A Dedicated MultiMedia and Desktop Publishing Powered Ubuntu Distro
Ubuntu Studio is a multimedia dedicated Linux OS that comes preinstalled with the best selection of free multimedia applications available, and is configured for best
performance for the Ubuntu Studio defined workflows: Audio, Graphics,
Video, Photography and Publishing.
All for FREE! Would you believe? Open Source software is the best thing to ever happen for the computing age and you even see advocacy groups like Open Source Ecology offering free blueprints for machines that make machines or work equipment essential for survival--like build-it yourself bakery ovens, farm tractors, 3D printers even.
Going back to Ubuntu Studio, aside from creating your own art and making it precious enough to earn you a living, you can also pay it forward by helping groups like Open Source Ecology: If you are a technical or engineering expert and can provide good design advice on refining blueprints on manufacturing the Open Source machina designs on their website.
I couldn't resist downloading the latest 32 bit version to try out on my low resource computer to see if the Ubuntu distro was as good as recommended. From the buggy apps of almost 7 years ago, (Blender, GIMP, Inkscape), the Linux multimedia apps for graphics, publishing and audio programming have leapfrogged ahead enough to be competitive and user friendly enough to go head-to-head with paid branded software, so making the switch to Ubuntu will just require an adjustment to different app controls but you get the same productivity and quality of creative output.
For any type of content media work, Ubuntu Studio is really amazing considering that it is powerful AND freely available. Keep a partition in your hard drive dedicated to this OS and its pre-installed apps as well as any additional FREE apps you can get, if you still need to run any other software in you PC. Otherwise, I'd highly recommend at least 2 Ubuntu distros, this one for multimedia work, and maybe either Edubuntu (for your kids to play and learn), or Ubuntu Ultimate Edition as the heavyweight, everyday use, multipurpose Linux OS and app package.
GIMP for Bitmap Imaging and Digital Painting and Color Rendering
Ubuntu Studio comes standard with GIMP, the non-KDE digital image editing and digital painting app that can also do color separation for publishing documents or images
MyPaint is another free app that is a digital painting tool, more in tune with graphic tablets. It
comes with a large collection of brushes, including ink and charcoal for illustration. Good for running doodles and drafts of illustrations before tightening your art on GIMP.
Designed for pressure sensitive graphics tablets
Simple and minimalistic user interface
Extensive brush creation and configuration options
Basic layer support
Inkscape for Vector Graphics, Typography Design and Imaging
Inkscape is a very underrated vector graphics editor, for designing digital illustrations, flat graphic design images, typography design, vector image editing and is as powerful and equally functional as branded software like
Illustrator, CorelDraw. It uses Scalable
Vector Graphics (SVG) file format as its default save file output.
Blender for 3D Modeling and Animation
Blender is a very powerful and compact 3D content and animation app. Create 3D models from scratch then build and animate scenes and environments. Blender
also has its’ own game engine and is vastly expandable with addons. While the interface might have a steep learning curve, if you can make great 3D on branded software, you can do the same on Blender. In fact the first Spider-man movie used Blender to rough out the initial animation sequences of some scenes as a storyboard before they went ahead with the full-blown 3D production.
3D Solids and character modeling
Scene animation
Physics and particle functions
Shading
Game engine (create a whole game using only Blender)
Imaging and compositing
Highly extensible
Scribus for Desktop Publshing and Document Design
Another great pre-installed app is Scribus, a professional desktop publishing engine that can create slick PDF publications.
It has gorgeous default templates for posters, business cards, brochures
and more. You can run a digital press with Ubuntu Studio with a FREE app like this which has FREE software upgrades for as long as Ubuntu Linux developers keep plugging in and improving the entire Ubuntu Studio package. Why pay for branded software when you can get good and powerful stuff like Ubuntu Studio for multi-media content generation.
Calibre creates excellent templates for
common formats, such as kindle, various types of tablets and other
hardware readers, for when you port your documents to be read in mobile devices.
LibreOffice is one of the popular office software suites, with a spreadsheet app, a slide show app, as well as the ubiquitous word processing Linux program LibreOffice Writer. Create text documents and save them or export them in any format you wish, including PDFs.
Ubuntu Studio also includes some of the most popular audio software in the Linux world.
Ardour is a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), a home digital studio designed for recording, mixing and mastering when hooked up with approriate hardware. Who needs a Mac when you can run a rig with Ubuntu! It can also be used to sync sound and music to video media content. Of course there are other apps in the package that support and complement each task for media content creation, from sound production to desktop publishing, to graphics and video. Check out their offical website for a rundown on each of the apps.
Ubuntu Studio is such a powerful Linux OS that is update EVERY 6 months for Free and has long term support versions every 2 years. All of it Open Source and free for any creative group or individual to use and make their work amazing. Even with older hardware too.
If you are creative content designer or a writer needing a very simple yet powerful package for your home office or business as a design house, get Ubuntu Studio with the best equipment you can manage and blast away with shining media content.
All Images from Ubuntu Studio.org Fair use. All rights reserved.
