How to shift Web-development from windows to linux.

Question

I am a systems programmer, so i just know some basic css/html. I like to learn basic of template development for sites. I have some idea about joomla. wordpress, and I am also experimenting with few wikis. A friend of mine is fireworks/photoshop advanced user, it looks quite easy to make a template using fireworks. Is there any equivalent of fireworks on linux. My concern majorly is templating, making a layout, slicing it, defining boxes (something as a place holders for menus/tabs :) ). And some easy CSS based on it. I have been surfing for these answers, but mostly all the users who have migrated to Linux of web-development are talking about PHP/AJAX i mean things like these. None of them is too concerned about templating, may be its a too easy skill for them. Anyways following are the tools i have found on the net,

1. Kompozer
2. LnkScape
3. Gimp
4. Screem/geany/codeblocks/eclipse/bluefish
5. Apatana (they say its eclipse based)

Can anyone ps guide, which one to choose to just - make a picture/layout and generate or say write it into a css/html.

I have seen fireworks, it looked good, any best alternative for it on linux, or shall I run an older version of fireworks in wine. I think mine requirements are very basic. Thanks.

Excuse me, I was writing the question and I by-mistake pressed enter. The question got published, and when I tried to delete, it needed 5 votes. So i just took time and wrote it completely, and during that time i got voted down -3:).

EDIT -- I am still surfing, everyone is advocating GIMP, i have used GIMP, but it is more like a picture/manipulation software, not like fireworks, specifically for web-layouts. What are you linux-guys, using for your template designing. I just need advices from experienced guys. Mine requirements are simple, no fancy things... but clean intuitive web-layouts for personal sites which i can change freely, without dependence on anyone, when-ever i wish

Answer 1

If you use only css and html in you webpages, you can only copy the website and install Apache server on Linux...

Answer 2

As a server platform:

If you are using FOSS technologies (Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP, etc) then you'll find that things pretty much drop into place (although moving away from case-insensitive file systems may cause issues).

If you depend on Microsoft technologies (.NET for example) then you're pretty much going to have to rewrite everything, although Mono might help.

As a desktop platform:

Look at the tools you use now. Find equivalents on Linux. Many tools are available for both OSes.

Answer 3

I use Fireworks on Mac and have yet to find a decent alternative. The closest thing to a vector editor on Linux is going to be Inkscape but you are unlikely to find it useful for creating exportable slices that are suitable for use in your website. You will have to take multiple intervening steps in order to accomplish what would have otherwise been possible with the "Export as HTML" feature on Fireworks, with which you are likely familiar. GIMP is a reasonable photo editor (with most of the features you would expect from Photo Shop).

It sounds like you are mostly interested in replacing your graphic design workstation and not the subsequent server technologies. If that's the case, I can't wholeheartedly endorse that you switch at this time. I have yet seen an example of a site designed entirely with OOS that could compare with most of the "professional design houses" using proprietary solutions. If you were focused on web application development and not graphic design, I would be a lot less hesitant.

Creating plain-text HTML and CSS on Linux isn't going to be any different from how you create it on Windows. If you are familiar with these mark-up languages, then you will have no problem using a text editor under Linux to accomplish the same thing. If you are currently using tools like Dreamweaver to generate this code for you, you will have to try a few packages like the ones you have mentioned until you find something that is a suitable alternative. You are not going to find a Dreamweaver clone. If you plan to do web design as a business: I would suggest just learning the proper syntax for XHTML and CSS, anyway. Debugging works in the browser just like it does in Windows, with the exception of Internet Explorer (which can be ran in a virtual machine, below). Be sure to pick up the FireBug, YSlow!, and Live HTTP header extensions for Firefox to ease your debugging woes.

To achieve the best of both worlds, you should consider running your current operating system of choice (Windows?) within a virtual machine under Linux. There are many virtualization products available for Linux, but VMware Player/Server seem to be the easiest for people to use. There should still be an apt package for VMware for an easy one-click install in Ubuntu. This way, you can transition comfortably--one app at a time. Most virtualization products are now free!