"Linux Advocacy": A help to a Windows user?

The Linux advocacy thread sounds inspiring

I would love to go with Linux, if I knew whether I will be able to somehow

(1) run several custom .NET 3.5 applications that I professionally depend on.

(2) Stay compatible with people using EndNote (reference manager for MS Word for Win and MacOS). From what I know, OpenOffice loses all EndNote information.

(3) Produce vector and raster graphics in CMYK color space, - a pre-requisite of professional publishing I cannot afford to lose.

Anyone has those working in Linux? If yes, please share how I could do that.

 

Nope, you wouldn't be able to use Linux if you depend on Windows things. In this situation i think it's best if you stick with Windows as you won't be able to do all the stuff you did in Windows in Linux. For some of the things you may be able to change and adapt to something different but only if you're open minded.

 

I am open minded.
Can I at least use CMYK and operate on Mac or Win .doc files that come with EndNote refs?

P.S. how CMYK is a "Windows thing"?

 

I don't use Windows anymore so some of the things you're saying to me are pretty foreign. You may be able to find a Linux alternative to the .NET 3.5 apps you need, or try to run them in WINE. Compatibility for people using EndNote would require someone who uses both Windows and Linux to tell you that (i'm lost on that). For graphics we have GIMP (pretty much a free photoshop).

 

GIMP has no CMYK as far as I know, unless something happened recently.

 

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=2586

Wine can only run 2.0 well atm. As you can see, Wine sucks at running .NET 3.5. But this will probably change in the future as Wine is still developing.

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=835

Again, mixed bag. Some functionality is broken; best thing to do in Linux is run Word. But, that defeats one of the main ideas of running Linux.

There are a lot of applications in Linux for vector and raster graphics; Inkscape and Xara Xtreme are examples.

Overall, if you really need Endnote and .NET, but you still really want to run Linux, I would recommend running a virtual Windows OS with Linux as host. This would simplify things a great deal, provided that you have the hardware to run it.

Get with the program guys, Scribus has CMYK capabilities. Do a little research.

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7054

Look at the feature list.

 

You should be able to run those programs within a virtual machine inside Linux....there IS hope. I run my vertical market tax programs in VirtualBox XP inside Linux.

EDIT: I do dual boot, however with USB working, I run a back up to my external HD within my VirtualBox XP environment. Works great.

 

Dual boot will be a better option.

most of the world uses Windows so u gotta keep Windows on one partition.

 

^^^ Dual boot is not a better option... you'd have to reboot every time to use platform specific applications. If you get USB working on VirtualBox (which is easy) you can transfer files between the guest OS and host OS. No reboot, no nothing. In fact, VB has a feature (I've forgotten what its called) that allows you to do this.

 

Bog, thank you for your most useful answers! Pretty much what I wanted to know.

And big thanks to everyone else who responded.

 

Another satisfied customer!

 

Maybe late, but let me add that you can also set up shared folders between your Windows VirtualBox guest and your Linux Host...most times I find that to be more convenient than using the USB HD.