P: Provide support for Linux

I have checked out darktable, but it doesn't seem to understand some of the raw data for my images. So it is unusable for me.

Check darktable then. Far better in many aspects than Lightroom at this stage anyway.

There has been considerable efforts in making it easier to develop for multiple linux distributions once, with new package systems such as AppImage, Snaps, and Flatpak. With these new systems, I believe Adobe could port stuff over and have less to worry about as far as compatibility from one distribution to the next.

I am an aspiring Linux user, wanting to escape from MacOS and Windows.

Thanks for the honest response! Knowing how software development in teams works, if it is still at all possible, it would be greatly appreciated if you would kick off an effort in that direction by playing around with a proof of concept 🙂 Maybe it's easier than one might think.

I probably should stay silent but as one of the devs who replied, I feel I owe it to those who've taken the time to reply to take the time to write an honest response.

I wish I had good news to report, but I fear this thread has failed to achieve its aims. Despite 181 votes putting this inside the top 10 (!), there are no plans I've heard about to port this to Linux and I never did act on my idea of taking a stab at it myself as a skunkworks effort through a combination of it absorbing too many additional dependencies (especially in version 4), my having changed to a different team (a few years ago now), and the fact that I don't run Linux on my home computer anymore (ok, I do run it in a VM for some things and have lately considered dual booting the laptop because I do sometimes miss it).
I still get email notifications as new posts on this trickle in and each one stings a little. I can't argue with the logic of not having done it, but it still nags me a bit.

P.S. The incompetence and conspiracy theory explanations don't hold water; chicken and egg problem or not, this is straight up hard nosed business pragmatism based on OS market share numbers. Heck, both Vista and XP got kicked to curb at times when they still had active Lightroom users for the same reason (and Vista has almost no difference from Windows 7 in terms of portability, though there have been Vista specific bugs so it is still a non-zero effort), so it honestly isn't anything personal against Linux distributions in particular, just dev/testing effort priorities.

P.P.S. Also, FWIW, the UI is built with an Lua API/abstraction layer that would theoretically ease a porting effort, it would need native bindings for Linux (it isn't Webkit as suggested in a recent posting).

Any Adobe devs around who can give us an update? I'd like to know how far we've gotten into getting Adobe out of their bubble and into a free world 🙂

I don't believe Adobe has contracts with Apple and Microsoft to have them locked in. Such contracts (called exclusivity contracts) usually prohibit developing for any OS other than just the one. This happens in the world of computer games, but seldom with regular programs.

I think it's mostly a matter of unwillingness and/or incompetence at Adobe.

Creative Cloud is for (desktop) designers. I myself am a webdesigner and photographer and can do all this work on Linux easily. Interesting what you say about porting. If what you say is true and porting could be easy, the only thing that could hold Adobe back from doing it could be deals/contracts with OS-suppliers??? In my opninion, if Adobe would step into Linux, there is no reason left for people not to switch to Linux.

Porting Lightroom to Linux should be very easy, if it's been written at least half-decently.

With a macOS version, they've already got the unix-like system calls in place. This part should be an almost 1:1 translation. Folders differ slightly.

The other part, the GUI, is (partly or fully?) webkit-based, afaik. That already runs beautifully on Linux without any effort, proven by things like the CEF and Electron frameworks.

The last part is distribution, and since that is already cross-platform (meaning macOS and Windows), adding Linux into the mix should be a jiffy. Creative Cloud isn't for linux, but who cares. It's not really needed for Lightroom.

Tried Darktable many times, but I can work quicker and with better results even by using Aftershot Pro with my Nikon and Fuji cameras. But I agree with Martijn. Adobe doesn't have to move everything over to Linux, just Lightroom.