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Comment by thdrdt | Hacker News Reader

Some things changed for the good the last couple of years.

I am programming on Ubuntu (C#, PHP, Javascript) with Jetbrains software. This works absolutely great.

For 3D work I use Blender.

But for graphical work I agree that there are still alternatives missing.

Figma is a very good alternative for Sketch. Scribus is a good alternative for Indesign. Krita is very good for concept art. But that's about it.

Inscape is a good alternative for Illustrator, but only if you work in RGB.

Gimp can do what Photoshop can but it will take you 3 times as long.

But for me the trade-offs work. I want to own my computer so I choose to work in Gimp instead of Photoshop. I also started to design websites directly with CSS. And I switched from 3DsMax to Blender (which isn't a trade-off anymore).

The choice is yours.

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Have you tried Photopea as a replacement for photoshop? It’s truly amazing.

https://www.photopea.com/

It's like 75% as good as Photoshop, which is pretty amazing for a JS app. I've found things like quality of masking refinement tools— an absolute must in my workflows— to be lacking.

I think Blender and Figma are good, professional tools. For the rest of them, I'm sure they work fine if you don't need to produce extremely polished stuff at volume— but they're not even close to good for that use case. (which is what my comment was about) I could see a UX Designer who works primarily in wireframes and such things getting by fine with linux, but not someone who works primarily in visuals.

Visuals is a very broad term.

As you can read in my comment I agree with you. For example working with text in Gimp is just horrible. And Inkscape is very good untill you need it for CMYK.

But this thread is about owning your PC. And then I think all those trade-offs can be overcome. Sometimes this means thinking in other directions. For example the choice to design in CSS instead of Photoshop.

I don't think you can say: 'I cannot get away from Apple'.

But you can say: 'I choose to stay at Apple because I think it is more convenient'.

The choice is yours.

I have tried in 2008 with Ubuntu Studio, after spilling coffee on my Powerbook G4, to work in Linux as a UI designer full time and people don't realised the power of Inkscape at the time. 2017 I have used only Ubuntu LTS with Gnome and Affinity Designer in Win VM, full year.

This time around I think that is possible, and economically solid, the move from Apple to ARM and closed walls of App Store to create conditions for real Linux Desktop Revolution.

Yeah, Inkscape is great. Maybe Linux works for working exclusively with on-screen assets? Not there if you do a lot of print work/layout. It's not that there aren't any tools for it, it's just that the tools aren't even close to as smooth or productive.

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