Switching to Linux for better drivers?

[andreweller]

I've recently changed my audio interface to an Motu M2 because my other one was broken and although this is a really great interface hardware-wise its drivers on windows are quite lackluster. It glitches quite a lot at times. The ASIO4ALL drivers make it way better though, way less glitches but at the cost of using drivers which don't support 2 audio sources at the same time.

So I was wondering, is linux that much better than windows at handling audio that I might want to invest some time in trying it out?

On a mac my interface works wonders, no glitches even at ultra low latency so I was wandering if I could get some better results going the linux route since I've also recently switched to Reaper which kinda supports Linux

Thanks in advance

[Linuxmusician01]

I've recently changed my audio interface to an Motu M2 because my other one was broken and although this is a really great interface hardware-wise its drivers on windows are quite lackluster. It glitches quite a lot at times. The ASIO4ALL drivers make it way better though, way less glitches but at the cost of using drivers which don't support 2 audio sources at the same time.

So I was wondering, is linux that much better than windows at handling audio that I might want to invest some time in trying it out?

On a mac my interface works wonders, no glitches even at ultra low latency so I was wandering if I could get some better results going the linux route since I've also recently switched to Reaper which kinda supports Linux

Thanks in advance

I don't use a Motu interface but you might be in luck that there's a fine Linux driver for it.

However, in my experience, much of the Linux support for audio devices that require a driver is from single persons who do it out of their love for Linux and are not affiliated w/ the manufacturer. So in my opinion hardware is never better supported by Linux than by Windows. Yes, certain Linux drivers are brilliant. But as soon as Linux changes a bit (the pending mammoth change from Xorg to Wayland and the snafu with Gnome2 to 3 years ago spring to mind) then the driver or it's GUI (graphical user interface) may or may not work any-more. If that single person moved on then you're stuck. And those changes occur more often than in Windows.

There is of course also a lot of hardware that's supported just fine by the manufacturer itself (HP printers spring to mind). But to switch TO lINUX for "better drivers"? Hmmmmm. To me a good driver is one that's excellently supported/updated until the end of time (Creative Audio Soundblaster Live maybe?). Sometimes the Linux community does that, sometimes the manufacturer. YMMV.

I know I'm gonna get flak for this but I thought I'd warn you nonetheless.

[nadir]

The thing is linux has nearly always what is called booting a live iso (these days usually a USB stick).
So there is no need to install it, you can boot the live stick and see if your hardware is supported well (and if you like the general workflow).
I don't use Windows, so am not sure about the method how to put the downloaded iso on a stick, but the distros often give the detailed how-to on their website, and many know how to do it and can help you. You would have to do it anyway, also if you would want to install.

There are Linuxdistributions which are specialized for audio-production. The ones i know, and all of them are live isos too, are:
Ubuntu-Studio
AV Linux
Librazik
Jam Fedora

Good luck.

[Audiojunkie]

I've recently changed my audio interface to an Motu M2 because my other one was broken and although this is a really great interface hardware-wise its drivers on windows are quite lackluster. It glitches quite a lot at times. The ASIO4ALL drivers make it way better though, way less glitches but at the cost of using drivers which don't support 2 audio sources at the same time.

So I was wondering, is linux that much better than windows at handling audio that I might want to invest some time in trying it out?

On a mac my interface works wonders, no glitches even at ultra low latency so I was wandering if I could get some better results going the linux route since I've also recently switched to Reaper which kinda supports Linux

Thanks in advance

Here's what I can find about Linux and the Motu M2:

https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxaudio/com ... 8/motu_m2/

According to this thread, there used to be some issues about 4 years ago, but with fixes, now it seems to work just fine.

https://github.com/kiosion/alsa-motu-m2

If you do run into issues, you may want to look into this gist.

Over all, it looks like it should work for you over all. I would highly recommend you use a distro that lets you use the newer kernels or backports to the newer kernels. My guess is that you'll be fine if you do that.

[Linuxmusician01]

There's also this active topic on the Motu here on Linuxmusicians:

viewtopic.php?t=20936&start=30

[merlyn]

... However, in my experience, much of the Linux support for audio devices that require a driver is from single persons who do it out of their love for Linux and are not affiliated w/ the manufacturer. So in my opinion hardware is never better supported by Linux than by Windows. ...

You keep posting stuff like that, and it's simply not true.

With Windows if a manufacturer stops supporting a device, that's it, the drivers stop being updated and eventually there will be a Windows update where the drivers stop working.

With Linux, once a driver is in the kernel it stays in the kernel. Take an STAudio DSP24 PCI card from twenty years ago. STAudio went bust in the early 2000s and that was that -- the last Windows version that the DSP24 will work on is Windows XP! The DSP24 uses the ice_1712 chip, which is well supported on Linux and the DSP24, or any ice_1712 card, still works on Linux today.

I don't think ALSA drivers are necessarily any 'better' than ASIO drivers, and @andreweller's problems are probably due to Windows configuration.

For the MOTU M2, as said above, the best thing to do would be to try booting Linux from a live USB stick. E.g. AVLinux

https://www.bandshed.net/avlinux/

and a bootable USB stick can be made on Windows with Rufus

https://rufus.ie/en/

[A.O.S.]

Well, you should define what "better driver" means.

It is true, that Linux supports tons of older hardware very well, because there was a lot time to mature the driver. Economic needs, like pushing new hardware sales aren't playing a role here, too.

It doesn't mean necessarily that everything runs perfectly in low latency and without issues out of box.

But sometimes, especially when it is popular hardware, the results can be very impressive and far beyond what Windows would make possible or allow.

A good example are the older Radeon graphic cards, especially the Vega series. Today these are often a lot faster in Linux than in Windows, because the drivers are better maintained for them in Linux.