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Ask Slashdot: Switching To a GNU/Linux Distribution For a Webdesign School
spadadot writes: I manage a rapidly growing webdesign school in France with 90 computers for our students, dispatched across several locations. By the end on the year it will amount to 200. Currently, they all run Windows 8 but we would love to switch to a GNU/Linux distribution (free software, easier to deploy/maintain and less licensing costs). The only thing preventing us is Adobe Photoshop which is only needed for a small amount of work. The curriculum is highly focused on coding skills (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP/MySQL) but we still need to teach our students how to extract images from a PSD template. The industry format for graphic designs is PSD so The Gimp (XCF) is not really an option. Running a Windows VM on every workstation would be hard to setup (we redeploy all our PCs every 3 months) and just as costly as the current setup. Every classroom has at least 20Mbit/s — 1Mbit/s ADSL connection so maybe setting up a centralized virtualization server would work? How many Windows/Photoshop licenses would we need then? Anything else Slashdot would recommend?
Get mostly linux machines for the mainstream work, and get a few windows systems for the jobs that really need windows. People will have to learn the nuts and bolts of data transfer between the systems, but that is actually a pretty useful professional skill.
Why exactly would running Windows VMs be so difficult? In actuality it would be quite a bit easier, if all of the workstations are running the same configuration. You setup the Windows VM as needed and then deploy it out to each machine. Or heck, you get the students to do the work for you. I've found knowing how to find your way around Virtual Box to be a very useful skill as a developer and this is something the students should really learn about. It's so easy to do work on a variety of different projects with vastly different system requirements by using VMs. I do work on VMs ranging from Windows 7 to Windows Server 2012 and almost everything between at work with very little difficulty in setting up the VMs (both with VirtualBox and RDC in Windows to a cloud based VM). A lot of it boils down to knowing how to manage and deploy your VMs, or hiring a company to help if this is not your expertise.
I have opened a heck of a lot of psd files in GIMP, and saved to that format as well. Easy enough to find out - try it on Windows GIMP if you need to make sure. If you're just extracting images I would think GIMP would work perfectly. I still use GIMP as my main heavy photo editor.
Are you sure it's easier to deploy and maintain linux? Do you have someone who can maintain a linux installation of that size? Not a hobbyist.... for God's sake, don't trust this to a hobbyist. Do you have an actual professional? They might be a bit scarcer than Windows IT guys... and that's the first thing I would check: that you have someone who can reliably maintain this....someone certified, not certifiable. Also, ask legitimate IT guys in your area about your specifics. It may or may not be the way to go, but it's better to spend a little money up front on a consultant, than a lot of money trying to get someone to fix what you messed up later.
Not sure why this hasn't been mentioned yet, but depending on what version you want to run, Photoshop runs quite well on Linux under WINE depending on what version you need to use, including CS6 and Creative Cloud versions. If you require support, Code Weavers packages a popular and easy-to-use version of WINE with varying levels of technical support available for purchase. (No affiliation with Code Weavers, just a happy customer.)
If you want to get fancy (i.e. complicated), you can probably set up some sort of application server that will allow you to limit the number of Photoshop licenses you need to purchase, but that's a bit out of scope for a simple Slashdot comment. :)
- Dave
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You would also need a different server license for each old version of IE to emulate
http://saveie6.com/
You would also need a different server license for each old version of IE to emulate
Nope, IE VMs for testing are free....
Official VM's for testing IE versions are available from Microsoft:
http://dev.modern.ie/tools/vms/windows/
From the webpage:
"Download virtual machines: Test versions of IE from 6 through 11 using virtual machines you download and manage locally"
yes, he really needs PSD!
they're trying to teach vocational skills-- when the students get to the job interview (and/or skills test), the question will be "can you drive photoshop"-- not "do you know how to drive something that kinda/sorta works like photoshop?"
Slicing PSDs is crude, antiquated (even though most shops still do it), and reinforces the fallacy that web design begins in Photoshop.
Modernize your curriculum to teach progressive enhancement of wireframe layouts in the browser. At some point you teach about creating the individual image assets for what they are (backgrounds, icons, etc) rather than treating a PSD as a giant slab of source material. For this, you can use GIMP, Inkscape, or anything else Free.
You are perpetuating Adobe's dominance by furthering a bad workflow that benefits them. Your course isn't about Photoshop, that shouldn't be the keystone of it.
Slicing PSDs is the equivalent of beginning a construction project from a child's crayon drawing of the not-yet-existing building.
but we still need to teach our students how to extract images from a PSD template. The industry format for graphic designs is PSD so The Gimp (XCF) is not really an option
Really? Sure i'd chose photoshop over gimp, but i'd choose nether for web design... manipulating rasters for anything more than tweaking images should not be part of modern web design, slicing up images is 1990, don't teach this, design with grid systems, use pen and paper or a wireframing tool, teach typography, the rest is code.
