One of the only things that keeps some peopleusing a Mac, or even buying Macs for their business, is the whole "Macs are better for graphics/multimedia"
mantra. I’ll leave that debate for the Digg Holy Wars, but it is definitely interesting to see someone ditch OS X for
Linux in an art/design class. Linux is not typically considered tops in this area, and I don’t think anyone would
debate that. So turning a bunch of Mac boxes into Ubuntu machines for the sole purpose of teaching open source Linux
apps to a class of art students is a gutsy move. Yet that’s exactly what Gurdy Leete did, and supposedly it worked out
just fine. In fact, Gurdy converted one Mac-based media lab
into an Ubuntu-based media lab with apparently stellar results (not to mention much lower software costs). Granted,
Gurdy sometimes had to fall back on OS X (for printing to their AppleTalk-based printers for instance), but for the most
part the lab functioned the same as before. Some students really enjoyed being able to tweak their OSS tools, while
others relied on the application repository and Leete’s expertise. Again, it amazes me to see all the open source
alternatives out there, some of which are nearly as mature as their profit-based cousins. Leete’s experiences are worth
a read to anyone considering a switch, and also serves as a good list of alternative apps. I hadn’t heard of Scribus, but had been looking for just such a tool. Leete’s next move is to
replace Maya with Blender, and move away from Avid and Final Cut Pro to some OSS
replacements. Hopefully he’ll report how that goes as well… My only problem with all this is that in the
"real" world, you’re a lot less likely to find these tools being used. So if I were a student, I’d be a
little interested in learning Photoshop as well as GIMP.