“In this article, I’m taking Linux (Debian and others), Macintosh OS X (Panther) and Windows XP and comparing them to find the ideal operating system for web design and development. After using Windows, Macintosh OS X and Linux (in various incarnations) each for extended periods of time over the last 4 1/2 years, here is what I’ve found.” Read the article at MarcusVorwaller.com.
Best Tool for the Job
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I found what he said to be mostly correct except for the stability issue. I personally find even WinXP to be highly unstable and experience crashes and even BSOD’s more often than I would care to experience. He also didnt mention viruses, trojans and the fact that you need to be running an antivirus 24/7. I think that drops the windows performance considerably. However, windows is on the leading edge of cost-effectiveness and software availability.
>I personally find even WinXP to be highly unstable
I don’t know if you run non-XP drivers or not (No1 reason for any OS to crash randomly), but for the 2 years I run XP I haven’t seen any crashes… But on the other hand, I don’t use XP to run 3D games or plug weird stuff on it, I just do web browsing, emailing, winamp, ftp and smb with it.
I dont experience crashing during the operations you mentioned for the most part, although there are ocasions when it has crashed in my absence while running nothing but background ops. I found that XP is quite poor handling USB with which I have seen many BSOD on different machines (I can almost BSOD on demand when resetting my satellite modem). I experience problems when using programs such as Maya and games. I work on many machines, particularly Dell brand which I have come to loathe. Perhaps there should be a more strict regulation on hardware within these companies. Other than that, I quite enjoy XP functionality.
he is in the minority then since most Photoshop users in publishing and other such places like the seperate boxes so that they can see other photoes and stuff.
I’ve been running WindowsXP since it went RC1 and the only things that have caused this machine to blue screen were a bad video driver and my netgear wireless hub being connected via USB for administrating the device. My video card fried about a year ago and I’ve since bought a new nVidia card and I’ve replaced my netgear wireless hub, router/firewall and second hub with a single Microsft MN-700. Beyond that, the other crashes I’ve seen are with Explorer and this is due to my running a little app called TrueLaunchBar which I’m now addicted to and I can’t go back to the normal Windows taskbar. I’ll suffer the occasional crash of Explorer and logoff/on at my earliest convenience to bring everything back to normal (Explorer restarts but some apps in the traybar do not). I run A number of Adobe apps, often concurrently as well as IIS and I have Norton AV 2000 running 24/7 (tried 2004 but it sucked up enormous amounts of memory, most likely due to the spyware, et al checking it did). The only reason this machine runs as slow as it does is it’s a dual Xeon Pentium 2 450 system with 768 MB of RAM, not because I run Norton AV.
I certainly agree with his choice of ftp programs on windows. LeechFTP is the best, is a shame it’s been discontinued. It would have been nice of the developer to at lease open source it and let someone else carry on the development. I’m still using the last version that came out in 1999.
Desktops issues are important but applications are what that really count when you want to show the world why the hell you’ve been sitting at a computer for so many hours. While Linux is almost caught up as a desktop, the applications written for it are years behind.
I speak as a musician, not as a graphics artist, but it’s the same problem. Every investment I make in applications is money in Gates’s pocket. When you buy, say, Photoshop, or Cakewalk (for music), the file type may as well say: .bg. Running Windows programs on Linux is a temporary palliative, but not an everyday solution.
Wish it weren’t so. This leads me to believe that proprietary applications for Linux–made by major companies (Adobe, Cakewalk) in software and even drivers for devices–is where the most effort should be made in increasing Linux use, especially in the US. These compnaies might calim that it’s too expensive to port their products to Linux, but there may be Fear of Bill under it.
“Another advantage with OS X is that it has a native SSH client. I love being able to open the Terminal and ssh to the server without having to use Putty. This is also (obviously) available in Linux. In addition to SSH, Apache, PHP and MySQL run well on OS X (probably better than on Windows) ”
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a GNU/Linux user. I’m not a windows lover by any means. But when an author says that an advantage is not having to use putty, I have to ask, is there anyone that thinks putty is such a pain to use?
-b
Having worked with all of the OS he has mentioned for a year I would strongly disagree with his choice of XP as the premier choice… The Gimp allows a use to save an image and optimize it for the web, first of all, you can script it to do so… Also it is a free piece of software, linux allows for immediate security options as well. IE in XP is way too slow, come on, that is a terrible waste of memory, use Opera or something like that. I would select Panther as my choice, you can get the gimp for panther for a lot less than photoshop. You can use XCode, that is bundled with it for developing software. You have a unix terminal built in, it is clean, stable so much more secure than XP and you are also making a statement by using it, in my opinion. The terminal is so much better than XP, because it is a Unix based terminl. In XP the defaults do not allow for long names even, put a ~8 and you might be set. So for using active perl and unning scripts it is ancient, in my opinion. Use linux or panther for running these scripts, they both make sense. Panther is my obvious choice!
I found this article lacking meat. For one there was no mention of how easily different scripting languages were to use on the different os’s, and also how easily it is to debug on the different platforms. There was no mention of php, .net, cold fusion etc… I have a variety of clients that use many different backends. And finding one desktop that allows me to use all of them has proved to be difficult. I’ve found I can do 90% of my work on OS X, but windows 2000 is still in use for sql server, access and asp work.
I’ve found XP to be very stable. I mostly use my XP box for gaming and have played MOH and other games without issue. More often than not hardware is at fault when issues come up on my PC. For everything else I use MacOSX.
Linux has some good sides (integration with the server), but is lacking on the niche software side. GIMP, the best graphics processing program on Linux, is good for many people, but isn’t good for many web developers, and doesn’t hold to a candle to a Fireworks/Photoshop combo. Quanta, the best web development editor on Linux, is one of the best text editors I’ve ever seen, but it doesn’t isn’t up to the standards of Dreamweaver in terms of web development.
I use OSX on the job, XP at home, and Linux as a toy OS.
I’ve used dreamweaver on both windows and mac, and I’ll take the mac version any day. I like the floating palettes much better than the windows mdi …further, I went through the help system page by page comparing the 2, and time after time, upon looking for feature that I had found useful on the mac, the help pages said “only on the mac version”.
I’m sick of hearing people telling the Gimp is not as good as photoshop. Let’s hear *good* arguments.
I can agree with that idea, comparing the old(current stable) version of Gimp, but have you seen the new one?
The new devel version of gimp totally rocks. And the path tool, which IIRC photoshop does NOT have, is awesome. Hopefully it will be released very soon…
I use Linux on the job, linux at home, and linux as a toy OS
PP
While stating Disadvantages of windows, he tells how great windows is.
This is an article stating his personal best, what works for him, why should this deserve a place on osnews, this is not even serious.
How the hell could you forget a program like BBedit as a webdesigner, saying you have used a mac.
It even makes working with the Mac version of Photoshop tolerable. Explain, and don’t tell me you hate the it, when there’s no gray behind the windows.
This review is writen by someone who grew up with windows, started using some other osses, but was used to his windows settings. His conclusion is based on an opinion turned into facts.
