Great news! Honestly, the only software that will be holding people back from switching fully to linux now will be creative tools (audio, 3d + 2d design, video editing). I think this can be solved by us. If we show them that there is a demand for these tools on linux someone will move to supply. Open operating systems provide too many advantages to ignore.
Well when it comes to 3D Linux is actually well off due to it's strong position in SFX, you have the latest Maya, XSI, Mudbox, Renderman, Houdini, Lightwave, 3D-Coat etc available in native Linux form.
And as others have stated there's also great free solutions like Blender.
This is what XSI has to say about Linux - "Softimage 2013 is also capable of running on other configurations, such as boutique distributions of Linux. However, enumerating systems that are not tested and cannot be supported or that fall below the requirements for a productive user experience is beyond the scope of the online certification charts.".
Ah, I was under the impression that Lightwave 10 was released for Linux last summer, granted it's not really on my radar. Looking at their site now showcasing version 11 there's no mention of Linux so it seems you are right. Still, Wine's AppDB page for Lightwave mentions a Linux native Lightwave 10 CORE under development.
Yeah, the latest Lightwave runs on Linux. I installed one of the Beta's a few months ago and it ran OK, though it didn't include everything the windows version had. I still use Lightwave via Virtual Box.
Agreed, and with Adobe and Autodesk monopolizing creative software, I think we'll see more and more of this. Blender has been doing spectacularly with 3D to the point that Autodesk must be incredibly worried, and I expect we'll see more Photoshop contenders as projects like GIMP start to answer the pleas of its on-the-fence users. See the GIMP roadmap: http://wiki.gimp.org/index.php/Roadmap
Edit: And I expect as browser technologies continue to expand, we'll see more web-based competitors. In particular, with WebGL, I'm surprised we haven't seen things like all-GPU image editors to compete with the slow giants we have to deal with now.
In the mid-2000s, Macromedia started an experimental port of Dreamweaver (I think) to Linux using Wine. The project was abandoned because the market for commercial Linux applications was seen to be too limited for the difficulty of maintaining the port.
I much prefer Inkscape over Illustrator for my vector art. I much prefer Audacity over... actually I'm not sure what's considered the direct commercial competitor here for post-processing audio. I mildly prefer Photoshop over Gimp for graphics design and tablet drawing, but after almost a decade of using each, they're practically interchangeable for me. I mildly prefer Blender over 3DS Max for making game models (though I admit it has been a while for me—I hear the recent Blender releases have amazing improvements). And that's not even taking into account the difference in license costs.
I'm not claiming to be an expert in any of these industries, but I don't think I'm completely naive here either. I can imagine there is a strong majority of experts who would never considere free/open source alternatives to things they've been using since they graduated their respective art school and paid thousands of dollars in licensing fees. I feel they're missing out, even though I'm biased towards open source.
actually I'm not sure what's considered the direct commercial competitor here for post-processing audio.
Audio is an interesting market. Sound Forge comes to mind, but based on the time I've spent in studios, I'm going to speculate that professional audio is either done with hardware, or really old software.
The particular example I'm thinking of was a MacOS9 computer (in 2009 or so). The tech told me two things kept him back; he had all the plugins he needed for the software he used (and that many were not available in newer suites), and something about realtime recording.
Most commercial studios would be running either Pro Tools, Cubase/Nuendo or Logic. There is nothing in the open-source world that comes even remotely close to rivaling any of these packages at the moment.
MIDI: those Atari apps you're thinking of didn't do audio.
General utility: perhaps you need to talk to various people who do, in fact, use Ardour instead of ProTools. As for the comparison with Reaper - Reaper is a very impressive project, but if you try it for pro- usage rather than home-style recording, you will very rapidly discover quite a lot of basic issues that they have not addressed, but were being done correctly by Ardour 8 years ago. I look to Reaper for good ideas and impressive development speed, but they really are focused on the needs of a different type of market segment than I really pay the most attention to.
It is true that there is no single DAW that is to everyone's taste, and Ardour is probably a more "acquired" taste than many others. At this time, I would say that more or less no DAW can easily "replace" any of the others. You can't really replace ProTools with Nuendo either.
jsprinkles: we distribute binary copies of Ardour from ardour.org that run on any Linux distribution (just about - we discovered a wrinkle that interferes with this on a few platforms, and the next release(s) will correct this).
Ardour is a cool project but again, it's not remotely close to Pro Tools, Logic, Cubase, or even REAPER. It's like comparing a military aircraft carrier with a canoe, sure they both float on water but they're not even in the same league.
I've kept up with Ardour progress over the past 6 years and it has consistently gone nowhere while the major players innovate continuously. The assertion that Ardour has a chance at competing with the professional packages is absurd given that they've been promising basic MIDI support for years now, a feature that was present in software packages on the Atari. Add to that the fact that the project doesn't even have a roadmap for future development and it all looks pretty grim.
My previous career was audio engineering, and I can't help but laugh when the FOSS crowd insist that Ardour and Audacity are capable of replacing the industry leading software packages.
Having used both, Ardour has a long way to go before it's remotely close to Pro Tools, even SE.
I think you might see interest in the platform develop if there weren't dozens of distributions to worry about. The distributions hamper Linux development, because you have dozens of different variants to try on, all with different versions of things and different bugs. As another commenter said, I bet you could get something Pro Tools quality if there was a consistent Linux-based desktop, not four or five frontrunners all doing GNOME differently.
Sadly, some people refuse to work if they aren't using photoshop/illustrator/autocad/etc. But yeah, I'm with you, I use gimp and inkscape but I'm no professional.
A perfect example are front-end developers. It can be tough for anyone to make a living in that line of work without being able to edit/open photoshop and illustrated without having to configure wine.
I truly believe Adobe holding back their products is one of the largest roadblocks linux has to get widespread adoption amongst the design/developer community.
I'd be surprised if Adobe isn't at least looking into this, especially considering their sometimes sour relationship without Apple.
A lot of the more "arty" people I know would consider giving them a Windows computer to use as a personal insult and would probably be more open to switching to Linux than Windows.
Getting arty people to use desktop Linux could be a huge net positive if they decide to help "pretty" the place up a bit.
It's certainly nice when UI/UX people run GNU/Linux distributions. Daniel Foré is in charge of Elementary OS [1]. Because he's a designer, the project already has a proper set of Human Interface Guidelines [2], a set of uniquely designed (and easy to use) core applications [3], and a beautifully coherent look to the entire OS and website.
Exactly this, I'm a designer, and I like the look of ubuntu, but it's no macOS, it's hard to see an advantage that linux has over macs apart from the price - but designers need fast (expensive) machines anyway. No Adobe is the reason I can't even contemplate a switch.
I love blender though, my 3D tool of choice so at least 3D artists are well catered for.
Professionals have spent considerable time learning their tools (PS, Illustrator...), hence while these tools are not available on Linux they will always refrain from shifting to Linux and that is quite understandable. After all every need their work done best possible way with least obstructions.
I think presence of mainstream CAD software is very important as well. I have seen many people not willing or not being able to shift to Linux only because of CAD.
I think that you need to specify which type of CAD software you have in mind. CAD software for Semiconductor designers have an incredibly strong presence on Linux.
I think in the domain of Civil Engineering, Architecture, Mechanical Engineering. My dad is a Civil Engineer and I know stuff he needs doesn't exist on Linux.
I meant that too. Basically when adobe and autodesk make their software linux compatible we will see a huge shift to linux. The amount of money saved by businesses on a whole would be huge if switching to linux was an option.
