[hnriot]

We (hn) have this gnome debate often enough it has been talked out to death. Nobody likes unity except for a few. Many of us using Ubuntu (me included) don't really care much about the desktop GUI, I spend most of my time in shells. Anyone that does care about the windowing likely switched to OSX years ago.

That aside, this article seems to think that new media production is being done on Linux. My experience is that this is owned by osx. Adobe's creative suite is the lifeblood of any media development and the Linux equivalents are not as good. If you're commercially invented to create new media then you'll use the best tools for the job.

Linux has contributed to media creation in rendering farms and such, but gnome played no part in that decision.

[freehunter]

Nobody likes unity except for a few.

I wish people would stop putting this line without anything backing it up. We've had this conversation recently, and it turns out that actually not everyone hates Unity [1]. Besides my comments, here's a sampling:

"Unity is the best desktop I've ever used."

"I like Unity... I rarely go into a forum and announce how much I like something."

"'it's not as bad as everyone says.' This is the camp I fall in. "

"People that are happy with their desktop environment are not particularly likely to go to some site and talk about how good it is."

"unity is what you get by default on ubuntu? if so, i really like it"

"Never used Unity but I really enjoy Gnome 3"

Point being, you can't listen to people complaining then say "oh hey, there are 50 people complaining out of millions of users, this must be pretty awful". People will always complain more than they will praise, especially for a desktop environment. You might not like it, but you can't seriously extend that out to everyone save a few. Point being, people do like Unity and Gnome 3. But the people who would rather complain about something they don't like (and aren't forced to use) tend to be loudmouths. The silent majority just don't care.

So if you're stating that nobody except a few likes Unity or Gnome 3, I'm going to have to call your bluff.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4318228

[disgruntledphd2]

To add more anecdote, I also really like Unity, especially now that I've remapped the HUD away from my Alt key (that belongs to Emacs).

I miss Unity so badly (well Linux in general) when forced to use Windows at work. I agree that the major focus of Linux should be science, development and data analysis. That's where a lot of the users are (its why I run Linux) and focusing on that would be, if not a huge market, a very dedicated and professional one.

[jfaucett]

I think you're probably right about most media production being done on osx, but I'd still love to have something comparable on linux, since you're not blocked by apple decisions as to what you can or not access (no apt-get for instance) also with linux you get open source, better terminals/tools, and more software/lib packages.

Projects like Blender are amazing and others mentioned by the author are really almost replacements for Adobe, i really like GIMP's scheme scripting language for example which allows more flexability than proprietary adobe plugins. So I'd personally be really exited if GNOME started going in this direction.

Imagine for a second, linux with high quality media content creation tools, there's huge holes especially in video (nothing near comparable to After Effects or Final Cut Pro - forget ffmpeg for that )

Also as for myself I do all my development on Ubuntu / Debian while switching to windows for testing out on that platform (IE for example), but I only do browser/networking stuff.

Anyway, I like where he wants to go, and would love to see GNOME head in the direction...

[berkut]

Erm, I don't understand where this impression there's no high quality media content creation tools available for Linux is coming from...

I guess it depends what segment of the market you're looking at: 80% of the large VFX houses in the world use Linux to do the modelling, texturing, animation, lighting, rendering, compositing, using programs like: Maya, Mari, Mudbox, SoftImage, Houdini, Katana, PRMan, Arnold, Nuke.

All those high-end apps that are used everyday to create feature films (and tv shows and adverts) work on Linux.

[jfaucett]

sorry, I should've been more specific... I meant linux in the sense that they're open source. The only contender in my book for high end open source media creation tools is really Blender which can hang with the Max/Maya lot. Also Linux tends to be used almost purely for the processing side, ie render farms, for film, 3d, etc. The designers and content creators themselves are rarely on linux though.

[berkut]

As I said in my post, 80% of the big VFX studios like DD, Weta, SPI, ILM, Dreamworks, DNeg, Framestore, MPC, FuelFX, RSP are using Linux for everything. Not just renderfarms - everything - creating the original content, modelling, texturing, lookdev, etc, etc.

So I don't know where you're getting the "Also Linux tends to be used almost purely for the processing side" from.

[cutie]

Everything you've said is true, but it's a relatively small industry, very custom (where linux shines), and little overlap with others.

[fmoralesc]

> My experience is that this is owned by osx. Adobe's creative suite is the lifeblood of any media development and the Linux equivalents are not as good. If you're commercially invented to create new media then you'll use the best tools for the job.

Which is exactly why media production should be a target for linux development?

[duaneb]

Linux oses suck at so many things, why pick media production? Why not become the best enterprise system, or the best browsing system, or the best home media system?