Adobe, Linux Support, and the Linux Foundation.

Report · Apr 08, 2019

While generally I've only lurked the Adobe forums I've finally worked up guts to post this. I also know that about every 1-2 months this question is asked but I think it deserves a another go around.

My premises is this:

Adobe joined the Linux Foundation in 2008 for a focus on Linux for Web 2.0 Applications like Adobe® Flash® Player and Adobe AIR™. Currently Adobe holds a silver membership status with the Linux Foundation. So why in the world do they not have any Creative Cloud Programs available in Linux without the need for WINE and other such workarounds. I think it's a sucky move to support the Linux Foundation and use Linux in the back-end while not doing anything to support actual Linux users who have for at least a decade requested Adobe desktop products on Linux. Sure it's going to take a lot of manpower, financial resources, etc. But to truly support Linux and the Linux Foundation I think it's necessary that y'all do make things like Photoshop and Lightroom available for the Linux desktop. In any regards the wider Linux community would most likely help with testing and debugging programs. We're used to it.

Report · Sep 29, 2015

‌What has Apple done that would mean adobe are pulled from Linux development? I know they came up with metal which i believe Adobe are working with the newest version of OS X but lit make little difference to Adobe as Chad and opencl worked fine so Adobe must didnt need to do anything there. There's the iPad pro but again nothing needed to be done that should have taken all the devs away from a Linux port. with the iPad pro, all that was needed at first was the existing apps that could later be expanded should the demand be there. I know they have a love/hate/need relationship between Adobe and apple but whether apple would hold Adobe back on this I don't know, though it would make sense as there is no other logical reason for not having adobe cc on Linux

Report · Sep 29, 2015

My understanding from the rumor mill is that Apple has made a lot of really serious changes in the latest releases of OS-X that are not obvious to the end user. This might have been done to improve security - BSD doesn't have near the active base of security conscious programmers that Linux has, nor does BSD have a guru like Linus Thorvald who can simultaneously oversee the efforts of a large diverse group of coders and shape a vision for the future. On the other hand, BSD is a more mature OS (see Explaining BSD and Kernel Architecture Overview

Hopefully the work that the Adobe programmers are doing now will transfer quickly and easily to a Linux port...

See this link on Ars Technica for more on the new OS X 10.11: OS X 10.11 El Capitan: The Ars Technica Review | Ars Technica

Of particular interest regarding the amount of work the Adobe programmers face: "OS X is obviously still important to Apple's strategy—the one where the company wants to trap you so thoroughly in its ecosystem that you can never leave—but it doesn't get to lead the charge anymore."

Report · Oct 03, 2015

T‌he points ofnotw from that article are simply the system integrity protection which restricts where even root can save and modify files, meaning that maybe Adobe has to modify some of the files it needs are saved (not that big of a job) and more importantly metal. the interesting part about metal is that it's apples replacement for opengl and opencl which (if I'm not mistaken) is based on a similar concept to AMD Matle and the new Vulkan API. after a little research, my previous statement about adobe being able to ignore metal for now if they really wanted a Linux port might not hold as well as I thought. Adobe use cuda OpenGL and opencl to accelerate thier software but current macs aren't able to use cuda because it's exclusive to nvidia GPUs but Apple aren't updating the versions of OpenGL in Mac so metal is currently the only way forward with that. Perhaps vulkan could be used instead which will help a Linux port since its cross platform but it's yet to be released and performance shown and I'm not sure how advantageous it would be for after effects and premiere pro work. my advice for Adobe is to avoid using anything platform exclusive where possible, such as metal, and move to cross platform things like Vulkan in the future, though of course that's after seeing it performance and capabilities and doing testing so I don't expect that to be announced any time soon (I know that cuda, OpenGL and OpenCL are cross platform already but theres potentially some other dependencies that aren't and metal is very much Apple only). The only reason for someone to develop with metal (or dx12 which is the same thing from microsofts side) is endorsement from its creator at events like WWDC which Adobe doesn't need or lack of options. This seems to be what Apple are aiming for, as you say "trap you so thoroughly", but not only in what the users use but also what developers prioritise, which then supports the theory of Apple changing things in OSX to pull Adobe from a Linux port

Report · Oct 04, 2015

I second the request of the original poster. I'm a Linux user wanting to explore the possibilities provided by Adobe. Unfortunately they are not yet available for my platform, and I'd like to express the desire that this fact will soon be changed.

Furthermore, I've been following this thread and I'm royally amazed about the misconceptions people seem to have with respect to free software. It is certainly not limited to enthausiasts, academics or professionals, as Android and Steamos underscribe. Furthermore, its users are also willing to pay for their software, as mentioned earlier in this thread. Also, the claims made that MS Windows and Apple OSX provide better security against piracy are fundamentally flawed. Even though they are closed source, they are vulnerable to introspection-based attacks. Every piece of software must be available in memory, decrypted, in order to be executed and no copy protection mechanism can prevent that. I won't deny the differences in user base, but the linux userbase (1.74%) nowadays is large enough to make a profit, which is all Adobe should care about.

A final note on piracy: it is as natural as eating or drinking, completely independent of operating system and the largest economic growth is realized where piracy triumphs. Take a quick look at China and you know this to be true. And it is a blessing for Adobe, as it is the single reason startups buy a subscription: if it were impossible to pirate Adobe's tools, teenagers would become acquainted with other tools. So stop being a big baby and accept you're living in a real world, where piracy is a real thing and .

