There are three main types of modern acoustic guitar: the classical guitar (Spanish guitar/nylon-string guitar), the steel-string acoustic guitar and the archtop guitar, which is sometimes called a “jazz guitar”.
Electric guitars, introduced in the 1930s, use an amplifier and a loudspeaker. Like acoustic guitars, there are various types of electric guitars including hollowbody guitars, archtop guitars (used in jazz guitar, blues and rockabilly) and solid-body guitars.
The firm foundation of the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture, offering an excellent application programming interface for device drivers for sound cards, and the JACK Audio Connection Kit, a professional sound server daemon, provide Linux with the infrastructure to be a serious contender in music production. Further, Linux is endowed with an impressive range of open source audio software which is both mature and feature-laden.
To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of 8 of the finest guitar applications. Whether you are a causal strummer, or can give a virtuoso performance with beautiful chord embellishments in the style of Bobby Jo or Jimi Hendrix, there should be something of interest here for anyone interested in guitar music.
Our recommendations are captured in the chart below. Only free and open source software is eligible for inclusion.
Let’s explore the 8 guitar tools at hand. Click the links in the table below to learn about each application including details of their features, screenshots and related resources.
| Guitar Tools | |
|---|---|
| Guitarix | Rock guitar amplifier for Jack |
| Nootka | Learn classical score notation |
| TuxGuitar | Multitrack tablature editor and player writen in Java-SWT |
| Lingot | Musical instrument tuner |
| Rakarrack-plus | Rewrite of Rakarrack |
| Rakarrack | Richly featured multi-effects processor emulating a guitar effects pedal board |
| Songwrite 3 | Music score and songbook editor |
| go-dsp-guitar | Multichannel multi-effects processor |
This article has been revamped in line with our recent announcement.
 Read our complete collection of recommended free and open source software. Our curated compilation covers all categories of software. Spotted a useful open source Linux program not covered on our site? Please let us know by completing this form. The software collection forms part of our series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. There are hundreds of in-depth reviews, open source alternatives to proprietary software from large corporations like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. There are also fun things to try, hardware, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. |
This article has been updated. Historic comments have not been deleted.
Just what I needed, thank you.
Guitarix rocks!
Thnnnxxx.