I’m trying to build a workstation for my wife who is a graphic design by trade. She has only ever used Window so I thought that this would be a great way to introduce her to Linux. I just have some questions about getting this project off the ground.
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Am I better off buying a cheap, prebuilt desktop and adding some extra parts like a GPU and more memory or building it from the ground up?
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For a distro, I was thinking about Linux Mint but would other distros be better options?
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Other than GIMP, what are some essential software for graphic design and digital art on Linux?
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You are going to need to ask her specifically what software she uses and find out if it can run on Linux. If it can’t then she is not going to use the computer. Graphic design is not a profession where you can just easily switch software and trying to convince someone else they should do that is going to be even less likely.
If she works with other teams they will be using Adobe software and a Linux box will slow her down. I don’t have the most up to date computer but had these requirements when buying:
- 64gb fast RAM - large vector files with 1000s of paths will need lots of RAM not to go sluggish
- Upper mid-range processor/GPU- you don’t need an i9 and 4080 card. Graphic software won’t tax the GPU. If she does mostly motion graphics/video editing then if could be useful but otherwise save your money.
- Ultrawide monitor - This is a huge efficiency boost. Being able to run Photoshop and illustrator together on the same screen, without a bezel losing your mouse pointer. Big quality of life improvement for designers.
Besides a possible issue importing ai/psd/indd files I don’t think any of the specs you mentioned are required. I can still design on my 2012 mac book pro without issue.
AI files can be saved as .eps files. PSD files can be saved as .tiff files. Both are lossless and keep layers intact.
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I’m trying to build a workstation for my wife who is a graphic design by trade. She has only ever used Window so I thought that this would be a great way to introduce her to Linux. I just have some questions about getting this project off the ground.
Whats your ultimate goal here? Getting rid of Windows, or getting rid of your wife?
Hi, graphic design span many disciplines and each one will have different requirements. Unless she does some short of 3D or video rendering intensive workloads GPU doesn’t matter that much. Im am UX designer (formerly graphic designer) and a powerful CPU, something like an AMD Ryzen 5800x or similar, plenty of RAM (at least 32Gb) and SSD HD (nothing fancy, anything will do) should be enough. Sadly, design software hasn’t evolved enough to take advantage of better performance.
However I’m not a Linux user (although have been considering it) so my main concern would be how the software she uses is Linux compatible or can be properly emulated without performance or stability issues. If she is working professionally FOS software won’t do it, you need default industry software.
I mainly use Figma and to lessen extent Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Figma can run entirely in a browser but I’ve seen reports of slowdown (to the point of being unusable in some distros). Adobe apps seem to be very hard to emulate to the point of seeing people recommending using a Windows VM. So I rather start checking the software rather than the hardware.
First of all, does she agree with it? Second of all, is her software supported? If not, is she ready to switch to FOSS alternatives? Because if she uses Photoshop daily professionally, she is not using GIMP or Krita. At max, I think you may get her to dual boot Linux but maining Linux? Nah.
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If you buy a used office desktop, it can be worth it to just put in a GPU. You have to know what you’re looking at though. Some prebuilds include stuff like custom motherboards or PSUs that are very hard to upgrade or make it impossible to install a GPU. Otherwise DIY is cheapest.
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Debian is very stable, good for professional use.
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She already uses some software and she probably would like something similar. Maybe look for alternatives or ways to run her choice of software on Linux?
- GIMP isn’t the most user friendly software and I don’t think it’s the best choice for graphic design.
- Inkscape is good for vector graphics, but it’s still lackluster compared to Adobe Illustrator.
- Krita is awesome for illustrations and digital art, but doesn’t have too many graphic design features that I found.
Overall if she’s going to use it in professional capacity, switching to Linux could be a risk.
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Not a GD, so here’s my 2 cents on the top 2 - build from scratch. It will be cheaper in the long run as you can have an upgrade path. Some SIs use proprietary parts that will screw you later. Any non-rolling distro will be good. If she is a long time Windows user, I would recommend making it have KDE for the desktop as it seems to be pretty Windows friendly in orientation.
Before any of that: Let her try it out on your machine (assuming it can be used for this kind of workload) during business hours. She will run into problems (Software not working, something upstream at her workplace not working, …). If all of those are fixed or she deems them negligible, then you can start thinking of switching her over.
This can take over a year of time, depending on how frequent some work related tasks are.
Dualboot on the new machine can also be good alternative, if you don’t mind spending the money.
A “do or die” approach might lead to a very big fight about her not being important to you, or even respected by you, among other things.
First check out what alternatives there are to the stuff she’s running on Windows. Then install them and check if she’s willing to test them for a comparison. Ultimately, she’s the customer and she has to be convinced to use the new stuff.
