Life with a Linux machine... - DPChallenge Forums

Pentax DA 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AF

04/20/2005 10:37:00 AM · #1

A question popped up in another thread about how life with a Linux machine is these days, so I thought it would best served with its own thread. As a disclaimer, I'm a UNIX systems engineer, so believe completely in the underlying philosophy of UNIX. Maybe a bias, but I consider it a professional opinion as I've spent plenty time with both Mac and Windows.

The catch is, the most wonderfully designed operating system is useless without application software on top of it that accomplished what you need. There lies the challenge for Linux. The good news is that as a general desktop, Linux far exceeds the stability and functionality of my Windows 2000 and Windows XP laptops. By general I mean things like web surfing, email, word processing, spreadsheet, and so on.

Specific to photography, we have a lot more options these days in terms of applications. There are some great image browsers available, but RAW support is not intuitive. In many cases it requires patching, or hacking to get into place. Although I'm a computer professional, in a photography context I tend to look at "out of the box" as being the only realistic functionality to review. Most photographers aren't going to recompile their software and reintegrate it into their desktop environment.

Color management is an gaping hole in Linux photography. We have a slowly developing embryo known as LittleCMS (aka lcms). It is at the heart of a desktop publishing tool called Scribus, but has not yet made its way into mainstream apps without some degree of hacking. With some programming you can get profile support, but you quickly run into a chicken and egg scenario.

There is no linux support for modern calibration pucks. Your only option is to use the tools in Windows, then copy their profiles over to Linux. It sort of works, but if you calibrate because you need to, then you probably know that different video drivers respond differently. Using a calibration tool in Windows is not the same thing as doing it in Linux. It's an "almost there" solution. I don't mean to attack it, but I recognize it as an evolutionary step rather than a finished product.

GIMP is still the editor to beat in Open Source. It's still lacking 16 bit support, and some of Photoshop's layering operations, but overall is an insanely powerful tool with astounding potential. You can get into nit pick comparisons all you want. Some people learned the Photoshop interface, other learned GIMP. In the end what matters is the finished product. I have learned to be very effective with GIMP, and am starting to dig into its command line scripting. I can actually write shell scripts that apply batch processing to a bunch of images using GIMP's functions. In my mind this goes WAY past Photoshop actions. GIMP isn't there yet, but with a few evolutionary leaps, I believe Adobe will be forced to make major price concessions to stay competitive. Bottom line with editors is that if you don't need to do major editing, the 8 bit constraint won't bite you. But, it's not as clean technically as a longer 16-bit workflow.

Outside the Open Source space lies the only commericial photography tool I've found for Linux: Bibble. This tool has a bit of a learning curve, as do all professional grade raw converters. But, its output quality is phenominal, speed is impressive, and once you "get it", the workflow efficiency is one of the best available.

Printing is not where it ought to be to be competitive. You can find third party tools for Quadtone RIP, and color managed printing, but you have to integrate them. Any time you break something as fundamental as printing on a Linux workstation there will be implications if you don't know what you're doing. GIMP Print does a good job, but doesn't leverage the more advanced and proprietary capabilities of today's printers. If you want a quick proof sheet, Linux won't let you down. If you want to sell fine art prints from your latest and greatest Epson or Canon, then go to MPix, DPCPrints, or Whcc.com.

I still use Linux exclusively for my photography because I work hard to make images in my camera, and do minimal editing after the fact. This has probably improved my photography overall, but I did have to change my technique. I use Bibble for my cropping, resampling, levels, curves, etc. GIMP is only brought up to bat when I need a minor rotation or dust speck cloning, and an occasional final sharpening of a thumbnail. I've spend inordinate amounts of time visually calibrating my monitor. That time would have been worth the cost of a calibration tool in a heartbeat, but the end result is that I can produce good quality work.

Linux has its strengths and weaknesses, but if my budget wasn't allocated to new glass right now I'd be looking seriously at a Mac workstation. I'd rather spend my time behind the camera than the keyboard. If you enjoy both equally (as I used to) then you can merge two highly technical hobbies and have a lot of fun with free software.

