blackecho said:
i've used differnet distros of linux for almost a year now. i don't have the time to compile stuff and i'm having problems getting Photoshop and illustrator to run through Wine. i'm slowly turning windows into something like linux. my winxp has been up now for three full weeks without a single crash or even a hicup. changing the shell has made it quite a bit quicker, and everything seems to run smoother. but i'm tired of explorer...
.... your running XP, and you dont have the time to compile stuff? First off, what distro are you running, Gentoo? Though i feel for you on wine: Its a little rough still, but getting better. I'd reccomend learning the GIMP though. Sure occasionally you may have to still use PS, but more often than not you can use the gimp just as fast once you get used to it. It can use 90+% of your photoshop plug-ins too. I seem to remember running into an illustrator alternative, but i didnt like it as much.
Dropping explorer, your main bets are Litestep (i didnt mind it, but it seemed to have a memory leak: 60+mb on occasion, Aston shell (See above link. Havent used this one yet) and hoverdesk (
http://www.hoverdesk.net/). Hoverdesk isnt free, although you often hear good things about it.