Well, im a java developer, and for me, there isnt much difference beyond preference between XP and linux. I use IDEa in XP at work, and at home i use IDEa in linux. When it comes to writing web pages, a page that is done in mozilla is done right. Mozilla follows the w3c standards, if it works there, it works in any webbrowser. however, if you write for ie, it only works in ie. if you write for netscape, it only works for netscape. not only that, but any web developer worth his salt would never use the gui aspects of dreamweaver. a dog could make a webpage in dreamweaver or frontpage, if your getting paid for it, do it properly and dont generate 50 lines of garbage when 2 are all thats required.
As for encoding an image and “opimizing it for the web”, this isnt some magic function that fireworks/photoshop have a patent on. it is just some standard optimization settings. if you dont know how to optimize an image, then once again you shouldnt get paid to do web design.
as for the gimp vs photoshop, photoshop definately comes out on top. it is more polished and streamlined then the gimp. but photoshop is top of the line software, which while its nice, isnt nessicary for web development. if you are a professional photographer, illustrator, or artist, you may find the gimp a bit lacking. but for any of the jobs that touch on graphics without a total focus, the gimp is more then enough. as for vector apps, svg is making huge splashes in the linux world and bringing with it several very impressive projects. as it stands tho, nothing is even remotely illustrator level yet.
as i see it, the only big minus for web development in linux is the fact that there is no flash. but if you dont work on flash, and you are compitant, there is no reason not to use linux for web developement over windows. as i said at the beginning, it is simply a matter of preference, what environment you perfer.
First of all, “best tool fo the job” is too relative,
we dont all use tools the same way, as we are not robots.
The Gimp is a truly awesome program, and I have found that it can do every bit of what Photoshop does for what it’s meant and more. Still though, Photoshop adds a few features more meant as “candy” for web developers (like layer/text effects, vector shapes, etc).
But for those who use it for what it’s really meant.. (Painting and Image Manipulation) gimp is fantastic.
Audio related.. after many years finally the most important apps and apis are stabilizing (ardour, rosegarden, ladspa, alsa, jack, etc). And the huge advantage of the apps here in respect to Windows/Mac
is the high amount of interoperability. They can
transfer midi/audio/control between them to a much
greater degree. This resembles a lot more to how a
real studio works, with machines being interconnected
in any possible way.
And dreamweaver.. come on it’s just pure candy..
I havent seen so many candy packed together.
In any serious bussiness or almost anywhere you
have someoby who does the raw html with the design,
and then a programmer who takes the bits of it
and inserts it into code (asp/php/wathever), there’s
no need for such hugely bloated packages.
Besides his personal preferences, the one thing Windows has is IE.
“For one, it’s lacking any “save for web” feature to make optimizing images a quick and easy process.”
You do that by thinking instead of letting others decide what’s best for you. If that’s a problem i’m afraid The GIMP is indeed no solution for you. Second, there’s a lot more than only The GIMP.
“That alone is enough to make me choose photoshop over the Gimp, but there are a host of other disadvantages to the Gimp which I won’t go into here. You can now run Photoshop in Linux using Codeweavers Crossover Office but in my experience […]”
It even runs in WINE thanks to Disney’s funding. They wanted Photoshop to run flawless under Linux. They used a renderfarm however.
“Photoshop does not run nearly as fast under Crossover Office or as well as it does using it on a native platform.”
Or as well? Please do state exactly in which way. Disney found it Good Enough. As for fast: get yourself some better hardware instead of that Windows XP license. x86 hardware is damn cheap these days.
“If you’re looking for vector graphics software, you’ll also come up empty handed.”
Empty handed is what i claim “there’s nothing”. You are wrong. For one, GIMP 1.3.x has SVG support. I take it your company is as smart enough to be able to compile that yourself? For two, there’s Inkscape. For three, there’s a lot more.
http://freshmeat.net/search/?q=vector§ion=projects&x=0&y=0
http://freshmeat.net/search/?q=svg§ion=projects&x=0&y=0
http://freshmeat.net/browse/107/?topic_id=107
Now if you can make a constructive comment about what you miss in some particulair program and code/ask/pay to get it there instead of this whining? Thanks.
“However when it comes down to the availability and usability of software […]”
Seems to me that one of the reasons, just like regarding your FTP client issue, is because you do not look futher than your nose long is. How about a better program on that issue? TIA,
another LeechFTP fan. Loved that program (when I still had a PeeCee). Now I have a Mac but I don’t need to FTP anymore (.Mac takes care of my website) so it’s a non-issue.
XP machines that were upgraded from 9x/ME have been terrible for me. Machines with a fresh install have been pretty good though.
The idea of which platform has the best variety and quality of web design tools is a useful comparison to make. Too bad he couldn’t pull that off….
Yeah, all he basically said was “I am used to windows so I like it the best”.
For the specific purpose and given the (peculiar) personal preferences stated, XP does make sense.
For my part, comparing Windows to OS X, I find that the sheer awkwardness and extra steps and inconvenience of nearly everything one needs to do outweighs any edge in CPU speed or software choice. Most Windows software seems designed with usability as an afterthought: IE and Office for Mac may have less capability, but they sure are easier to use (Word 6 wasn’t, and it flopped.)
I had to learn to like OS X (I was a vocal critic at first), but I did; I’ve used Win95 thru Win2K for years and never reached the point of accepting lousy UI design as normal. Admittedly I haven’t bothered to install XP, even for free at work, but I see little sign of improvement there.
I have tried to love Linux, but developing there requires a major investment of time to get past the awkward & inconvenient stage (I do believe in the possibility), for little gain, since Linux desktop apps rarely sell well. I don’t want to write free software as a hobby and do custom versions and tech support for a living.
So for my purposes (application developer, focus on desktop, graphics, crossplatform) maximizing my time on OS X is the pleasantest and most productive choice.
This article really seems to be more flamebait than a constructive comparison of OSes ability to perform web design related tasks.
As someone on here already mentioned, you really can’t say that one OS is best suited for a particular task as unspecific as, say, “web design.” Or graphic design, or desktop publishing, etc. I myself don’t have a preference, I’ve used all three and my experience overall was just about the same. No one stood out as having given me the ULTIMATE USER EXPERIENCE KTHX!!!11
It’s pretty clear after reading the first few paragraphs of this article that the author was already going to pick Windows as the “winner.” And if it WASN’T clear by then, then just scroll down to the “disadvantages” list for Windows. He mentions cost as an issue, which it always is, but if you can afford it, then it isn’t an issue! Oh!! Is THAT how it works? Cost IS an issue for me- I can’t afford Windows XP, so I don’t use it on my own computer. Quite frankly, I find its UI lacking, you can either choose Windows classic, or the default “Luna” theme (also available in olive and silver!!). That’s another disadvantage right there, which I mention strictly because he went on about how OS X’s UI is inspiring and great.
This is article was very clearly a spur of the moment “I’m going to shoot my mouth off” example of poorly researched opinion. I can appreciate opinion, but were this actually a decent article, the author would have included the disclaimer of, “I don’t really know what I’m talking about, and this is really just about how I personally found Windows to be best suited to the tasks that I need to do.”
