Come on Native Instruments! Think Linux!

Hello, I am a user with a lot of desire to continue using his software, but I can not continue doing it since there is no native support for Linux.
I have money, I do not want to spend it on Windows or Mac. I want to use it to buy NI products.
The company's slogan says "The native instrument is the future." Well ... if you think so, think Linux.
I have Komplete Audio 6 and it works perfectly in Ubuntu.
Come on, you can NI!

Thank you!

 

iOS it’s more spreaded than gnu/linux in dj terms and has more future than even any other actual OS and youcan’t see too much interest on it. What makes you think NI will go gnu/linux? Bitwig?

ITOH if NI goes gnu/linux probably will be for dedicated embed platform ala akai so hardly for desktop/laptop IMHO...

 

Audio production on Linux doesn't seem to be the future any time soon. Or ever. A few products supporting it doesn't mean everybody should, or will.

 

Also, generally, the majority of linux users do not want to pay for commercial products, wanting it all to be open source.

 

Hello! What you say is not entirely true. We live in a world where there is a lot of piracy, even many Windows users use pirated software. Linux is open to free and private software. But we need software developers to open up to the Linux platform to ensure good use of the software.

I am a Linux user and would love to have the option to pay for Native Instruments software to use it on Linux. In the same way I did with PianoTeq, it is proprietary software in a free software environment.

I'm tired of using money where I do not want to use it, Windows takes all my money I could use in NI.

 

Sadly, the market isn't there for N.I. to actually do that. Especially with distribution, content versioning, license tracking, support, etc.

Have you tried any of the solutions like WINE ? Perhaps try installing a Player App in Windows format, via WINE, and see if it works for you on Linux. Obviously, you still (might) need a Windows license, which may defeat the purpose, but might work. Have not tried that myself on our CentOS Linux box.

 

Yes, with Wine Kontakt it works. But my experience was not good.
I understand that Linux is a small market for Native Instruments but if you do not try to approach it, it could never be a market, since they do not offer their services.
Once again, I have the KompleteAudio 6 interface, it works perfectly in UbuntuStudio and it was not necessary to install any driver.

 

Yep. USB native drivers are platform independent. Software and licensing control, download manager, etc. are not, unfortunately.
Sorry -- not trying to be a jerk, just some feedback that it's unlikely unless Linux hits a more mainstream level in music business. And N.I. has way too much to do on the Mac and Windows side to manage the Linux stuff as well (put another way - sales would not pay for the work and update/support!).

But would be nice ! I do miss those dedicated boxes that could run Komplete without Windows in a rack mount space.

 

If I understand it, but I find it interesting to present this topic in this forum.
But at some point it can happen, for example the company Valve with Steam.
In my country I need approximately US $ 800 just to buy windows and a DAW. With $ 800 I would buy good NI instruments. And sure other people too.

 

It all depends on effort vs turnaround. With Linux turnaround usually isn't much, so why spend tons of R&D and effort if it won't result in a good enough turnaround (because it wouldn't, Linux audio is way too small of a niche).

 

Have switched to Bitwig & Octatrack. Still missing Maschine, but not enough to switch back to Windows/Mac. Would buy a Maschine Studio if there was Linux support, even if it was "just Ubuntu" like Bitwig.

 

Most software is beeing developed using lots of 3rd party frameworks. As long as all of them are availlable for Linux too, it is easy to deploy Linux versions without spending much time (and money) in it. But if any framework isn't available for Linux, the only realistic workaround is to replace it with anything else what means to pay for licenses and spend much time in coding.

Most of the DAW software which is available for Linux too was planned as platform-independant software from the beginning.

 

NI has their own internal frameworks for many things, so...

 

This is understandable. But in which way does Windows take all your money? For me, it is just a licence and there you go. It is even cheaper, if you buy licenses from a volume-license which is legally possible in the EU.

 

What surely needs to be developed in case of a Linux port is the implementation of audio backends like jack, pulseaudio and/or alsa. The frontends of the applications are based on a custom widget set which should be easy to compile on the top of X11.

 

It ain't happening, tho.

 

Who knows? Regarding the software search function at kvraudio.com, there is a lot of DAW software/plugins that is already available for Linux. And the number of companies porting their software to Linux becomes more and more what means that professional audio under Linux is a notable market.

And also, porting software is not complicated like a few years ago, because it is not really necessary to use the operating system APIs. For example, the qKontrol software I wrote once to use the Kontrol MK2 under Linux uses QT for the GUI frontend, libusb to send bitmap data to the screens and libhid to configure the knobs, buttons, sliders and it's lights. Everything is available for any operating system what means that you could recompile the software under Windows or macOS without needing to change anything. But it in this case this is senseless because you need to deinstall the Komplete Kontrol software under Windows or macOS before it would work because it claims the device instead of qKontrol.

 

Porting custom frameworks from 20+ years ago IS far from simple, and definitely in the area of complicated. Plus, when you factor in the funding and manhours required vs a really small fraction of the userbase that is using Linux for audio (yes, it really is that small, compared to Win+macOS)... Think like a CEO with 600 people under you, and having received a capital investment injection of $50m+ which you need to return interest on. Linux is not happening in that scenario.

 

Just out of curiosity, what great benefit are you going to get out of working on a Linux platform? Do you feel you might get a performance advantage by using the music applications and VST's with a light weight window manager on a *nix platform? Or is your reasoning you want to work on a FOSS OS system but still use COTS apps?

Correct me if I am wrong, but Maschine is not a FOSS project. Its a closed source proprietary application. So you will not have a big community of core developers pushing patches and updates like on something like httpd or openssh. The guys that will be doing this work are going to full time or contract employees of NI.

 

Some people prefer to work with an UNIX desktop instead of macOS or linux. With your argumentation, there would also no reason to support macOS because any Mac user could also install Windows.

Regarding the NI hardware, I developed a tool to support the Komplete Kontrol MK2 under Linux. This was neither a full-time job nor it was necessary to contact NI for that in any way. A few advices from other users and the Wireshark tool was enough to gather all the required informations.