>Audio production is also kind of a no-go

I always see this as a yes and no. Yes if you didn't start giving up on mainstream DRM encumbered audio production 10-15 years ago you aren't going to be ready to switch. Those people have sunk too much into their work flows and collections of licensed plugins.

No if like me you gave up on those tools and found new ones, because I didn't like the direction things were going with usb license keys, always online drm, and offline license management installs that feel almost as rootkit/malware coded as modern anticheat systems.

It helps that I gave up on ableton back in 2008 and swapped to Reason & Logic, before ultimately giving up on those as well. Now I just use Renoise & VCV Rack while trying to work up the will to dabble with Puredata and Supercollider.

Bitwig sounds nice but its too expensive and locks me back into the same cycles of update purchases Ableton & Reason once did.

Do I miss my Korg VSTs & Reason Racks? Yeah, I just can't be bothered enough to go back.

In the end for me its just a hobby so I've been willing to throw away my setup and workflow entirely more than once since starting with digital music in 2004.

I think the situation with anti-cheat on Linux is changing. Studios are putting resources into anti-cheat that will work on Linux. If I'm being a bit cynical, I could say this is "just" because of Steam Deck and Steam Machine, but I think the number of potential players switching to Linux right now outside of the Steam ecosystem is starting to be worth considering.

A balanced take. You name several exceptions that don't work seamlessly on Linux. Recognizing that, I'll note:

- Bitwig 5.x (haven't tried the latest 6.x) is working really nicely for me now across several NixOS machines (I'm using BitwigBox so that yabridge smoothes out VST integration). - Le Mans Ultimate is working for me now. It would hang on loading a track until a month or two ago (GE Proton recommended).