Tomás Mulcahy wrote: ↑Sat May 20, 2023 8:53 am
Some of them are not bad, but all of them share the common issue of the default install being the Applications folder.
You could always create a folder anywhere you want, then alias the apps you want all into that folder. That way you keep the apps where they want to be and don't have to faff around when updating them, but you also have a single place you can just see all your portal installers in one pace, without any other clutter.
A password manager with copy/paste is very useful, but I'm not surprised some programmers have decided to turn that off. They always find a way to break things!
One issue I've found is that updates installed using a portal are put in the default folder. If I install manually from a download, the updates retain my custom path. That defeats the purpose of the portal. My fix is simply to update less!
Tomás Mulcahy wrote: ↑Sat May 20, 2023 10:17 am
It is great that Macs (still) last a long time. I only just semi-retired a 2012 MacBook Pro. In fact with Catalina it works as fast for Office as any of the classroom Wintels at work, and those are much newer (they didn't put enough RAM in them).
I'm trying to get it to run Ubuntu Studio. It does, which is cool, but the wifi does not work despite the driver appearing as active.
This is being typed on a 2010 MacPro (bought second hand for £600 a few years ago), and the backing for both my bands runs on a 2012 MacBook Pro which was EoL from John Lewis for £700 back in 2015.
Out of interest what do you intend to use Ubuntu for? I dabbled with Linux many years ago but I found the user community quite unhelpful for 'newbies" - if an installer shows up a dialogue box I like to know exactly what all the options mean - and there still appears to be a distinct lack of professional standard graphics applications which I need for my day job. I'm not interested in running applications under WINE. If I pick a particular OS I want everything I use to run without the need for emulators.
I’m just playing with it. I can use MS Office in Chrome browser. Reaper has a Linux version. Ubuntu Studio is bundled with some photo and video editing apps that look interesting. But my main Mac is for Reaper, Ableton, Lightroom and Premiere.
I hate it when the software portal decides it's a front end to iLok (I'm looking at you, Softube!). If you get a problem it can sometimes be hard to sort it out because you don't know where the fault lies.
Making music: Eagle Alley
Recording music: Mr Punch's Studio Interested in the impact of time travel on music technology? Come to the last SoSMeet but one.
I've been making a concerted effort to drastically reduce the number of different plugins and stuff that I use. I started to wonder if I really needed to be hitting lots of different manufacturers or if I could find tools that do the job with less cost or effort.
I've managed to get it down to 3, waves, slate, SSL. Almost weaned myself off waves too.
Dave Rowles wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 4:10 pm
I've been making a concerted effort to drastically reduce the number of different plugins and stuff that I use.
I recently went through the same, after changing my >10 year old computer.
I'd collected hundreds of third party plug-ins, probably never used most of them.
So, apart from Cubase, Toontrack and Scuffham guitar sim, I've reloaded very few others on to my new machine. Cubase has loads of included FX plug-ins, so I've started exploring some of them, most for the first time. e.g. the "Frequency" EQ plug-in is probably more than I'll ever require in a EQ, including dynamic EQ and it's capable of having a different side chain source for EACH band! So, that's a load of EQ plug-ins not being reloaded!
BigRedX wrote: ↑Sun May 21, 2023 8:39 am
... I'm not interested in running applications under WINE. If I pick a particular OS I want everything I use to run without the need for emulators. ...
WINE stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator. But you're right, you don't need to know things like that if you use a Mac.
I recently went through the same, after changing my >10 year old computer.
Me too. I worked hard to go 100% native Apple Silicon. And it’s been a wait for some developers but it helped me decide which software to remain invested in.
Lest is best (in my case) although I’ve recently become a fan of UAD native plugins and had to give myself (Muzines helped me too I might add ) a bit of a talking to. I nearly went with the subscription but just got a couple of the native plugins in the sale. That’s me done! (Again…).
) a bit of a talking to. I nearly went with the subscription but just got a couple of the native plugins in the sale. That’s me done! (Again…). 