Just to counter a few of your claims:
The Gimp allows a use to save an image and optimize it for the web, first of all, you can script it to do so
And how is this as good as “out of the box” functionality? Yuo and I could script it, but you have to remember that most computer users use a PC as a tool.
They don’t know about scripting, or about features other than what they use to get their jobs done. You could easily compare most users PC’s to a toolkit containing scissors, paint, drawing pens, and so on.
So to tell the average web developer to script something out (outside of web scripting that is), is to say “part the red sea” to them. They simply don’t get it, and it sounds like too big of a project for them to undertake.
I know… I’m a professional web developer, and while I can come in to work and spout about my other geek skills and exploits, the reality is that my co-workers don’t even know CTRL-N opens a new document in most Windows apps, much less how to use a scripting language to tie different apps together, and/or get different behavior out of their existing apps.
One of my co-workers spent about a half day giggling after I showed them how to create new toolbars in XP and add shortcuts and menus to them in locations other than the Taskbar. And this guy is a certified Lotus Programmer, so it’s not like he’s dumb by any means.
It’s just that he’d never needed such knowledge to do his work before, and no one had ever shown him how to do this. I’ve found the same thing applies to most users: They could script the Gimp together, from a pure “could this be done” standpoint, but they often don’t have the time or inclination to sit down and learn how to do so. they just want to use the tools they know in order to get the job done. Beyond that “box” of knowledge, they’re generally too intimidated, or simply don’t have the time to sit down and learn the skills neccesary to really utilize their boxes.
Thus the success of Windows. “Dumb it down and they will come” should be their mantra.
If they can’t point and click their way to
IE in XP is way too slow
Hmm… Not really. In fact on my new box it’s the most lightweight feeling of the browsers, easily rivalling, or beating Firebird in sheer speed, or at least the perception of speed.
True, I have found that XP and it’s siblings really don’t start to shine until they’ve got at least half a gig of memory, and a 2.4 Ghz or higher PC, but even on my old 1.2 AMD IE 5.5 and 6 run admirably.
On my new 3Ghz box, with a GB of ram, IE simply flies. Now if you had argued overall stability of browsers, I’d have agreed that IE is overall worse than its Mozilla based competitors, but for sheer speed, it’s right at the top once you have a suitable system for it to run on.
Perhaps you’re running too many addons or filters for IE to run at it’s maximum potential?
I would select Panther as my choice, you can get the gimp for panther for a lot less than photoshop.
Can’t argue with you that Windows does cost more than free software. Of course if you can afford a nice Mac to run Panther on, you likely can also afford Photoshop.
On the X86 side of things, you have a point. If you’re a cost-cutting developer, and/or if you prefer the speed/stability of a Linux box, then by all means, try and do it all in Linux and/or open source software. I love Codeweavers, and have used it for a couple of years now. The fact that Photoshop 7 runs under it is great, but it’s still just a workaround for the fact that Photoshop doesn’t have a serious competitor on the Linux side of the fence yet. The Gimp’s nice, and if someone would take its core functions and pump them into a new PS-like GUI, it might stand a chance, but it’s just too different for those considering switching from Photoshop the way it currently is (IMHO).
You have a unix terminal built in, it is clean, stable so much more secure than XP and you are also making a statement by using it
See my “tool” speech above. People other than us geeks don’t want to make a statement with their PC. They simply want to get the most bang for their buck, and want to have something that’s fairly easy to use, and something that gets the job done ASAP.
As for security… It’s a given that XP is the swiss cheese of OS’s (think holes…). Stability, as someone has pointed out, is generally determined by drivers. When properly configured, and with approved drives, XP is very stable.
So for using active perl and unning scripts it is ancient, in my opinion. Use linux or panther for running these scripts, they both make sense.
This is true, however the article was really about web development. Not server administration (which is where you’ll typically apply any Perl or scripting which a web developer creates). For development in Perl or arguably any other scripting language, Windows is sufficient. True, a *nix backend is better for running this kind of stuff on, but for development, you could arguably do it with notepad and an FTP program (develop locally, upload for testing).
Either way, I don’t see it as a reason to not develop on Windows.
My 2 cents…
the only big minus for web development in linux is the fact that there is no flash
Flash runs under Codeweavers. It’s a workaround for no Flash Editor being available in Linux, but it does work!
“The new devel version of gimp totally rocks. And the path tool, which IIRC photoshop does NOT have, is awesome. Hopefully it will be released very soon…”
Photoshop most certainly does have a path command. It’s had one as long as I’ve used it and that goes back to version 2.5. Photoshop didn’t have text on a path until the recent CS package but that’s not the same thing as paths. Photoshop also has vector shapes that are an extension of the path functionality already present in Photoshop.
Photoshop now has 16-bit editing for most of its tools and it’s always had CMYK support as well as good color management built-in. It works seamlessly with Acrobat and nearly all other Adobe applications, making it easy for me to jump back and forth between InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator without having to save out in intermediary, uneditable formats. GIMP cannot do this and for this reason Adobe rules the roost so to speak. You might be happy with GIMP but it would simply fall aprt in a real graphic design production environment, not to mention what might happen when you send your artwork to print.
One nice thing about doing web development on a Mac is that you can preview your pages in almost every web browser in existence.
I can test all the Mac native browsers, plus I have Virtual PC set up with disk images for IE4, IE5, IE5.5, IE6, etc.
GIMP does not use the native OS widgets and if there’s one thing that annoys me above all else is having an app look strikingly different than everything else I’m working with. Make GIMP a native app for OS X and Windows and you might find a few more users tagging along for the ride.
If it does, how does it compare with the Linux version ?
I pesonally use all of them:
To me coding the site and doing the graphics are quite seperate things. Especially with xhtml+css, you can seperate it quite nicely and use the best tool for each.
For coding I have found nothing that comes close to the kde tools. Who cares about ftp programs when all your apps are network transparent. Also many hosts I deal with don’t have ftp anymore due to security issues. Good thing kde can seemlessly use sftp as well. The text editors have all of the syntax highlighting and code folding I know and love. I also get both middle click copying and ctrl-c ctrl-v.
For graphics windows or osx is best. I prefer osx because of it’s interface, but they both will do. But you need photoshop right now. I tried gimp 1.3.22, it is much better than 1.2, but it is still no photoshop. The author also has a good point about vector editing apps.
For testing you need windows and linux or osx. To test on all of the major html engines you need to hit ie-win, ie-mac, gecko, khtml, and opera.
There is no one ultimate solution for everything. Each part of devoloping a website requires different tools. By not tieing yourself to one platform and using the best from each one you make the job much easier for yourself.
My personal opinions on the OS:
1) Any serious developer will not use MacOSX. It is way too late to the game and there is a chance that you will get lackluster support for it. Don’t be surprised if Apple drops support for the server solution in 3-4 years.
2) Linux is the mother of all webservers, basically supporting all web solutions except for Microsoft proprietary ones. Linux is extremely stable and secure, ideal for webservers. It supports development of simpler sites (PHP) to extremely complex sites (JAVA). However, even though it has many good development tools, these are extremely difficult to get a hold of and are pricey.