If I had to pick one area where linux has the best fit in photography it would be a field laptop. I can use an older Pentium (I use a Thinkpad T23) to d/l images from my camera, and easily use the much larger screen to asess the keeprs and tossers. I can then caption them in the field using Bibble / IPTC. When I get home I sync it with my image server, and do the fine editing and create print masters. That's a much cheaper solution than a Powerbook or high end Win XP laptop.

I dont' recommend NOT using Linux for photography, but I recommend surveying the water depth before you jump. A JPEG only workflow can be very well served for extremely low cost. When you start worrying about color management and Raw workflows, it gets more challenging and is probably not ideal.

Hope this helps anyone who's been curious!

saracat

Pentax K10D

04/20/2005 10:47:55 AM · #2

Thanks for the info. I've been using Xandros and Mandrake for a while & am about to go to Linspire. Any major drawbacks to Linspire that you know of?
Also, I can't figure out how to use the cloning tool in GIMP. Any help would be appreciated!
Sara
(edit - spelling)

Message edited by author 2005-04-20 10:48:28.

04/20/2005 10:52:50 AM · #3

You mention integration, and that's probably the key issue here. I also work on Linux now, but as I'm getting a powerbook (which is getting OSX/Ubuntu dual boot), I will probably work in OS X with my photography.

Color management is maybe the biggest lack here, as there are no integrated tools to do the job properly. Also, as you say, GIMP is very powerful, but lacks some key features that Photoshop has - adjustment layers, 16-bit colors, things like that make Photoshop way superior, because they are important features. Not nescessarily to the final result in every case, but to the workflow. Color management touches both, and lacks in the OS and GIMP itself on Linux.

Raw conversion isn't any better in Photoshop, as Adobe uses dcraw too, which is the same that the now-excellent UFRaw GIMP plugin does. On the other hand, the GIMP plugin is still not very well integrated with the rest of your work flow, and I find myself doing lots of work in the terminal to get things together properly. But you're right, GIMP has some major advantages like the scripting facilities.

I hope that GIMP and the needed things around it will improve in the future, right now it has been tossed back a little. But implementations of GEGL and the like will probably improve the Linux world of photography a lot.

04/20/2005 10:53:14 AM · #4

Originally posted by saracat:

You're asking the equivalent of what religion is best... Unfortunately, each has its pros and cons ad infinitum.

I'm a strong advocate of the Fedora distribution. It seems to balance stability and cutting-edge nicely, and has a very large community. In general when you locate free software it comes in two flavors first: Debian and RedHat/RPM. Since I'm already on the fringe as a Linux user I prefer to be mainstream within that fringe.

Again, it's a religious question. Many people will argue against what I've said, and for every fan of one distribution you can find someone who's had a horror story with it. Of course, Windows is no different there.

04/20/2005 10:56:32 AM · #5

Originally posted by saracat:

I would actually tell you NOT to use Linspire, as they market themselves as non-Linux, in my opinion do not contribute much to the Linux world, and they are rude enough to sell you free software (which they are entitled to, but you find way better distributions that don't).

Mandrake is a nice pick, I've been using that a lot a few years ago. Now I'm using and developing for and on Ubuntu, which is a really really user friendly and generally awesome distribution, I highly recommend it. Fedora is also a good pick. They will allow you to feel more like a part of the latest and greatest of Linux, compared to Linspire.

04/20/2005 10:57:43 AM · #6

Oh, and I forgot to mention that since I'm advocating ubuntu, feel free to PM me if you need help with it. Also, there are great places to get help, ubuntuforums.org, mailing lists, and IRC.

