creative progams for Linux

[alkaline]

I am very interested in using Linux and have run a couple of old distros on my pc before. I am a student at an art institute now and I rely heavily on photoshop, illustrator, flash, and dreamweaver. Is there software available for linux yet that would be up to par and would be worth making the switch?

[crackers]

To be honest, the answer is "not quite." While there are many capable OSS programs that work in those areas, they're not quite on par with something that multi-million dollar corporations bank on and produce.

From what I know, GIMP is pretty close in matching raw power with Photoshop, although some of the tools are not quite as sophisticated.

However, you can run at least Photoshop (that I know of) with a (commerical) program called "CrossOver Office" from CodeWeavers. It may hiccup and do a couple of interesting things, but you won't have to reboot Linux when it does.

[alkaline]

thanks for the feedback, I didn't think that open source was quite where the commercial software is, but I wasn't sure

[Ug]

GIMP is better than photoshop in my mind, and i've used both extensively.

As for Flash you will like crackers say have to use a windows program in order to do it. No other program is better at Flash than Macromedia Flash and there's no disputing it.

In terms of WYSIWYG HTML editors, they're not very popular in the Linux world. With most people preferring to "get down and dirty with code", but the leading editors are Bluefish and Quanta. (I think Quanta may have some WYSIWYG support thesedays).

HTH

[Finalzone]

Quanta definitevely supports WYSIWYG. Personaly, I prefer to use seperate browser to preview the webpage.

[colm]

Mozilla Nvu is nowhere near dreamweaver, but it is leaps and bounds ahead of microsoft front page.

[alkaline]

is the windows clone stuff good enough to be able to use without a ton of hangups?

[Ug]

Hangups? What hangups?

[crackers]

Originally posted by alkaline
is the windows clone stuff good enough to be able to use without a ton of hangups?

If by "clone" you're talking about Wine/CrossOver, then the answer is definitely "yes." That's one big advantage of Linux over Windows - if a program decides to go nuts, you have a 95+% chance that it will not take the rest of the operating system with it. (The only time I've run into a "must-reboot" situation was when the 3D graphics driver went south on me.)

If you're asking if the above programs will run all Windows programs natively on Linux, then the answer is "no." Wine is a reverse-engineering project and therefore does not contain all the necessary hooks that some Windows programs expect. What they do have and run is pretty durn impressive given the task they've undertaken.

[alkaline]

does gimp have vector support?

[Ug]

Yes it does, well GIMP 2 I know, does anyway. You can try out GIMP 1.2 for windows, by downloading it off their homepage.

http://www.gimp.org

[alkaline]

this may seem lame, but all of the latest design programs (adobe and macromedia) are available on mac, and mac os x is unix based, wouldn't a port over to linux be easy?

[crackers]

Originally posted by alkaline
this may seem lame, but all of the latest design programs (adobe and macromedia) are available on mac, and mac os x is unix based, wouldn't a port over to linux be easy?

Uh, no, not exactly. The system under Mac OSX is BSD, but the GUI engine is something altogether different. That's one of the reasons why you can't take, say, a Windows program and just port it to Linux or Mac - the expected system libraries and GUI libraries just ain't there.

[alkaline]

my bad, sorry for my foolishness, I guess it was wishful thinking

[Ug]

The best platform for Web Development and Graphics is certainly the Mac though. There's no disputing it - I may be a Linux advocate but that is one area where macs win hand down.

If that sort of thing is your primary use of your computer then I'd go out and get a Mac. You won't regret it.