Web Development in Linux?

Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 5:50 pm (20 years, 5 months ago)

A recent post on Slashdot brings news that Flash MX and Dreamweaver MX can now be run on Linux using Crossover Office.

This made me wonder, how many web designers would consider making a permanent move to Linux because of this?

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

No, that wouldn't convince me to permanently move to Linux, since I don't use Flash, and I only use Dreamweaver for doing complex & boring things like tables. Also I still don't find Linux user-friendly enough to use on a regular basis, so that would include web design?

BTW is this Crossover Office software free? Also wouldn't using a Windows program on Linux involve a lot of problems/bugs given the fact that Windows & Linux are so radically different?

Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 6:28 pm (20 years, 5 months ago)

What about it don't you find user-friendly?

now I look, Crossover Office is not free - but codeweavers (the makers of CO) contribute to the Wine project, which is free. So, I would imagine that *MX support should be good in Wine soon.

Running win32 applications in a Unix-like system is complex, but not very prone to problems once things are figured out. For example, Half Life can be run perfectly with Wine - as can MS Office and Photoshop, among other things. Applications such as Wine and CO essentially provide a compatibility layer (to quote the wine website), translating the win32 system calls into their Unix equivalents.

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

Odhinn wrote:

What about it don't you find user-friendly?

There's nothing in particular I can pinpoint - maybe it is user friendly and I'm just too used to Windows - I don't know, but what I do know is I don't feel comfortable using Linux. There's too much of "fiddling underneath the surface" (ie the shell) involved for my liking Sad

. You do have to admit that you spend more time using the Linux shell than using DOS Wink

(at least in every day standard use).

Odhinn wrote:

Running win32 applications in a Unix-like system is complex, but not very prone to problems once things are figured out. For example, Half Life can be run perfectly with Wine - as can MS Office and Photoshop, among other things. Applications such as Wine and CO essentially provide a compatibility layer (to quote the wine website), translating the win32 system calls into their Unix equivalents.

I figured that Wink

, but since such a task is so complex I just thought it was likely not to be totally bug-free. Does anyone here use Wine (or any other Windows emulator) on a regular basis? I'd be interested to here how well it works Smile

.

Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 6:42 pm (20 years, 5 months ago)

Daniel wrote:

You do have to admit that you spend more time using the Linux shell than using DOS Wink

(at least in every day standard use).

it's true that there are some things I'd rather do in a shell than using a graphical application, but that's not a bad thing. Unix shells, such as Bash, are much more powerful than DOS ever was. I've only ever really used Bash, so I can't speak for the others, but Bash supports things such as loops and variables - which can be very useful. it is also possible to pipe the output of one command directly into the input of another. as an example, the following command will compress a directory (using tar) and encrypt it (using GPG):

Code:

tar cj directory/ | gpg -o dir.gpg --symmetric

useful, no? Smile

then there's conditional execution of commands, such as "command1 && command2" will execute command2 after command1 only if command1 does not return an error.

there's also a lot of other stuff, but I couldn't possibly explain it all 'cause it'll take a lot of time Wink

Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 7:22 pm (20 years, 5 months ago)

I wonder how much it would take to port the Mac OS X (unix based) versions of the Marcomedia MX range over to Linux so they ran natively? Obviously the interface stuff would be totally different but what about the inner workings?

I know theres a lot of *nix apps that have been brought over to OS X.
Not sure if Macromedia would consider it a worthwhile investment though.

BTW I voted No, quite happy with my Mac thanks Very Happy

Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2003 7:45 pm (20 years, 5 months ago)

that's an interesting point. I'm not entirely sure which bits of unix are included in OS X, but it could certainly make it easier.

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2003 8:13 am (20 years, 5 months ago)

If you're interested: http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/unix/
there's a link to a pdf about halfway down

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

That document makes me want to get Mac OS Smile

. It has the Linux back-end with a lovely front-end.

Just one thing: I don't have a Mac Laughing

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2003 8:27 am (20 years, 5 months ago)

Well there has been talk of a version that will run on a PC being developed and updated alongside the mac version. I believe its something to do with a possible future move away from the PowerPC chip. But who knows if it will ever see the light of day... I seem to have taken this a bit off topic Embarassed

Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2003 4:35 pm (20 years, 5 months ago)

OS X looks interesting, I'll be sure to have a play with it if I ever get the chance.

I saw another article on /. today, on a similar topic. It seems there will soon be a native linux alternative to Frontpage/Dreamweaver/etc.

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

Hopefully it will rival Dreamweaver more than FrontPage Rolling Eyes

Junior WebHelper Joined: 30 May 2003 Posts: 21

Linux doesn't need Crossover office. I do all my web development in Programmer's Notepad (text editor) and Bluefish in Linux.

Wine is only good for those days I feel like playing some Windows games.

Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2003 10:42 pm (20 years, 4 months ago)

I just need to find a decent linux text editor I could use to edit my sites (I like UltraEdit in windows), then I'd move to using linux for that (I already have all my files on my fbsd box)

Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2003 10:53 pm (20 years, 4 months ago)

vim is my favorite editor - if you're the kind who likes graphics, gvim would probably be good