4 ms·

Some of the best tools in the industry (Audacity, Blender, Inkscape, others?) are already free, open source, and native on Linux.

by shazow 14y ago

moistgorilla 14y ago
Sadly, some people refuse to work if they aren't using photoshop/illustrator/autocad/etc. But yeah, I'm with you, I use gimp and inkscape but I'm no professional.
- twog 14y ago
  A perfect example are front-end developers. It can be tough for anyone to make a living in that line of work without being able to edit/open photoshop and illustrated without having to configure wine. I truly believe Adobe holding back their products is one of the largest roadblocks linux has to get widespread adoption amongst the design/developer community.
  - iron_ball 14y ago
    I love Linux for general hacking, but not having Adobe tools is a huge blow when it comes to working on a design. It's almost insurmountable.
  - jiggy2011 14y ago
    I'd be surprised if Adobe isn't at least looking into this, especially considering their sometimes sour relationship without Apple. A lot of the more "arty" people I know would consider giving them a Windows computer to use as a personal insult and would probably be more open to switching to Linux than Windows. Getting arty people to use desktop Linux could be a huge net positive if they decide to help "pretty" the place up a bit.
    - Kerrick 14y ago
      It's certainly nice when UI/UX people run GNU/Linux distributions. Daniel Foré is in charge of Elementary OS [1]. Because he's a designer, the project already has a proper set of Human Interface Guidelines [2], a set of uniquely designed (and easy to use) core applications [3], and a beautifully coherent look to the entire OS and website. [1]: http://elementaryos.org/ http://elementaryos.org/ [2]: http://elementaryos.org/docs/human-interface-guidelines http://elementaryos.org/docs/human-interface-guidelines [3]: http://elementaryos.org/discover http://elementaryos.org/discover
  - felixthehat 14y ago
    Exactly this, I'm a designer, and I like the look of ubuntu, but it's no macOS, it's hard to see an advantage that linux has over macs apart from the price - but designers need fast (expensive) machines anyway. No Adobe is the reason I can't even contemplate a switch. I love blender though, my 3D tool of choice so at least 3D artists are well catered for.
- truncate 14y ago
  Professionals have spent considerable time learning their tools (PS, Illustrator...), hence while these tools are not available on Linux they will always refrain from shifting to Linux and that is quite understandable. After all every need their work done best possible way with least obstructions.
- jasonlotito 14y ago
  It's not just the tools, but all the additional plugins that are built on top of those tools. Professionals don't just use Illustrator and Photoshop.
VMG 14y ago
None of these you mention qualify as being "the best in the industry". Neither do Gimp and Kdenlive or any other video editing software on Linux.
- shazow 14y ago
  By whose qualifications? I much prefer Inkscape over Illustrator for my vector art. I much prefer Audacity over... actually I'm not sure what's considered the direct commercial competitor here for post-processing audio. I mildly prefer Photoshop over Gimp for graphics design and tablet drawing, but after almost a decade of using each, they're practically interchangeable for me. I mildly prefer Blender over 3DS Max for making game models (though I admit it has been a while for me—I hear the recent Blender releases have amazing improvements). And that's not even taking into account the difference in license costs. I'm not claiming to be an expert in any of these industries, but I don't think I'm completely naive here either. I can imagine there is a strong majority of experts who would never considere free/open source alternatives to things they've been using since they graduated their respective art school and paid thousands of dollars in licensing fees. I feel they're missing out, even though I'm biased towards open source. P.S. I said "some of the best."
  - sliverstorm 14y ago
    actually I'm not sure what's considered the direct commercial competitor here for post-processing audio. Audio is an interesting market. Sound Forge comes to mind, but based on the time I've spent in studios, I'm going to speculate that professional audio is either done with hardware, or really old software. The particular example I'm thinking of was a MacOS9 computer (in 2009 or so). The tech told me two things kept him back; he had all the plugins he needed for the software he used (and that many were not available in newer suites), and something about realtime recording.
    - s_kilk 14y ago
      Most commercial studios would be running either Pro Tools, Cubase/Nuendo or Logic. There is nothing in the open-source world that comes even remotely close to rivaling any of these packages at the moment.
pjmlp 14y ago
> Some of the best tools in the industry (Audacity, Blender, Inkscape, others?) are already free, open source, and native on Linux. Best to whom? None of the listed ones are used at all by professional game studios.

