The strategy Apple has figured out with GarageBand pre-installed (or at least very low friction to install) seems really really smart in hindsight, give complete beginners a highly simplified but functional version of your professional utility, and provide an on-ramp to your professional programs. I imagine if Microsoft had some professional version of Windows Movie Maker it would've taken over a big chunk of the video editing market via the same method.
Anyway, regarding Linux DAWs, I am trying to get used to Ableton in Wine, but it's just not the same, and making it work in Wine is troublesome enough that I end up giving up before finishing anything of interest. Is there any DAW that feels like it actually belongs on Linux and doesn't either feel like you're maintaining a package by yourself, or has an awfully bad UI/UX like all FOSS DAWs I tried so far? I think in 2026 there's really a good opportunity here, with user interest genuinely rising for Linux on desktop.
Most DAWs barely work on the platforms they support.
I can’t see Linux as being a viable market since most Linux users except software to generally be free.
Vs OSX which lets you enter a credit card number and buy stuff right from the built in store.
If I recall Ubuntu might of once attempted paid applications on its built in store and it didn’t really work.
Logic is probably made at below cost, but it keeps you in the OSX ecosystem.
Need a 32GB OSX box with a 2TB drive, only one place to get it.
The downsides are going to be the bland cross-platform UI and the general lack of plugin support on Linux. But the upside is native PipeWire support for application-specific channel audio and complex output routing options. The pack-in plugins are pretty good too, The Grid can replace a lot of your subtractive synths: https://www.bitwig.com/the-grid/
Linux has a terrible audio subsystem. First you'd have to write CoreAudio for Linux, which would not be easy.