Running Ubuntu with a WIN7 VM in order to use Photoshop

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I'm a front-end dev who basically codes html/css/php; I have a Vaio Laptop and I chose to go with Ubuntu because of the ease of use of tools such as Git, the possibility to do native testing with a LAMP stack etc... The thing is, I need Photoshop for slicing; I receive PSDs from our Designer. These psd's do not open in GIMP. So after unsuccesfully trying to install Photoshop with WINE, I went for a Windows 7 Virtual Machine (VirtualBox).

But it's slow. It's painfully slow. I guess a single layer file would be OK but opening a PSD with 10 groups of 10 layers each... Basically the file takes 20" to load, but then switching layers from visible to hidden isn't really a pleasure to work with.

What would you suggest? Would it worth upgrading to 8GB of RAM and an SSD or I should consider a Macbook which is both Unix-like (term) and has Photoshop natively?

Or should I just use my home desktop beast of 16GB's + SSD?

I wish UBUNTU/Linux could run Photoshop - even through Wine.

George Katsanos

Posted 2013-04-19T08:42:01.287

Reputation: 403

Answers

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You don't tell us how much memory you currently have in the system and how much of this is assigned to your VM.

But according to your post, you probably only have 4GB or less memory, which is not enough to run ubuntu AND windows7 together and be able to work with them.

As a rule you can say:

1-2GB for Ubuntu and then another 4GB for Windows 7 and of course something more for the applications themself.

So 8GB might be enough, but if your PSD files are large, then 8GB might not be enough

A SSD probably woon't help much, better put more RAM in the system

André Schild

Posted 2013-04-19T08:42:01.287

Reputation: 174

1I have 4Gigs, yes. (I put a link towards my complete system specs). Would it be better to have Windows run natively and Ubuntu in the VM? I run Xubuntu which is relatively light.. I think Photoshop would work much better natively (on any machine) – George Katsanos – 2013-04-19T19:07:10.360

4GB is not enough to have a Windows VM running beside the basic OS. If you use Photoshop regularly I would use native Windows and a Ubuntu VM. If you use Photoshop only randomly, it should run well in a VM when your laptop has 8GB ram.(But of course you have to assign ~4GB RAM to the VM) – André Schild – 2013-04-19T20:54:01.423

Asked: 2013-04-19T08:42:01.287

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Active: 2013-04-19T09:12:45.160