[rm2]

It now comes with color management configured and enabled from the get go. That and the inclusion of the latest photography related software in Linux makes OpenSuse a good choice for photographers thinking of giving expensive software a boot.

Giving OpenSuse 12.1 a shot An alien’s viewpoint

[br.davidson]

Do you have a good RAW workflow for Linux that you can suggest? I was close to switching, but being without Lightroom gave me withdrawal.

[rm2]

Do you have a good RAW workflow for Linux that you can suggest? I was close to switching, but being without Lightroom gave me withdrawal.

Have you tried digiKam? It works very well for me.

[tuco]

It's been 10 years or so since I used Linux as a desktop at home. Nice to see color management has been added for "serious" photogs but what is the state of 16-bit color in the image editor these days (assuming GIMP)?

[Raffwal]

Probably a coincidence, but at work we have about a dozen of image processing workstations by GE that run on Linux. The older ones show some references to RedHat when starting, while the latest seems to be based on Suse.

[sjwaldron]

I use Kubuntu (Ubuntu until they decided to switch default interfaces making it PITA to get the original back and fully functional) and have for a few years now.

I've tried most of the open source stuff for photography, but I always switch back to Photoshop. Maybe the amount of photos and way I go about things is fixed to PS...

Thankfully Kdenlive exists for video editing. It can be a bit buggy, but the interface and functionality are good.

I wish Adobe would fully support Linux and have all of their creative software available for the OS. That would probably make me a lifetime user of Linux, but right now I've had thoughts of switching back. Well Adobe stuff and something like FL Studio for music creation. LMMS is alright, but clunky feeling.

[rm2]

It's been 10 years or so since I used Linux as a desktop at home. Nice to see color management has been added for "serious" photogs but what is the state of 16-bit color in the image editor these days (assuming GIMP)?

I only use Gimp for some final touches on some images. It can't handle 16 bit color. But, digikam does. And it does admirable well. I prefer the results I get from digiKam than what I get from Photoshop.

[Venturi]

As Linux distros go, I have yet to see anything come close to openSuSE for reliability, stability, compatibility and overall ease of use. The YaST package manager is simply better than any of the competition; RedHat's is a very distant 2nd.

I ran openSuSE 10 & 11 for quite a while (3 years), using DigiKam, LightZone and GIMP for workflow. And then I took the Lightroom 2 trial. The difference was night and day from an overall DAM and workflow perspective. Lightroom simply works in a single package better than DK and LZ put together, and GIMP while getting better with every release is still miles behind Ps CS4. I've been on Win7 ever since because of that.

I sincerely love openSuSE and miss it pretty much every day. When either WINE catches up to fully support running Adobe Ps products and/or Adobe ports to Linux I'll come running back.

[patrickrea]

I use Mandriva (2010.1) with DigiKam, LittleCMS, dcraw for RAW imports and the Gimp for the most part. I find it can be faster to do certain edits in Photoshop (Elements 8 - came with my PS5000 scanner) such as healing out dust or water spots. The Digikam is far easier for accurate aspect crops and horizon alignments and does a good job of letting me tag and process images in batches.

I love the URPMI interface to RPM files. You tell the system what you want (urpmi gimp as an example) and it goes and gets the current version along with all the dependencies.

I use the same monitor, keyboard and mouse for both the windoze machine and the linux box by way of a KVM switch and all images are stored to my media server. Makes it easy to bounce back and forth. When the day comes that Pacific Image (or anyone else) publishes a proper driver for the automated scanners, I'll be a happy camper as then I can ditch windows and all its maintenance headaches completely.

[rm2]

As Linux distros go, I have yet to see anything come close to openSuSE for reliability, stability, compatibility and overall ease of use. The YaST package manager is simply better than any of the competition; RedHat's is a very distant 2nd.

Actually, I would put PCLinuxOS ahead of OpenSuse when it comes to reliability and stability. I have PCLinuxOS installed on most of my machines. It is only on my laptop that I have been running OpenSuse for about 8 or 9 months now. I initially installed it just to see how their rolling release experiment would work. It started a little buggy and not very current. But, they eventually got it stabilized and with up to date packages. However, at least on my system, the upgrade from 11.x to 12.x broke. I guess that is understandable due to some deep changes in the way the distro handles packages now. I decided to stay with openSuse on my laptop because the guys at PCLinuxOS are busy getting their 64 bit release and have not updated KDE to the 4.7 version. Once they do, I will most likely go back to PCLOS for all my machines. No one does rolling releases like PClinuxOS.

