I'm Serious This Time: I'm Going 100% Open Source at Home, Especially No Photoshop Nor Illustrator

A Lotus Evora GX race car interior versus Rolls Royce Phantom.

There's a philosophy behind this and I find it's best described using the Race Car analogy.

Race cars reach top performance in part because they have no dead weight.  Every dime is poured into parts that get the job done.

Buying a computer for your work should be like buying a car for racing.  A 'Pro' Mac is packed with overly-expensive speciality parts that are expensive to upgrade or replace.  I just use a Mac Mini for building and testing iOS apps, that's it.  And Windows, well, let's be serious ...

When you need to build a powerful workstation, don't get a 'Pro' anything from Mac and don't pay for useless Windows operating systems (it's all up-selling smoke and mirrors).

That sure would be nice, but ...

The Adobe Problem:

In print, web app, or even native app (Android) development, Adobe is the last strangely-expensive anchor that binds you to costly operating systems (Windows) and/or costly platforms (Mac).

Say you just want to produce industry-standard vectors and layered bitmaps -- for print and/or digital -- with Adobe:

• Adobe Design Standard: 1300 USD ... hilarious!
• + Windows OS: 230 USD ... nonsensical!
• or + Mac OS: 20 USD ... conniving! (You must own a [expensive] Mac!)

Note: Gimp and Inkscape do it just as well for free.  They both run on a free operating system, Ubuntu (Linux), that runs on any Mac or Windows machine.

The $1,300.00 'Easy Way' Excuse:

When it comes to reluctantly using Adobe software, the only excuse I have left takes the form of me whining that I can't work 'as fast' in Gimp and Inkscape.

I don't know how to work fast in those packages because I'm indoctrinated by Photoshop/Illustrator workflow expectations and keyboard shortcuts.

That's it: just a learning curve!  And, I've got a lot of Scottish Heritage.  I'm cheap.  I'm not going to pay over $1.3K because of some insistence on being stupid and lazy.  That's not my style.

A Great Place to Start: Gimp Magazine

And I'm going to start with Gimp Magazine's First Issue; particularly by carefully following the guide, 'Save $2000 - Here's How!'