It’s been a week. A week since Windows decided it didn’t like me being consistently productive. After 4-5 BSOD‘s (blue screen’s of death…or the Win10 equivalent) in one week it was time to make a change – well?
Markus has been using Ubuntu for the entire time I’ve known him – why was it so hard for me to make the leap? Adobe – that’s what. They haven’t produced a Linux version of their software…what…ever? Clearly there is a demand – Ubuntu/Linux is widely used as a web development/app development platform and the rift between code and UI is so intertwined these days that having two systems to produce one end result seems…inefficient.
The projection side of the business (Capital Projection Services) has been well taken care of by Markus’ various computers for decoding/encoding, creating slides for pre-shows etc. All stuff that can be done with a competent editor in Ubuntu (GIMP) or video tool. The low overhead of Ubuntu gives heavy CPU load programs like a video encoder more resources when it is doing its job as well.
So why was it so hard for me to decide to switch it up?
Adobe.
On the web side, we deal with Adobe Illustrator files, Adobe Photoshop files, Adobe InDesign layouts and even video editing as well (Adobe Premiere). They exist purely because they are the industry standards for shops our size – and that gives Adobe the fortitude it needs to exist on two operating systems (Windows and Mac)…because people don’t want to upset the apple cart and use something different.
Otherwise, I have virtually recreated my entire environment program for program on Ubuntu and run a crumby Oracle VirtualBox VM with Windows 10 on it for Adobe products – which doesn’t support host system video card pass-through so I constantly run out of VRAM and I wouldn’t even DARE try to run Premiere on it. Heck, most of the other stuff we do are already online tools (Google Docs, etc) – easy transition there!
I’ll give an update after 30 days but so far…not looking back.