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Developer Claims Photoshop Installers Now Work on Linux Using Wine (linuxiac.com)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/linux@programming.dev
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The inability to use Adobe Creative Cloud on Linux is often cited as a major barrier for many users considering a switch to the platform. But perhaps, just perhaps, there has already been a breakthrough in that direction.

A community developer says they have resolved long-standing Wine compatibility issues that prevented Adobe Creative Cloud installers from completing on Linux, publishing a patchset and prebuilt binaries that they claim enable installation of Photoshop 2021 and Photoshop 2025.

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[–] 77 points 9 months ago* (20 children)

Would like to see some confirmation, but this is probably the #1 thing I see people say is holding them back.

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  • [–] 51 points 9 months ago (16 children)

    In hindsight, I'm so glad I couldn't get them working on linux, because it forced me to get my head around Darktable. I couldn't go back to Lightroom now...

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  • [–] 39 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Honestly I feel like that's very common with Linux. If you're willing to deal with the growing pain of switching it ends up working out better in the end, some people just don't want to deal with that or it's their job and they can't afford to deal with that. I'm sympathetic to the latter case, less to the former but that's just my opinion

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  • [–] 22 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    I was one of the former. Photography isn't my job, but it's really important to me, and photo editing was a show stopper for me for a long time. Even after I moved to Linux full time, I was using remote desktops, VMs and whatever else I could manage to get Adobe stuff working, without having to switch back to Windows. I endured, because I'd finally hit a threshold where that pain was worth putting up with in preference to Windows and its built in ads and spyware.

    But when I finally gave up on getting Lightroom working on linux, I figured I had no choice but to learn a linux compatible workflow... It was either that, or go back to windows, and that wasn't happening...

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  • [–] 10 points 9 months ago

    That was exaclty me like three years ago now. I stopped editing photos for like a year because I got so fed up with windows and did the switch cold turkey. No idea why it took me so long to just watch a few workflow videos on darktable but I use it constantly now I feel like I could do better but I'm comfortable

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (9 children)

    I found darktable pretty user friendly TBH. The thing I've been struggling with is image editing - I can't find something that has a decent workflow. I'm not looking for anything fancy. Paint.net on windows more than met my needs when I was spending more time in windows.

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  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago (5 children)

    My biggest issue with darktable was the masking. It's so different in darktable, but once I understood it, all the barriers fell away

    I can't find something that has a decent workflow. I'm not looking for anything fancy

    I import, sort and tag my photos with Digikam, and then open them with darktable for editing.

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Any reason why you are using digikam for importing and sorting and not just daktable?

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    Digikam is built from the ground up to be a photo cataloger. Hierarchical tags that you can click on to expand or contract, the ability to jump from a given photo to all photos taken on the same date, or all photos in the same folder, or all photos that share a particular tag. Collapsible folders and tag structures, the ability to toggle child tag/folder recursive view on or off, image grouping (automated by filename/timestamp/burst). They also share metadata perfectly well through EXIF data, so anything I do in one is visible in the other right away.

    This is digikam

    This is the same folder in darktable

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (1 child)

    Sorry, I meant a decent editing workflow. Things along the lines of editing - adding outlined text, moving and/or removing things, etc. For example, I've tried gimp a few times but I've found myself fighting against the way it wants you to do things.

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Why does everyone talk like Photoshop is the only program Adobe makes? Tell me, how does Darktable compare to Substance. Or Illustrator?

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    Why does everyone talk like Photoshop is the only program Adobe makes?

    It's because most professional creative jobs require raster image editing in at least some part of the production pipeline and photoshop fulfils that need in the adobe suite, so it's the most talked about product in that suite.

    For linux, we have great:

    • Video editing (Davinci Resolve)
    • 3d (Blender)
    • Digital Art (Krita)

    But raster image editing isn't in that list.

    There's things like GIMP, but it's always behind photoshop. It only got non-destructive editing less than a year ago (which is what most serious creatives need to use), but photoshop's had that since CS2 back in 2005!

    If someone actually wanted to beat adobe (e.g. the EU or wikimedia), they would have to pay for 20 developers to work on graphite and you'd probably have something better than GIMP or Inkscape after 7 years, something better than Affinity in 12 years, and something better than photoshop in 15 years.

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  • [–] 10 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Every day people, no. Mainly Youtubers.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago

    Well... Youtubers (and other creatives) are the main awareness funnel for everyday people to hear about linux in the first place.

    Creatives are typically stuck on windows because their workflow doesn't work on linux. And yes, they can change their workflow, but there's also a high time + effort cost to doing that which gets even higher for them since they still need to produce their works while switching.

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    • [–] 56 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    This would have been great like 10 years ago before Adobe fucked a decent product up with a subscription model and AI.

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    • [–] 18 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    This should be applicable to "alternatively sourced" PS installs too then?

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  • [–] 21 points 9 months ago* (2 children)

    alternatively sourced

    I think old versions pre-adobe cloud have been working pretty well for a long time, IIRC. It's really the latest versions that most companies force employees to use that are messed up.

    But Adobe cloud is, like, 12 years old now IIRC so you'd have to be using a pretty old version.

