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ALS 2000 Abstract
The State
of the Arts - Linux Tools for the Graphic Artist
Michael J. Hammel, The Graphics Muse
Abstract
I can trace certain parts of my
life back to certain events. I remember how getting fired from a dormitory
cafeteria job forced me to focus more on completing my CS degree, which
in turn led to working in high tech instead of food service. I can thank
the short, fat, bald egomaniac in charge there for pushing my life in the
right direction. I can also be thankful he doesn't read papers like this.
Like that fortuitous event, the
first time I got my hands on a Macintosh and MacPaint - I don't even remember
if that was the tools name - was when my love affair with computer art
was formed. I'm not trained in art. In fact, I can't draw worth beans.
But I can use computers. And computers open up my creativity in ways pen
and paper never quite could.
Tracing the roots of my obsession
of Linux graphics, I have to go back to working for Dell Computer around
1990. My boss at the time was a fellow named Jeremy Chatfield, now at Xi
Graphics. Our stint at Dell was just north of Hell, minus the actual burning
brimstone. Jeremy moved to Denver, invited me up to work for a short lived
company doing SVR4 for PCs, and then into a new company formed by another
of our cohorts at Dell - Thomas Roell. X Inside was my first real paid
gig in the world of computer graphics, though compiling Motif for various
flavors of PC Unix was hardly graphically compelling. But the foundation
was laid. Eventually, Jeremy played one last roll of the dice that put
me over the edge - he pointed me to a new tool, called the Gimp.
Since those early days in 1994-1995,
I've been an avid Gimp user and at one point even contributed a small piece
of code (though I think it has been rewritten so many times my electrons
have long since vanished). Gimp opened up a world that I had only been
interested in previously. It let me become a participant. I even got a
chance to make my first (and only, to date) trip to a SIGGRAPH show. It
all led to my writing the first draft of what was then the Linux Graphics
mini-Howto.
Eventually, Marjorie Richardson
at Linux Journal and I hooked up for an article on graphics tools for Linux,
based on my mini-Howto. It was 1995 by then. I reviewed the state of tools
- rather modest at the time. I've since moved the mini-Howto, and the Linux
Gazette column which it spawned, into my own graphics Web site, The Graphics
Muse.
After all these years of playing,
I've finally moved out of software development and write full time. It's
been some time since that first look at the state of tools for graphics
on Linux, and the time is ripe for another, closer, look.
I won't delve too deeply into installation
issues for any of these tools. The point here is to explain what the tool
options are. Once a user decides to go with Linux, they'll need dig into
specific tools documentation for help on installation.
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