If it’s a pure DAC, it’s default output will likely be between 1 to 2 Volts RMS. If your listening on iems or ~30 Ohm headphones that is gonna be crazy loud. It seems like you are using digital audio control to manage this (i.e., the audio level in your DE), which is possible, but certainly not ideal. It also is kinda bad for the audio quality, as you are digitally remixing it, and if you ever switch to high impedance headphones (or already have), the output current will be sub-ideal.

If I’m assessing your situation correctly, then this is quite easy to solve though. You just need a preamp! This will give a nice knob to control audio with much more precision and finesse. I know that both JDS Labs and Schiit Audio offer headphone amps with built in preamps in the USA. I can highly recommend the JDS Labs Atom Amp 2. In Europe your a little more limited, but FiiO has some nice options I think.

Of course none of this is necessary if you don’t want audiophile levels of quality, but it would boost the audio quality (presuming your DAC doesn’t have a proper preamp), and would certainly give you a tactile, wonderful knob.

I can certainly attest that my HD600s sound quite a bit better out of a JDS Labs Atom Amp 2 than out of just my DAC or—god forbid—my Mobo audio… They sound even better out of my vintage 100W Onkyo amp, of course, but really not by much. I am really impressed by the Atom Amp. I initially just bought it for travelling, but it has now basically become my main amp lol.

Okay, ramble over.

I have yet to encounter a VST that doesn’t work at minimum with yabridge. I gotta admit though, since I switched (ca. 3 years ago now) I find myself using Linux native tools much more that the VSTs I used to depend on so much. I use airwindows (full Linux compatibility) much more on the VST front, and find myself replacing many windows VSTs with pure data or supercollider…

Some cool Linux tools I’ve discovered and are now dominating my workflow:

• Reaper (https://www.reaper.fm/), also super common in professional studios.
• airwindows (https://www.airwindows.com/), genuinely amazing and FREE!
• Pure Data L2Ork & Max (https://l2ork.music.vt.edu/main/make-your-own-l2ork/software/), literally infinite possibilities.
• Supercollidor (https://supercollider.github.io/), you can never have too much Supercollidor…
• Orca Sequencer (https://100r.co/site/orca.html), basically my default sequencer now.
• old-school tracker (my fav: https://schismtracker.org/)
• and much, much more!

Also audio management (routing, etc) is sooooo nice and faaaast with jack in Linux. Literally a dream. If anything, I think my experience has significantly improved since switching to Linux vis-a-vis audio production.

And Reaper and Bitwig!

I had a 3060 Ti.

I couldn’t game on Wayland for about 20% of my games (very frustrating), couldn’t use specific Window Managers like Sway, experience constant screen tearing on X11 (which I often had to use, because the game would crash on Wayland) when gaming, and had a significant performance hit in some games.

CS:GO ran like a dream and actually better than on Windows, but with the release of CS2 my performance on Linux was about 20% worse than on Windows. My 1% lows were also crazy on Linux (median=190fps, %1=80fps). This meant, among others things, that I just couldn’t play death match anymore — my FPS would make it unplayable. This was largely an optimization issue and I think some of the 2025 Nvidia driver updates of improved the situation a little for CS2 specifically. The screen tearing on X and the buggyness on Wayland were enough for me to switch though, even if eventual improvements might come.

I am now extremely happy with my 7900 XT, which I got for less than any available 9070 XT (in my region) and which amusingly actually has better performance in CS2 then then the 9070 XT on Linux. It’s massively overkill though, I could have just as well gotten a 7800 XT or 9070 (non-XT).

I am still very, very pleased. Hopefully this will last me a few years, unlike the gosh darn 3060 Ti.

Alright, I’m done with my huge block of text. Hopefully this was helpful.

You wouldn’t mind elaborating on “of course things are so simple”? It feels like an awfully vague answer…

Literally the only social media I use (apart from signal, if that counts).

I’m pretty sure clap is completely cross platform, which is pretty cool. But the infamous VST is unfortunately not; you need to create separate Linux and Windows VSTs :(

Lol, there’s even a warning. The first one I saw was fucking hilarious, thanks for the recommendation!

Scared to click, someone pls provide context

Dyslexia strikes again…

You’re right, I wasn’t really being sarcastic. Configuring neovim (or really anything) for exceedingly long times is fun!

Whaaaaaaaat!?! Nonsense! Sacrilege! I love spending 8 hours at a time reconfiguring neovim from scratch to get full LSP support and 20 millisecond start-up times! Who wouldn’t love doing that!?!!!??!!?! (/hj)

Edit: half-joking (/hj), not sarcastic (/s).

For the record, installing Windows in a VM and getting it to work can be a real pain in the ass. Just a little warning: don’t expect VM-Windows to be easy!

Bitlocker many meanings: in this case, it just refers to your disk encryption, and not the pro feature. Duel Dual boot can be a pain. I wish you good luck!

He’s likely referring to Ubuntu (OS), and not Linux (Kernel) in general.

Boot times. I am the kind of person who shuts my computer (may it be a laptop or desktop) down, whenever I’m not using it. With systemD, boot times are generally kind of annoying; runit, however, completely changes this. It really feels amazing to turn a Void Linux system on, and have it boot in seconds, with just one screen of logs. On top of that, if you’re doing a arch-style install (like the Void Linux minimal install), runit is just much nicer and more ergonomic. The main point is really boot time though, which I think is improved due to adhering to the Unix philosophy and having much less bloat. Using a runit system reminds you of how bloated and slow (and kinda convoluted) systemD is.

I’m also the kinda guy who spends hours optimizing my neovim config (~80 plugins, including LSP) for 20 millisecond start-up times. In the end, I still use Tumbleweed though.

I’ve been using openSuSe Tumbleweed on one device or another for quite a while now. Recently I switched my last device, so I’m officially 100% Tumbleweed. NGL, feels pretty good. I would, however, switch under a few circumstances:

• openSuSe releases Tumbleweed clone with systemD alternative (like runit). I’ve tried Void repeatedly, but unfortunately never really fell in live with it.
• openSuSe releases NixOS style immutable distro (not the current aeon or kalpa) based on Tumbleweed.

Honestly, Tumbleweed is nearly perfect for me. It’s just that I’ve tasted what life without systemD can be like, and I goddamn miss it… I’m totally hooked on openSuSe products though.

Lol, I had the same Nobara issue recently. Had to completely reinstall 😭… Installed openSuSe Tumbleweed instead, which I can highly recommend though.

“Masturbating Formula with Vitamin M”

See, the version without Vitamin M is less effective…

Holy shit, thank you! I had no idea overleaf was open source; you have cleared my conscience. Typst seems interesting, but I am a bit of a typesetting nerd and quite used to latex anyway. Transition now would be difficult. I’ll check it out though, it might be nice for drafts and such. Thanks again!

I’m definitely going to share Typst with non-tex-addicts though, it does seem really cool.