Hello
I'm a little afraid of making this consult. Maybe it's stupid, or controversial, or irrelevant.

I'm thinking in buying a new computer. It will be used for graphic design, digital illustration, small animations.
Planing to use: Inkscape, Gimp, Synfig, ... Blender 3D will be used too.

First:
Which operative system?
-Apple seems to rule on the graphic design business. But It's expensive, how good is the support for Inkscape?
- Windows. It's more common. The machines that comes with it are cheaper, I guess. If you want, you can install other more popular software (from Adobe family, from others)... even not "1ega1" copies
- Gnu Linux. I have "a good feeling" with this option. I've managed to create things there. But It's difficult (of course, it depends) to install other design software... and some other things are hard to achieve (thinking in some hardware).

Second:
Now, what hardware combination is better?. Does it possible to cut some things in the budget?... perhaps it's not needed to have the last graphic card, or with a I3 processor is enough.

Well, hope it's interesting question, or helps some one else. I'm making a poll too.

Greetings

Using Inkscape on a Linux system seems to be more carefree to me than the other options - but of course, if you've never used Linux, it's something new to learn (I'm on Linux Mint 17.2 currently).

As Inkscape is mainly being developed on GNU/LInux, some Windows bugs (like the black printing for transparency, or the massive slowdown with the rulers in combination with some graphics cards) are only discovered later, and fixing is more difficult for the non-Windows-user developers. All the other software you mention is also being developed on Linux, by the open source community, AFAIK, so I'd guess the process (and priority for developers) is similar there, too.
See the known issues section in the release notes: http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php ... own_issues

There are a few highly capable and committed OS/X Inkscape developers, but getting started with Inkscape on OS/X still seems to be difficult for some users - I don't know how well it works when this hurdle of making the right settings at the beginning is overcome, though. There seem to be some system-specific bugs, AFAIR.

Why don't you just do a dual install? You can easily install a Linux system side by side with a Windows system.
Some computers are even cheaper if you don't buy them with OEM Windows preinstalled... (my last one was).

Hardware:
My Linux system and desktop are fairly small-footprint, but I think that maybe on Windows, you might need more power in relation to the following:
As far as I know, Inkscape doesn't use the graphics card to do its calculations, so a fast processor, several cores for filter rendering multithreading and enough RAM are probably more important than a fast graphics card. I have a luxurious 16 GB RAM, and most of them are idling most of the time. My graphics card is some reasonable on-board thingy, which sucks when playing games, but doesn't play a role for working with Inkscape (for Blender, it probably would!). In terms of CPU, I have an i-3 quadcore @3.5 GHz, and it is more than enough for what I do with Inkscape. Only on bitmap export, it might be useful to have more with large filtered bitmaps.

Hope some of this helps.

In a nutshell as I see it:

• most development is on linux/gnu, currently windows builds lack developers =
  you may need to fix problems on your own -missing icons due gtk mismatch (?), missing last opened history etc.
• osx/apple has serious problems with their themes =
  you may need to fix problems on your own (even though they are hardly inkscape related ones, and can be solved at once)
• linux =
  you may need to fix problems on your own, as a default os philosophy. Look up drivers, use the command line.

Which comes down neither of them is the best as per se.
May run on linux faster, but can't really compare, the performance is more related to the hardware it runs on.


Apple products are overpriced and may not have the same chances of repairing as a regular pc.
Windows is full of idiocy better avoided, like directing to the online help to solve connection problems.
Win 10 refreshes/upgrades automatically, meaning it can shut down in the middle of your work.
Probably linux gives you the most opportunity, but it may lack some drivers -thinking of installing a graphic tablet. (Well win can update drivers that can detach your wifi all together...)

Thanks for your opinions...

I always see to graphic design tutors (on video), using a Mac OS X laptop, or product... and also praises of it in other forums... my question that comes...Does a digital graphic ... "crafts-man" (just to be more general, no offence intended), MUST use a Mac OS machine??...

Maybe more people have other opinions?...The poll only shows one vote, but last time I check, around 46 viewers had watched this topic.

Again, can't compare, I have never tried a mac. Would guess half of it is hyped up elitism and/or trendyness/ good marketing, the other half is user experience of less trouble. Personally the occult symbolism behind is not my kind of boat of apple, so I would't pay times more for less cables.

I agree - I like my cables - and what they mean. At least I can repair everything separately and independently if something breaks.

The poll only shows one vote, but last time I check, around 46 viewers had watched this topic

Well, since Inkscape is primarily developed on/with/for Linux, the question seems moot, to me. I would probably not base my choice of operating system on how well it works with one particular program. I think a lot of people choose Mac because they don't have to deal with Windows security issues. I think a lot choose Linux because they can have so much better control of how it works.