I ran openSuSE 10 & 11 for quite a while (3 years), using DigiKam, LightZone and GIMP for workflow. And then I took the Lightroom 2 trial. The difference was night and day from an overall DAM and workflow perspective. Lightroom simply works in a single package better than DK and LZ put together, and GIMP while getting better with every release is still miles behind Ps CS4. I've been on Win7 ever since because of that.

I sincerely love openSuSE and miss it pretty much every day. When either WINE catches up to fully support running Adobe Ps products and/or Adobe ports to Linux I'll come running back.

Well, you probably have a point here, but I have never used Lightroom. I do have Photoshop CS3, but I hardly use it. I can tell you that the new digiKam is much improved in some of its DAM features. I also love digiKam's plethora of black and white conversion filters and settings. I prefer its refocus method of sharpening over unsharp mask. It has excellent lens correction features and its cropping tool is outstanding. For RAW conversion and processing it has all I need. And I guess that my DAM needs are such that digiKam handles them with flying colors.

What features of Ligtroom do you see as critical for you to justify the cost of the software and of using Windows?

[boriscleto]

I sincerely love openSuSE and miss it pretty much every day. When either WINE catches up to fully support running Adobe Ps products and/or Adobe ports to Linux I'll come running back.

Don't hold your breath.

[normhead]

What's with this software, Linux..OpenSeus, does it feature Charlie Brown and the Cat in the Hat?

[rm2]

What's with this software, Linux..OpenSeus, does it feature Charlie Brown and the Cat in the Hat?

Ha ha. Yeah, all these terms probably sound like gobbledygook to many people. Here is a brief explanation (I hope).

Linux is the name many people use when referring to a very powerful and free operating system available on the Internet. (Although, technically, the name Linux is really just the name of the kernel, but lets not get technical here.) This operating system has been developed through the contributions of hundreds of individuals and even large corporations as an alternative to expensive and proprietary operating systems from companies such as Microsoft and others. Users of the OS go from individual users such as myself, to large corporations such as a Google. Linux is used to power regular PCs, large supercomputers, and phones such as those from Nokia, HTC, Samsung, etc. Yes, Android is Linux.

For PCs Linux comes in a variety of flavors. Most people now days are introduced to Linux by the use of a Live CD. A Live CD is a CD that your computer can boot from. If a Live CD is on the CD tray of your computer when you start it, it will boot from it instead of from the hard drive. In fact, you can completely remove or disconnect your hard drive and boot from the Live CD since it doesn't need your hard drive at all to run. This allows you to see what Linux looks like and how its applications function. If you decide to actually install it to your hard drive, there is usually an option for that as well.

To create a Live CD you need to download a "Live CD Image". This is just a large file that just about any CD Burning program can use to create a bootable CD from. Just look for the option of burning a CD "Image" on your favorite CD Burning program and point it to the image file you downloaded. For example, you can get CD images from here:

OpenSuse:
software.opensuse.org: Download openSUSE 12.1

PClinuxOS:
KDE Desktop PCLinuxOS

Are there advantages in using Linux over Windows or OSX? Of course. Are there disadvantages? Sure. For everything there is a trade off. In balance, I find many more advantages in using Linux than using Windows or OSX. See here for some of the reasons I prefer Linux.

Why do I use Linux An alien’s viewpoint

Hope this helps.

[tuco]

What's with this software, Linux..OpenSeus, does it feature Charlie Brown and the Cat in the Hat?

I suspect you jest but from Wikipeda:

The name "S.u.S.E" was originally a German acronym for "Software und System-Entwicklung", meaning "Software and systems development". However, the full name has never been used and the company has always been known as "S.u.S.E", shortened to "SuSE" in October 1998 and more recently "SUSE".

My first Linux install was back in 1994 when it took some nads to get it installed. A lot of arguments over open source operating systems and software often boil down to the support of secret, proprietary files and codecs.

[tuco]

...
See here for some of the reasons I prefer Linux.
Why do I use Linux An alien’s viewpoint

Hope this helps.

In TFA, the author expects Linux will dominate over time for 3rd party developers. Many companies and people consider Linux viral. There is always much heated debate over just how really "free" Linux is. It has the GNU License in several flavors. And it is a long-winded license. Look at a *BSD license and it is so short it is practically a one-liner.

The arguments over "free" by *BSD advocates is that it can't be that free if there are constraints. The Linux advocates argue that it needs constraints to keep it free. But there is no denying that being forced by a license to make your distributed derivative work public and available to anyone does not sit well with many corporations, corporate lawyers and 3rd party developers.