Thought Experiment: The Ultimate Creative Content OS 226
Dave Girard has written a lengthy description of how to design the best possible operating system for creative pursuits (video editing, photo manipulation, and sound editing, in particular) — at least the the best possible one he can imagine by selecting from the best tools and behaviors that he finds in Mac OS X, Windows, and (mostly Ubuntu) Linux. He makes a compelling case for the OS (or at least a GUI on top of it) having baked-in support for a wide range of image formats and codecs, and makes some pointed jabs along the way at what each of these three big players do wrong.
the best os for creative people (Score:5, Insightful)
is paper-and-pencil-OS, or PPOS.
Beos was a media OS, went out with a sputter. (Score:5, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeOS [wikipedia.org]
"BeOS was optimized for digital media work and was written to take advantage of modern hardware facilities such as symmetric multiprocessing by utilizing modular I/O bandwidth, pervasive multithreading, preemptive multitasking and a 64-bit journaling file system known as BFS. The BeOS GUI was developed on the principles of clarity and a clean, uncluttered design.
The API was written in C++ for ease of programming. It has partial POSIX compatibility and access to a command-line interface through Bash, although internally it is not a Unix-derived operating system."
There's a reimplementation, Haiku
https://www.haiku-os.org/ [haiku-os.org]
Re:So he wants KDE? (Score:1, Insightful)
Any Kreative artist would immediately want to pop a Kap in the Kreators for the Krap naming Konventions.
Attention to detail is paramount! Being "cute" is for the dorks who like familiar patterns (why else is it such a geek thing to endlessly repeat memes/TV programmes/etc.).
Re:So he wants KDE? (Score:4, Insightful)
~sigh~ have you read the article. KDE/Linux doesn't have the image formats built into the OS. It's one of the things OS X does right.
Re:Solution: Window Blinds theme (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh great, an _additional_ item to install serially after you get a basic Windows running, with its own installer and set of annoying dialogs. Not like it wouldn't be better to have file formats supported natively, PDF support, something like VirtuaWin or Expose, and Microsoft dev tools included rather than a £17,000 extra to make WIndows within spitting distance of everything else.
Re: OSs are supposed to be generic (Score:5, Insightful)
No they're not. They're meant for the tasks at hand.
You mean to tell me the OS running a point of sale terminal and the OS running the systems at the airport should both be set up to run nethack? Or that a Wii U is supposed to do actuarial tables?
Re:So he wants KDE? (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's just wait another 15 years and we might see a *working* color management solution under linux. THEN, KDE will be great for creative stuff. This already makes me stick to apple for now.
Re:OSs are supposed to be generic (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry art folks, you shouldn't ask for a new OS for every different use case. What you want can and should be achieved with UI tweaks.
I agree. I actually RTFA and it feels like he's asking (and answering) the wrong question.
Like if you were to ask: "What is the best kind of paper to print targets on to improve your firearm accuracy?" instead of asking "What is the best ammo/gun/sight to use to improve your firearm accuracy?"
I don't think the OS is the thing to streamline, the actual creative software UI is more important.
I work in both Adobe Creative Suite, and Autodesk 'Smoke,' and they both have a fairly good interface for previewing and moving between applications and/or file/media types.
Smoke runs as a sort of single application, and you just click buttons or swipe between pages of apps. However you can easily move from paint to video editing to sound mixing, without leaving the main program. The UI is consistent from module to module. Smoke has (in the past) been ported for IRIX, LINUX and Mac OS.
In the Adobe CS you still have to launch different apps, but a good deal of file manipulation "common ground" is had in their 'Bridge' app. Moving media between apps is also streamlined, you don't need to render and export/import to move a project or media between apps.
An OS for that? (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't need an OS for that. What would be needed would be an application suite that handles everything on his wish list seamlessly. It could run on any OS.
Screw your OS/X parametres (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Video Editing (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh please, FCP X is better than ever but that didn't stop AVID from going all out with the FUD. Once you get used to the FCP X workflow everything else just seems antique. Usually the people hating FCP X are aging baby boomers who will hopefully be forced out of the industry in the next round of lay-offs. Then they can sit around the house editing home videos of their grand kids using AVID crap and complaining about age discrimination.
Also even Premier Pro is a hell of a lot better for video than fucking Vegas, give me a break.