Instaling Linux. Is it worth it?

[Atum]

I use moho in the windows platform and have no complaints. Still, i would would like to use linux on my machine. Is there any advantadge in having moho run on my pc , with Linux Ubunto OS?

At FIrst my question was , if moho under linux redered faster, but it seems it doesnt render at all ( uncompresed ) cause there is no video codecs for it.

So , is there any reason to install Urubo Linux. In what, is it better then windows XP ?

And moho wise, is it worth it?

Thank you

[Rasheed]

There are enough reasons to use Ubuntu as a desktop system for daily use. More stable, secure and pleasing to the eyes (although the latter is more subjective than the first two), and most importantly, you aren't treated with disrespect by the developer. Microsoft couldn't care less for your personal problems with Windows, unless you pay for it. Being free software, the Ubuntu community always cares.

I'm not too shure about using Moho under Ubuntu. I haven't really tried it yet, beyond a simple Moho file, which I opened in my Mac version of Moho and exported as a QuickTime movie. I might be wrong, but I think under a Linux distro as Ubuntu, you need to use a compositor, like they do in the movie industry. And you can use CinePaint to retouch your image sequence.

But, again, I'm not the best person to answer your questions, for lack of experience. Ask jorgy; he has been using Moho under Fedora Core for some time.

[Atum]

Thanks Rasheed, i will Pm him, and ask is opinion. And thnks you for your opinion too .

[jorgy]

Hello,

Sorry it took me so long to reply.

There are two main benefits to having a linux version of moho. The first is that if you are already a linux user, then you don't have to switch to windows or mac to use moho. This was true before there was any sound support for moho on linux. It was very frustrating, and was solved with the recent version of moho. Thanks Lost Marble! The other advantage is speed. I have a dual boot system (winXP and Fedora Core 4) and running the same operations in moho on both is significantly faster under linux.

The big problem with using the moho version of linux is that when you render, you don't have many choices of output formats. Basically, you can do the frame oriented formats (including photoshop) and flash (swf). I have done some experimenting with exporting to photoshop and importing into gimp and had some fun, but nothing more than experiments. I tend to like using features of moho that aren't available in flash so I don't use it much.

So what I end up doing is this: doing all of my animating on linux, getting it all the way I like it, and then doing the final render on windows into mov format, and then using premiere to put it together. I have done some experiments with using Cinelerra to put it together, but I'm not quite there yet. I am happy with this setup right now, especially since sound is available in the linux version of moho. Papagayo is also available for linux now too, though I've only played with it a bit. But again, the final render, for mov or avi, would have to be done on another platform.

So this is my experience, your mileage may vary. If you do decide to go with linux, let us know what you think. And if you do have problems, post back here, and we'll try to help you out!

jorgy

[Atum]

THanks for your input. Ill probably install Ubunto in dual boot with win xp. It's not that i'm not happy with windows, theres just something romantic in using a free OS. The concept of someone PUtting together such an elaborate thing for no money at all makes me wanna be a part of it, even if just as a user.
But then there is the an issue, Can you do has much and as good as in windows. Thats why i asked. Ill give it a go.

Thanks again for the rely jordy and rasheed.

[mason]

You can also support free software while still using Windows. In many ways, supporting open document formats on all platforms is a greater contribution to freedom. However, I love GNU/Linux and have been using it exclusively for three years - I started out with an attitude similar to yours.

There are some sacrifices, though. You could prepare yourself by devoting yourself to apps that run in Linux while still using Windows. That way you're not struggling with the OS and a different way of approaching an application (such as the oft-touted differences between The GIMP and Photoshop).

[vivified]

IMHO the only question you should ask yourself is "will it improve my work, productivity or general happiness?". I tried switching to linux a while back but failed miserably. I'm a designer/animator and basically, most open source programs for that kind of work are really, really bad (don't consider this a troll -- in MY opinion, they are unfit for MY work). Also, it was a pain to get everything up and working in the first place, although I'll admit it was a few years ago. Install-wise, things are probably better now.

Instead, I switched to the Mac. This gives me the power of a *nix OS (one of the reasons I tried linux in the first place), proper support (the kind you can call when stuff breaks), all the apps I need and a gorgeous interface. It's made me more productive, and happier.