Some of the best tools in the industry (Audacity, Blender, Inkscape, others?) are already free, open source, and native on Linux.

by shazow 14y ago

Some of the best tools in the industry (Audacity, Blender, Inkscape, others?) are already free, open source, and native on Linux.

moistgorilla 14y ago

Sadly, some people refuse to work if they aren't using photoshop/illustrator/autocad/etc. But yeah, I'm with you, I use gimp and inkscape but I'm no professional.

twog 14y ago
A perfect example are front-end developers. It can be tough for anyone to make a living in that line of work without being able to edit/open photoshop and illustrated without having to configure wine. I truly believe Adobe holding back their products is one of the largest roadblocks linux has to get widespread adoption amongst the design/developer community.
- iron_ball 14y ago
  I love Linux for general hacking, but not having Adobe tools is a huge blow when it comes to working on a design. It's almost insurmountable.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  I'd be surprised if Adobe isn't at least looking into this, especially considering their sometimes sour relationship without Apple. A lot of the more "arty" people I know would consider giving them a Windows computer to use as a personal insult and would probably be more open to switching to Linux than Windows. Getting arty people to use desktop Linux could be a huge net positive if they decide to help "pretty" the place up a bit.
  - Kerrick 14y ago
    It's certainly nice when UI/UX people run GNU/Linux distributions. Daniel Foré is in charge of Elementary OS [1]. Because he's a designer, the project already has a proper set of Human Interface Guidelines [2], a set of uniquely designed (and easy to use) core applications [3], and a beautifully coherent look to the entire OS and website. [1]: http://elementaryos.org/ http://elementaryos.org/ [2]: http://elementaryos.org/docs/human-interface-guidelines http://elementaryos.org/docs/human-interface-guidelines [3]: http://elementaryos.org/discover http://elementaryos.org/discover
- felixthehat 14y ago
  Exactly this, I'm a designer, and I like the look of ubuntu, but it's no macOS, it's hard to see an advantage that linux has over macs apart from the price - but designers need fast (expensive) machines anyway. No Adobe is the reason I can't even contemplate a switch. I love blender though, my 3D tool of choice so at least 3D artists are well catered for.
truncate 14y ago
Professionals have spent considerable time learning their tools (PS, Illustrator...), hence while these tools are not available on Linux they will always refrain from shifting to Linux and that is quite understandable. After all every need their work done best possible way with least obstructions.
jasonlotito 14y ago
It's not just the tools, but all the additional plugins that are built on top of those tools. Professionals don't just use Illustrator and Photoshop.

VMG 14y ago

None of these you mention qualify as being "the best in the industry". Neither do Gimp and Kdenlive or any other video editing software on Linux.

shazow 14y ago
By whose qualifications? I much prefer Inkscape over Illustrator for my vector art. I much prefer Audacity over... actually I'm not sure what's considered the direct commercial competitor here for post-processing audio. I mildly prefer Photoshop over Gimp for graphics design and tablet drawing, but after almost a decade of using each, they're practically interchangeable for me. I mildly prefer Blender over 3DS Max for making game models (though I admit it has been a while for me—I hear the recent Blender releases have amazing improvements). And that's not even taking into account the difference in license costs. I'm not claiming to be an expert in any of these industries, but I don't think I'm completely naive here either. I can imagine there is a strong majority of experts who would never considere free/open source alternatives to things they've been using since they graduated their respective art school and paid thousands of dollars in licensing fees. I feel they're missing out, even though I'm biased towards open source. P.S. I said "some of the best."
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  actually I'm not sure what's considered the direct commercial competitor here for post-processing audio. Audio is an interesting market. Sound Forge comes to mind, but based on the time I've spent in studios, I'm going to speculate that professional audio is either done with hardware, or really old software. The particular example I'm thinking of was a MacOS9 computer (in 2009 or so). The tech told me two things kept him back; he had all the plugins he needed for the software he used (and that many were not available in newer suites), and something about realtime recording.
  - s_kilk 14y ago
    Most commercial studios would be running either Pro Tools, Cubase/Nuendo or Logic. There is nothing in the open-source world that comes even remotely close to rivaling any of these packages at the moment.

pjmlp 14y ago

> Some of the best tools in the industry (Audacity, Blender, Inkscape, others?) are already free, open source, and native on Linux. Best to whom? None of the listed ones are used at all by professional game studios.