Topic: Geek Alert: Anyone Here Using Linux?

[Ed Wenn]

I know we have a few computer geeks on this board, so here's one for you people: is anyone out there using a Linux distribution of any sort to do all their photo-related tasks?

I've been using Linux (in very small doses) on and off since about 1996, but although I loved the idea of it, it never quite seemed to so anything I wanted from a photo-related desktop OS without a LOT of hassle. Roll on 10 years and it finally seems like there are good distributions out there which can do most/all of what I want pretty much 'out of the box'.

The new Mint (4.0) looks good - I just played with it this evening a little - and there's Ubuntu too obviously; possibly others. I appreciate I'll need to switch from P'shop to Gimp, but I can try and live with that esp since I really just do basic stuff in P'shop anyway; it's more the printers and scanners bit that I'm worried about. I need the hardware to work. In my case both scanner and printer are Epson and both are about 4 years old. The scanner is a Perfection 3200 and that's the primary concern really.

Anyone have any thoughts/experiences/recommendations?

[marktweedie]

Hi Ed,

I use Linux for everything except image processing 
IMHO Photoshop is still the leader for that, depending on what you need to do.

I use Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon which is superior to Windows in every respect (just about) except that the Gimp can only handle 8 bit images and can't handle jpgs or orf (Olympus RAW) files from the latest E series models without fiddling with Gimp-specific updates. My Epson 3170 scanner worked out of the box using the Xsane scanner software  so I guess the 3200 should be OK too. A lot of printers are also now supported.

As far as printing goes, the latest release of Gimp/Ubuntu has a default printing plug-in called Gutenprint which goes some way towards making print output fairly simple and reliable. Colour fidelity might be an issue - I don't how good profiling is in The Gimp and have never had the time/courage to delve into it. On the whole the Gimp is similar but not identical to PS in terms of keyboard shortcuts and menus so moving from one to the other should be too much of a shock.

For any simple image processing and anything intended for the web rather than printing the Gimp is almost all the way there these days. If you download the latest Ubuntu release you can run it off the CD and try things out anyway without affecting your current PC configuration.

Hope that helps somehow. It's nice to know there are other geeks around.

Mark

[Francois]

I know I've been a Linux geek for quite some time. The only reasons I haven't switched are that Xsane is incompatible with my scanner (epson 4490) and there isn't any support for my connexant based modem.

But if you're looking for a small yet quite surprising distro, you could try TMXXINE in either the Prism version (315mb) or the smaller Shard version (155mb)

They are both based on the Puppy Linux codebase (read super optimized and small) and are so full packed with software that you wonder how they managed to squeeze it all in! It comes with Gimp, GTKam, Scribus, Xara Extreme, Open Office (full), and tons of other stuff. It's now based on the Puppy 3 distro. I've had display problems with Puppy3 but the previous versions work like a charm. It's a quite popular distro, you can check their community page

The fun thing about this distro is that it's a self booting disk and it's designed to be installed on just about anything. I've run TMXXINE from a 1gb usb key without any problems! It is blazing fast since it can run almost entirely from a ramdrive. My Athlon64 3700+ seems to run apps about 10x faster than with WindowsXP. Install on the key, plug it in, press the key to access the boot menu (esc on my hp), select USB and away it goes

I checked the Sane Project website and your scanner is supported.

The main issues with Linux right now are with color profiling (which is nearly innexistant). But you could probably work around it by doing some testing.

But if you want to stay with Windows as a base, The Gimp is available for it. And for monitor calibration, QuickMonitorGamma is quite good.

Then, there's always the big Kubuntu which has a nice monitor calibration panel (better than the one on Ubuntu).

But still my choice for graphics and multimedia work goes to TMXXINE... It's so packed you don't even need to use their packages!

[Francois]

Oh! I forgot:
Not that it's the best graphics pack distro in the world, but you want to try out Mandriva One (formerly Mandrake). This is mostly for eye candy. It comes with either gnome or K desktop. But the fun thing is that it uses Compiz and XGL! I know it sounds like goobely-goop to most, but here's the real human description:
The interface is all written in Open GL like the nice games we have with 3D environments. This relives the CPU by transferring all the graphics job to your video card (which is sleeping most of the time in Windows). So you get very special effects, like windows made out of jell-o that wiggle when you move and resize them. The most fun I've had was playing a DVD movie in a window and making the image wobble in real time as I move it with the mouse! It also has the Cube desktop. 4 desktops on a rotating cube. Take the same movie I was playing and pushed it halfway off the screen, then switch desktops. The movie plays around the corner as everything is moving!

It also comes as a live CD... worth downloading just for show and tell

[LT]

"It comes with either gnome or K desktop. But the fun thing is that it uses Compiz and XGL!"

"a small yet quite surprising distro, you could try TMXXINE"

" I use Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon"

" I don't how good profiling is in The Gimp and have never had the time/courage to delve into it"

"Then, there's always the big Kubuntu"

"My Athlon64 3700+ seems to run apps about 10x faster"

"I've had display problems with Puppy3 "

what is the world coming to?

[Francois]

As I said, it sounds like goobely-goop (I know, it's a very local expression) but it's not that hard once you get used to it.

Well... O.k. my geeky sides are coming undone again 

[LT]

Francois - here in the UK we say Gobbeldy Gook, but it has the same meaning.

Jargon always cracks me up, IT jargon seems to be the king of all jargon.

[db]

Francois - here in the UK we say Gobbeldy Gook, but it has the same meaning.

Jargon always cracks me up, IT jargon seems to be the king of all jargon.

Jargon, nahh, I understood it all 
Goop is what I develop my TMX-in, and once I had a problem with a Puppy which left a display on the carpet...

[Francois]

Puppy Linux is just as cute without the mess!

Apart from that, it's a really interesting distro. Not much bigger than Damn Small Linux but yet much more user friendly

I must admit that computer guys just love finding stupid abbreviations for the stuff they work with. And Unix/Linux guys are the kings! Just a few examples:
CUPS: Common Unix Print System
SANE: Scanner Access Now Easy
WINE: Wine Is Not an Emulator (it just allows you to run Windows software under Linux)
TWAIN: Technology Without An Interesting Name

Now, doesn't that put a smile on your face

[Ed Wenn]

Just to drag this conversation back to the uber-geekness that it was first pitched at: thanks Mark and Francois for you input.

Mark: I didn't realise The Gimp only did 8-bit b/w. Great shame as it means I'll almost certainly have to stick with Windows for image scanning and editing.

Francois: I've downloaded TMXXINE (Prism) as recommended and it's great. Ta! It auto-detetcts most of my hardware (drives, sounds card, scanner etc.) which is a step up from Mint 4.0. Still having problems with getting it to like my USB wireless modem, but that's par for the course with Linux I suppose and I can get round it easily enough by just giving in and using a network cable   

This is a photo forum however, so I'll end here and say thanks again to both of you.

Leon and Don, if you ever want help getting your front-end servers to send RPC over HTTPS traffic through a DMZ to the back-end AD and E2K3 servers then just give me a call 

[Francois]

10-4 

[LT]

ed - I'll thanks you not to bring my front end server into this thread.