Adobe WROTE photoshop for Linux YEARS ago, we actually used to run it, but it was a limited release application that was only provided to specific customers and beta test sites. There's just never quite been a critical mass to make it profitable to release stuff like that. Porting, if your a sophisticated shop that already supports several platforms is really pretty trivial.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
His class is focused on HTML/CSS/JS/etc. which means it's not Web design. Design is artwork and layout, for which yes PS is one of the standard tools (and maybe not the best one if, for instance, you're doing Material design for Android access or responsive design where fixed layouts to fit artwork are a no-no). But Web development, using HTML/CSS/JS/etc. to build the mechanics of the site and make it work, generally doesn't require any particular set of tools. In fact Photoshop's a bad fit here because the file formats you're going to need (mostly PNG, especially if you're going to do any sort of transparency) aren't it's native formats and it doesn't really "get" the more exotic technical tricks you'll need the way say the GIMP does.
WRONG.
This is an example of someone who has not explored the Linux alternatives thoroughly before deciding that since it is free it cannot possibly do the job. Or maybe he's going on what he heard a few years ago, and doesn't realize that major FOSS software like GIMP are undergoing quiet, continuous improvements and upgrades.
In either case, this is not an example of "a real problem with Linux, where some major and/or important products simply don't work and the open-source alternatives won't cut it." There are definitely still such examples out there, but this is not one of them.
Will
Inkscape's native format is SVG, and it works great. It should be part of the curriculum long before hand-holding designers who can't produce consumable assets.
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The modern.ie VM's are not licensed. They are in 'trial mode' and will require activation. What is funny is that the modern.ie folks provide workarounds for the windows activation in the README, but they are still just that, workarounds.
I think that workaround has a max timeout.
No it doesn't (anymore), a standard setup comes relatively ACID compliant. Developers doing stupid things will happen regardless of the stack you use. Looking at modern web stacks (nginx, Node.js, NoSQL, ...) more stupid things are only going to be easier.
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From experience (i.e. failure) with switching people over, you get the best results if you introduce people to the free software first then change the operating system. Use Inkscape, Krita, GIMP, or Scribus on Windows, rather than switching two things at once.
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I'm a seasoned pro webdev and havent touched Windows or PS in years. Gimp does most of the gfx work just fine, especially with the modern flatty designs. As does Inkscape for the vector work.
I do use a mac though - less hassle with the gui and some neat tools unavailable on Linux (SourceTree, Kaleidoscope, Transmit, etc.) but those are tools you definitely don't need for learning.
My advice: ... Train your students on Atom or Brackets and learn and teach Grunt, Gulp or both and build a webdev pipeline with those. Build a pipeline that your students can take with them on their career. Way more worth than learning Adobe crap.
Move to Ubuntu LTS right now and set up one Mac Mini in every classroom if you must teach your students PS filters and the Adobe Suite. Although I wouldn't.
The one thing desperately missing on Linux is a FOSS Git gui that doesn't suck. You'll have to get a bundle licence for SmartGit - it's Java, but it's OK. As a full blow IDE Netbeans and the Netbeans Chrome extension + perhaps FF WebDev Edition are are the tools of the trade. All FOSS, all perfectly at home on Ubuntu.
For testing set up VBox on every PC and pull the official Windows Browser Webdev Testing VMs. They only run an hour before needing a virtual restart, but they're perfect for Testing IE and Spartan.
What ever you do, spare yourself and you Students the hassle with remote desktop.
Good luck with your business.
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>"The industry format for graphic designs is PSD so The Gimp (XCF) is not really an option."
That has to be the stupidest statement I have read in a week. Who cares what the "industry format" is for "graphic design"? That has nothing to do with a web coding school. And GIMP opens PSD files just fine. Did you even TRY this before posting?
There are cases where it is difficult to replace an MS-Windows environment. Web development is certainly not one of them.
Let the graphics design industry use what it wishes. They can export to web formats, which is what you need.
I spent over thirty years in the computer industry, working on many projects with user interface and graphical elements, and not once did the graphics designers deliver what we needed in Photoshop-specific formats.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I have some love for SVG... at least the sane parts of the spec, and it's quite a big part of my day job... But i have a lot of hate for inkscape:
A significant part of that is because it's really shitty at generating SVG. It might "use" SVG as it's format, but it does not treat it natively, it uses it's own name-space, litters files with it's name-space even when you request it to save plain SVGs. It converts much of it's data into SVG while saving the original "inkscape" data embeded in it's sodipodi namespaced XML embedded in the same file... really not very different from illustrator, SVG is it's output not it's internal format.
I don't touch files intended for the web with inkscape, but make them by hand, using inkscape to generate path data but that's it... Creating web safe SVGs with inkscape is just too much pain.
Ubuntu would be my answer for pretty much any desktop use including this.
No, I'm not really a fan of Ubuntu. No, Unity is not necessarily the best interface. No, I don't think going their own way with Mir is a good idea.
But...
Ubuntu has the most people out there already doing this kind of thing. That means the most liklihood things will 'just work' and the most online community support when it doesn't. Since you have a whole lab to support and probably other things to do with your time you will likely apreciate taking the path of least resistance.
So.. I wouldn't pick the 'best' distro, I'd pick the most popular one. Currently that's Ubuntu. It sucks.. because this kind of thinking is what causes incumbant favorites to remain at the top even when they cease to deserve it. But... that's reality.