elkpi-sdk VS awesome-linuxaudio

Looks like it uses a "Yocto" script - https://github.com/elk-audio/elkpi-sdk - https://www.yoctoproject.org/

I thought of Ubuntu Studio as well, but it looks like Elk is intended to be more lower-level / for appliances. I'm not totally sure though, but I'm guessing it doesn't come with the full suite of Ardour etc.

I do wish there was something like Ubuntu Studio, except focused on audio-only (and more polished / supported). Mostly just because JACK + low-latency kernels are an ordeal to set-up and maintain on a normal desktop, so it's much easier to just install a pre-configured distro on a studio computer and be ready to jam whenever inspiration strikes. Unfortunately KXStudio as a separate distro isn't around any more. I still use a KXStudio 14.04 install on an old (airgapped) DAW computer.

> Is there a highly-regarded software (or hardware + software) emulator for the DX7?

Dexed is probably what you're looking for, although there are others here: https://github.com/nodiscc/awesome-linuxaudio#synthesizers--...

These are not all free, but it's worth checking out. https://github.com/nodiscc/awesome-linuxaudio

regarding Ableton, I know some people are doing it but my advice is don't go for proton/wine if you can go native. there's tons of pro soft for linux: https://github.com/nodiscc/awesome-linuxaudio

This awesome-linuxaudio page has a number of quality programs that you can try.

I think the landscape is fairly good now actually. There's tons of good FOSS audio software, and for commercial DAWs we have Bitwig, REAPER, Renoise and Tracktion Waveform. And while there stil aren't that many commercial plugin developers out there that natively support Linux, you can get really far nowadays with the offerings from Bitwig, U-He, TAL, AudioDamage, Loomer, Pianoteq, Audio Assault and many more vendors. You can find are some non-exhaustive lists of vendors supporting Linux here, here and here. Since I too don't want to make compromises if I don't have to, I made yabridge last year which lets you use 32-bit and 64-bit Windows VST2 and VST3 as if they were native 64-bit Linux VST2 and VST3 plugins. I'm really happy with how that turned out, and the reception has been nothing but positive. Wine's getting really good, and the only things that can consistently make things difficult are invasive DRM schemes like iLoK and Waves' DRM. But yeah, even without yabridge there are plenty of good native DAWs and plugins for Linux right now.