For myself, I'll probably move from Windows to Linux, some time before whatever version comes after Windows 10 comes out. But that decision had nothing to do with Inkscape or any individual or group of programs. It's because of the rumors that after Win10, MS will make Windows a cloud-based os. So the operating system will no longer be fully contained on my computer. Lack of 100% control of my own operating system is only 1 reason I would be opposed to it.

Hello Brynn.

Thanks for having the interest of passing by this topic

By the way, Brynn, sorry for asking these: what are the characteristics of your hardware. You don't have to say your IP, or password, unless you want

I'll try to explain why I'm interested in knowing more about an OS.

I'm not only thinking in the benefits of running just Inkscape in a particular OS, but also the indirect benefits, like: the "easiness" of exporting or importing your artwork to other programs, the compatibility and use of auxiliary hardware, of completing some other tasks. Maybe I'm missing something, since I'm not even clear with myself... that's why I'm asking!

Periodically, I see MAC OS users requesting for help about their Installation of Inkscape in their machines. What I can "suppose " of that is:
- Inkscape doesn't work well in MAC OS
- However, there is a necessity of an SVG graphic editor, even for Apple users, despite the idea I have that They can afford, or even have commercial software installed.

I wonder if the Inkscape Project have a metric of users with Inkscape's Users by OS. OR statistics of downloading versions.

About hardware: So for beginning, which hardware is enough: a Celeron Machine (no way!)? 8 Gb of ram? a generic graphic Card?

You can check the download numbers here:
https://inkscape.org/en/download/windows/
https://inkscape.org/en/download/mac-os/

Copy the links to the files, then remove the /download from each one. A number that indicates downloads will be visible on the item's description page.

For Linux, it's impossible to say, as most people get it from their distro's repository, not from our website.

Moini wrote:You can check the download numbers here:
https://inkscape.org/en/download/windows/
https://inkscape.org/en/download/mac-os/

Copy the links to the files, then remove the /download from each one. A number that indicates downloads will be visible on the item's description page.

For Linux, it's impossible to say, as most people get it from their distro's repository, not from our website.

Thanks Moini,
At 5 dic 2015:
Total downloads:
- Inkscape 0.91 win32 installer msi: 874 386
- Inkscape 0.91 win64 installer msi: 2 173 122
- Inkscape-0.91-1-x11-10.7-x86_64.dmg: 452 972

hulf2012 wrote:By the way, Brynn, sorry for asking these: what are the characteristics of your hardware. You don't have to say your IP, or password, unless you want

I'm not sure how it helps you, but I can share about my system....although I don't know that much about different kinds of computer systems. I just go with Dell because is well-known brand with good, long history. (Yes, Dell heavily advertising on TV for this holiday season, free shipping anywhere in US.)

I wish I did know enough to be able to build my own system. Omg, that would be awesome! I still have no idea what kind of system I would want to go with a Linux os....probably discuss a lot with 2 or 3 salespeople. Then research the products online, that were discussed. Read some consumer articles, maybe find some user reviews, although those aren't very dependable, in my experience. Might find a forum somewhere to search and/or discuss. Talk to friends....etc.

But that's a few years away. I might go with a dual os on the next new laptop I buy -- Win10 and Linux. I don't think I have enough memory to add Linux to this one....hhhmm, well maybe. I wonder if 208 GB would be enough? But with only 4 GB RAM....?? Then the next computer, only Linux -- but who knows, at this point (currently my health is not so good).

Anyway:

Dell Studio 1558
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU - Q 720 @ 1.60 GHz
1.60 GHz
4 GB RAM
283 GB
Windows 7, 64-bit

I'm not sure about graphics card, because I'm not a big gamer (only small gamer, with little Flash games!).

Display Adapter is ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470
Sound, Video, Game Controllers is ATI High Definition Audio Device and IDT High Definition Audio CODEC

I think those are pretty generic, and nothing fancy.

If Inkscape used the graphics card very much, I might put more into it. But I just use Inkscape as a hobby anyway. However, I do plan to put absolutely as much RAM as I can find -- I learned that much!

I wonder if 208 GB would be enough? But with only 4 GB RAM....??

That's definitely enough for current Linux systems - the 'system' alone needs less than 40 GB of hard disk space (on my computer, with *many* programs installed). 4 GB RAM should be sufficient, too, if you're not running a resource-hungry desktop environment. If you can get 8, that will really be more than enough currently.
Wishing you all the best for your health, Brynn!

Well, it's laptop, which afaiu, you can't add more ram. I've added ram to a desktop system (tower/case), but I didn't think you could add to a laptop. But maybe I'll think about installing Linux

Depends on the laptop. Some allow to exchange the RAM bars, and many don't (or ones with more capacity wouldn't fit anyway). On my very old laptop, we've been able to exchange almost everything. But it's usually not fun to open a laptop - all those tiny, tiny screws, and all those cables that you can rip out accidentally... Some are made for being repaired, but most are made to be used until a single component fails. Not very economical.