Right then, it’s been over a month now
Hello again, just over a month on after converting to Linux, what am I doing and how have I got on with it?
Well, I am still using it, so that is a start. I created my new Simnor Website in NVU, but after starting Simnor Web Design I had to start using software like Dreamweaver, I tried for days and days trying to get it to work on Ubuntu, trying all sorts of tutorials I found on the internet, so I’m using it in Virtual Box where I have Windows XP set up.
I’ve learnt how to use Gimp, which I thought I would never be able to do. I have Banshee set up to play my massive music collection. Obviously, I use the fantastic Firefox for my web browsing and have installed apps like Inkscape and Scribus, I occasionally use Open Office but after using MS Office 2K7 for months beforehand I miss quite a few features, I do have MS Office set up in my Windows box in Virtual Box, I tend to run both Windows and Linux at the same time, but not as much as I did in the first weeks of the conversion
I also got rid of Vista off of my desktop PC, I was going to install Ubuntu on that but decided to install XP purely because I would only really be using it to do the web designing. I mainly use my laptop for everything else.
So was it a good choice to convert?
I can honestly say that it has been one of the best decisions of my life, although I have come to terms with the fact that I can never totally convert, not until Linux has all the capabilities of Windows, for example on the application side of things, once Adobe/Macromedia create editions of their software for Linux as well as MS, that’ll be when it becomes the perfect solution. But my market for my business Simnor Computing is predominately Windows users therefore I have to cater for that else it will be a failing business. But to answer the question, for browsing, image editing, emailing, keeping on top of my blogs, basic website editing and updating, uploading my website, listening to music and most other normal tasks that need to be done, it is the best option and it is 100% free.
Overall, I am happy, I obviously haven’t completely converted but everyone needs to make money to live in this world, but I will say that I predominantly use Linux now, although occasionally I have to restart the system because my panel doesn’t appear when I log in, strange!
Anyways, I would like to thank everybody who has helped me on my journey. And if you are coming to this blog and considering converting, please DO try it, there is so much help out there if you ever have any problems and its all free.
Sound. I’ve been on Linux for over a year now. I found that after about three months I forgot I was even using Linux at all. It was just my computer and I was getting things done. Like you, I still have to run Windows occasionally for when I work on files that have come from my work, but that’s about maybe once a month if that.
Why not just type out the HTML & CSS? The code will be leaner and load faster that way. Dreamweaver puts in a lot of extra crap, and I think it uses tables (almost as bad as Frontpage when it comes to extra crap). What couldn’t you do with Nvu, by the way? I’ve never actually tried using it because, like I said, hand-coded produces better results, but I’m curious now. I found Dreamweaver and Frontpage to be very very annoying in the way they assumed they should do things without you explicitly saying “I want it like THIS,” though I suppose that’s to be expected with WYSIWYGs. I’m fairly sure they don’t produce proper sites that are a combination of CSS (in its own file!) and XHTML, though I haven’t tried to use either in a few years. One of my friends said he thinks Nvu does it correctly. The way we were taught to do sites with Dreamweaver and Photoshop was to draw the whole thing out then make a template and change every single page if you wanted an update. That’s ridiculous. SSI + CSS + XHTML saves a lot of time for updating.
I am now using NVU a lot more than I thought I would, and use Gimp to produce the graphics for the websites that I produce, I agree that Dreamweaver inputs a load of stuff that isn’t needed but I don’t think that I could ever go to creating websites with a notepad, i need to add components to a page because I am into the designing more than the coding.
As a web designer I can honestly say that the only thing I go back to Windows for is the latest Photoshop CS (3).
I converted to Linux late last year and it was one of the best decisions I think I’ve ever made. For web design it rocks:
– Bluefish text editor (never use WYSIWYG editors like Dreamweaver if you really want to have proper control)
– PHP/MySQL/RoR/PostgreSQL running on your machine with minimum fuss
– IEs4Linux – better than Windows because you can run multiple versions of IE for testing, alongside Firefox and Opera
Then of course there are other perks, such as using uTorrent in Wine and getting a proper amount of half-open connections so it runs nice and quickly, Compiz Fusion (see my blog for a guide with Nvidia cards black window bug and info on how to make it speedier), and Kaffeine video post-processing.
I’m glad to see more and more people like yourself using Ubuntu Linux. Not because I necessarily support Open Source but because I want corporate OS engineers to sit up and try to deliver quality products. Only then will we have a healthy computing environment…