Grigolly

Canon EOS-30D

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

04/20/2005 11:11:19 AM · #7

whatever it is, I don't use my PC only for photography, so I prefer Windows. I dont't know how it's in your city, but here, in Tbilisi (where I live) all the programs, games or any other kind of cd is designed for windows and they cannot operate on Linux:(

04/20/2005 11:16:02 AM · #8

Originally posted by magnon:

Color management is maybe the biggest lack here, as there are no integrated tools to do the job properly. Also, as you say, GIMP is very powerful, but lacks some key features that Photoshop has - adjustment layers, 16-bit colors, things like that make Photoshop way superior, because they are important features. Not nescessarily to the final result in every case, but to the workflow. Color management touches both, and lacks in the OS and GIMP itself on Linux.

I disagree with Photoshop being way better. It has some strengths when you require professional grade workflow tools, but in most cases, an amateur does not equate time to money in the same capacity that a pro does. I agree that photoshop is a better tool for the job, but as an amateur one has to seriously weigh thew $600 price tag. Don't tell me about the academic discount... Not everyone is enrolled in a college taking photography classes, and I don't want to push the envelope of legality with something I hope to turn into a business ;)

I'm fortunate enough to be able to afford CS (if I had a machine it would run on!) but that doesn't mean I don't need to seriously evaluate that cost. In my opinion, PS Elements doesn't get me enough advantage over GIMP to go that route. Just my opinion. Not saying it isn't better, just that it's not enough advantage to jump. So, I have to weigh those adjustment layers and 16 bit as being worth $600.

I find that an image composed and exposed properly in my camera can produce a nearly perfect JPEG master right out of the 16 bit raw converter. The only time I need a 16 bit editor is when I took an image in less than ideal light, held the camera at a funny angle, etc. Sure it happens (more than I care to admit), but I find that I needed an editor more last year than I do this year. I'd love to have a 16 bit editor, but today I'll produce more saleable images putting that $600 towards a Micro-Nikkor 105 f/2.8 than I will Photoshop CS.

Originally posted by magnon:

Raw conversion isn't any better in Photoshop, as Adobe uses dcraw too, which is the same that the now-excellent UFRaw GIMP plugin does. On the other hand, the GIMP plugin is still not very well integrated with the rest of your work flow, and I find myself doing lots of work in the terminal to get things together properly. But you're right, GIMP has some major advantages like the scripting facilities.

I think we need to look at dcraw as an evolutionary element, not a core component. Bibble is not using the stock dcraw.c code as the heart of its software any more than Adobe is. They started with dcraw as something to build on, but both have developed it far beyond, and you probably would barely recognize the original code at this point.

UFRaw is a cool interface, but as you mention it's not really a workflow tool. A typical day results in 60-120 images for me. That's a LOT of time to spend loading each one through UFRaw. I see Bibble as the only realistic tool for a raw workflow in Linux. Your alternative is running Windows tools like Picture Window Pro under Wine, but I'm not fond of that strategy.

Originally posted by magnon:

I hope that GIMP and the needed things around it will improve in the future, right now it has been tossed back a little. But implementations of GEGL and the like will probably improve the Linux world of photography a lot.

No doubt, it will happen. It's just a question of when. There has been a lot of speculation, but little visible progress. I'm sure it's no small feat, but you can't review Linux's viability as a photography environment by asessing the challenge. The current status is all I feel can be used. You know how it goes with software... Until its released, any target date is nothing but vapor-ware.

In the end, even if GIMP were relased today with 16 bit, and an open source puck driver came out, we'd still have 1-2 years before Nikon and Canon considered Linux a viable platform to release tools for. Linux is going to be at the fringe of photography for another 5 years in my opinion. But, it will be steadily improving in that time, and when it breaks through, will probably render Windows obsolete as a photogaphy platform. Mac will hang in there and proove a worthy challenger. That's my controversial prediction for today :)

Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS

04/20/2005 11:22:31 AM · #9

Originally posted by Grigolly:

It's the same everywhere. The difference is that I download what I need for free (legally) vs. having to buy it in stores.

I don't NEED Microsoft Office, I need a spreadsheet and word processor. I don't NEED photoshop, I need an image editor. I don't NEED game xyz, I need a small diversion once in a while (and linux has some great native games) I tend to build my workstations to meet a need, and I don't go out and look for new stuff to load later. Linux includes standard tools (much like Mac) that meet 90% of the needs I have. For example, I can burn DVDs without buying a Nero license.

