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making the Windows => Linux transition


redbullmarky

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Alright, I've been inspired after doing a bit of digging after reading this thread: http://www.phpfreaks.com/forums/index.php/topic,123403.0.html and also by various movements over the last several months regarding Linux. I've tried it, I liked it (notably a Ubuntu setup). My main argument against it, I bought up in another topic, re "Which OS do you prefer":

[quote]
If Linux supported Logic Pro or Cubase natively (which I don't believe it does) for music production, then I'd probably switch to Linux, as a few hours playing around, I was impressed at how (contrary to popular belief) how easy it was to get around, etc.
[/quote]

So i'm throwing a few questions out here, aimed at people who HAVE made the transition, not as some sort of debate starter or to guage peoples opinions.

My main tools on a day to day basis are Dreamweaver (8 on PC, MX on Mac), Fireworks MX, Logic Pro (Mac) though have experience of Cubase and no particular loyalty to either, MS Office (notably Word and Excel), Firefox, Thunderbird, TortoiseSVN, MSN Messenger,iTunes, Realplayer/Windows Media Player (for embedded web content only), iMesh/Limewire

As for hardware, my main concerns are a Novation SpeedIO audio interface and a Belkin wireless card.

So my questions. What equivalents do you guys use? I've put some that I'm already aware of:

[b]MSOffice[/b]: OpenOffice
[b]Dreamweaver Replacement[/b]: (please ... dont suggest Notepad-type things)
[b]Browser/Email[/b]: Firefox/Thunderbird
[b]MSN[/b]: [i]Gaim[/i]
[b]Music Sequencing with VST/AU support[/b]:
[b]Web audio/video plugin[/b]:
[b]TortoiseSVN[/b]: (notably with the right-click context menus for easy use)
[b]iMesh/Limewire[/b]:
[b]iTunes[/b]:
[b]Driver support[/b]:

cheers!
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[quote author=Daniel0 link=topic=123419.msg510053#msg510053 date=1169420424]
Driver support: Ubuntu supports a lot of hardware by default.
[/quote]
I love the fact that on my Mac laptop (which I dont use enough to keep) I can generally just plug something in without even considering drivers. It just...works. I've been told Linux based setups have the same sort of knack of not requiring huge extra installations and mountains of files to get things working, but how true that is right now, i dont know...

[quote author=Daniel0 link=topic=123419.msg510053#msg510053 date=1169420424]
Don't know about the other ones. For dreamweaver replacement you could use Zend Studio, but it isn't a WYSIWYG editor...
[/quote]
neither is it cheap, or better still free...I dont want to pay shedloads of cash making the switch, TBH. If i'm going to an open source platform, I'd probably want to try going the full hog (with the exception of the odd couple of £ here and there). WYSIWYG is useful, but I guess it'd be more fair to say that if there's a proven, excellent editor that contains: code highlighting for multiple languages (notably PHP and C/C++), FTP and SVN (I have a DW extension at the moment that interacts with TortoiseSVN which is pretty cool) then I can live without the WYSIWYG bit. Oh if only TextMate was on other platforms with FTP built in....

cheers Daniel. Points noted...
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This is the software I'm familiar with - I haven't got any experience with audio sequencers.

[b]MS Office:[/b] There is also Abiword and Gnumeric for Word and Excel (respectively) replacements. They're both considerably lighter than the OpenOffice equivalents, but also have less features. For basic use, though, they're perfect.
[b]MSN:[/b] There are several alternatives, but Gaim would be my favorite. http://gaim.sourceforge.net. aMSN is also rather popular.
[b]Email:[/b] I'm a huge fan of Evolution for email, contacts, and calendar management. There's also Sylpheed and Claws-Mail, both very lightweight and functional email clients.
[b]Web audio/video plugin:[/b] mplayerplug-in. It provides plugins for nearly all Windows media formats, Real media, Quicktime, MPEG, Ogg/Vorbis, and a few more. mplayerplug-in.sourceforge.net for more info. Macromedia's Flash Player 9 is also marked stable for x86.
[b]TortoiseSVN:[/b] I find that the svn command is much more convenient than any GUI, but there's RapidSVN for your GUI needs. http://rapidsvn.tigris.org for more info.
[b]iTunes:[/b] If you're just looking for a media player, I suggest Audacious. It's more of a Winamp look-alike, but it's very functional and lightweight. If you need iTunes for whatever reason, they say that it runs rather well under Wine - Crossover Office, specifically. If you need to hook up to an iPod, GTKPod will do the trick rather well.
[b]Drivers:[/b] Drivers in Linux are loaded in the kernel, and as Daniel0 said, the Linux kernel supports a LOT of hardware. To add support for a new piece of hardware, you just go into the kernel config tool, select the new hardware, compile the new modules, and load them. No rebooting required! (Except in special cases.)
[b]Editors:[/b] I prefer vim for its commands and speed of use, but it takes a while to get used to. For your use, I would suggest Bluefish. It's got all the features you ask for, except I don't think it has a plugin for SVN. http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/
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Then try [url=http://quanta.kdewebdev.org/index.php]Quanta Plus[/url]. It is also supposed to be pretty good. I haven't tried it though.
If you need support for multiple languages. Try [url=http://www.eclipse.org/]Eclipse[/url]. It is a Java IDE, but it has a [url=http://www.eclipse.org/cdt/]C/C++ plugin[/url] and a [url=http://www.phpeclipse.de/]PHP plugin[/url] (haven't tried that either).

