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Even if you don’t care about open source everyone should support competition. Discord and YouTube can continue to get greedy and stop improving their products because they don’t have any real competition.
Calling Figma free is like calling complimentary bread sticks a full dinner.
Penpot would be a better alternative. I never used it but it’s gaining momentum.
Yeah I pay Figma way too much every month for my team holy hell.
It’s infuriating what basic features Penpot is still lacking and it trips you up all the time if you’re used to working with Figma, but what’s already in feels pretty good.
I suspect they use a different definition of “Free” than we are used to. DaVinci Resolve and Figma are not FOSS, and have free and paid levels.
I believe the others are all free (as in beer) as well as free (as in speech).
Yup, I’d also say darktable + krita is a far better solution than gimp.
That said, for pro level stuff, resolve is much better than premier in general, so it’s a solid competitor from a “Linux support” category.
Yea, Shotcut should be there.
Natron lol? Where did you get this from? Natron never really existed. Davinci has all the functions to replace AE.
Gimp sucks and should stop being mentioned as an alternative for anything.
Is there any good alternative to adobe animate?
I have been searching for years man… No luck
Blender. Yes! Blender does fucking everything at this point. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next release can read emails.
It’s fucking good at 2D animation too! There’s whole communities that worship the goddamn grease tool for animation. It’s bizarre, honestly. But I can’t deny their results 🤷
🏴☠️
Does it work on linux?
How about the iinux version of AutoCAD?
Freecad is getting more and more attention. When version 1.0 releases (soon), it will be something worth checking out, but there is still work to do.
As a mechanical engineer - there is no serviceable free CAD. The only thing you can hope for is Linux compatibility - and you have 100% of that with Onshape only (cloud based).
Replace Figma with Penpot
Figma and blender are good the rest you’re better off with the paid
Figma balls XD
This guide is misleading. Sure, the product functionalities overlap, but if you have a mature workflow, you will not be able to switch without investing a LOT of effort in relearning your workflow on the new product stack. This is one of my MAIN reasons I hate the “I tried to switch to Linux and failed” genre of content. You’re not going to find identical like-for-like replacements in Linux world that won’t require significant effort to relearn. It’s something us Linux users through and through need to bear in mind.
Also, we need to be cognisant that “just switching to Linux” narratives, fueled off infographics like this, will lead to frustration and dismissal.
No, I don’t know how to change this - and morphing e.g. gimp to be a clone of Photoshop isn’t the answer either.
Hey now! The effort required to change workflows is how some of us have fun! Some of us derive joy in discovering new tools and new ways of doing things 😁
Think about it: How many people who switched to Linux at this point because they like learning new shit and fucking around? To them, a new tool that does something an old tool does in a new way is like being given a new flavor of ice cream to try! 🤣
It’s why old time Linux users “just don’t understand the resistance” people put up when it comes to changing apps… “WTF is your problem? If I can learn a new programming language in like two weeks surely you can learn the locations of a few new menu entries‽ I bet the new thing does stuff your old tool couldn’t do! If you just poke around you might be surprised…”
Normal people’s response: “Yeah… Fuck that. Spending that much effort to learn new things is what I call a waste of my time.”
This is such a classic Linux user response. Instead of taking the time to understand the many valid issues users have with Linux, you instead come to the same tired old smug conclusion that basically breaks down to "only smart people use Linux, like me!", and I say this as a Linux user.
Old time Linux users don’t understand why people avoid Linux because they’re not actually interested in listening and understanding peoples’ issues. Perhaps these people like learning lots of new stuff and spending hours troubleshooting, but just not with their computer. If there was a Linux equivalent of a car, it’s not hard to see why most people would just want the thing to work without bothering to become a mechanic for their car to work.
I’m sure there’s things you’ve avoided learning because you consider it to be a waste of time-- does that mean you’re unwilling to learn stuff, or would you agree that’s probably an inaccurate characterization of you? Most Linux users I’ve met are in terrible physical shape or mediocre at best. As someone in pretty decent shape, I appreciate the benefits and struggles of exercise but it’s just plain silly to basically shame others as lazy for the many reasons they could have for not exercising regularly.
I agree with your fundamental point, learning new shit is definitely fun for me. But there’s lots of different people and some just don’t. I can definitely sympathize with someone who’s income depends on one of these workflows, and why they can’t disrupt that for “fun learning sake”. There’s only so many hours in a day and some people have different priorities.
It’s not saying that it’s a drop in plug and play alternative. It’s saying it’s an alternative software to get you the same result.
Calling it a guide is misleading. It’s labeled as a list of alternatives and that’s what it is. Audio books are an alternative to reading, but it’s definitely not the same experience.
I don’t think pretty much anybody actually cares about their OS, they’ll just use whatever is installed on their computer and install their favourite applications.
There’s 2 things that need to be solved here:
- Having Linux installed on their computer.
To solve this we’d need mostly laptop manufacturers to install Linux by default, this is in no way happening soon, but might happen when point 2 is satisfied.
- Having peoples favourite applications available.
