FL Studio

What works

Installs fine as with all other versions.

When you can get it to run with the workaround, it runs well, as with previous versions. All functions of FL Studio work:

• All FL Studio features tested and working
• FL Studio native plugins (generators and effects) work
• VSTs work
• Native plugins that extensively use the GPU work
• MIDI hardware works (turn them on before starting FL Studio)
• Exporting/rendering works
• Activation works
• Performance rivals Windows with JACK + WineASIO.
• FL Studio ASIO works (but is slower than JACK + WineASIO).

What does not

• Without the workaround, it hangs forever when launched:

  003c:err:ntdll:RtlpWaitForCriticalSection section 0x1c5d470 "?" wait timed out in thread 003c, blocked by 002e, retrying (60 sec)

  This only happens with FL Studio 20. It doesn't happen with FL 12.
• MIDI hardware is only detected at startup (not sure if this is because of Wine or ALSA). On Windows, FL can detect MIDI hardware when plugged in/turned on without needing to restart.

Workarounds

To workaround the hanging, launch FL Studio with this in the terminal or in the "Exec=" part of a .desktop file:

wine "/home/$USER/.wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Image-Line/FL Studio 20/FL64.exe" > fl-winedebug.log 2> fl-winedebugerr.log

For the .desktop file, replace the Exec= file with:

Exec=/usr/bin/env sh -c "winepath -w -0 %F | WINEPREFIX='/home/YOURUSERNAME/.wine' xargs -0 wine 'C:\\\\Program Files (x86)\\\\Image-Line\\\\FL Studio 20\\\\FL64.exe' > fl-winedebug.log 2> fl-winedebugerr.log"

The important part:

wine FL64.exe > fl-winedebug.log 2> fl-winedebugerr.log

For some strange reason, it doesn't hang when run with stdout and stderr logged to file. It only runs when both > and 2> are included.

What was not tested

Nothing.

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU: Intel
• Driver: open source

Additional Comments

FL Studio 20 seems to run slower than FL Studio 12.5, however I have not extensively tested this, I would need to test this properly and compare this with how it performs on Windows.