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    • [–] 15 points 9 months ago

    no fucking way

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    [–] 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

    Their dumb installer is a web app incorrectly displayed under wine. If you install an Adobe program in a virtual machine then copy its files not every program works. Like Premiere doesn't work but Photoshop and Audition seems to work.

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    [–] 6 points 9 months ago

    I am a Krita user that works on Windows using whiskey or maybe cheap beer.

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    [–] 6 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    Maybe people will shut the fuck up about Photoshop not working on Linux now. (Not saying it's not a valid complaint, I just get tired of hearing it.)

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  • [–] 7 points 9 months ago* (1 child)

    "Nooo you shouldn't have to update apps from terminal. AVERAGE USER is too scared. They will never be able to remember like three letters. AVERAGE USER is dumb you see. They want to be babied by their own computer. AVERAGE USER also doesn't know how to google for alternatives. It's just the typical AVERAGE USER.
    Anyway, adobe photoshop..."

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago

    God I get so frustrated when people argue on the behalf of these mythical other people, but you seldom to never actually see anyone arguing this as something they'd like.

    Like just say you'd like things to be easier for you to use, it's a valid statement.

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    • [–] 11 points 9 months ago (3 children)

    It could take a while to get into Wine. The test suite is pretty extensive and automated but patches can break things as well as new tests may need to be developed to ensure that testing is accurate.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (1 child)

    They have a test suite? I once had to downgrade Wine from 7 to 5 because the one game I wanted stopped working in the later version.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    Yep it’s a huge test suite and an automatic run on every patch submitted. If people are writing patches they are also writing tests. The tests are run on various versions of Windows as well as wine running on Linux.

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    • [–] 5 points 9 months ago

    ....just Photoshop? Why does this text seem to conflate the words Creative Cloud and Photoshop?

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    [–] 4 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Instead of hating on this, we should at least be happy about such a breakthrough. It's not only about being able to use that specific kind of software on Linux, but about making the transition as smooth as possible! If people were able to bring their workflow over to Linux and then gradually make the switch to free and open source software (which is what happens 99% of the times when a NORMAL and NON tech savvy user manages to switch to Linux) then it's fine. 

    This is a mean, not the goal. You gotta consider that many companies require it. 

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    Exactly. Similarly for Office/Teams/SharePoint/(Enterprise) OneDrive. I need those apps to work or Linux is a non-starter. If people could install them and they "just worked", that removes a massive barrier to getting people to switch.

    Thankfully, they work great in a VM, and the web versions of the apps are good enough for like 90% of my workflows. So I made the switch easily enough.... But I'm not recommending the switch to any of my (less techy) co-workers.

    It's fun doing half a workflow in my Windows VM and the other half in Linux, snapping Windows to half the screen, or forcing Linux windows "always on top" over Windows. Copying and pasting back and forth between the two.

    We're living in the future.

    (FWIW: my Windows install is running ReviOS, so most of the bullshit's ripped out.)

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    • [–] 3 points 9 months ago

    Meanwhile I'm over here struggling to get lutris to load battlenet so I can legally play my D2R lol

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    [–] 2 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Why is the headline so incredulous of the literal developer who authored the patches?

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    • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (3 children)

    Can someone recommend an alternative with similar features to Premiere Pro?

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    • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    .....but why?

    I guess if you have a ton of adobe specific assets and must be able to use adobe software because of legacy projects this might be useful but it just feels like tech debt.

    coupled with the fact that tons of accessible software now can open psd and ai filetypes... :| hooray, I guess?

    but for fuck's sake people get off the creative cloud it's turning into ai smog

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Affinity isn’t Linux compatible yet, and Gimp has a steep learning curve (the photoshop-ification plugin for new Gimp users isn’t well advertised)

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    • [–] -1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (5 children)

    Not sure how I feel about wine these days. It brings things to Linux that has wonderful replacements now. We go to Linux to escape the gunk. Not to bring the gunk.

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  • [–] 14 points 9 months ago (4 children)

    No-one is forcing you to install Adobe software. Stop crying about other people liking choices.

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  • [–] 0 points 9 months ago* (2 children)

    The opposite. Wine is a crutch stopping people from choice and keeping money in the oligarch's pocket instead of people to taking the leap and contributing to open source expansion that allows us to have choice. But I think you already knew that and chose to take a cheap shot instead for karma.

    Would have taken you more seriously if you made an argument that wine at least allows people to dip their toes in the Linux community but no, you chose to sound like a "badass" instead.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (1 child)

    So removing an option is somehow increasing choices?

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    My comment was more about how I feel. Wine is a choice. It's a choice to turn off better choices out there. It's a choice to not be strong and not take the leap to other open source alternatives. It's a choice to keep putting money in the oligarch's pocket.

    My comment is to encourage people to turn off their fears and make that leap. It's to encourage people to try out the alternatives and support the open source community.

    But wine is also a choice for when you're forced to use an app that your company or client requires. But if your not the that category I encourage you to try out the open source alternative.

    My comment is also based on the fact that making corporate apps more accessible and mainstreamed to Linux makes better (designed) apps less supported and less robust.

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