I don't use my PC for photography only either. I use it for maintaining our home budget, writing technical documents, doing software development, playing games, and many other things. Linux is far more functional "out of the box" than Windows is. This is the same approach Mac takes, and it is very successful.

You don't NEED a lot of what is forced at you by the PC industry, but it can be very difficult to see through the marketing clouds.

awpollard

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

04/20/2005 11:48:40 AM · #10

A PC is a Personal Computer, the PC industry does not care what OS you use. They just want you to buy their computer. It just helps to be associated with a Giant (yes marketing to sell their hardware).

Sales are driven by people frenzies, look at AOL the biggest Piece of Crap content provider around...Still tons of people use it because they heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend.

God bless, open source... you don't have to have Linux or Unix to run an Open source Microsoft Office, Visio, Mind Manager Clones on Windows... they are all available as Open Source GNU license... are they as good no but they work...I live in both worlds. I set up the intranet for my company using all Open Source code...MySqL works just peachy.

Free Software isn't really all that free...Donationware is becoming a profitable business... It's just that others are paying for the free ride that some of the rest of us are enjoying.

04/20/2005 12:01:28 PM · #11

Originally posted by awpollard:

Not true. Without support from the "giants" we have incompatible or inacessible devices. For example, my thinkpad's security chip doesn't have linux drivers, video drivers are a wild, wild, west as well. The laptop world is a classic example in so many ways. Even trying to use the common pseudo-raid chips common on motherboards will land you in a challenging situation.

Without the support of hardware vendors, Linux is as good as the reverse engineering. Often good for last year's stuff, but don't think it's as free as it seems.

Originally posted by awpollard:

God bless, open source... you don't have to have Linux or Unix to run an Open source Microsoft Office, Visio, Mind Manager Clones on Windows... they are all available as Open Source GNU license... are they as good no but they work...

Actually in some cases I believe its better. I prefer OpenOffice to MS Office by a long shot. It's use of styles is much more powerful, and the software runs much faster. I have full compatibility with Office formats, in fact more backwards compatibility than Microsoft's own software. And I'm not a casual user, I write technical manuals for the software I develop, so I do use advanced features. Office does more, but that doesn't make it better in my book. For 99% of its user base it's simply bloated.

Originally posted by awpollard:

Free Software isn't really all that free...Donationware is becoming a profitable business... It's just that others are paying for the free ride that some of the rest of us are enjoying.

Again, I disagree. I choose to support projects that I benefit from because I want to help, but I have no nag-ware on my computer. Everything I use (ecepting Bibble) is free for the download with no harassment or guilt trip. That's very different from saying that free software isn't really all that free.

Many times someone needs a feature badly enough to jutify its development. Econmically their investment is more than covered by the rewards of just having it, so they return it to the community. Sure they could keep it as intellectual property and license it, but it's not a core requirement of their business model. Free software users aren't automatically freeloaders, they are participating in an alternate economic model where services are valued over software. It's a very compelling model, as most businesses find their services revenues can easily exceed their product licensing. At that point, how do you build additional services customers? By offering the software for free.

There's more than meets the eye.

Message edited by author 2005-04-20 12:02:31.

bod

04/20/2005 12:22:27 PM · #12

An excellent thread. Linux has been my primary desktop for well over 3 years now and I can't disagree with anything in the first post. As I've mentioned in another thread, I currently have a Windows box which does nothing but run Photoshop so I'm hoping to move to the Gimp this year.

For anybody thinking of toying with Linux - it is nowhere near as geeky as it used to be. Most standard hardware is auto-detected and set up exactly as it is during a Windows install.

I highly recommend grabbing one of the distros that runs straight from CD if you fancy seeing what all the fuss is about. They won't change *anything* on your hard drive (though will obviously run slower than a real install) and will let you see just how powerful the platform has become.

My current distro of choice is Ubuntu but most distributions are available as bootable "Live CDs".