LM

Thank you for the suggestion. We will consider that idea for future issues, although it might pose some logistical challenges. One problem is that some of these tools have both open source and proprietary alternatives. In other cases, the license might not fall into one of the traditional license categories.

Although we typically give preference to open source alternatives in the rest of the magazine, Tech Tools is designed as a space that is open to any server and developer tools that might run on Linux. That said, we will try to watch for information on licensing and pass it on to the readers when we see it.

Dreamweaver on Linux

I am a huge fan of Linux. I have been using it for about 8 years now. About 6 months ago, I installed Ubuntu (for the nth time) on my laptop – this time Version 8.04 – and it immediately recognized my wireless adapter. Since then, Linux has become more and more a part of my life. I am especially loving the new Gnome.

However, I have become much more involved in design and graphics, and I have recently started a hosting company. My wife just bought me Adobe Master Collection CS4.

Try as I might, the open source options for design and web do not match up to Dreamweaver's integrated site management and graphics with Fireworks.

And Premiere has no equal.

So is there any hope? WINE is not working for me; would some kind of virtual PC running within Ubuntu do the trick?

Without this, I can never let go of the Windows hands around my neck (and my productivity).

Chris Lowry

LM

The open source community offers several powerful web development tools, some of which have appeared in these pages over the years.

Since you like Linux and you have your own hosting company, you have probably explored many of these options, but for the record, free HTML tools such as Bluefish (http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/) and Quanta Plus (http://quanta.kdewebdev.org/) have become quite sophisticated, and many readers have been successful with using Nvu (http://www.net2.com/nvu/) and Aptana (http://www.aptana.com/) in place of Dreamweaver.

Yes, several options are also available for running Windows in a virtual machine on Linux. Some users have indeed been successful with setting up Dreamweaver to run on WINE. You'll find more information on the WINE option online.

Even if WINE doesn't meet your needs now, the WINE alternative has improved a lot over the past couple of years, and you might find more success with it at some point in the future.

Of course, the best solution by far would be for Adobe to port Dreamweaver to Linux.