The long hours spent during my free time has paid off as I managed to get Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron Beta) to run properly. It took me a lot of online reading before I took the plunge and found it amusing that the entire process of actually installing the OS took less than 30 minutes.
Painless and Clinical
The entire experiment’s objective was to prepare me to actually make the switch to open source on my home computers. Ubuntu’s installation ran without much problems, as most of the issues encountered were “user-oriented” due to my lack of knowledge of anything Linux-related.
For my home PC, installed Ubuntu on an old 40GB hard drive which I managed to salvage at home. Installation was a breeze as I merely ate lunch while watching over the whole process.
Here is a screenshot of Ubuntu running on my home PC.
On my work computer, I installed Ubuntu from within Windows XP using Virtualbox, an open-source virtualization solution which was recently acquired by Sun Microsystems.
Here is a screenshot of Ubuntu running inside Windows XP as a guest OS using Virtualbox. (Ubuntu is running on the right side of the screen)
So far, everything has worked out really well. I have never experienced any of the hanging and crashing which happens frequently on Windows. Open-source is beginning to be a viable alternative to the Windows/OSX graphic design workflow.
This could mean big savings for me at home and eventually for the company I work for, as I would then push for this to be implemented as our standard workflow in the future.
Imagine never having to pay for an OS upgrade while your hardware and software work harmoniously together without any hacks or workarounds of any kind.
What’s Keeping Me from Switching?
In as much as I’d like to make the 100% switch to Linux, my main design software still keeps me from doing so.
Adobe, one of the major players in the graphic design software industry, is yet to make an official version of their products Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator for Linux. So far, there is no word of making a Creative Suite version for Linux.
Though there are plenty of tutorials on how to get Photoshop and other Windows applications to run from within Ubuntu using Wine, I still feel it would greatly hamper my workflow should I attempt to do so. There are several tutorials of how to make Photoshop CS2 run on Linux but most of the feedback I get is that they are still quite buggy. And you couldn’t make me go back to Photoshop 7, which works perfectly fine under Wine.
I’m telling you, once you’ve gotten used to smart objects, you’d never want to go back to working without it.
Getting Ready For the Long Haul
I will wait until Adobe cranks out a Linux version of CS3 or maybe until then I’d install Windows XP as guest OS using Virtualbox to help me run Adobe applications. Then again there’s also the effort being made by Google to make Photoshop run properly on Linux.
For now, consider me as a true-blue Linux convert.
This is a first in what would be a series of posts by a bored Windows / OSX user who found his way into the world Ubuntu and Linux.
March 31st, 2008 at 6:09 pm
That’s great. I’ve been wanting to try out Ubuntu myself, but keep putting it off because it seems so foreign.
Plus I have the same problem too with Photoshop and Dreamweaver.
Curt’s last blog post..Oh No! My Hard Drive Crashed!
[Reply]
March 31st, 2008 at 9:17 pm
I use Dreamweaver too and would really like to have it available on Linux. However, there are a lot of web development tools for Ubuntu which are also quite handy.
[Reply]
March 31st, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Last I heard, photoshop is working perfectly on linux using Wine. Have you checked it out? See winehq.org
[Reply]
April 1st, 2008 at 3:02 am
He did link to the best page for Photoshop on Linux,
http://wiki.winehq.org/AdobePhotoshop , so he’s seen it. Perhaps he was simply scared off by the list of known bugs. Most people won’t run into those.
Here’s what that page says about installing Photoshop CS2:
Before installing Photoshop, do ‘wget http://kegel.com/wine/winetricks; sh winetricks corefonts vcrun6′
And that’s it! It works pretty well. The author should give it a shot — if he has a copy of CS2. If he only has CS3, then yeah, he should wait.
[Reply]
archondigital
reply on April 1, 2008 10:30 am:
I do have CS2 at home but at work I use CS3
I’ll give it a shot over this week. Lately, I’ve been reading a lot on Wine and Photoshop CS2.
[Reply]
April 1st, 2008 at 4:57 am
Oddly enough I came from the other direction. I used GIMP all the time and finally found that I wanted the functionality of Photoshop so I use Windows and CS3.
I’d personally have a joygasm if Adobe would finally port their work to Linux. Considering that OS X is based on BSD I would think that the port should be fairly straightforward.
[Reply]
archondigital
reply on April 1, 2008 10:36 am:
You’re right, Adobe should easily be able to port CS3 to Linux if they really wanted to.
[Reply]
April 1st, 2008 at 8:02 am
Have you tried running Virtualbox under Ubuntu? Installing Windows XP on it is a breeze (since you already seems to have a license, this should be no problem). After it has installed you install “Guest Additions” from the Virtualbox menu and off you go, you have integrated windows into your ubuntu desktop, allowing you to run windows applications seamlessly on your Ubuntu desktop (yes it’s that simple nowadays). Windows XP will eat a few MBs of your RAM but with a base installation not much more than 100MB, which with the prices for DDR2 ram noways shouldn’t be much of a problem. You can then run Adobe Photoshop on it, no problem. I have yet to see any significant speed delays (Windows XP boots in <30 seconds).
Good luck!
[Reply]
April 1st, 2008 at 10:47 am
I am getting ready to run Windows XP from inside Ubuntu on my home PC. Right now, I’m still migrating my files over to a clean hard drive while making some more backups.
Just to be on the safe side
[Reply]
April 4th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Musta?
hehhe haven’t been here since my dropping hiatus.
You’ve been blogging seriously lately, I presume. Dami mo na posts. heheh
I’m still trying to run Ubuntu without success heheh. I guess it’s time to give up.
bendz’s last blog post..Giving E-Retail a Shot
[Reply]
April 7th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Ubuntu - Making the Switch, Almost | Archon Digital…
An Ubuntu newbie on moving away from Windows XP…