I'm once again trying to make Linux work for me as a composer. Last Spring I gave it a good go, but gave up after a few weeks. This time I got pretty far, getting the NI Kontakt Player working. Also, Garritan Personal Orchestra.
Then disaster struck. I was on Ubuntu Studio, and after an update Kontakt would no longer work. I fumbled around quite a bit, then started trying other distros. AV Linux is probably the best choice, but I don't like MX Linux. Ditto for Manjaro, which a lot of the guys on Reaper use. I installed Zorin 16 Core last night on my music rig. I'm basically starting over, and am hoping the overall excellence of Zorin OS will help me this time, as well as this great forum.
I'm confused as to whether Zorin 16 Core has wine preinstalled. I think it does but I can't find it anywhere. In any case, I usually have to use Wine Staging to get things to work. I think I was on 7.0 or 7.1 before the update broke everything.
So, does anyone have any suggestions on how to proceed at this point? Just try installing stuff with the built-in Windows installer? Use Play On Linux? Winetricks? Q4Wine? I'm familiar with all three of those front-ends for Wine, but I have a tendency to plunge in, and this often leads me to become hopelessly confused by the various fixes I've attempted. I'm hoping to be more organized this time.
I see that you can install wine and its variants in the software center. WineHQ in my experience is so confusing. I think they do it intentionally, believing that this will force you to learn the "right" way of doing things. but for most of us this is just irritating!
Thanks,
Michael