I’m just throwing this out there but Linux is starting to get some traction around the desktop environment. I notice that Harrison Mixbus is supported on Ubuntu. I have a machine running Ubuntu 19.4 and must say I quite like it and not to mention very solid. I’m well aware this is going to take some time before all plug-ins are available for this environment but curious what your take on this is?
It’ll be nice, although Linux will have to be a substantially used platform in order to make it worth it for developers of plugins and DAWs to support them.
By then, who knows, people who feel special using a rarer platform might not feel so special anymore… 
I’d like Linux support too. It’s probably not going to happen any time in the near future, but what I hope is that the major DAW makers will see the potential and rally around one distribution, which can then become the defacto DAW OS. BTW, besides Harrison Mixbus, Reaper has an experimental build for Linux (even running on ARM CPUs), and then Bitwig also runs on Linux. So it’s a good start… but to bring Cubendo to Linux would be a real game-changer IMO.
I would not hold my breath. Making the app run on Linux is just the tip of the iceberg. Video, audio drivers and support, porting over not just some but pretty much all of the desirable plugins in the world. Somebody would probably make a shell but it’s still an extra step and potential weak link in the chain.
Even if it’s a great for my functionality and computer efficiency standpoint it is not a money maker once you factor in resources required to make it happen. And all application developers are ultimately in business to make money.
While I agree that people shouldn’t hold their breath for Steinberg to jump in, I think it’s a stretch to say it’s not a money maker or not worth the effort – clearly some developers would disagree with you. Many musicians/producers already using Linux would also strongly disagree with you. Several DAWs already run on Linux, plus a large number of open source audio apps have been evolving for many, many years, some of which are really impressive. I mean, even Bitwig has been running on Linux for what… 5+ years? Obviously it’s not a post production DAW like Nuendo, but it’s really impressive on Linux. Heck, even Tracktion/Waveform runs on Linux. There is no shortage of creative DAWs and apps and plugins nowadays on Linux. They obviously think it’s worth the effort.
In addition to that, the infrastructure and community for plugins, standards, etc. is pretty robust on Linux, way more so than you might think, and it has been for several years. I’m not saying it solves all the concerns, but a lot of work has been put into it already, and honestly, it would only take one of the bigger DAWs to push the market over the threshold IMO. When you factor in that many Windows VST plugins already work on Linux (via various approaches) and when you look at all the work put into WINE, Juce, LV2, LADSPA, dssi-vst, Airwave, Jack, ALSA, etc., etc… they are all a great foundation on which to build (or port) an amazing DAW. It’s way more developed than you imply with your post, and we’re frankly pretty much there for a really good audio-centric Linux OS with all the core technologies that will make it fantastic for something like Cubendo.
Personally, I think it’s going to take a very visionary DAW developer to push things over the edge, and I welcome any progress in that direction. To free ourselves of the whims and cycles of Apple and Microsoft and build on a standardized DAW Linux distribution that is robust and purpose-built for audio would be fantastic. And honestly, Steinberg (especially with Yamaha backing) is big enough to be a major contributor to a Linux distro branch custom-built for this purpose, and stand to reap the profits too. It would take effort and leadership, and probably someone at Steinberg/Yamaha willing to take a long-term investment in the business model, but it could become the defacto DAW on the defacto DAW OS.
And yes, don’t hold your breath… 
– it’s probably not going to happen any time soon, unfortunately. But we can hope for it. And in the meantime those of us who like Linux have many other commercial and open source options.
Well on the topic of profit I just have to wonder what the net effect would be. Granted, if Steinberg ported Nuendo they’d also port Cubase no doubt, and that would extend the pool of potential Linux users, but the thing is that we’re still just talking about most likely only a fraction of the userbase.
Then you probably have to add all the other products in Steinberg’s catalog, because it wouldn’t really make sense to offer Cubendo for Linux but not Dorico, Spectralayers, Wavelab etc. plus plugins and VSTi of course.