3) Microsoft does support everything, however it does this poorly. Due to Microsofts integration of their technology to the core of the OS, using anything else is difficult and inneficient. If you are to run your webserver on Windows, your only real choice is to run IIS with asp.net. You can run other stuff on it but to do so would be extremely stupid. ASP.NET is excellent for simpler web pages but falls apart when designing extremely complex sites.
Personally I have had only had 2 BSODS in one year of WinXP operation both caused by WinAmp3 and a GLchess program running at the same time. The fault was purely WinAmp3 which was removed. Other than flaky OpenGL, I have no other problems that haven’t been easily solved through proper and simple end-user maintenance.
As for customablilty, it’s as simple as Linux, all you have to do is download a theme for a theme program of your choice(that’s right you do have a choice on Windows). For example I use Windowblinds(theming), Iconpackager(icon management), and WindowFX(transparencies, shadows, and other FX) from Stardock and have been using those programs since Win98 and Win2K.
As for Linux, it’s overrated(except the 2.6 kernel). The desktop environments in Linux have been around for years and still have not caught up with Win2K’s ease of use feature set. That is not acceptable. Crossover Office is also not an acceptable solution either. What it does is damages the possibility of software companies like Adobe, Macromedia and others porting their software to Linux. It absolves them in not doing so. They have no need to bring a native port their software to Linux with Crossover in existence. The same applies to games and WineX. Without native ports of prominent software titles, the lure of Linux is meager and will only serve as a toy OS as it does on my box. If you disagree, tough S**t its my opinion and my operational fact.
“ASP.NET is excellent for simpler web pages but falls apart when designing extremely complex sites.”
Why do you people always say these things like they are truths that need no evidence to back them up simply because Microsoft technology is being used? ASP.Net is used for large and complex sites or are Microsoft.com and Dell.com not large and complex enough for you? What’s your excuse now?
I can test all the Mac native browsers, plus I have Virtual PC set up with disk images for IE4, IE5, IE5.5, IE6, etc.
It still amazes me that people take for granted that if a page displays properly in IE on Mac, that it will also display properly on its PC counterpart.
This just isn’t true. For any browser.
IE on the Mac displays differently than on the PC. Maybe this isn’t apparent for relatively simply sites, but for complex ones, wherein you’re pulling in a lot of data from different backend systems, you will sometimes run into these issues.
Earlier in this thread someone was touting Mozilla as being 100% compliant. It isn’t.
It’s closer than most browsers out there, but not only isn’t it 100% compliant, but different versioons display differently.
We recently gave up on trying to determine why Mozilla 1.2 was displaying differently than 1.3 on one of our companys pages as there was just no logic to it (We scraped together a simply HTML workaround to it, but were never able to identify one solution that worked 100% correctly in both versions).
I agree that Mozilla should be your first line of testing, but to test on Mozilla and then assume it’ll work on any other browser is laughable. It’ll potentially save you many hours of troubleshooting, and recoding if you test your code on both multiple browsers, multiple versions of those browsers, and preferably, on a couple of different OS’s also.
I’ve spouted about this before, but it blows me away that no one’s coded an “IE compatability” plugin for Mozilla.
At least if someone did create such an optional plugin, it’d make us coders jobs a lot easier. As it is, it’s a balancing act between what works the best on all the platforms, and within all the browsers that your company supports.
Our company’s even gone as far as to buy PC’s for some of our higher producers, rather than try and support their Mac hardware!
I’m not saying I agreed with this approach, but the powers that be determined this was cheaper than paying us developers to code everything in a form which will work with both Macs and PC’s. In this case, it was determined that Macs are such a minority, that it’d be cheaper to replace them than to support them. True story!
“I can test all the Mac native browsers, plus I have Virtual PC set up with disk images for IE4, IE5, IE5.5, IE6, etc.”
It still amazes me that people take for granted that if a page displays properly in IE on Mac, that it will also display properly on its PC counterpart.
Virtual PC is used to run other OSes. There was even an article last week about someone running 55 OSes on their machine. Since Virtual PC was mentioned I doubt IE was running in Mac OS X but rather in Windows.
“Personally I have had only had 2 BSODS in one year of WinXP operation both caused by WinAmp3 and a GLchess program running at the same time.The fault was purely WinAmp3 which was removed.”
Wrong! If XP allowed winamp to crash the system, then it’s XP’s fault! A good OS (UN*X) protects every application from problems caused by some other program running, not affecting the system’s stability.
Come on. MSIE is a freakin’ joke. Nobody should run that unsecure trojan horse, except when you like the fact of open disclosured remote vulnerabilities which can wipe your harddrive among other tricks.
“Doesn’t Gimp run on Windows ?
By Darius (IP: —.dmotorworks.com) – Posted on 2003-12-19 21:14:20
If it does, how does it compare with the Linux version ?”
It does. If you’d have went to the site and then clicked on download you’d have noticed this, as well as notices about GIMP + Win32 stability on the site in question. Here’s the official site: http://www.gimp.org
Disclaimer: I am not more than a hobby programmer, but in my limited experience, I have learned this- it IS possible for applications to crash the system, even in a protected memory environment. Stated again, it IS possible for applications to crash the system in a protected memory environment. One application’s crash will not bring down the whole system, but applications that access frameworks which talk to hardware such as the OpenGL framework, and do not follow the programming guidelines of the operating system developer risk jeopardizing the stability of the system. The application will not crash the system directly, but it could provoke a video card driver to flip out, and crash the system, for example. This is also true on a UNIX/Linux/Darwin etc. system. Of course, you could move the OpenGL implementation to userspace, but that would severly hinder, completely negate, or even reverse the performance benefits of putting such frameworks in kernelspace. This was a big point of contention with (I believe) Windows 2000. W2k was the first NT to move graphics into kernelspace, and many people feared that system stability would be negatively affected. W2k proved to be one of the most stable WinNT implementations to date.
Anyway, my point is that prodding ANY system in the wrong way will expose design flaws, bugs, and security holes. EVEN IF the operating system has been written with no flaws (a practical impossibility,) letting loose/bad code run in special modes is a recipe for disaster.
Unless you have no kernel, and run one program at a time on punch card systems, there is always a possibility that one application would crash others.
Oh, and with device drivers, all bets are off.
“Wrong! If XP allowed winamp to crash the system, then it’s XP’s fault! A good OS (UN*X) protects every application from problems caused by some other program running, not affecting the system’s stability.”
Good point. Gates like to blame Windows crashes on Third Party Software, but if it were not for that Third Party Software, of what use would Windows be? None whatsoever.
One application’s crash will not bring down the whole system, but applications that access frameworks which talk to hardware such as the OpenGL framework, and do not follow the programming guidelines of the operating system developer risk jeopardizing the stability of the system.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
If an application can crash the OS, its because of a bug in the OS. For example, the app can give a system call bad parameters which the kernel doesn’t check properly. If that’s the case, its a fault in the kernel.
This is also true on a UNIX/Linux/Darwin etc. system. Of course, you could move the OpenGL implementation to userspace, but that would severly hinder, completely negate, or even reverse the performance benefits of putting such frameworks in kernelspace.
