What, Not Windows Again!
- 1 Comment
Yes, I’m afraid so. Me, a die hard linux devotee, is using Windows. But it’s really not all that much of a crisis just a matter of convenience. See I’m preparing to take an online art class at Schoolism and the teachers there are using photoshop for quite a few assignments. So in an effort to focus all my attention on the subject matter and not tech problems that arise because of software and platform differences, I’ve purchased a shiny new copy of photoshop. I’m getting ready to make my system “dual boot” with windows for the moment.
Now there are other options:
1) I could use gimp and try to duplicate the things I learn in class. Gimp is great for quite a few things. It has superior PNG handling, and it’s great for web graphics although it’s missing CMYK support for print publishing. But using gimp, would distract me from the main focus.
2) Photoshop could be installed on my linux box using the WINE emulator. This is a good option and indeed many production-level studios employ this very method. However, I find that WINE can be quite unstable on the 64 bit platform and sometimes there is also application performance degradation.
3) A third option would be to install windows on a virtual machine such as VMWARE or VirtualBox. I prefer VirtualBox. But again this also causes a performance hit because the os is running in an emulated environment and only has access to the hardware via the host operating system- aka Linux in my case. I actually investigated this method but found that my wacom had some hiccups when using it. But this is generally a method. I have used it in the past to test os independent application and browser compatibility, and it was great for that.
4) Buy a Mac! Well I’ve used macs quite a bit and know they are great for all graphics work, but they just haven’t won me over yet. And besides, I still have my old copy of Windows XP.
Not Abandoning Linux
Linux is still by far going to be my primary os, I’ll be using Windows just for class. Ubuntu is still the only os I use on my laptops. After the class is over, I’m going to try to “port” my skill set over to gimp to see how much I can learn. I’ll be posting a how-to about dual booting a machine with windows that already has linux installed after I finish.
KJ
[...] I mentioned in a previous article, I’ve been needing to install Windows for an art class I’m starting next month. So [...]