So the cost is really the porting of all of that plus supporting it all. Then you take that money and look at how much more money you’d make from that move (since many who would move to Linux would still buy the software on Win/OSX if it’s not available on Linux). I don’t think we’re looking at enough increased revenue for it to be worth that gamble.
Really the only way I see this as being a profitable move is if the industry decides to move there and there really are users who stop buying Steinberg products in favor of the competition on Linux. For post that’ll be a while before it happen I think. We’d need all the surrounding software to run and be supported on Linux, like the big software…; iZotope, Virtual Katy, Soundminer, Pro Tools etc.
Two more thoughts;
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there’s all the other stuff that might require porting over as well, meaning everything from file transfer servers and clients, messaging and email, media players, media management software, admin software etc… and all of that really makes me think the support overhead might increase greatly for users. After all, if I was to switch over then everything I’d normally do on my DAW would have to be made to work on a Linux install, and since there’s little bundled highly supported distros (as far as I know) that include a lot of that then I’m left supporting all of that myself.
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the other thing is that while Steinberg and some people have mentioned that things are ‘partitioned’ so to speak, meaning development teams are separated, it’s inescapable that any development of any Steinberg software ultimately falls under the Steinberg umbrella and thus budget. Now, no matter how you look at it Steinberg has a potential amount of money it can spend on development and once you look at the maximum amount it’s willing to spend you’re only left with how that should be divided.
From a personal standpoint I’d much rather see further feature development and fixes of problems rather than a port. I think the key command feature set could benefit from improvement, as well as macros, VCA implementation seems unfinished, automation could use a couple of tweaks, and so on. And this doesn’t even touch on features that don’t exist at all in Nuendo which could be implemented in the future. Some of that has to be delayed as far as I can see if there’s to be a port to Linux.
And that leads to just a different perspective on the whole idea of profitability - does Steinberg benefit more (get more sales) from adding Linux or by adding more features?
This all reminds me of the call for Steinberg to create a custom Linux distro with everything that’s needed included, and tweaked to support the highest of performance, mission critical pretty much. It’d be great of course, but costly me thinks.
++1. Exactly what Blackmagic have done with DaVinci Resolve (& embedded Fairlight DAW) - image with complete distro, all drivers etc for CentOS. From all reports, this seems to be working extremely well and is much appreciated by the pro film community (ie, multi workstation fitted out for ingesting, editing, collaboration, stability & far less so for Internet & the usual distractions /privacy /security issues).
Well since we’re going to fantasize about what might be…
To me this would be a turnkey product. Think Radar. Totally complete except for specific digital and analog iO as/if needed but otherwise just the included Dante or Madi.
Optimized Hardware, super quiet liquid CPU cooling , a minimum of three display outputs from a silent GPU, Thunderbolt, dual gigabit Ethernet, WiFi and Bluetooth, everything already installed, torture tested and burned in. Zero conflicts with all the components playing happily together. Push the power button, turn it on and use it immediately. As reliable as a toaster or refrigerator.
Heck, I can build it. Just need the ported app. I wonder what a turnkey device as described above would be worth to real-world humans in 2020? And to how many of them?
This reminds me of the horror of BeOS. No Steinberg for Linux. They would have to hire a team to develop, that’s not cheap. One dev alone can cost over $65 an hour…trust me. =) It’s not just porting code to a new LLVM or C++ compiler to a new OS. Its not porting some Java to Objective-C. It would be way over a year for development.
When I did a fintech contract, the app, used my millions of people, was half Objective-C and half Swift, and every separate team used their own architecture, MVVM, MVC, VIPER, etc… In 2018. It was and still is an over 4GB sized Xcode project with all kinds of extras, CI-CD, TDD, branches, you name it. And that’s just a very simple looking app to the user…not fancy at all.
Lol people have been saying that for almost 20 years.
Never going to happen.
That’s true but we’re now seeing companies like Dell starting to ship laptops with linux pre installed
Pretty sure they’ve been offering it as an option for decades.
All the devs I knew who used to use Linux on their laptops now use Macbooks.