Hello everybody.
So here’s my story. Somehow my sound is broken. I have no idea why. Checked my drivers (Windows) but I have no idea how to fix my problem. Maybe it’s the onboard soundcard …
I have to fix this problem and I think I’m going to reinstall everything on my computer. So I’ve been thinking about switching to some Linux operating system. I’ve heard about Animux - it’s based on Linux, right?
My only concerns are: Am I able to use Adobe products and ZBrush on Linux? I’ve heard about Wine, which runs windows applications but I’m not sure how stable it runs.
What about driver support, especially for ATI cards? I’m going to upgrade my hardware soon. This means I’m going to buy the newest available graphic cards, i7 or even Xeon processors and a lot of DDR3 RAM so everything should be supported.
It’s important for me to work in an as professional as possible environment and honestly I’m also a bit sick of Windows. I’m hoping that Linux OS’s maybe are kind of fast as Mac OS X when it comes to the workflow.
Any suggestions which OS I could use?
In short, again: I don’t want to pass on applications that I am taking for granted on Windows, like for example ICQ, Firefox, any good music player, my Wacom pen tablet and of course stuff like driver support for my headset would be important.
It looks like it’s possible to run Zbrush but there are some problems.
I recommend windows 7 RC which is free right now. It isn’t available to download off of the Microsoft website anymore(as of 2 days ago), but you can still get product keys for a couple months, and may be find a torrent to download the OS. Not sure if this is legal, you might want to check.
Anyways, so far I haven’t had any driver problems with it and it is much faster than vista. And files copy instantly =D And upgrading from vista you don’t need to backup your files.
I use Ubuntu, definitely recommend it…:yes::yes::yes:
Pidgin comes installed and can connect to ICQ accounts…
Firefox also installed…
Rhythmbox is a music player and is also installed… (also a plethora of other music players are available)
Graphics cards… I use Nvidia so not sure about ATI, but drivers usually work quite well…
I use Wine, never had any problems, but I only use it for a few apps.
P.S. did I forget to mention that Ubuntu, like most other form of Linux is FREE…
How skilled are you with computers and how patient are you? From your brief post, I cannot really tell. If you’re not very good with computer and not very patient I would recommend staying away from Linux if your main goal is art. Ubuntu is the best distribution for new Linux users, but it’s not perfect, you’ll run into a lot of time consuming problems as a new Linux user.
As for hardware, newer stuff is not always well supported under Linux; ATI cards and Wacom tablets are just now starting to become more well intergated into Linux distributions and those two items have been out for years (note: they’ve been working with Linux for a while, but in the past you had to get your hands really dirty to get them to run and they wouldn’t always run perfectly).
I’ve been using Linux for 8 years; It’s great, but it requires a lot of patients and a lot of time. I would stick with Windows if your main goal is art.
I’m skilled with computers and I could definitely solve problems if they appear. But I don’t want the OS to work against me, it shall work with me. Sounds a bit demotivating :no:. Right now I’m downloading Animux and openSUSE. Ubuntu seems a bit ugly for me, but who knows. I’m going to try different things.
Just to let everybody know: I downloaded Windows 7 RC and it’s working absolutely great! I didn’t think it’s that good but there are a lot of good improvements since Windows XP and the driver recognition is very powerful. It even installed my Webcam automatically.
I highly recommend to use Windows 7 if you had doubts about Vista. It’s working good and looks nice and clean.
I agree about Windows 7. As far as Ubuntu or any Linux distribution looking ugly…It doesn’t have to be. That’s just a function of the theme installed. Go to gnome-look.org to see tons of different themes to install. My Ubuntu’s are all blue tones instead of orange / brown. So don’t let the “look” of the Linux distribution affect you too much as it is easily changed.
I’d highly recommend you trying Ubuntu using WUBI since it doesn’t mess with the partition tables of the disk and allows you to run a full installation instead of a live CD one. You can then make sure that the drivers work right and fully check it out before commiting to a full install on a partition. If you don’t want it anymore, you can just uninstall it using Windows Add / Remove programs. It’s a great way to do a little further test drive than using a live CD.