For the drivers: I haven't had any driver issues with Ubuntu (neither on my laptop or desktop). With Gentoo I have had that though, so I gave up on that one.
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Quanta Plus is also excellent, but it's a part of KDE - and Ubuntu Studio is going to be running Gnome. Yes, he could just install the necessary KDE libs, but I have a feeling that it would be more trouble & overhead than it would be worth.

Eclipse is also very good, but it's written in Java, therefore it has relatively high running overhead. And I'm certainly not an expert on the subject, but I would dare to guess that it has considerably less VFS support than Bluefish. (Bluefish uses gnome-vfs for transparent FTP, SFTP, etc., filesystems.)

I would like to point out that there is a feature of Bluefish (I've only just now re-discovered it... some pretty cool stuff in there!) that lets you run a given command on the currently open file. So, to take the place of the SVN plugin, you could specify commands for `svn add`, `svn rm` (remove), `svn ci` (commit), `svn up` (update), and every other useful svn command. It's a few pushes of a button to get set up, but I think it would be worth it.

I would also like to clear up any possible confusion: Bluefish isn't WYSIWYG. They say that Nvu is a Dreamweaver replacement, but I can't vouch for it - I haven't used it.
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You're correct, Bluefish doesn't have a syntax highlighting rule for HEREDOC. However, this can be hacked around. I say "hacked" because it is, indeed, a hack - and a dirty one at that. Here's how to do it, in the event that you decide to use Bluefish, and the lack of HEREDOC highlighting is getting to you.

Edit > Preferences > Syntax Highlighting

Select "filetype > php"

Add a new pattern, call it "HEREDOC" or whatever you like. And this is where it turns into a dirty hack.

This is one possible start pattern:

<<<[A-Z]$

The end pattern:

^[A-Z];

However, this will work on

[code]<?php

$string = <<<HEREDOC
asdf
TESTING;

?>[/code]

Which is clearly not valid. So, if you do it this way, it's up to you to make sure that you use the same labels at the start and beginning.

An alternative:

Start pattern:
<<<HEREDOC$

End pattern:
^HEREDOC;

However, this will only affect text between <<<HEREDOC and HEREDOC; specifically. It won't work for <<<EOF and EOF; or <<<ASDF and ASDF;. ONLY on <<<HEREDOC and HEREDOC;

So, take your pick.

And then, for either method, set Parentmatch = ^PHP Block$ to make sure that it only highlights it inside a valid PHP block, and Foreground color to the hex color of your preference.
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  • 4 weeks later...
I've recently switched my home development box over to Ubuntu from XP Pro, wanting to get used to using it before doing the switch on my office development box. As far as editors go so far, I've tried Bluefish and Quanta Plus (working on Ubuntu, must have installed the KDE Libs automatically?) I'm currently favouring Quanta as the syntax highlighting in Bluefish is VERY buggy from my experience - It tends to just mess up and colour everything in the incorrect colours. The only thing that bothers me about Quanta (after removing all of the toolbars everywhere) is the fact that it doesn't seem to auto-indent my cursor when I press the enter key on my keyboard - I have to keep tabbing in on every line. Is there a setting for this anywhere, I can't seem to find one...
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[quote author=SemiApocalyptic link=topic=123419.msg532515#msg532515 date=1171814936]
The only thing that bothers me about Quanta (after removing all of the toolbars everywhere) is the fact that it doesn't seem to auto-indent my cursor when I press the enter key on my keyboard - I have to keep tabbing in on every line. Is there a setting for this anywhere, I can't seem to find one...
[/quote]

In my version it's
Settings -> Configure Editor -> Indentation (in left sidebar)
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  • 1 year later...

You're correct, Bluefish doesn't have a syntax highlighting rule for HEREDOC. However, this can be hacked around. I say "hacked" because it is, indeed, a hack - and a dirty one at that. Here's how to do it, in the event that you decide to use Bluefish, and the lack of HEREDOC highlighting is getting to you.

 

Edit > Preferences > Syntax Highlighting

...

 

I got my Bluefish PHP HEREDOC syntax highlighting working this way:

 

How to Add HEREDOC Syntax Highlighting for PHP in Bluefish

 

Works great!

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You're correct, Bluefish doesn't have a syntax highlighting rule for HEREDOC. However, this can be hacked around. I say "hacked" because it is, indeed, a hack - and a dirty one at that. Here's how to do it, in the event that you decide to use Bluefish, and the lack of HEREDOC highlighting is getting to you.

 

Edit > Preferences > Syntax Highlighting

...

 

I got my Bluefish PHP HEREDOC syntax highlighting working this way:

 

How to Add HEREDOC Syntax Highlighting for PHP in Bluefish

 

Works great!

 

That's pretty lame to bump a thread a year and a half to promote your blog.

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This thread is more than a year old. Please don't revive it unless you have something important to add.

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