Linux for Designers

After a while nothing happens on AIR for Linux now Adobe releases its rich media plattform AIR as a beta. This based an AIR 1.1 and has nearly the same features as AIR an Mac or Windows.
Adobe AIR for Linux runs under GNOME or KDE but for some features it requires a compositing manager like Compiz or simliar x server extensions.
Ubuntu is a supported distribution but they didn't offer Deb package - strange. All details about Adobe AIR for Linux beta can be found at the release notes.

Ubuntu Berlin Graphics Workshop

UPDATE: Here is a PDF of my talk (in german).

In the evening of the 14th Juli i have a talk about open source graphic software and Ubuntu. The workshop is about web design, print, vector graphics, imageing & photos and 3D. It is organized by Ubuntu Berlin with support of the c-base. If you like we can meet us there!
Update: Here is the official appointment

Tomorrow starts the Linuxtag here in Berlin but my time is to short to visit it - Dam Anyway i will be at the Linuxtag Cooldown Party at the c-base organized by the Ubuntu Berlin team. So if anybody here in Berlin we can meet us there

Yesterday i switched to Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 and it runs straight forward - very cool at all! Exploring it i found some interesting things:
- Pimp up your Gimp: Check out the Package gimp-plugin-registry
This package will add 14 plugins and inludes a batch converter too

- Search in Synaptic for "Gimp" you will find more additional plugins
like ufraw, gtkam-gimp, gimp-data-extras, pandora

- If you have the vector drawing software Inkscape installed install UniConverter
too so you can open and save much more vector file formats

- if you are a fanboy of the Tango icons goto /usr/share/inkscape/icons and
* rename as root icons.svg to old_icons.svg
* make a copy of tango_icons.svg and rename it to icons.svg
* next time running Inkscape you have a nicer interface

- if you are using gEdit for web development install the package gedit-plugins too,
after it enable all the plugins in the preferences for a very powerfull gEdit

Tell me your tips

Yesterday i had my talk about Wine at the Ubuntu Hardy release party Berlin. There were a lot of other interesting talks too and i met very nice people interested in graphic design, web development and Wine (greetings to Marcus, Renee and Gabriel ).
On some demo PC's i played around with Ubuntu Hardy Heron and i geting the feeling its very fast and runs much better then Gutsy did.
Soon i will publish my talk about WINE and getting Windows software running here.

The last two versions of Wine 0.9.58 and 0.9.59 didn't work well with Photoshop CS, there are a lot of problems with Ctrl+Click (may selecting layer transparency) or Shift+Click (Wand tool). So i downgraded Wine to 0.9.57 which i downloaded from the archive and used

sudo dpkg -i wine_0.9.57~winehq0~ubuntu~7.10-1_i386.deb

to get the older version running while the newer was installed. Wine 0.9.57 runs for me very well

When you use wine for the first time you can tweak the Wine GUI too to give it a more Ubuntu styled look.

Many people ask "What's the smoothest way running Photoshop on Linux? How you get it?" - the answer is easy: Check out the Wine Wiki: Running Adobe Photoshop on Wine

You can tweak the Wine GUI too to give it a more Ubuntu styled look.

The WindLight First Look Viewer and Dazzle First Look Viewer of Second Life for Linux reaches after 2 years of development the beta state. That means all features available in the Windows version have found their way into the Linux version. WindLight offers new graphic capabilities while Dazzle offers an improved interface.

Google has hired Codeweavers, which are the leaders of the Wine project and offering commercial services around it. Codeweavers should add better support for Photoshop on Linux. Since Wine 0.9.54 there are much improvements that let running Photoshop CS2 under Wine. This patches has nice side effects, so Flash 8 is working well too.
If you using Ubuntu there is a repository and a .deb packages archive to get the newest version.

You can tweak the Wine GUI too to give it a more Ubuntu styled look.