6 ms·

Kubuntu Linux 19.10 for a digital painting workstation

138 points by jrepinc 7y ago

LeoNatan25 7y ago
> No graphical user interface for color management of your monitors, printers, etc... I'll write a workaround in the second part about it. > Thumbnails and image viewer are not color managed (eg. don't expect displaying correctly a PNG using a linear profile). In 2020. Stay classy, Linux.
viraptor 7y ago
It's really good to have some of that feedback / solutions documented. It'd never think of the window tint affecting the experience for example, but I don't do any art work - it makes sense in retrospect. Hopefully if more people like/adopt this, it will get prepackaged as a common system flavour / package.
vlovich123 7y ago
> This is something apparently Developers enjoys more than anything because it will never change despite my efforts reporting it I've personally believe that the biggest change operating systems should have is to prompt you for the kind of workflow you want to do and give you sane defaults for that (software developer, graphic artist, video editor, etc etc). These workflows could even be sourced from the community & customized at an individual level so that you could point it at someone's published workflow or fork it for your own purposes & have everything set up for you regardless of which machine you move to. This would go beyond settings to setting up your environment & installing programs where you like it (e.g. installing homebrew + relevant packages, etc). You could even have it per user for those that have multiple different workflows.
- jjtheblunt 7y ago
  great idea!
- londons_explore 7y ago
  You're totally free to share all your dotfiles on github and encourage others to use them...
  - johnchristopher 7y ago
    Not every applications uses dotfiles to store settings... And then you have dotfiles which store a unique id so anyone you share it with has to dig into it and tweak things...
  - jbott 7y ago
    Dotfiles aren't enough to fully describe a system configuration, though. I'll regularly use both CentOS to Ubuntu, and both the available configuration tools and default services (along with other differences like SELinux vs AppArmor) trip me up more than I'd like to admit.
  - jackinloadup 7y ago
    Seems like a possible future use-case for systemd's homed. Maybe there will be a utility in the future to help setup configuration. 1 internet point for the person whom implements it first.
    - Fnoord 7y ago
      Or Nix (via Home Manager [1]) [1] https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Home_Manager https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Home_Manager
  - bananamerica 7y ago
    That’s fine for techies, not so much for everyone else.
- johnchristopher 7y ago
  So, Fedora Spin ?
  - vlovich123 7y ago
    No. Fedora Spin AFAICT is just a different window manager selection. I'm talking about very deep customization - which SW is installed (doesn't have to be through your package manager - e.g. Photoshop provided you can supply a license file), which shortcuts do what, etc etc. Selecting a different window manager may be part of it but it's deeper than that.
    - johnchristopher 7y ago
      Sorry, was thinking about https://labs.fedoraproject.org/ https://labs.fedoraproject.org/ There also used to be things like that for ubuntu (like https://ubuntustudio.org/ https://ubuntustudio.org/).
      - vlovich123 7y ago
        Yes! This but democratized. Should be possible for someone in the community to publish their own URL that you can point to at startup (or even have your own personal one on dropbox). I think one limitation is that these are separate ISO images. It should instead be a customization point. Yes probably would be convenient to generate a customized offline installer but the majority should be exposed to it directly through NUX.
- Zardoz84 7y ago
  I really agree with this.
- snarfy 7y ago
  I recall Slackware had something like this, where you could e.g. install the 'D' series if you were a software developer. Other than how the software is used (the workflow), how is this anymore than a single apt install command? The article does a great job explaining the setup. We need more articles like it, organized and searchable. It would be nice if there were a buzzword associated with what you are describing, because then I could just google it. Without it, I'm forced to google for 'DIY' (e.g 'DIY audio engineer') at best. Software + workflow ... Softflow?
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    It did, RedHat, Mandrake and SuSE as well. However the result wasn't that good, as you still needed to select what kind of development you wanted, as the default preselection might not fit your own workflow.
rvz 7y ago
