PR, so you’d have to build Wine manually to make this patch work, but still incredible progress.
My hope is that within the next year or so, we’ll get some of these major Windows/Mac only apps running without having to run through virtualization.
this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2026
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Maybe the patch will get merged in.
When’s the next story about Adobe sending a cease and desist letter for using their software in an unapproved manner. 3… 2… 1……
There's really only two programs that make moving to Linux very problematic for me, that's Photoshop, and Word.
At least with word I can ultimately just sequester that into a VM, or learn a different document program if push comes to shove (RIP all my workflows for citations and templates).
But PS is pretty much non-negotiable, it needs GPU acceleration of a native environment to run well, and there just aren't any alternatives that can do what PS does — I need real channel support (painting on channels, copying between them per layer, actual alpha support instead of naive transparency) and more. As much as I hate Adobe, PS is one of those tools that I just know intuitively, all the texture or photo manipulation work feels entirely natural, and I just don't think I'm going to find that ever again.
So, if Linux people can get it working through Wine, it's a huge relief that I can finally leave the Microslop ecosystem.
Word is a terrible requirement. Look into onlyoffice, libreoffice or tex.
Not a requirement, but a preference.
Onlyoffice looks like it might be good, I'll give it a try.
Can't stand libreoffice, it feels much like Office 2007 which was the worst version I ever had to use — fixed with 2013 and 2016, but libre hasn't caught up.
E: Found freeoffice which looks to have much closer parity to MS Office. I don't have a problem buying perpetual software licenses in these situations. I'd prefer FOSS, but for productivity software it has to be conducive to getting work done.
Collabora has also released a desktop version. I've been giving it a go and its UI is pretty nice, but its still fairly buggy at the moment. Keeping an eye on it for sure.
Collabora is frankly terrible compared to onlyoffice.
I concur. If you want ‘basically word with a different logo’ use OnlyOffice. Collabora is not there.
Fusion 360 for me. Just one stupid program.
I moved from Fusion360 to FreeCAD. It definitely has a learning curve. But I took a few weeks to properly learn it, and I can now do all I did in Fusion. It's not as polished (although getting there with recent versions) and not as powerful for some applications. But it's free, open source, and I can laugh at Autodesk and their subscription fees.
Yeah this is my issue. Fusion was very easy to pick up, and I'm lazy to learn that anew.
If nothing else, the (lack of) ownership of the files alone should help me convert one day.
Why are you demanding word
Nice, do DAWs next! 😍
Ableton kinda runs under Bottles. 🤷♂️
Reaper is native Linux support too. I'm very very much a novice in audio production, but using yabridge you can import most plugin models as well. I don't know that getting something like neural DSP is possible, at least stable though.
Reaper, Studio One (although we'll see what Fender does to it, we all remember the Gibson Cakewalk fiasco), and Bitwig are all native. Kind of depends on what your workflow is and what plugins you're using. Yabridge is workable for a ton of stuff and not difficult.
Yeah, as does Reaper, though I really want a modern version of Cubase to work.
Can you define kinda? Or do you have an article you can point me to?
It works but there can be graphical issues that will force you to restart.
You're probably aware, but Bitwig studio runs natively on Linux. And tools like yabridge can allow you to run many VST plugins as well. Though it remains a bit of a hassle compared to Windows. I've for instance lost access to a NI plugin because their new all-in-one installer/verification program won't work on Linux
I've been using bitwig on Linux for hobby production for about a year now. It works but it's fairly buggy, with very sluggish controls and more frequent plugin crashes. I despise windows so won't go back, but I'd also love to see continued improvement. One big step would be for more plugin developers to release CLAP versions.
Reason kinda works
sadly it got bought by some AI company so probably not moving in the direction we want
Awesome progress, can't wait until Illustrator, InDesign and Photosop can all run well on Linux ✨ Adobe's lack of support is like 70% the reason why I haven't switched to Linux yet.
You mean pirated Photoshop, right? :D
... You mean pirated Photoshop... Right? :|
Affinity can run on linux: https://affinity.liz.pet/v2/1-intro/
GIMP can run on Linux /s
GIMP is utter shit to work with though :P
As an alternative to Adobe, the Affinity suite also works well with Wine. And we can hope for a native version.
I’ve no hopes of Affinity 1 or 2 coming to Linux.
I know, that was the best Affinity. But at least, Affinity 3 is free (for now).
I wrote off the product when they got bought by Canva. Unless it's open source or libre, it's never going to be free. There's always a cost. Likely it'll be the usual pipeline of enshittification.
I never expected something to work thanks to JavaScript, but wow here we are.
That’s impressive. I have no use for it, but I know many who might.
I hope this forces an Affinity build for Linux.
Does this include adobe substance? Substance are the only adobe programs I need.