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Introduction

Open Source software wasn't popular for a long time. That's because it didn't correspond to several important criteria: quality, completeness, documentation and support. If there were no problems with quality and completeness, the same couldn't be said about support and documentation. But times change. And if before people were afraid of OS Linux, nowadays Linux desktop is the reality. Moreover, now there is the possibility of assembling professional graphic workstation using only OS Linux and software with open source code.

Today, when the quality of programs increases, such criteria as the product's cost and time spent on education, move to the front of the scene. What can give to us Open Source programs in this context? Well, all programs with open source code are free. But, as for education, there might arise some serious problems and you could spend a lot of time to get acquainted with all variety of programs yourself. Don't fall into despair, because here we'll help you.

Why have we chosen Open Source? This decision is not spontaneous. We came to such a conclusion after many years' experience. To our opinion Open Source software users have a number of unchallengeable advantages. Firstly, restraint on the freedom of choice is much smaller; secondly, there are a lot of users who will have no scruple to share their experiences with you. There is a rumour that OS Linux is not ready for desktop yet, that OS Linux is difficult to install and master, but we'll dispel this myth. There's one old joke: "Even a chicken can install Debian GNU/Linux. It only needs to peck the "Enter" button". The funniest thing in this joke is that this is the honest truth. After all, Debian is not the simplest distribution for installation! Of course, everything is not so cloudless and there are underlying problems, but we'll try to answer all questions in our articles. If however we've missed something, you can always go to our forum and describe a problem. I'm sure that in this case we'll find a quick way of solving a problem.

In a number of articles of this section you'll get exhaustive information about OS installation, necessary applications, you'll receive information about advantages and limitations of different distributions and applications. At first sight it seems too difficult. However, only one weekend will be spent to read all our advices and to try out them.

This site gives a unique possibility to get all necessary information and resources in one place. We'll tell you how to build a competitive graphic workstation and will help you to master it. We always try to combine theory with practice, so that you'll be able to get resources that will considerably simplify your life in computer graphics world.