The Ubuntu-like distros are getting ever-so close to being a great candidate for a standard Linux desktop for general users. Ubuntu and Kubuntu are close to this and probably are great for a specialised user such as the author. Unfortunately, one thing that's still a problem in many Linux distros are the inconsistent support for system-wide shortcuts and the still in progress transitioning from X11 to Wayland. i.e apps complaining about Wayland support on X11 DE and vice versa. I have confidence that distros from the Ubuntu family are at least getting there in making the Linux experience more pleasant, but it isn't as consistent and integrated as macOS whenever I use system-wide shortcuts recognised in the OS and all apps and Time Machine being able to backup instantly to another Mac. If I told someone to do the same from Ubuntu to another distro, you're just 20-30 Duckduckgo searches away to type the solution in the terminal. Thanks, but I'm perfectly fine with macOS on my Macbook for now.
- toohotatopic 7y ago
  Isn't this something where X11 can shine: An X11 shortcut application could intercept all keystrokes and map shortcuts to the expected keystrokes from the application that has the focus.
- shrimp_emoji 7y ago
  Ubuntu is a server OS. It only has a limited set of old software. To get new software, you have to mess with weird (possible expired) PPAs sourced from StackOverflow posts. Eventually, you have to reinstall the OS to get new software packages or DE features. This is fine for servers which need super-stable, tested packages. But does that sound like a typical end-user OS, like Windows? No. That's why a better candidate are nerfed rolling releases like Manjaro. c: New stuff all the time, indefinitely. Nerfed rolling, so less bleeding edge breakage risk. No reinstalls. No PPAs; the AUR has everything. Great forum to boot. Also Arch Wiki compatible.
  - nickserv 7y ago
    This is why I like KDE neon: solid Ubuntu LTS base (still a bit newer than Debian usually) with the latest KDE apps on top. There's not too many open source apps that aren't covered by KDE, with the exception of GIMP. Then I just install proprietary stuff as needed (Skype, InteliJ, etc).
dubeux 7y ago
I think Seth Kenlon has made a huge job on slackermedia - "documentation providing the information a user needs to create a full multimedia studio running on Slackware Linux". Way broader and deeper, in my opinion. http://slackermedia.info/about/ http://slackermedia.info/about/
dfc 7y ago
I have always wanted to get a entry level graphics tablet for Linux but whenever I have looked for well supported Linux hardware it was always confusing. Does anyone have a good recommendation for entry level graphics tablet? I mainly want to do basic sketching and diagrams for furniture designs.
- LeoTinnitus 7y ago
  I've read up recently that Wacom typically have Linux drivers available. I currently have a huion 1060 and it's been a nightmare to even try to get working and any distro. Oddly enough my first try was with Kubuntu which was why I thought this was a weird article. Kubuntu is one of my favorite distros but KDE is just so buggy especially with nvidia cards (which isn't kde's fault more or less).
  - corybrown 7y ago
    I use a Wacom Intous tablet that was sub $100 that works just fine on Linux (I use it with Krita)
    - LeoTinnitus 7y ago
      Yeah I've read Wacom at least provides support for Linux so that's one option for them. I never bothered to look into it and bought a Huion tablet cause it was cheaper and offered more. I basically am unable to use it for Linux period. i've tried literally every option and it just doesn't work.
- elagost 7y ago
  We've been using a Wacom Intuos (CTL-490, I think) tablet for several years. It was about $60. It's literally plug-and-play on Ubuntu and there's a section in the settings for it. I assume the newer entry level ones have the same level of support. The exact model I have hovers around $30 on eBay these days.
tambourine_man 7y ago
Krita seems to be coming along nicely and I'm very happy it exists. But it's no Photoshop. I'm more positively surprised every time I check it out. As opposed to Gimp, which always feels like a poor man's Photoshop, Krita seems sensible and tasteful. But it's no Photoshop. Until/if Adobe releases its suite for some blessed distro, I can't use Linux on my day to day machine. I believe there are a lot more people in my situation than Adobe seems to think. We are pros and love to tinker with our tools. Linux is, to a fault even, the tinkerer's OS par excellence.
- pippy 7y ago
  Krita is not an image manipulation tool, it's a digital painting application aimed at artists. Comparing the two is like saying that oranges are inferior because they're not a truck. GIMP on the other hand is an apt comparison. Linux users are best to use photoshop under wine.
  - tambourine_man 7y ago
    > Krita is not an image manipulation tool, it's a digital painting application aimed at artists There’s a big intersection between the two groups
- MonaroVXR 7y ago
  You can always check photopea.com It's a photoshop in the browser.
  - pavlov 7y ago
    Anything in-browser just doesn't qualify for the pro market. They have gigabyte-sized files on fast local disks, they're not going to start uploading those to a cloud application.
    - mdre 7y ago
      Photopea is not a cloud application.
arvinsim 7y ago
Out of curiosity, does anyone know the hardware specs of the machine he is using.