>>>>>>>>>>
OpenGL generally isn’t in kernelspace. In the DRI (Linux’s OpenGL model) there is a small driver (the DRM) that managed low-level things like interrupts and sending command buffers to hardware. The vast majority of the OpenGL subsystem is in userspace.
This was a big point of contention with (I believe) Windows 2000. W2k was the first NT to move graphics into kernelspace,
>>>>>>>>>>
NT4 was the first NT to move graphics into kernel space.
and many people feared that system stability would be negatively affected. W2k proved to be one of the most stable WinNT implementations to date.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Win2k was one of the most stable NT implementations, but NT4, the one where they moved graphics into kernel space, was much less stable than NT 3.x, where it was in userspace.
If an application can crash the OS, its because of a bug in the OS. For example, the app can give a system call bad parameters which the kernel doesn’t check properly. If that’s the case, its a fault in the kernel.
>>>>>>>>>
This is true. BUT, my point was that people think that protected memory means that any program can do anything, in any way, and only risk crashing itself. NOT true.
//////////////
OpenGL generally isn’t in kernelspace. In the DRI (Linux’s OpenGL model) there is a small driver (the DRM) that managed low-level things like interrupts and sending command buffers to hardware. The vast majority of the OpenGL subsystem is in userspace.
>>>>>>>>>
Ahh, yes. I stand corrected. However, there are large bugs, and design flaws in every system (software and otherwise,) and the point stands that if you throw a match into a pile of loose, dry hay, there’s going to be a fire.
/////////////
Win2k was one of the most stable NT implementations, but NT4, the one where they moved graphics into kernel space, was much less stable than NT 3.x, where it was in userspace.
>>>>>>>>>
Thank you for your correction again. This point, however, strengthens my point that no system is flawless, and that writing well-designed software is HARD, and sometimes it takes several tries to get it right. Some software needs to be in kernelspace for technical, or practical reasons, and regardless, if any work is to be done on the machine, some code needs to run on the hardware, and many times, that code needs to interface with userspace, and therein will the weaknesses in certain abstractions be revealed. ALL systems have weaknesses all over the place; all have problems, only SOME have more problems than others.
I do think that we are saying basically the same thing in different words. If you differ in opinion, let me know.
“Why do you people always say these things like they are truths that need no evidence to back them up simply because Microsoft technology is being used? ASP.Net is used for large and complex sites or are Microsoft.com and Dell.com not large and complex enough for you? What’s your excuse now?”
I say things like this because they are truths. ASP.NET does not have the design elegance of J2EE. It does not promote proper design and security. It promotes the use of a mismash of Windows Proprietary OS system calls, Stored Procedures, and ASP Code. Hence, as the projects get more complex, they get much more difficult to manage.
The GIMP lacks cymk color matching, which will be remedied soon but until then then, The GIMP is not suited for print media but besides that, it rocks 🙂
By far the most common cause of a BSOD is a *driver* crash (e.g. your driver flips out under stress, improper support for multiple processors, lousy QA), and the next most common is a hardware fault (bad memory, weird non-conformant chipsets etc.)
Since MS introduced their latest generation of Dr Watson technology, they’ve gathered some interesting stats on graphics driver related crashes which they published at WinHEC and PDC. They worked with the graphics card manufacturers to help them improve the quality of their drivers (some of which were notorious!), and they’ve vastly reduced the total number of crashes as a result.
As a result of further analysis of these results (amongst other things), they’ve worked out some additional things they can do for a next-gen driver model in Longhorn, to improve both performance and reliability.
If an app crashes the OS then it’s the OS’ fault, eh? Then put Red Hat Linux up on that cross. I have put up four Linux boxes here at the house on spare PCs over the last few years (along with the BeOS) when I had time to tinker. The last one was Red Hat 5.2 which took me about 2 weeks of spare time to configure the way I wanted it. Then one evening I decide to fire up the KDE desktop and look at some of the programs. One of the apps (can’t even remember what it was now) locked up the system tight as a tick. No keyboard, no mouse. So I had to finally hit the power switch. When it rebooted, it spewed fschk messages for a couple of minutes and then finally reported something like “No operating system found on this partition”. Subsequent reboots gave the same result. That was the end of Linux at my house as far as I was concerned.
Before everyone cranks up their poison keyboards to fire off nasty-grams, tell it to the sys admins where I work who’ve been dealing with several yo-yo RHAS clusters that have been crippling production at our facility for the last week (so nice right before Christmas!) – these are clusters built by a team of RH consultants (for which we paid BIG bucks). I heard our senior engineer muttering something today about “memory fork” and “slab error” before exclaiming that he’d give anything for a nice stable BSD or even HP-UX box.
Our group’s Win2K AS cluster running SQL Server 2K EE (on Dell hardware I might add) has been up and running since it was installed las t spring. So all in all, I remain unconvinced about Linux’ vaunted stability and reliability. I don’t doubt that many folks are getting a lot of mileage out of it – but our experience has shown me otherwise.
Oh, and I’ve been using XP Pro since RC1 at home for gaming, programming, surfing, image manipulation and music creation (in my studio) with no OS crashes. I’ve had several apps go south but XP keeps rocking.
But my first love is and was the BeOS (R.I.P.).
I only had two crashs on Win NT4-NTFS and another one on Win 2000-NTFS. I runned NT 4 heavelly for years and plenty of software (like with 2000 now). I really don’t understand why some people insist on this, it makes this people look stupid.
_________________
If you want to get more creative on the Graphical side Linux is not an option today.
I almost never had a diferent new ideia when quickly writing a page with GIMP and Linux Mozilla-Composer. Mac OS X looks too colored for me, distracting.
OTH, if you are making some web app (Python, MySQL) Linux really can make you get going in less time.
_____________________
I find it strange that the author didn’t use a minimal decent layout, for a web designer, not even a table aligned to the left. Huu.
(I’m going to delete the author site cookie now).
Is CD packet writing software
Other than that, rock solid. Only 1 BSOD in two and a half years.
The author’s conclusions for a designer (meaning creating graphics) may or may not be accurate (in spite of the fact that he obviously doesn’t know that much about The GIMP), but I strongly disagree regarding Windows as a web development platform.
When I hear tools like Fireworks, Photoshop, Illustrator, and the like, I think of graphic design. Not web development.
When it comes to writing code, unix-like platforms have a lot over Windows in my opinion. For one thing, a unix-like platform has much better scripting options for doing plain CGI programming, and the unix architecture is far superior to Windows at handling things like CGI (search google or take an OS design class if you don’t know what I mean).
The open source arena also has good content management systems, such as Zope and OpenACS. These either don’t run on Windows, or don’t run very well.
Anyway, to each their own, but as one who actually develops web applications (meaning writing code, not drawing pictures), I think Windows, while good, simply isn’t the best.
It would seem to me if you are one who both codes and draws, then the platform of choice would have to be OS X.
“As a result of further analysis of these results (amongst other things), they’ve worked out some additional things they can do for a next-gen driver model in Longhorn, to improve both performance and reliability.”
