Well, after a lot of thought and research I’ve decided to make the jump back to Linux. I’m sick of Windows from both an ideological and practical stand point. I’m sick of having to pirate software I can’t afford because it’s only targeted at a commercial audience. I’m sick of the boot times and bloated apps. So, yeah, I’m making the jump.

From an animation standpoint what does this mean? Well OSAlt has been a fabulous resource for finding open source alternatives to the commercial software I’ve been using. I’ve also been using Linux in VMWare to make sure the software I’m looking at works well and my current hardware will be supported. So here’s a list of what I’m planning on using after the jump.

The most important package, Stopmotion:
Currently using AnimatorDV simple+ to stream a live feed from my camcorder via firewire. Onionskinning is important to me as is frame flipping. I’ll be replacing it with with Stopmotion which supports the same features. Thanks to Stop Motion Works for the tip.

Image editing:
Currently using Photoshop. Will be moving to GIMP.

2D animation:
Currently using Moho 5.4 (now Anime Studio). Before Moho was sold to Anime Studio they supported Linux. I have both the package and the license still. so…Yay!

Sound editing:
Been using Audacity and will continue to do so.

NLE video editing:
Using After Effects. I’ll be moving to Kino. Definitely not as full featured as AE, but more than suits my needs.

Video Conversion:
I convert a lot of different media types for animation screenings. SWF to FLV to DIVX to XVID to MPEGII to VOB to MOV…… Actually the conversion software I use most under Windows like ffmpeg and VirtualDub are ported from Linux. sweet.

DVD Authoring:
Good god. Too many options to even choose from. I’ve been using DVDAuthor under Windows which is, can you guess?, ported from Linux. I’ll probably stick with it.

Burning DVDs:
Using Roxio. Moving to K3b. Works flawlessly.

Hardware:
I have a Dell Latitude D820 and all the underlying hardware is fully supported. My new Samson microphone works. My Canon Elura 100 works. My external projector works. Playing DVDs works better than under windows (so no more DVDshrink before the animation workshop). Other concerns were my Sony Ebook and IPod. Both are fully supported.

And the winning distribution??? Ubuntu! I used to be a Debian diehard, but looking at Ubuntu I’m a convert. Besides Feisty Fawn is due to be released next week.

I have a USB external drive due in the mail to back up my current data before the migration. Then it’s full speed ahead. BTW, for those interested, Amazon has an incredible deal right now. 320GB external USB 2.0 drive for 99$. That’s a friggin’ no-brainer.

So the big thorn that still sticks in my side about MUDH is that damned soundtrack. As my buddy Jeremy said, “if you did some work on the audio you could definitely raise the whole thing up a notch.” Luckily J also gave me some audio advice. He suggested I move to a USB microphone instead of using my chintzy RadioShack mic. Well I didn’t even know they made USB mics, but after some back and forth with J and a little research I went ahead and purchased a Samson C10U mic. It came in yesterday and I’m impressed. It’s still going to take me awhile to tweak the levels and get it the way I like it, but here’s a small comparison I did last night.

Sound recorded using the Radio Shack mic.

Sound recorded using the Samson C10U

Well, I got my hotel reservation and plane tickets. I’m going to Platform! This is the first big international animation festival to happen in the US in decades. A week of animation and animators. The only drawback is that I have to wait until June!