Adobe Creative Cloud with Virtual Box on Ubuntu
I don’t know that there are many people who want this arrangement, but since I’m using it, I thought I’d write a few notes.
I use Creative Cloud for book layouts and graphics design for my company, Energion Publications. I have done layout with Scribus, and I intend to post on some of the differences now that I’m using InDesign. Creative Cloud made use of Adobe’s products practical for my small company.
I use a laptop computer most of the time. I’ve been using InDesign, Photoshop, and occasionally other products from the suite for several months on the laptop. I do use an external mouse, but otherwise I’ve found that they work wonderfully well on that system. On my desktop, however, I run Ubuntu Linux, and so I don’t have the option of using Creative Suite applications.
Enter Virtual Box. You can install it from the Ubuntu Software Center, and setting up a usable computer in the box is not too difficult. I had an unused Windows XP Professional install, and so I’m working with that operating system. I’ve been thinking about upgrading that to Windows 7 or even trying Windows 8 in that box, but thus far have resisted the temptation to experiment.
While I do most of my work from my laptop, occasionally, especially when I’m entering corrections into the final stages of a manuscript, I find myself wishing for my larger monitor, actually two monitors, my larger physical desktop (the real desk, not the computer desktop), and various other conveniences.
Creative Cloud allows installation on two computers, provided they are not used simultaneously, so I went ahead and did the installation on the Virtual Box computer. I’ve found that while the installation was slower than on my laptop, the programs run just fine. I haven’t really stressed Photoshop yet, but I’ve done the basic kinds of work I need to do.
So the Virtual Box environment is doing well!
I will write later comparing work on GIMP and Photoshop, both of which I continue to use, and Scribus to InDesign.
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