There’s 2 ways to solve this, A. Somehow get companies like Adobe on board with Linux and develop for it. B. Make open source applications actually good. We need people to want to use open source applications, before they even switch to Linux. That means the applications need to rival, or even surpass their closed source counterparts. Most of the Foss creative/professional applications simply don’t do that yet.
Solving these issues is not an easy task and will take a long long time, but most people simply will not want to switch to Linux and have to relearn every application at the same time, so I believe it is necessary
Your second point is key. In an ideal world, open source could rival and even beat the best paid offerings (see: blender). But in most cases it just doesn’t. There’s not a dedicated team working on the open source products, working with HCI experts and designers on every detail of the product. It doesn’t preclude the open source being better (see, again: blender), but it does push a LOT of workload onto a bunch of hobbyist developers working in their spare time. The resultant burnout is typically why you see these projects sputtering along for years and years. I don’t know how to solve those problems either, but they’re your real “roadblocks”.
I suppose it all comes down to money, Blender is an exception rather than the rule. They get a lot of donations from big companies, so they can afford to have a lot of people working on the project full-time. Most projects don’t have that luxury, so they get stuck like you said.
To be honest, I don’t know if there is a way to solve this, if there is it certainly isn’t easy
Photopea would be a better drop in than Gimp. But it’s a website and that grinds my gears.
It loads completely in the browser. iirc you could disable your network after loading the “website” and it would continue to work. Simply a web app, if you will
I really wish gimp could replace Photoshop but it absolutely cannot
Agree. I have tried gimp regularly over the past decade or so and never a single time has it been anywhere near close enough to act as a “replacement”. A free tool to use in a pinch, sure, but as a full on replacement? Not a chance in hell.
Yeah, exactly. I’ve used it for like 20 tasks now. Every single time it’s been a struggle
Of course it can, it already does at least 90% of what Photoshop does. People are less likely to want to contribute to its development if others are always shitting on the project though.
On the contrary, it will only get better if people understand its faults.
There’s a lot it cannot do but more importantly it is quite unintuitive. if they’d work on the UI and shortcut keys, I’d be ecstatic because fuck adobe.
Do you mean that the menu structure makes no sense or that it’s different to Photoshop, which is what you’re used to? I’m not sure that what you say about shortcuts if fair either. For example, by default in GIMP you select the Move tool using M, which makes sense. In photoshop it’s V… Duplicating layers in GIMP uses D, PS uses J… Clone tool in GIMP uses C, PS uses S. All of which isn’t even that much of a big deal anyway, since both programs allow you to set whatever keyboard shortcuts you want. GIMP and PS are way more similar than they are different, even from a UX standpoint. Both projects have borrowed from each other historically. They will always be a bit different though and I think that’s fair enough.
I was a bit disorientated when I first started using GIMP after a lifetime of using Photoshop, including at work where it’s still the main piece of software I use. But like everything in life you get out what you put in and after watching a few tutorials and reading some documentation GIMP does click and make sense.
At least we agree about fuck Adobe though! It’s only going to get worse as well in my opinion. GIMP is only going to get better though (as long it stays open source) but perhaps not as quickly as we’d like. I have much more faith in GIMP in the long term, so I’m behind them. BTW you can already try out GIMP’s first implementation of adjustment layers in their development version
It comes down to UX. Blender used to have an awful UX, and it was a distant trailer behind the Autodesk products for usage. After they dramatically improved the interface, it became much more popular. Gimp needs the same treatment.
I remember at the time there being a lot of pushback on blender UX changes, too. I watched a talk on it where a guy really said “I had to Google everything so these guys should, too”. I know a lot of FOSS guys abhor the idea of conforming to an industry standard, and I get it, but the truth of the matter is that people would rather pay than have to relearn their entire workflow.
Some goes for Resolve. Absolutely awful UI. Which is why I will continue to pirate Adobe products.
I wonder if it comes down to FOSS projects typically not having any designers, but just developers. Like…if that’s the case, the maintainers would have to actively reach out to UX folks to help. But I imagine mkst don’t even realize or admit there’s a problem because they’re already intimately familiar with the entire app.
Gimp is good. I don’t know what gimp haters are always so mad about. The buttons are in different places than in photoshop, big whoop. I have been able to do everything I’ve ever attempted in gimp and I do modding and game development. I just don’t get it.
what the gimp haters are always so mad about
You have to use a plugin to even draw a circle properly.
You can’t make non-destructive changes to things like filtered elements e.g. make blurred/outlined/etc. text and then change the text.
Content-aware functions
big whoop
Just how different it is from Photoshop is literally the biggest complaint people have. And that it’s just unintuitive to many even if you never used photoshop. For gimp to propel in popularity I think it has to become more familiar to what professionals are used to.
You have to use a plugin to even draw a circle properly.
How so? I’ve used GIMP to draw plenty of circles without any plugins.
I hate both Gimp and Krita, but I prefer Krita.
Ultimately, drawing freeware just feels bad to use.
Or just pirate everything lol
Gimp should be released with photopeas
