I've been running a Linux DAW in my studio for decades, based around Ubuntu Studio and all the tools that are bundled in that distribution. It is easily one of the most fun DAW's to use in the setup - I have MacOS systems based around UAD (Luna) and Pro Tools as well, as this is a pro studio and we get a lot of musicians in it, who have their own ideas about things - so we accommodate them. The Ubuntu Studio DAW recently got a LOT more use while we got the Mac's upgraded to Catalina and through that painful upgrade/obsolete process - something that just does not happen in Ubuntu.
But whenever someone new comes along who doesn't care what they use to track vocals or backing tracks of whatever, I put them in front of the Ubuntu Studio DAW, leave them alone for a few hours to get their tracking done, and always find its very productive. It holds its own against the other DAW's that are in production as well (MacBooks with REAPER).
The thing that has to be understood is that Ubuntu Studio is designed for 'out of the box' production - you have everything installed that is needed to get started, and if you have good audio hardware (for this system we standardised on PRESONUS, as it is very well supported under Linux) - you can compete with Pro Tools systems, easily. The latency is among the best of the DAW's in the studio, and while its fair to say that the software packages available are not as polished as the commercial offerings, its still an amazing system full of tools to explore and use - thousands of plugins, soft synths and instruments, tons of unique apps that, once you get involved, will give you great capabilities, e.g., seq24, hydrogen, zynaddsubfx = instant jam party, once you get it configured with aconnectgui/Carla, of course..)
Its really worth taking a weekend, installing Ubuntu Studio somewhere, and going through the packages that have been included. They are deep, powerful, and most of all - free and open source. I can't tell you how great it was to have a reverb plugin open and in use, get asked a simple "how does reverb code work?", then bust out the sources and have a look for ourselves .. can't do that with any other DAW, and yet Ubuntu Studio is packed with apps that really work. Having the sources for everything is just astonishing in terms of what it offers the competent producer or engineer in understanding what's going on.
But whenever someone new comes along who doesn't care what they use to track vocals or backing tracks of whatever, I put them in front of the Ubuntu Studio DAW, leave them alone for a few hours to get their tracking done, and always find its very productive. It holds its own against the other DAW's that are in production as well (MacBooks with REAPER).
The thing that has to be understood is that Ubuntu Studio is designed for 'out of the box' production - you have everything installed that is needed to get started, and if you have good audio hardware (for this system we standardised on PRESONUS, as it is very well supported under Linux) - you can compete with Pro Tools systems, easily. The latency is among the best of the DAW's in the studio, and while its fair to say that the software packages available are not as polished as the commercial offerings, its still an amazing system full of tools to explore and use - thousands of plugins, soft synths and instruments, tons of unique apps that, once you get involved, will give you great capabilities, e.g., seq24, hydrogen, zynaddsubfx = instant jam party, once you get it configured with aconnectgui/Carla, of course..)
Its really worth taking a weekend, installing Ubuntu Studio somewhere, and going through the packages that have been included. They are deep, powerful, and most of all - free and open source. I can't tell you how great it was to have a reverb plugin open and in use, get asked a simple "how does reverb code work?", then bust out the sources and have a look for ourselves .. can't do that with any other DAW, and yet Ubuntu Studio is packed with apps that really work. Having the sources for everything is just astonishing in terms of what it offers the competent producer or engineer in understanding what's going on.