i do web design and graphic design and i used adobe photoshop and macromedia dreamweaver..if i go to linux what can i use?

Quanta+ or Bluefish or Screem or any text editor for web design and the GIMP as a Photoshop replacement.

well how well do these "replacements" match up to the real thing..like i dont think i ever saw a proffesional using any of those

They match up just fine. Quanta is an html editor, so you have to know how to use html. It won't draw tables and stuff for you. Gimp is a great program for graphic design. Unless you are a "pro", you not really need an expensive application as Photoshop to make logos. The best way to see if it fits your needs is trying them out. As you did not specified the distribution that you are using, I don't know if you distribution has quanta and the gimp on the CD's or not. But I bet the gimp is in there, as most distros has the Gimp. Check the Gimp here:

http://www.gimp.org/

And quanta here:

http://quanta.sourceforge.net/

There's a possibility to get Dreamweaver and Photoshop to run under Linux with wine if you are lucky. Here, at Frank's corner there's some tutorials:

http://frankscorner.org/

The last option is not really recommended though, since wine is "bad", generally. A nice list of equivalents programs for Linux - Windows is found here:

http://linuxshop.ru/linuxbegin/win-l...en/table.shtml

If nothing of the above works, then I guess it's better Windows and it's "professionals" tools in your case....

I find the Gimp really odd and quirky, but it is pretty capable. I don't think it matches up to Photoshop by a long shot, but I also know that most people use only 10% of PS's capabilities. I don't think there is an equivalent of Dreamweaver or Frontpage on Linux. Quanta Plus is an HTML editor, like Megaman X said. If you're used to Dreamweaver's visual tools, you won't find them here, but IMHO those tools are not very great. Learning HTML is not a very difficult task, and it gives you a lot more control in design, but more importantly it makes editing pages later on much easier. For the life of me, I can't figure out some of the code Dreamweaver comes up with. You should try it out for a while, and see if it works for you, but be ready to accept a slightly different way of doing things (esp. in Gimp as opposed to PS).

do they have programs similar to kazaa? really all i do on the cmp is AIM, music, and photoshop and dreamweaver...what ur saying about quanta sounds fine i know html java very well, but the gimp sounds sketchy b/c unfourtunitly i use more then 10% of its options ;/ i dk. maybe windows XP is the best thing for me right now

I didn't mean that the Gimp is ten percent of PS. Not by far.

in franks corner they have a screenshot of PS in redhat...

Kazaa also runs under wine . But you may check something native for Linux like gtk-gnutella, xmule, emule, edonkey2000 . They work just fine too .

AIM is also available for Linux, check out Gaim

And remember, you can always dual boot .

Because professionals have for many years been using Photoshop and Dreamweaver on Mac and Windows. The tide is turning...ever so slowly....