Translation: Microsoft realized that companies learned how to write drivers so that they can easily be changed to support Linux. As a result, they decided to change the specifications and blame it on stability problems.
(About GIMP)
If it does, how does it compare with the Linux version ?
It runs with a few flaws (fonts are not very well antialiased, for example) but it is very usable to slash/slice graphics quite effectively. Remember to install the GTK lib for windows.
If you have pleasure on design with web pages spend $100 and buy the latest version of Namo Web Editor. You have a very handy database wizard, very nice code cleaning (on html text mode) and you get: an included (basic) vector drawing software (Web Canvas), a slicing app and a good screenshot app too; and it uses few PC ressources.
http://www.namo.com
This has been my favorite for ~1 year now (and I could use Dreamweaver and, herr… FrontPage if I wanted).
>The GIMP lacks cymk color matching, which will
>be remedied soon
Interesting. How are they going to add CMYK color systems support, when many of these (if not all) are patented? Munsell, Pantone etc?
I also guess that GIMP doesn’t support LAB color space, which is quite important in RGB/CMYK conversions.. or maybe with LCMS?
>besides that, it rocks 🙂
But .. it doesn’t.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s nice proggy for swapping heads in family photos and doing logos for your website. And for majority of people out there it is better than PS since it’s free and does most of the job.
But it severely lacks behind PS in _pro_ features like fast minimum-click user interface which still takes as little real screen estate as possible, the afore-mentioned CMYK, good brushes (GIMP has artifacts) and other handy stuff, like adjustment layers and history brush.
I use PS at school with calibrated monitors and separations printer and GIMP at home, on FBSD. I have used both for years and GIMP is not a winner.
_pro_ features like fast minimum-click user interface which still takes as little real screen estate as possible
I am a bit of a fan of GIMP too.
This screen space and one minimum-click fast access to feature/tool is *much* better on the new GIMP (still in dev) version. Try it and you will see.
Clinton wrote:
“When I hear tools like Fireworks, Photoshop, Illustrator, and the like, I think of graphic design. Not web development.”
Just because you think of them as such, doesn’t make it true (unless you live in your little world… could happen
).
Fireworks, as pretty much every Macromedia app is made for the web. And where do you think those graphics that appear on websites come from? Illustrator, photoshop, freehand, etc.
Also, web development is not just code! You forget about things like Flash or Shockwave.
As for the Gimp vs Photoshop debate, let’s get one thing straight. Are we comparing Pros or not? Because I read people here complaining that Photoshop is for pros (not web pros apparently) and most people don’t need that, and then say that they, who are Pros, code by hand and don’t use Dreamweaver because it’s just eye candy!
Could some real webgraphic artists with at least 3 years of professional experience in Image Editing come forward and say that Gimp is all they need? I would really like to know.
Sorry about the bad english.
Gein
http://validator/w3.org/
>This screen space and one minimum-click fast access
>to feature/tool is *much* better on the new GIMP
>(still in dev) version. Try it and you will see.
Version 1.3.23 and counting
Yes, 1.3 is _much_ better than 1.2 and it has come a long way. It is still not a PS-killer
>As for the Gimp vs Photoshop debate
I would say most (well, almost all) graphic designers prefer PS over any other image editing software. PS is a standard for raster work.
GIMP is okay for raster work, as long as you don’t need to do preprint. It can’t do some stuff PS can, and it is clumsier and slower to work with, but if put some more work in to it you can get comparable stuff.
If I would do only web graphics I could do it with only GIMP. But rather not.
Just because you think of them as such, doesn’t make it true (unless you live in your little world… could happen
).
I understand what you are saying, but I do not consider the creation of graphics to be “web development”, but rather “graphic design”. I don’t consider Flash to be development either. Shockwave, perhaps.
Fireworks, as pretty much every Macromedia app is made for the web. And where do you think those graphics that appear on websites come from? Illustrator, photoshop, freehand, etc.
I’m aware where the graphics come from; graphic designers.
Also, web development is not just code! You forget about things like Flash or Shockwave.
Flash is quite similar to video editing, and I don’t consider either one to be “development”. Shockwave is scriptable, so if you are talking about writing scripts in Shockwave, fine.
As for the Gimp vs Photoshop debate…
If you will re-read what I said, I never said The GIMP was a replacement for Photoshop. I don’t think it is. In fact, the only thing I said about The GIMP was that the author made some statements that show he’s not all that familiar with it.
Sorry about the bad english.
Gein
Don’t worry about the English, it’s better than my Portuguese.
Anyway, my only point, which I still feel is a valid one, is that since Linux, BSD, OS X, etc. have better tools for writing web code and better platforms for serving that code (Apache, Zope, OpenACS, JBoss, etc.), and because they architecturally are better at handling things like CGI, they would be MY platforms of choice over Windows for doing any kind of programming. Also, if you are going to do graphic design (call it what you like) then since OS X supports Photoshop, etc. AND also the great programming tools, then it, more than Windows, should be, in my opinion, the “best tool for the job”.
“Flash is quite similar to video editing, and I don’t consider either one to be “development”. Shockwave is scriptable, so if you are talking about writing scripts in Shockwave, fine.”
And ActionScript is what exactly? Flash can be scripted to create some rather dynamic sites in terms of content and interactivity. Flash is very much web development as is designing the site look and feel. Development is a process of which coding is merely one stage.
By the way, Flash is not very similar to video editing. Both have timelines but that’s where much of the similarity stops. Sure, one could do some video like work in Flash but to compare Flash to NLEs says to me that you are talking out of your ass.
it’s a very popular phrase.
i see many non-zealots use that phrase to backup their position of not taking a side.
i can see their point of view(as an ex-MS admin, now a linux/unix admin)
but in the end, here’s my thought:
EVERYONE want’s the best tool for the job. so stating that is almost like stating the obvious. if i took an xp user, and dropped linux in front of them, and from personal experience, that xp user now has conclusive proof that linux is better at a particular job…then it’s a no-brainer.
the problem is, it’s a terribly difficult thing to know what the job is, to know what the best tool for that job is, and to know if that tool is also the tool that you can work the most efficiently with.
e.g. i need to get to new york from dallas. the best tool for the job is a lear jet. I CAN’T FLIPPING FLY A LEAR JET…and I HAVE $100 TO MY NAME. it seems the best tool for the job is a bus ticket…on sale…not the lear.
turn the example to computers, and i really doubt that most people who use the phrase “best tool for the job” are really smart enough to have all the facts and make a sound decision.
to end my story: i hear that phrase being used more and more often as a fall back defense to prevent someone’s decision being questioned.
i’m not saying that’ what eugenia has done. i don’t agree with the xp thing. but she does have some broad experience that would giver her a certain amount of experience.
anyone still reading at this point needs to go watch rotk, get a life or something 😉
THe core question was/is
“comparing them to find the ideal operating system for web design”
Webdesign? in general?, PHP ASP? Flash? Graphics? All?
