Judging by the two comments I received so far, there are those who dual boot between Windows and Ubuntu, primarily because of Photoshop, a Windows-run application.
An excellent counterpart of Photoshop for Linux is GIMP, short for Gnu Image Manipulation Program. It’s open source software and free. You can download the software from the GIMP website here.
Admittedly I’m not a graphics designer, but I use to do little imaging tasks on Photoshop. When I started using Ubuntu, GIMP came with the package and I pleasantly discovered that GIMP can do the same tasks I used to do. Of course, there’s a learning curve, but it’s certainly worth the application. You can download an excellent guide through this link. There’s no opt-in, no fees, nothing. Just right-click on the link and download to your hard disk. It’s a huge file, though, about 28 mbs.
However, if you’re running Ubuntu and missing Photoshop, you can run Photoshop from within Ubuntu through an application called, Wine, which allows certain Windows applications to run within Ubuntu. Your copy of Photoshop should be a licensed one, though, to run it; and your version of Wine has to be the latest. You should be able to find help with the installation through several forums in the ‘Net.
Do comment below if you’ve had experiences with GIMP or using Photoshop within Ubuntu.
May 27th, 2009 - 8:38 pm
I must admit, I have tried GIMP, and on the whole it’s a great program, considering that it’s 100% free software. The amount of community support, and and also the number of plugins that people have created are great.
However, I’m still using Photoshop, on a dual boot system running XP and Ubuntu. There are two main reasons for this:
1. I’ve never been able to run Photoshop CS2 that well on Wine. I use a lot of extra plugins, which seem to have problems running under Wine.
2. I use a graphics tablet, which actually does work in Linux, but nowhere near as well as it does with XP.
I guess this has been said too many times already, but whilst GIMP is a great program, long-time Photoshop users seem to find it difficult to use! Myself included
In particular, the way GIMP uses text boxes is totally different, and I DO use text in the graphics I create.
I wouldn’t let that fact deter anyone who is considering GIMP, it really is a great program, and there are some amazing tutorials on the internet, and lots of help from the community.
May 28th, 2009 - 10:17 am
I appreciate your feedback, Kev!