Hi all,
I have a friend, who want to switch to openSUSE(Linux) from Windozzz. As she is a designer, she ask me about some softwares under Linux:
As i am not a designer so i am not sure to point her to right softwares to use in Linux, for photoshop i think GIMP would be ok.
She can use wine for that softwares, but would be nice to use Linux native softwares.
Any other recommendations.
Thanks
I think you’ll be hard pushed to find an alternative. I don’t work with flash. But for me Gimp does all I need and Bluefish, Quanta, NVU could work in the webside. Actually NVU is most likely to fit the bill IMO.
I think DreamweaverMX will run in Wine, not sure about PShop. But there is always Virtual Box which supports 3D now.
Depends on what kind of “designer” your friend is. For the hobbyist or part-timer, the GIMP, Inkscape, Scribus etc should do the job. But if she is a professional exchanging data files and designs with others, and her livelihood depends on it, she’ll need Windows. The ever-increasing and quite impressive capabilities of the above Linux programs lead too many Open Source advocates to tout them as replacements for Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign etc, but they’re not.
The second issue is why she wants to move from Windows to Linux. From the purely professional perspective, it’s not really a good idea for a designer. But there may be other reasons, and good ones at that. In which case, Virtualbox is a much better option than Wine. Wine will only run older versions of Photoshop (up to CS2 last time I looked), and no recent versions of Dreamweaver (the Adobe versions) at all. Virtualbox (or VMWare), of course, runs anything and works very well on Linux boxes (though I’m not too sure how far the 3D support goes, which won’t be needed in this case anyway).
Tell her to stay with Windows or buy a MAC.
> But if she is a professional exchanging data files and designs with
> others, and her livelihood depends on it, she’ll need Windows.
sorry to correct, but MOST professionals still use the operating
system for which Photoshop, Illustrator, PageMaker/InDesign and many
other graphics applications were FIRST developed for…and that is
not anything which comes from Redmond Washington…which have
consistently produced less capable and more troublesome
platforms…which is why the professionals whose livelihood depends
on it most often stick with Apple…
cite:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoshop
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Illustrator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InDesign
and, for movies/TV, Linux has the Hollywood scene in pocket…
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palladium
I just use Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash and Photoshop in Wine.
Newer versions are problematic but Versions 8 work nearly perfectly, if your designer friend can use those.
But she already uses Windows and is interested, apparently, in Linux. Are you going to tell her to buy a Mac???
The Windows versions of most of the Adobe suite are better these days than the Mac ones, and Windows machines generally more capable and more easily configurable. Most designers are stuck in a Mac rut from the age when Digital Darkroom etc were the only game in town. Younger ones like Macs as accessories to their iPods and iPhones…
But all this is besides the point of the original query anyway!
Web dev in linux - openSUSE Forums
Similar topic, most likely of interest.
Flash sadly seems to have no alternative (lets hope canvas takes off!)
The Gimp is a decent photoshop alternative if you’re not a real power user.
Aptana Studio goes beyond what dreamweaver does (aimed at professional use), Quanta and Bluefish are decent choices for HTML editting… although I find neither offering me something kwrite with the proper configuration doesn’t do.
you wrote: “she’ll need Windows”
imo, should have written “given the still developing state of open
source graphics software today she may need to choose Mac or Windows
for the time being.”
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palladium
Are you a lawyer or what? 
If you’d read the initial message you’d know that she doesn’t need to choose anything as she has been working with Windows all along. The only issue was if she’d be well advised to switch her work from that to Linux. Nobody mentioned Macs until you walked in.
Thanks to all for your time and helpful comments.
Now i can tell her which software she can use.
I find out F4l flash software for Linux, lets see how its going.