You’ve already seen that you can use an office suite with Linux. In this chapter, we’re going to look at how Linux can (and will) help you in your professional life if your job has anything to do with graphic design or audiovisual production.
Use Graphic Design Software
Let’s start with graphic design.
For creative types, here are three free, open-source software programs that will make the most of your talent and are widely used in Linux:
GIMP
Krita
Inkscape
GIMP
GIMP is an image retouching tool. It’s the equivalent of Adobe Photoshop in Windows.
Let’s install GIMP on your Ubuntu distro!
Don’t forget that you can install GIMP using the two classic methods:
Method 1: The Ubuntu Store
You can install GIMP using the Ubuntu store, as illustrated below:
Method 2: The Terminal,
You can install GIMP on the terminal by launching these two commands:
apt-cache search gimp #
To get the name of the meta package:
sudo apt-get install gimp #
Krita
Krita is a KDE project tool for drawing and illustrating, and can also be used to edit images in bitmap format.
His blog has many resources if you want to learn to use Krita. David Leroy is also in touch with the publisher of Krita to contribute to improving the tool.
You’re talking about his Linux configuration; what do you mean?
To learn about his equipment and how he uses Linux, check out this page of his blog. Feel free to send him your comments!
Inkscape
Inkscape is for managing vector format images that need to be resized without losing quality, making ugly, pixelated logos a thing of the past! Adobe Illustrator does the same thing in Windows.
There are many vector image formats, the best-known of which is SVG – Scalable Vector Graphics – which uses ASCII (common numbers and letters and special punctuation and mathematical characters) organized in XML. Yes, you read that right – images coded like a developer’s XML script!
Video Creation Software
Let’s move on now to video editing software.
Here’s a selection of the most widely used tools in Linux:
Pitivi
Pitivi is a small, simple tool for editing videos, originally from the GNOME desktop environment. Don’t be fooled by its size, though. Pitivi supports professional formats such as Material Exchange Format.
Kdenlive
Kdenlive is part of the KDE desktop environment, and works with macOS and Windows. This is an ideal, easy-to-use tool for beginners, but will also not disappoint experienced users.
These two tools are free and open source, released under GPL license.
Lightworks
Lightworks is a proprietary program, but is free to install in Windows, Linux, and macOS. This tool contains a PAD that transforms your computer into an editing machine!
It’s such a good tool that we’re going to install it on our Ubuntu distro. It doesn’t come with packages, so it’s a good opportunity to learn another way of installing software in Linux.
You can see here that you need to download the package directly from the publisher’s website, meaning that it is not included in the distribution’s package repository. This doesn’t necessarily pose a problem, except when the publisher’s package requires other packages to work (dependencies). Then you’ll have to manage these dependencies, i.e., install the packages necessary to make the publisher’s package work.
Multimedia Software in Linux
To finish, let’s take a look at the multimedia, sound, and video software available!
VLC
VLC is the go-to in terms of video players!
MPlayer
MPlayer is widely used in Linux, particularly for its compatibility with many different video formats. If you want to use your keyboard to manage videos, MPlayer is the one for you!
LMMS
LMMS is a fully equipped music studio for your Linux distribution!
I recommend installing the indispensable VLC.
Let's Recap!
There are several graphic and multimedia software options available in Linux.
GIMP, Krita, and Inkscape are the must-haves for image processing, and are just as good as the Adobe suites.
Lightworks gives free rein to your video creation talents, and LMMS is your working tool for sound.
You'll even find your old friend VLC, the essential video player, which you already know from Windows.
Now that you've seen how Linux can help with media production, let's look at how to configure it for programming.
