Before I proceed, let me just say that I by no means need to use an image editor professionally, in fact my image editing needs are almost limited to cropping, resizing, and some minor enhancing here and there. I wouldn’t know a Photoshop killer/alternative if it hit me in the face.  So I believe that the real value of this post is in the comments that will ensue (hopefully). Your input will be an integral part of this post, as I also seek to learn a lot from you guys

One last thing. I was criticized by some of you for including uTorrent on wine in my last BitTorrent Linux alternative post because uTorrent isn’t Open Source. I initially agreed, but when i gave it more thought I realized that an “Alternative Series” main purpose is to encourage switching. And if a proprietary alternative is available on Linux and would convince someone to switch, then I don’t see why I should ignore it.

Anyways enough of me rambling on….

1-Gimp

Gimp doesn’t really need any introductions, it is usually touted as the Photoshop “alternative” for Linux, and is included in a lot of Linux distros. It is the closest thing you will get to Photoshop. To use it professionally, you will probably need to add some plugins and 3rd party applications. All in all, Gimp vs. Photoshop debate usually stirs lots of controversy, with neither sides arriving to a decisive conclusion.

2-Krita

Krita is part of the Koffice suite, the official suite for KDE. Its design emphasizes creating new images as opposed to manipulating existing photographs. Krita’s README file states:

Krita is a paint application for raster images. It's also, according to
the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable:

The first of four Hindu periods contained in the great Yuga, when the
genius of Truth and Right, in the form of bull, stood firm on his four
feet, and man gained nothing by iniquity.

In the Mahabharata, the name ‘krita’ is used in a context where this
can be translated with ‘perfect’ – the perfect age.

Krita is Swedish for chalk and rita means “to draw”.

3-Kolourpaint

Kolourpaint provided the basic functionality of Microsoft’s Paint program with additional features like transparency. It is geared to the average user, nothing too fancy.

4-Gimpshop

Gimpshop is a modification of the Gimp and intends to replicate the feel of Photoshop. According to the developer:

“My original purpose for GIMPshop was to make the Gimp accessible to the many Adobe Photoshop users out there. I hope I’ve done that. And maybe along the way, I can convert a Photoshop pirate into a Gimp user.”

5-Pixel Image Editor

While Pixel isn’t Open Source nor free, it is a valid option since it has a native Linux version and comes for the cheap (only $50). I read a lot of people comparing it to Photoshop, so it might be worth taking a look at. You can download it for free as a trial before you decide to fork out $50

6-Photoshop on Wine

While I don’t recommend it, but if this is the only way you will consider making a switch, then by all means do

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Its a common misconception that Linux doesn’t have applications for day to day computing, nothing can be further from the truth. In fact I would wager that there is an alternative for any app/function out there. And since this blogs claims to “bring Linux to the masses” I thought it would be a good idea to write a series of blogs about the different apps available to Linux users in different categories.This article’s category will be: Bittorrent Clients:

1-Ktorrent

Ktorrent is the default torrent client for the KDE desktop, but obviously can work on any other desktop like GNOME. It supports:

You can easily install it on a Debian system by invoking

sudo apt-get install ktorrent

2-qBittorrent

qBittorrent Developed by a university student (Christophe Dumez) from France, it aims to have a small foot-print, to be powerful, intuitive and visually attractive.

sudo apt-get install qbittorrent

3-Deluge

Deluge is intended to bring a native, full-featured client to GTK desktop environments such as GNOME and Xfce. An official Windows port is also available. Head to their download page to get the latest release.

4-rTorrent

rTorrent is a text-based  BitTorrent client “with a focus on high performance and good code” It is definitely not for the light of heart, but once you configure it properly and get a hang of it, it works just great! There is nothing a GUI based client can do that rTorrent can’t. Highly recommended for your geek cred

Kmandla’s blog has a great guide for rTorrent, it basically put me on the right path for “leet” torrenting.

5-Transmission

Transmission uses a smaller amount of system resources than many other BitTorrent clients. The project aims to strike a balance between providing useful functionality without feature bloat. Keeping the interface simple and intuitive on all platforms is a key design goal. As of January 14th 2008, transmission has been adopted by the Ubuntu distro.

6-Vuze (Azureus)

Azureus is almost synonymous with Bittorrent. I personally know a lot of non-tech savvy people that think Azureus is just a program like Napster or Limewire. They use it as a separate entity, search for media there and download, if they can’t find it on Azureus they are dumbstruck! Totally oblivious to the technology, how it works, and the 1000′s of avenues they can explore. LOL

Personally, am not really a fan of Azureus, primarily because its such a resource hog. But also I dislike the newer interface, its too commercialized and cluttered. But don’t let me make your decision for you, the client itself is widely popular, you might like it

7-uTorrent (on wine)

Last and definitely not least, I have to mention uTorrent. This is a client that I dream to have natively on Linux, and to be honest its the best out there in my opinion. No wonder the Apple community rejoiced when a native uTorrent client was released for OS X.

Running uTorrent on wine is as easy as 1-2-3. Just download it, and run it through wine. If you have any problems just leave a comment

So there you have it, 7 clients for all your heart’s content. Now don’t do anything illegal with them . What client do you use? Did I miss any? Do you recommend any more?

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But running an app on a virtual machine doesn’t eliminate Windows from the equation. Right? So I will show you now how to run Windows apps 100% seamlessly on Ubuntu. You know something like this:

Tools

1. Windows installed on Vmware. ( I assume you have one or know how to create one)
2. rdesktop, you can grab that from apt-get or directly download it from their site
3. SeamlessRDP, download it an extract it in your Windows VM in c:/seamless

What to do:

In Windows VM

1. In the Windows VM, get the local IP address of that machine using the Ipconfig command in DOS.
2. Also give that machine a static IP (Not DHCP). This will help you later when invoking the launch command, you won’t need to change the IP everytime
3. Create a new Windows admin user, let’s call it Linux for now (Password:123123)
4. Finally, we want to make Windows launch without a Desktop. So launch your registry editor (regedit in run) and navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER -> Software -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> Policies -> Explorer. Once there create a new DWORD entry and call it “NoDesktop” and then change it’s value to 1.

On Ubuntu Linux

Right click on your desktop and choose “create launcher”. In type, keep it as is (application), for name name it whatever you please (I named it Windows-VM), and in command type in “rdesktop -A -s ‘c:\seamless\seamlessrdpshell.exe c:\windows\explorer.exe’ 192.168.1.104 -u linux -p 123123?. Of course you will need to change the IP to your IP and the password (123123) to whatever password you chose. Thats it! Double click on the launcher and you will shortly get a the Windows taskbar on the bottom. Of course if you want to totally get rid of MS nuisance, just enable the autohide option

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Now I am not really big on PC gaming, but what makes this special is the fact that Crysis is known to be very demanding when it comes to system resources, and running it un-natively is impressive itself. Wine has really improved by leaps and bounds over the years. Version 1.0.0 is just around the corner! W00T!

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