THe clear winner is Linux because:
1. Its can run all the apps you need (including Dreamweaver and PS)
2. It has some very nice tools you can use for free, and are almost always pre-installed (fi. bluefish, gimp, quanta)
3. its stable
4. its virus/trojan/backdoor resistense
5. its free
6. its fun
The are two kind off webdesigners:
1. people that know how to code
2. people that know how to do graphics
1 + 2 = superb team
“Translation: Microsoft realized that companies learned how to write drivers so that they can easily be changed to support Linux. As a result, they decided to change the specifications and blame it on stability problems.”
What you mean companies acctually write Drivers for Linux!
“GIMP is okay for raster work, as long as you don’t need to do preprint. It can’t do some stuff PS can, and it is clumsier and slower to work with, but if put some more work in to it you can get comparable stuff.”
You could get the same stuff from MS paint but slower and clumsier with more work but I’m not going to do it.
Why do people keep spouting BS about NT kerenl based versions of windows if you have a stablity problem you either have doggey drivers or doggy cheap hardware. Why should a PC you paid a pittence for be expected to be as stable as a machine built wisely from quality hardware?
The article was actually called “Best OS for Web Design and Development” and the entire weblog is called “Best Tool For the Job.”
The point of the article was to compare multiple OS’s and see which one came out on top in all-around versatility, not just for graphics or writing code. It was not, however, to compare the best OS for serving up websites. I use Linux and open software exclusively on the server (as mentioned in the article).
I use a 1.6ghz G5 Mac at work, an XP Laptop at home, a Debian fileserver in my closet and a Redhat server for most of my websites. I love all three OS’s but when you chalk up the advantages and versatility of all of each of them, including where more apps run natively and where the work environment is most efficient, in my opinion, Windows comes out on top.
Ok, as I see many few people here post messages with their opinions about the real topic. I am a Graphic designer also I do HTML and Javascript coding and a little Php. To be honest for all my work I use windows. Why? Because apps are for Windows. I can clearly swith to Linux right now for good if Macromedia ported their apps to linux. I haven’t touched any of Adobe programs I don’t need them. Most of the time I use Fireworks, Flash, Dreamweaver and TopStyle pro.
Now let me write down things I don’t like about linux for web design and development.
Gimp vs Fireworks: Gimp really rocks but it has nearly no web tools. They include slicing, hotspot tools, working path tool (very important) and live and vector effects. Also I am too fan of the ‘gray box’ because it helps me concentrate on my work not on my desktop. I have prayed many times to include a Gconf key to be able to start Gimp in container window and I always got bashed by Gimp users and developers saying that MacOS X Photoshop uses this technique so this is the best or something like get a better window manager. This really sucks. I think Gimp is not for web graphics. It can do that stuff but the time needed to complete that task on Gimp is far more than on Fireworks for me. And this is not a good productivity. I really don’t need Photoshop for my web work. Fireworks does that all.
Flash in Linux: this is pain in back everyone knows that. Unfortunately we don’t have any sollution other than running it under wine (slow and buggy) or wait for original port.
Vector apps in Linux: OK, inkskape is ok but it is very basic. Punch/crop/intersect and union are the things I use the most and they are not available with that app. I have yet to find out the way to run Freehand or Illustrator on linux. I’ve seen some screenshots (Jimmac) of Illustrator running but the fact that Jimmac uses Illustrator for his icon work tells me that the linux alternatives are far behind
Dreamweaver and Linux: Actually this situation is quite good. DW runs OK under wine. I think DW gets worse and worse after every version. It claims to have the best CSS WYSIWYG support but open one page that uses CSS efficiently in Mozilla composer and in DW to see the differences. Mozilla wins hands down. I think if Mozilla composer had a good property inspector and good CSS editor it would do the job easily.
Well I think that’s it. So I’ll stick to winsows until Macromedia realises the Linux community in this area just like Opera software did.
–Metin
Flash for Linux:
http://f4l.sourceforge.net/
It is alpha version, but this project began Jule of 2003!!!
there is one, in early stage:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ming
Many comments seem to reflect the opinions of hobby programmers in this discussion. The earlier comment about asp.net only suitability for simple development shows a clear lack of knowledge.
In complex site development, the fact about backend solutions is that it depends on how much backend stuff your company or employer already have. If you have lots of Java backend components or servlets your choice would be J2EE based. If you use windows infrastructure ASP.NET would be a good solution.
PHP is an amazing piece of free sofware but it’s not comparable to ASP.NET or J2EE, it’s more comparable to the earlier generations like ASP 2.0. CGI is showing it’s age in my opinion, I can’t see any reason to go with CGI in advanced development since PHP, ASP.NET and JSP exist.
For the technical part of web development the platform is not important as the only necessary pice of software is a good editor for the language you develop in. This is because in an environment like this you will have a separate testing server anyhow. For the graphical part you need an OS that run your graphical applications, it’s as simple as that.
I switched from Windows to Linux/KDE because of network transparency.
There is no good way to edit anything straight of a server in XP. KDE works on them as if they were local…
The only problem I find when working under linux for web dev is that I can’t really test right away on IE. (I don’ t have WINE)
You name several and compare them. Photoshop, PSP, FlashMX and DreamWeaver run well with WINE.
Which other SVG/vecor graphics programs have you tried besides Inkscape (written with c, not k)? Have you tried GIMP 1.3.x? What else?
Here’s Inkscape’s roadmap: http://www.inkscape.org/roadmap.php Blender has SVG support too btw.
Here you can read how well Illustrator should run with WINE:
http://appdb.winehq.com/appbrowse.php?catId=19 it contains info about Freehand too.
By the way, Flash is not very similar to video editing. Both have timelines but that’s where much of the similarity stops. Sure, one could do some video like work in Flash but to compare Flash to NLEs says to me that you are talking out of your ass.
Video editing can be scripted too, depending on what applications you use. I would expect someone who proclaims familiarity with both arts to know this.
I would NOT consider this, or Flash scripting “programming” or “web development”. If you do, fine. I don’t, anymore than I consider writing macros in Word “development” or “programming”.
I identified my personal definitions of “development” and “graphic design” you’re welcome to do the same. I think most corporations would agree with me though, since a “graphic designer” using Flash, Shockwave, Photoshop, Illustrator, and all those other graphic applications generally earns about half of what a “web developer” using Java, .NET, Apache, Perl, Python, etc. earns.
I still think the author’s article is “graphic design” centric and doesn’t have much to do with development. If you feel otherwise, fine, but don’t come to debate the matter with me using incomplete information and purile insults.
pity,
the newest wine (one from december) handles MSIE 6.0 sp1 very well
how to make it work:
http://frankscorner.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=i…
I think most OS’s are just fine for web development and graphics design, depending on your needs. As for coding, I can technically do that just as well on any OS, though windows is a bit troublesome when it comes to actually testing the code. So I usually have a development server which I’m able to work on no matter where I am or which OS I use. All systems has great text editors with built in FTP-support, so it’s all pretty transparent.
As for graphics design for the web. I can’t for anything in the world understand why you’d want to use an application like Photoshop or The GIMP when there’s applications like Fireworks around. These little apps are great even at the sketching-stage. I never sketch on paper or something these days, I just make everything in fireworks, because it’s so much easier. Image editors like PS and the like are just a pain in the ass to make web graphics with. Anyone who has ever tried object oriented semi-vector apps like fireworks probably agrees with this.
