This PC is basically my life, I use it for work (freelance business), entertainment, and to self host a server so I’m hesitant. I have a handful of questions for now while I look into it more:

  1. I’d prefer not to dual boo, but it might be the safest way to start? If I dual boot, get used to Linux and (hopefully) get everything I need working, can I then go from dual boot to erasing the Windows partition and recombining so I then only have Linux installed and can keep the work and programs I already installed on Linux?

  2. I do voiceover work, music production, and digital art/photography. Anyone else here do all this and what programs would you recommened to replace Audition, Photoshop, and Cubase?

–2.1. Regarding music production, has anyone successfully used vst files from Windows on Linux?

  1. The drives for my server are NTFS. Does anyone have experience with this format on Linux (I use Emby)?

  2. My bread and butter right now is voice acting so I NEED everything to play nice. I’ve read there might be some issues with drivers for my hardware, namely Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 and Behringer UV1. Anyone have any experience with this?

EDIT: Wow that’s a lot of responses. I’d like to respond to each but I’m a bit overwhelmed with all the info haha. I think I’m gonna grab an old external USB drive and live boot from there and test things out. Thanks to everyone, I’ve got a tonne to mull over now. Appreciate it!

  • just_another_person@lemmy.world
    4·
    20 hours ago

    1. Yup.

    2. I use Audacity because it’s super simple and has a familiar interface. Ardour is a DAW with way more features and mixing available, but a lot of people just use ONE as well for the “one and done” method. VSTs are going to be hit or miss depending on what they do and how they were written (many are windows-specific), but there are other things available for replacement if needed. Link.

    3. NTFS is fine to read from on Linux, but I wouldn’t suggest read/write because NTFS will 100% corrupt itself over time. Stick to either read-only from NTFS and save elsewhere, or copy them to a new destination and work from there.

    4. There’s a lot of info on these on Linux. Sounds like support for the Scarlett hit with kernel 6.8, so you’ll be fine there. The Behringer EV1 should be standalone hardware, meaning it does it’s work with the PC.

    You can just run a LiveUSB of Fedora or whatever and try all this stuff out to be sure with no commitment. You could also get a second drive cheap and make this easier to test out fully if you really want and make the switch from dual booting a lot safer.

    Either way, you have easy options to test all this out before even installing.

    • Jack_Burton@lemmy.caOP
      4·
      20 hours ago

      LiveUSB

      I had no idea this was a thing! So I can basically put a Linux distibution on a USB, boot into bios and run Linux without installing anything over my existing hdd? Researching a virtual machine has been on my radar, is that basically what this is?

      • just_another_person@lemmy.world
        1·
        20 hours ago

        Yeah, download the ISO, use a media writer to put it on any kind of removable media, plug it in, reboot, and you’ll have a fully functional desktop in a few minutes are running in memory. This is the way it should be tested, and it gives you the option to test as many as you want to find the one that fits for you.

        The only caveat is that it’s running completely in-memory as I said, so if you plan on testing out installing software to test, keep in mind your usual amount of RAM available will be slightly reduced.

        If everything looks great, then you’ll have the ability to install directly, without harming your Windows partition. PLEASE BACK YOUR STUFF UP ANYWAY.

    • Jack_Burton@lemmy.caOP
      1·
      20 hours ago

      LiveUSB>

      I had no idea this was a thing! So I can basically put a Linux distibution on a USB, boot into bios and run Linux without installing anything over my existing hdd? Researching a virtual machine has been on my radar, is that basically what this is?

      • undrwater@lemmy.world
        1·
        13 hours ago

        It’s not a virtual machine. It’s an operating system running directly on your hardware from a drive. The drive just happens to be a USB stick.

        I’ll take this space to further the recommendation to get a cheap machine with which to experiment.

        It’s what I did for my business. I needed to keep a Windows laptop for client side interactions.