Hi all,not been member here very long ( minutes really lol ) but thought i'd like to offer my view on linux apps etc....
I have a development pc ( i'm using it to make this post ) which runs Fedora Core 6,i use it to test out all my designs and using a program called xampp ( i'm sure most of you have heard of it ) to run apache,php,mysql etc...i use it as a test server before i go live with any site.I know there is no photoshop etc... on linux but there are alot of nice free tools out there that are very useful .Here are a few i have used
Bluefish - An html editor,but no reason not to be used for other languages
Screem - Another html editor,little different from Bluefish but well worth a try
Gimp - mentioned before
Xampp - Collection of tools to run your own server,includes apache,php 4&5,mysql and perl.Also comes with phpmyadmin and other goodies
K3b - A good cd/dvd app for burning your back-ups
Another plus i found was that using linux as my desktop involved me learning Bash ( linux command line ) which came in very handy when using ssh/telnet to work with a nix based server.Hope there are lots more Linux designers out there can share there views :-)
O and before i forget,one of the good bits about linux is all the different distro's out there.Try as many as you can until you find the one you like the best.a few i can think off are :- Linspire,fedora,suse,gentoo,slackware,knoppix,Dam Small Linux (DSL) and there are loads more..........go forth and explore lol