installer and desktop env ready to go. Manajaro is nice but I’ve been using endeavour os for quite a while now and am very happy with it.
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You can stay in Ubuntu and get / set up the few tweaks that still bring Ubuntu Studio an edge. There is slightly outdated and verbose documentation explaining this but I just found a more recent blog post that explains the steps, in a simpler way. And since it was posted you can save yourself installing linux-lowlatency (the main line got all the lowlatency improvements by default).
In other words, open the console and…
sudo apt install ubuntustudio-installer
Select ubuntustudio-performance-tweaks
then run
ubuntustudio-audio-config
And that’s it, you have “Ubuntu Studio” performance improvements under the hood.
The rest of Ubuntu Studio that you won’t get is the collection of curated apps and the Plasma desktop, but you don’t need those for your music. If you want any of those apps, you can just install them in plain Ubuntu.
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I think this list is also useful for non-Lin users, as such plugins are frequently multi-platform
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Oh man thank you. Yes, I don’t want the apps, Reaper is all I need, and the small number of plugins I already have. I’ll try this!
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To add to that list, U-He are great, TAL, Audio Damage, AudioThing, Inphonik, Surge Synth Team. Loads of very good options. Despite the lack of GUI, AirWindows are brilliant as well. Amigo Sampler, Fors plugins, SocaLabs.
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Not sure this counts as spammy, but I successfully recorded audio into Ardour and put together a video in KDENLIVE
Does anyone have any experience copying project files from the DT2 on Linux? Transfer with Wine? Elektroid?
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Elektroid for sure. Also don’t miss overwitch!
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way too buggy/unstable, especially on Linux.
i used it daily for a while and that was not much fun.
for a rock solid Linux DAW i can recommend either Reaper or Bitwig.
Bitwig run sales twice a year, and it’s worth every cent – even though it only supports VST & CLAP plugins (Reaper supports everything).
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