HOWEVER, one important espect is how productive and creative you are in the different environments that the operating systems provide. Personally I hate working in windows, whenever I see windows it just takes every bit of creativity out of me and leaves me in a state of boredom. So usually, I just do my stuff in Fireworks and get out of there ASAP, because that environment just makes me sad. Linux is a lot better but it could also be a pain in the butt to manage. Just like in windows, the OS itself takes your mind away from the creative process too much to be bareable.
I can’t speak for OSX, cause I haven’t worked with it long enough to say. It feels rather nice though, but the hardware has been to pricey for me so it’s not an option in this house.
The OS where I work most comfortably is still BeOS. It just has the perfect environment for me. It’s built to get things done. OS-related stuff usually takes no time to fix and you can go on with your project right away. Everything is so comfortable in BeOS. The main disadvantage for me is that BeOS lacks a good fireworks-like app. It has E-Picture, but it’s dated and buggy. But BeOS makes me feel relaxed, and I work so much better in that environment, so I use it for everything but the graphics.
So, the best solution FOR ME, is to make the graphics in windows, then do the rest of the development using BeOS on the desktop and Linux on the server. But it’s just so highly individual. It all depends on your need and your personality.
In the midst of all the GIMPvsPS flames, I present you with the WIMP GTK theme which makes GTK bearable on windows. http://gtk-wimp.sourceforge.net/screenshots/
Also, GIMP 1.3 and GTK 2 binaries are now available for windows. Get them at http://www2.arnes.si/~sopjsimo/gimp/unstable.html
Also, get abiword 2 for windows at http://www.abisource.com/download/
“Many comments seem to reflect the opinions of hobby programmers in this discussion. The earlier comment about asp.net only suitability for simple development shows a clear lack of knowledge.”
Wrong. I have plenty knowledge of ASP.NET. The fact is that it promotes bad programming habits that raise scalability and security concerns. In addition, the coding style is purely ugly and any developer who takes pride in design will simply quit before using ASP.NET. Answer these two questions, how many web sites have you made without SQL stored procedures and how easy is it to switch your database? I rest my case.
I already bashed this idiot on his website but I feel the need to repeat my criticism here: Professional designers (web and print) use at least two monitors, period (why do you think all current pro-level Macs come with dual-monitor cards as a standard feature?). Mac software developers know this. Therefore, ALL professional design app interfaces on the Apple are optimized for multiple monitor setups. If you compare one of these apps (Photoshop, Illustrator, Macromedia stuff, etc.) in a single monitor environment on Windows and Mac, you will inevitably find that the Windows versions work better. If you use multiple monitors, you will find the opposite to be true. If you use a single monitor for graphic design, you are a hobbyist. If you were a professional designer you would 1) understand that you *need* two or more monitors and 2) have enough money to afford a second monitor because you are a working professional with a decent income. Re-run your “4-year experiment” with 2 monitors and let us know how things work out.
Professional designers (web and print) use at least two monitors, period
Now that’s complete BS. Of the 32 pro designers I know (and can think of) 5 of them are using dual monitors(even on large companies such as IKEA). Some of them are using very large monitors though, but that’s a different story.
If site depends on database or/and LDAP, Linux has big
advantage since most common servers are part of every
distribution.
The same goes for PHP and possibly other scripting languages
that can be used for particular tasks.
I’d like to recommend great ‘Bluefish’ editor/IDE, too.
DG
I failed to tear apart Marcus’s support of Windows as the “best tool” for web *development*. Let me start by saying that if you’re planning to deploy your web app on a Windows server then, by all means, stick with Windows for development. For those of us with a clue who deploy on UNIX servers, the Windows environment introduces severe handicaps. First, Marcus mentioned that Apache, PHP and MySQL run on Windows so it’s possible to set up a development environment on your Windows workstation. Well, at the professional level (is there a theme here?), an app might actually use mcrypt or one of the other PHP libraries that are not available for Windows. An app might also extend beyond AMP (as many of mine do) and utilize Perl, shell scripts, or tight integration with a mail server (e.g. piping incoming mail to a custom processing script). If my mail server doesn’t run on Windows, I’m out of luck. What if I need to compile from source to enable an option or apply a patch to my development environment to match my server environment? Out of luck (don’t talk to me about Cygwin). What about UNIX/Windows differences in PHP’s Apache environment variables? My apps actually use them. What if I use PostgreSQL? Do I want to waste time trying to get the experimental Windows port to work vs. simply reproducing the steps I took to set it up on the production server? No, I do not. I have real work to do. I could go on for days with real and hypothetical brick walls you will run into trying to set up a UNIX development environment on Windows, but I think I’ve said enough to make the point that, obviously, there are big, big differences between the platforms and once you reach beyond the most common applications and techniques, you will be bitten while trying to pretend that Windows is UNIX.
Now let’s talk about development tools. I don’t know about you, but my main tool is a text editor. I used UltraEdit for quite a while on Windows and Quanta for a year on Linux when it was my only workstation OS. BBEdit puts them both to shame. Both in terms of power and ease-of-use. There are obviously tons of editors on Windows and while you are entitled to your preferences, I have yet to see or hear of one that could be called “better” than BBEdit in any way. Next, FTP/SFTP client. Used and liked BulletProof on Windows and gFTP on Linux. Transmit on the Mac is the best of both. Also, when you’re going UNIX to UNIX, as on a Mac workstation / UNIX server, you generally have no need for ASCII/BINARY mode headaches. Everything goes in binary mode and you get no surprises. You can reliably compare file sizes at a glance and rest assured that no file mutilation has occurred during transfer. Also, is there even a pro-quality free or cheap SFTP client available on Windows (I haven’t checked for a while)?
If you prefer graphics apps on Windows you are, as stated, probably using a single monitor. I’ll take my dual-monitor Mac any day. Linux of course doesn’t have most pro apps available. What else? SSH client. Yes, putty is OK but you run into character set translation and terminal type compatibility issues. These are generally not an issue in an all-UNIX environment. Well, that my analysis. Mac wins as a web development workstation on every count. Try it, you’ll never go back.
“Video editing can be scripted too, depending on what applications you use. I would expect someone who proclaims familiarity with both arts to know this.”
A quick search of Avid, Adobe, Sonic Foundry, and Apple NLEs came up with no scripting of the media timeline. Perhaps you meant Post production compositiing apps like Shake, After Effects, Flint, Flame and Combustion, just to name a few, are scriptable? I won’t argue with that but if you use any of these for video editing then you need to have your head examined. They are great for adding effects to shots in post but they suck when used as NLEs.
Flash is a development environment because of the end result. You are typically creating interactive pieces which require scripting to make this happen. It can be every bit as involved as coding HTML, ASP and PHP and it can be stupidly simple as can be HTML, ASP and PHP pages. It’s all development regardless of the amount of work.
While probably not suitable for most proffesional applications, no one has mentioned the Java application DrawSWF which is capable of producing simple flash animations.
It is GPL and has the nicest UI I have seen in a Java app.