this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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I'm keeping it broad by not specifying a distro. I'm just curious is this a real option for actual editing professionals? As far as I understand you can make it work by running under Wine, but I'm guessing this comes with significant drawbacks. I'm having trouble finding any information on both the current state of things with running Premiere under linux (most info seems to be from 2018 for some reason), and the extent of the drawbacks in a quantifiable way.

I'm generally a pretty happy Mac OS user, but I always want to keep options open. I haven't really tried to use Linux on desktop since the late 00s.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The reason, you aren't finding anything, is that nobody really attempts to install premiere or after effects anymore on Linux. The alternatives have cought up and they are available for Linux.

  • DaVinci Resolve provides the complete package. Video editor and (node based) compositor in one. Even outside of the Linux world there is a lot of momentum behind this tool, as I probably don't have to tell you. Keep in mind, that the free version on Linux has some limitations, that the free versions on the other OS's don't have (missing h264 support for example)
  • Left angle Autograph (https://www.left-angle.com/#page=95) is a young product, having seen its first release earlier this year. It's a direct competitor to After Effects. A timeline based VFX tool. Unfortunately fairly expensive as well.

Back to your question: making things work with wine has a significant drawback. Your system can break with every update. So you're not making it work just once but over and over again.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Someone should tell Left Angle that Ubuntu 22 is not a valid Ubuntu release.

It always infuriates me a bit whenever I see that and it immediately tells me that Linux doesn't seem to be a priority for them. For some reason they get the macOS version numbers right ...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Is there any good alternative to Photoshop on Linux? That's about the only thing I miss after switching

There's GIMP but it seems a little clunky sometimes, I've heard krita is good for artists but I tend to just use this kind of thing for editing images

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

GIMP is currently missing non-destructive editing (a rather core feature), but that's something they're aiming to fix in 3.2. I don't know when that'll be here, but that will be a good day for GIMP.

You might have better luck with Affinity Photo—it doesn't really work well through Wine yet, but it's getting there: https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/182758-affinity-suite-v204-on-linux-wine/

I personally use Affinity Photo on macOS and I'm really happy with it. I like it more than Photoshop, actually. Fair warning that it will rasterize all your text layers in .PSD files, so you'd want to be using only .afphoto files, but it's impressive how good the .PSD support is otherwise. So, give it a year or two, and Affinity Photo might be in good shape in Wine! I mean, I can hope.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

A lot of people claim good luck with PhotoPea

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It's a browser app though

Extremely laggy as PWA in chromium, less laggy in chrome and has to be used in a normal browser window in firefox

Doesn't work if I'm not connected to the internet and also ads taking up ~10-15% of the window

When it's working in firefox it seems like a decent alternative and even supports opening psds which is incredibly useful but not sure I'd want to run it in a browser, if it was open source could shove it in an electron wrapper and be done with it but doesn't seem to be, their public GitHub only has branding and information

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I would like to mention Pixlr E. Which I personally use. I think it's similar. Works great for someone used to older Photoshop versions (I have no experience with modern Photoshop, mind you).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

GIMP is, last I checked, RGB colorspace only, so it's not a real choice for anyone doing print work.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Honestly, no there isn't. Even if Gimp can apparently do a lot of what Photoshop can, you have to first learn, then jump through 20 unintuitive hoops to get to the same result thst Photoshop can do in 2 clicks. Nothing compares as far as I'm concerned.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I'm not sure there is really anything else like that on Linux though on a more positive note.

Most other tools I've ever had to interact with either have native support, run perfectly/very well with wine or have a good/better alternative on linux

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Can it be done? Yes.

Can it be done in a reliable way that you can depend on to always just work when you need it? No.

If you are completely dependent on Adobe products for your livelihood, you should not plan to work exclusively on Linux.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

This was my experience with Photoshop. Got it installed, tried a few things, great, seems to work. Then eventually I went to actually use it, and it would consistently crash trying to do certain tasks. Back to dual boot I go..

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Better off using native Linux applications. We have DaVinci Resolve, Lightworks, Blender, and Kdenlive. All are fantastic video editors that can give you very professional results.

Personally I use Kdenlive:

  • Doesn't require GPU
  • Automatic subtitles
  • Support for LUTs
  • Nested timelines
  • Proxy/Offline editing
  • Warp stabilizer
  • Free and Open Source

It's probably the most feature complete FOSS editor.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

To add to this, I also use Natron to replace After Effects. I use both of these on Linux and Windows too, serves me well as a light-mid user.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

If you've to work with other people and/or you really need the Adobe tools my best advice if to forget it. Emulation and stuff like Wine, Bottles, Crossover is all cool until you try to install MS Office and it doesn't work properly or Photoshop doesn't work because it fails to identify the screen size. You can't simply run those programs for everyday usage under Linux with good results.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Forget wine. Virtual Machines or Remote Desktop work very well for generic Windows software. For graphics-heavy stuff, you need to learn whether this works for you.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

VM is your best bet for adobe stuff. You'd need GPU passthrough for proper hardware acceleration annoyingly.

Maybe dualbooting from Windows for those might be better until Proton and WINE can get resources to support Adobe stuff again!

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Interesting! I have some questions:

  • Is editing a primary part of your job?
  • How and why was ShotCut selected for your work?
  • How do you feel about ShotCut compared to other editing software on Linux, Windows, and MacOS?

Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

-Yes editing is a key part of my job. Although it's plenty of simple editing and almost no fancy effects and so on. I need to cut video edits fast, modify audio, crop and scale video.

-Shotcut loads instantly and runs natively on linux. That's the biggest selling point for me. It's extremely simple and has a clean UI. Also it handles .ts mpeg containers easily. Some apps, even premiere have issues with that format.

-I tried Openshot, Kdenlive and a couple of other apps. ShotCut was lighter and simpler.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Awesome, thanks for your answers! I'm considering switching mostly to linux on the desktop at home and one of the sticking points for me has been finding a good video editor. This is very helpful in that regard.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

They crash enough on Windows already, I would highly recommend against it! :/

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I use Kdenlive.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=128

It is not rated well on winedb, although those look like old versions?. I would not have much hope in it working for professional needs . You would be better served by learning one of the more open or Linux friendly alternatives instead. Quite a few are quite good now for different needs. You would need to try them out your self to see if they meet your needs though. Which you can typically do on windows to minimise the disruption to your work flows. But be warned it can take some time to relearn them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It's not viable, doesn't run well or at all through wine and in VMs it's slow at best...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There will be massive performance issues due to driver support and in the way modern Adobe apps use the GPU to handle a lot of the work. Over the past few years as GPU's have become insanely powerful, Adobe have retooled a lot of their apps to make use of that number-crunching - before you could bruteforce it with a decent CPU but now a lot of program functions are handled by the graphics card - even things like canvas scaling and rotation are only active using the GPU.

Until Adobe make native versions (and there is corresponding driver support - nVidia run drivers built specifically for creative apps like those from Adobe and Autodesk), I wouldn't even consider using Linux for any type of creative work, to be honest.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wouldn’t even consider using Linux for any type of creative work, to be honest.

I create schematics and PCBs on it all the time. But that's more engineering, not media and art.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not only that. If all you need to deal with are still images Inkscape, Krita and to some extent GIMP are quite enough for my students, and I teach at an art university.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Agreed. I've been designing professionally since 2009, and have switched my workflow to 100% FLOSS tools. Scribus, Inkscape, and Krita are suitable for professional work these days.

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