If you want something simple - Qjackctl is very straightforward and is what I've been using for years.
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Thanks @John_Murphy. I have used Qjackctl quite a bit and it is very reliable. I am hoping to use Cadence and Carla so that I can use my Windows VSTs. I haven't found a way to use VSTs without Carla or without a specific Linux DAW that supports them.
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Ah, that's the rub. I've given up on using windows VSTs in Linux.
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Ha, yeah that'll definitely help - at the time I last used it, I was using an Athlon XP iirc and any compilation worth it's salt was an overnight affair minimum...
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FYI I know Carla is now being packaged/distributed by default in Ubuntu Studio 20.04 - which also now has official Long Term Support for the release.
Cadence I'm unfamiliar with though -
I got a secondhand lenovo thinkpad x230
just to learn tidal in Tidal Club
elementary linux Juno (to start, 5.1.4 hera now)
I was stoked to learn that Tidal and SuperDirt
makes a sampling drum machine
(wait, it can do midi too?!!)
at least the U-he plugins work on linux
I'm from the apple world of West LA
learning lots, having fun, thanks 
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@John_Murphy @cleary: success! I got my VST working in Ubuntu with Carla, Wine and a VST bridge. I can recall a complex Carla patch (VST, external synth, and Calf plugins) without any problems. The Carla bridge installation was a little sketchy but otherwise this is working exactly how I want!
At this point it's probably off topic to elaborate more on this here. Maybe this is a good topic for the #lounge.
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Using 2 hackintosh computers (a desktop and a laptop). I'm rely on several plugins and DAW (aside from Tidal) that aren't linux compatible. I wish they were though, as from what I've gathered, it could be a perfect solution to use 99,99% of the horse power for audio-related tasks... and as much as I love real-time synthesis and live-coding, this very combo puts both my yet recent CPUs on their knees. Me needs more CPU, always ^^
Windows machines are out of the equation, both the overall OS and audio/MIDI drivers are awful to me compared to CoreAudio.
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If it were straight mac you'd be paying through the nose for anything with decent power, but as a hackintosh goes, doesn't that give you options (on the desktop at least) for getting creative with your cpu choice?
I imagine one of those new AMD Ryzen things would enjoy the workout, no idea whether they're actually hackintosh compatible though...
PS bump for the new guys on the forum
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bump for the new people
Archlinux user. Had tidal installed with the haskell-tidal package, everything works fine.
However, I tried to install it with cabal and it failed. Same when installing from source to test the latest version
NSM is something which could improve workflow too:
https://non.tuxfamily.org/wiki/Non%20Session%20Manager
or it's fork
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I made some good experiences with Jack and Carla (belonging to the family of programs Cadence also is in - as far as I know). You can save the settings for the later) and start it again with the/a configuration file as argument to restore a setup.
For me this makes all the more sense as you can incorporate external effects using Carla.
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Recently I have crossgraded from a maxed-out 2009 Hackintosh tower to two newer and more portable systems for flexibility. This week I have installed Tidal on a 2011 Mac Mini. I have lots of great Mac software that I have been meaning to get back to, such as Max, Reaktor, and Numerology - all of which I have been interested in playing with Tidal. I am a Tidal noob, but I started in the late 90s making beats with Bol Processor 2 so I feel like I generallyunderstand the paradigm for rhythmical grammars.
My other box is on the electronics bench now, a Bolt Gear that my family gave me as a gift/encouragement for coming out of artistic semi-retirement. That's a small embedded quad-core Ryzen system which I've installed Neon and KXstudio onto. That got sidetracked a bit by my difficulty in fitting a FireWire adaptor in there. What I'll probably do is use the built-in audio for now and try to interface DAC and/or ADAT chips to it directly later. Probably beyond me, but I'll try it anyway.
I tend towards mixed-mode, mixed-signal "connect All The Things" approaches so I look forward to using Tidal to play Supercollider, other softsynths, and hardware modules. As well using sensor data and external signals to play Tidal.
Meanwhile I will be trying to play Tidal through a shell from an iPad, because my room is cold!
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Bump.
I've moved from OSX to Manjaro XFCE a few months ago, on a Thinkpad x220 ... everything went so well I'm still speechless.
I do now use Tidal, Supercollider and Reaper Renoise almost exclusively, but also Orca and Sunvox Folderkit.
Thanks and praises to everyone involved, the update to Tidal 1.7 was absolutely flawless.
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great thread!
I run Tidal on Ubuntu with the KXstudio repos, hardware is a ~2008 cheesegrater Mac pro tower. It has 12 cores but only 8 gigs ram which can occasionally make things difficult. To keep my system fast and lean I use i3 as my window manager. It's a great fit with a keyboard-centric workflow!
I used to use Vim as my Tidal editor, recently I've been learning Emacs and have been using that (Doom Emacs). It is sometimes slower than Vim and occasionally crashes but in general I like it.
I do about half and half using Tidal as a sample sequencer and MIDI sequencer for other software and hardware. I use it to sequence everything including Bitwig, VCV Rack, Sunvox, Korg Volcas, Surge, my DIY modular, and anything else that listens to MIDI.
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Oh yes ... Doom-Emacs ! I use it daily and absolutely love it ... but I've found that Vim/Neovim has better support for both Tidal and SuperCollider in the end.
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I guess this is still true, and sorry for a totally basic Q, but I'm considering options for a new machine. What do people think Tidal works best on? Is that even a sensible question? I have a super old Mac, so considering getting a new M1 pro, or maybe a pc laptop (anecdotally from browsing the forum, I and a lot of other Mac users seem to have more technical problems with tidal). Also Linux seems very popular with Tidal users, is there a particular reason for that or is it just popular with people who tend to be knowledgeable about coding etc? Thanks!
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I think whatever you're most comfortable with already is probably the best option. There's a known bug with the current build of SuperCollider for Apple Silicon which makes the headphone jack unusable, but beyond that, we should be able to help you through the installation process no matter what platform you decide to use 
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Yep, I'll echo @paulchannelstrip here - whatever you're most comfortable with is the best choice, and you'll get plenty of assistance whichever way you choose
Personally I've done a bit of work to make the linux (debian derivative) installation process easier via my ansible installer, and combined in particular with Ubuntu Studio (which comes with realtime kernels/JACK audio subsystem/etc pre-configured), getting from blank laptop to tidal running is a 30min affair (including the operating system installation).
I think this is the easiest path, but I realise not everyone is familiar with linux (and have linux distro preferences too) -
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