Working with Linux
I”ve been now several weeks immersed in my sea of Linux and everything was running smoothly until I encountered my first conundrum: can I actually work with it? From what I’ve read, this seems to be the key issue holding people from closing their Windows forever. “Personally the lack of certain pieces of commercial software on Linux is the reason I still keep a copy of Windows”. So I started off skeptical about the actual possibilities of operating “more complex” software on Linux. Sure there are plenty of free solutions, but are they enough developed yet? Or are we enough developed yet to use these and understand the importance of contributing to the growth of the free software movement? If you answered both this questions with a “not yet”, like I did, then don’t worry cause is not all lost. You can still get the programs you need/love/are used to on Linux. Me, I can’t live in a photoshopless environment. Which is why I started trying to figure out a workaround for it (Note: if there’s something any average computer user like me should be certain of, is that when it comes to computers, there’s always a way of tweaking things for satisfying our needs (unlike with people). Having this in mind, I just refused to accept that if I’m on Linux, I just can’t have Photoshop. So after understanding what Wine is, how it works and how it’s to be used, I could finally get PSCS5 to work (although if you are running on a 64-bit Linux environment, I suggest you to read this). It wasn’t difficult to get it and now I have that feeling of really owning my computer, as I need it to be. And yet not having to return to the notion of enduring Windows weaknesses only because “better the devil you know”.
I would like to finish this post by reflecting upon a quote from one of Adobe’s employees when asked about a commercial release of Adobe for Linux users. He writes: “Linux is not a single OS, but a kernel used in many fragmented OSes with few standards.” These are the kind of opinions that give people the feeling that high quality or high value can only happen on a commercial environment. I couldn’t disagree more with it, and hopefully more people will soon realize how superficial this thinking is. But don’t take someone’s word for it, you need to try it yourself.