[mason]

OSX is a good operating system. I'm a designer turned web developer and I do all my development at work in OSX - because it's much better than Windows for window management. Linux is even better but if I would have taken your advice and limited myself to The Only Question, I never would have known that. There's a learning curve. I first tried it because I was doing a lot of work in Blender and the GIMP and I saw screenshots from Linux systems that looked interesting. After using it a short time I found that it was actually fun. The motto for distrowatch.com: "Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD."

If you want to think about your work differently, learn new ways to be productive or simply support open-source software, Linux is advisable. You do not choose to use Linux for Adobe and Microsoft Office. With OSX you need to make a new hardware purchase - a waste if you've got a perfectly good machine already.

Over the last three years of my own Linux use I've watched all aspect of open source improve by leaps and bounds. If you haven't used Linux in three years, even more than suggesting that Atum give it a try, I suggest you try it again. Three years is a long time in software. Would you give Photoshop 6 a good review compared to Photoshop CS2? Is it fair to compare Linux of three years ago to OSX and XP?

[Rasheed]

Is it fair to compare Linux of three years ago to OSX and XP?

AFAIK XP is from around 2001, almost as old as (or older than) the first version of OSX (10.0). And when will Vista be released, who can tell for sure? WinXP is an old OS, in computing terms. And the fear is that WinVista will be nothing more than Service Pack 3, with some extra eye candy (if you pay for it).

It seems that Microsoft originally planned to make Vista the safest OS on the planet, but because they couldn't get that to work in time, they dropped all that. The only reason that Vista is delayed, it is rumored, it that they are tweaking it, because it still has too many flaws to call it a stable version.

I think Microsoft is hitting a wall here. Because they are almost required to enable Windows to run on the most obscure PC, improving the OS has become so complex, that it has become almost impossible to do. They either have to go the Apple way and produce a proprietary OS running on proprietary hardware, or the Linux way and make it completely open, so outsiders can improve it. Maintaining such a broad hardware base, as Microsoft does, is a dead end in the long run. Otherwise, it will become so complex that no single company, even a company as big as Microsoft, can handle software development anymore.

FWIW, Linspire is a payed version of Linux (yes, you read correctly: payed), which takes out a lot of the difficulties with installing software in Linux. It is only available for X86 computers (so, no PowerPC version). You pay an initial fee and a yearly subscription fee. Needless to say, that the Linux community wasn't pleased with this initiative...

[mason]

AFAIK XP is from around 2001, almost as old as (or older than) the first version of OSX (10.0).

That's true, but it's been patched severely. My point was simply that Linux distributions have improved immensely over the three years since vivified has used it. My mistake was thinking that Windows had improved.

FWIW, Linspire is a payed version of Linux (yes, you read correctly: payed), which takes out a lot of the difficulties with installing software in Linux. It is only available for X86 computers (so, no PowerPC version). You pay an initial fee and a yearly subscription fee.

There are several large Linux distributions with the same business model - like RedHat and SuSE. How does the act of paying for a Linux distribution make software installation easier? Do you know which package manager they're using? How can it be easier than Debian and Gentoo's package managers? Installing software on Linux is not difficult.

Needless to say, that the Linux community wasn't pleased with this initiative...

It's not fair to represent the Linux community as monolithic. You seem to be saying that the Linux community was against Linspire either because you had to pay for it, or because software was easier to install. Neither of which is new to Linux. You misrepresented the problems with Linspire - the early releases had users running as root which is as dangerous as running Windows because it means that when the user is compromised, the system is compromised. Linspire has since changed this and so, far from displeasing the Linux community, it seems to me that they're completely uninterested in it.[/quote]

[ruscular3d]

First off I realize that this is a very old post.....I'm resurrecting it because my WinXP lost support, and I have been seeing alternative recommendation to use Zorin OS 8
I did a dual boot on my machine and been playing with Zorin version of Linux and was able to get a trial version of Anime Studio pro 10 working on it with GPU turn off. Last time I touch another OS was BeOS, and I was very surprise with Linux and what can run on it these days. Zorin OS 8 looks a lot like windows, and I am using it for web, and music and Netflix. Anyway heads up that it seems to run the program, after getting to load and run and create using most of the tools for an hour.