138 points by jrepinc 7y ago

> No graphical user interface for color management of your monitors, printers, etc... I'll write a workaround in the second part about it. > Thumbnails and image viewer are not color managed (eg. don't expect displaying correctly a PNG using a linear profile). In 2020. Stay classy, Linux.

viraptor 7y ago

It's really good to have some of that feedback / solutions documented. It'd never think of the window tint affecting the experience for example, but I don't do any art work - it makes sense in retrospect. Hopefully if more people like/adopt this, it will get prepackaged as a common system flavour / package.

vlovich123 7y ago

> This is something apparently Developers enjoys more than anything because it will never change despite my efforts reporting it I've personally believe that the biggest change operating systems should have is to prompt you for the kind of workflow you want to do and give you sane defaults for that (software developer, graphic artist, video editor, etc etc). These workflows could even be sourced from the community & customized at an individual level so that you could point it at someone's published workflow or fork it for your own purposes & have everything set up for you regardless of which machine you move to. This would go beyond settings to setting up your environment & installing programs where you like it (e.g. installing homebrew + relevant packages, etc). You could even have it per user for those that have multiple different workflows.

jjtheblunt 7y ago
great idea!
londons_explore 7y ago
You're totally free to share all your dotfiles on github and encourage others to use them...
- johnchristopher 7y ago
  Not every applications uses dotfiles to store settings... And then you have dotfiles which store a unique id so anyone you share it with has to dig into it and tweak things...
- jbott 7y ago
  Dotfiles aren't enough to fully describe a system configuration, though. I'll regularly use both CentOS to Ubuntu, and both the available configuration tools and default services (along with other differences like SELinux vs AppArmor) trip me up more than I'd like to admit.
- jackinloadup 7y ago
  Seems like a possible future use-case for systemd's homed. Maybe there will be a utility in the future to help setup configuration. 1 internet point for the person whom implements it first.
  - Fnoord 7y ago
    Or Nix (via Home Manager [1]) [1] https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Home_Manager https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Home_Manager
- bananamerica 7y ago
  That’s fine for techies, not so much for everyone else.
johnchristopher 7y ago
So, Fedora Spin ?
- vlovich123 7y ago
  No. Fedora Spin AFAICT is just a different window manager selection. I'm talking about very deep customization - which SW is installed (doesn't have to be through your package manager - e.g. Photoshop provided you can supply a license file), which shortcuts do what, etc etc. Selecting a different window manager may be part of it but it's deeper than that.
  - johnchristopher 7y ago
    Sorry, was thinking about https://labs.fedoraproject.org/ https://labs.fedoraproject.org/ There also used to be things like that for ubuntu (like https://ubuntustudio.org/ https://ubuntustudio.org/).
    - vlovich123 7y ago
      Yes! This but democratized. Should be possible for someone in the community to publish their own URL that you can point to at startup (or even have your own personal one on dropbox). I think one limitation is that these are separate ISO images. It should instead be a customization point. Yes probably would be convenient to generate a customized offline installer but the majority should be exposed to it directly through NUX.
Zardoz84 7y ago
I really agree with this.
snarfy 7y ago
I recall Slackware had something like this, where you could e.g. install the 'D' series if you were a software developer. Other than how the software is used (the workflow), how is this anymore than a single apt install command? The article does a great job explaining the setup. We need more articles like it, organized and searchable. It would be nice if there were a buzzword associated with what you are describing, because then I could just google it. Without it, I'm forced to google for 'DIY' (e.g 'DIY audio engineer') at best. Software + workflow ... Softflow?
- pjmlp 7y ago
  It did, RedHat, Mandrake and SuSE as well. However the result wasn't that good, as you still needed to select what kind of development you wanted, as the default preselection might not fit your own workflow.

rvz 7y ago

The Ubuntu-like distros are getting ever-so close to being a great candidate for a standard Linux desktop for general users. Ubuntu and Kubuntu are close to this and probably are great for a specialised user such as the author. Unfortunately, one thing that's still a problem in many Linux distros are the inconsistent support for system-wide shortcuts and the still in progress transitioning from X11 to Wayland. i.e apps complaining about Wayland support on X11 DE and vice versa. I have confidence that distros from the Ubuntu family are at least getting there in making the Linux experience more pleasant, but it isn't as consistent and integrated as macOS whenever I use system-wide shortcuts recognised in the OS and all apps and Time Machine being able to backup instantly to another Mac. If I told someone to do the same from Ubuntu to another distro, you're just 20-30 Duckduckgo searches away to type the solution in the terminal. Thanks, but I'm perfectly fine with macOS on my Macbook for now.

toohotatopic 7y ago
Isn't this something where X11 can shine: An X11 shortcut application could intercept all keystrokes and map shortcuts to the expected keystrokes from the application that has the focus.
shrimp_emoji 7y ago
Ubuntu is a server OS. It only has a limited set of old software. To get new software, you have to mess with weird (possible expired) PPAs sourced from StackOverflow posts. Eventually, you have to reinstall the OS to get new software packages or DE features. This is fine for servers which need super-stable, tested packages. But does that sound like a typical end-user OS, like Windows? No. That's why a better candidate are nerfed rolling releases like Manjaro. c: New stuff all the time, indefinitely. Nerfed rolling, so less bleeding edge breakage risk. No reinstalls. No PPAs; the AUR has everything. Great forum to boot. Also Arch Wiki compatible.
- nickserv 7y ago
  This is why I like KDE neon: solid Ubuntu LTS base (still a bit newer than Debian usually) with the latest KDE apps on top. There's not too many open source apps that aren't covered by KDE, with the exception of GIMP. Then I just install proprietary stuff as needed (Skype, InteliJ, etc).

dubeux 7y ago

I think Seth Kenlon has made a huge job on slackermedia - "documentation providing the information a user needs to create a full multimedia studio running on Slackware Linux". Way broader and deeper, in my opinion. http://slackermedia.info/about/ http://slackermedia.info/about/

dfc 7y ago

I have always wanted to get a entry level graphics tablet for Linux but whenever I have looked for well supported Linux hardware it was always confusing. Does anyone have a good recommendation for entry level graphics tablet? I mainly want to do basic sketching and diagrams for furniture designs.

LeoTinnitus 7y ago
I've read up recently that Wacom typically have Linux drivers available. I currently have a huion 1060 and it's been a nightmare to even try to get working and any distro. Oddly enough my first try was with Kubuntu which was why I thought this was a weird article. Kubuntu is one of my favorite distros but KDE is just so buggy especially with nvidia cards (which isn't kde's fault more or less).
- corybrown 7y ago
  I use a Wacom Intous tablet that was sub $100 that works just fine on Linux (I use it with Krita)
  - LeoTinnitus 7y ago
    Yeah I've read Wacom at least provides support for Linux so that's one option for them. I never bothered to look into it and bought a Huion tablet cause it was cheaper and offered more. I basically am unable to use it for Linux period. i've tried literally every option and it just doesn't work.
elagost 7y ago
We've been using a Wacom Intuos (CTL-490, I think) tablet for several years. It was about $60. It's literally plug-and-play on Ubuntu and there's a section in the settings for it. I assume the newer entry level ones have the same level of support. The exact model I have hovers around $30 on eBay these days.

tambourine_man 7y ago

Krita seems to be coming along nicely and I'm very happy it exists. But it's no Photoshop. I'm more positively surprised every time I check it out. As opposed to Gimp, which always feels like a poor man's Photoshop, Krita seems sensible and tasteful. But it's no Photoshop. Until/if Adobe releases its suite for some blessed distro, I can't use Linux on my day to day machine. I believe there are a lot more people in my situation than Adobe seems to think. We are pros and love to tinker with our tools. Linux is, to a fault even, the tinkerer's OS par excellence.

pippy 7y ago
Krita is not an image manipulation tool, it's a digital painting application aimed at artists. Comparing the two is like saying that oranges are inferior because they're not a truck. GIMP on the other hand is an apt comparison. Linux users are best to use photoshop under wine.
- tambourine_man 7y ago
  > Krita is not an image manipulation tool, it's a digital painting application aimed at artists There’s a big intersection between the two groups
MonaroVXR 7y ago
You can always check photopea.com It's a photoshop in the browser.
- pavlov 7y ago
  Anything in-browser just doesn't qualify for the pro market. They have gigabyte-sized files on fast local disks, they're not going to start uploading those to a cloud application.
  - mdre 7y ago
    Photopea is not a cloud application.

arvinsim 7y ago

Out of curiosity, does anyone know the hardware specs of the machine he is using.