Report · Oct 07, 2015

This article from just a few years ago - Linux in Hollywood | Creative Planet Network - seems to indicate that Adobe is actually the oddball in not offering Linux support in their tools for some of the highest-end film and TV productions.

Report · Oct 08, 2015

It's been said over and over that at best, Linux market share (more accurately, Linux use, since the OS is freely distributed rather than sold) is barely over 1%. Please tell me, Adobe, what evidence you have to support this number. If it's based on number of Linux distro downloads measured, then the number can't be limited to that, because the OS can be so freely distributed after download, without limitation. And is that 1% limited to the U.S., or is that a global percentage? Because that number is growing exponentially in other markets. Various statistical experts believe the number of Linux adopters is significantly higher globally, possibly 10% or greater (Linux adoption - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). I know these things are hard to quantify exactly, but add to that the number, whatever it is, of actual Windows-using paying CC subscribers who would switch to the Linux platform to use CC in a heartbeat, were they given that choice. Do a survey. I bet you'd find a ton of people, like myself, who would ditch Windows and all its problems in a heartbeat. At the very least, we know we'd get much better performance on the same hardware; in other words, we'd get much more performance bang for the buck. It would be the equivalent of losing 100 pounds - render times would slash to a fraction, etc. Why? Because Windows is an inefficient OS. Even Windows 10. The architecture is still the same, with its clunky registry and all. Every time Microsoft comes out with a new version of Windows, it's just putting lipstick on a pig. They'd have to redo the whole architecture of the kernel from scratch, probably to something *nix-based, before you'd ever see any real improvement from Redmond.

So anyway, if you take some experts' opinions that global Linux use may be around 10% or higher, that already exceeds the estimates of Mac OS usage (which is reported anywhere from about 4-7% - e.g., Operating system market share, Usage share of operating systems - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (scroll down to "Desktop and laptop computers")). Add to that, like I said, the potential Windows CC users who would switch given a choice, and you have enough justification to port the CC programs to Linux. Even if I'm wrong, and Linux desktop adoption is only about 1-2% at best, if Mac OS X adoption is only about 4-7, or 4-8%, is there really that much difference? I mean, c'mon, both these OS's are in the single digits of usage! To put it another way, what is Adobe's threshold of OS market share before they'll develop for it? Why is AJA, Blackmagic Design, Autodesk, Editshare, Pixar, et al, all "wasting their time and money" making Linux drivers and software? Well, maybe they're not afraid to actually be entrepreneurial, you know, like companies are supposed to be, and, you know, take risks! And with all the overwhelming response on this issue, not only here but in many other places on the web, I think that's justification enough for Adobe to at least look into doing this port. If EditShare could do it with Lightworks (a very powerful editor that's been used to cut major features like L.A. Confidential, Pulp Fiction, and The King's Speech - Lightworks: The professional editor for everyone, linked from the EditShare website), by making most of the code OS-independent (The implications of LightWorks coming to Linux - TechRepublic), then there's no reason for Adobe not to do the same with their CC applications, especially since they already make Windows and Mac versions (and PLEASE tell me Adobe's smart enough to write their apps in such a way as to have most of the code OS-independent, so they don't have to do double-work when they do updates!).

Look, here's the bottom line. Adobe doesn't really focus on software for the masses (except for an office application like Acrobat and Flash Player for web browsing). By and large, Adobe makes specialized software for creative professionals. That already is a pretty small niche. So it shouldn't matter whether the OS the creative professional is using has the greatest consumer market share or not (e.g., Windows). Granny Doll and Auntie Grizelda out there aren't going to design an online or a magazine ad for a Fortune 500 company. They're also not going to edit a promo for ESPN. The professional creative community is smaller than that. And if Hollywood is saying they use Linux tools all the time in their work right now, but the one gap left is that they can't use Adobe software in their Linux workflow, that alone should be enough to persuade Adobe to go Linux if nothing else. The rest of us creative professionals in smaller production companies, TV stations, governments, etc. will benefit also, and Adobe will increase sales, not lose money. Count on it. If Adobe is worried about this risk flopping, I can think of COSTLY flops in major tech companies that were caused by really stupid products and stupid decisions. Porting your CC programs to Linux is NOT stupid, Adobe. It will help you keep your market dominance amidst rising competitors and users frustrated with Windows but who don't want to replace their hardware just to go to Mac. Such users may get desperate and go to the competition. I mentioned EditShare's Lightworks, which recently got ported to Linux. Adobe needs to remember the words of a good book - "Let he who thinks he stands take heed, lest he fall." Competition can always unseat the "industry standard". (Remember Blackberry? They used to be on top of the mobile hardware space.) EditShare is no Adobe, certainly, but it's not a guy or a few guys hacking out software from a basement, either.

Report · Oct 08, 2015

Have faith, my friends. Warner Bros., for example, once acted as Adobe is doing, ignoring our pleas (in this case, to get the Richard Donner cut of Superman II released), refuting us, giving us every excuse in the book as to why it couldn't be done, would cost too much, not enough people interested, blah, blah, blah. Guess what? We Internet petitioners prevailed. You can pick up a DVD or Blu-Ray copy today, complete with special features - http://www.amazon.com/Superman-II-Richard-Donner-Cut/dp/B000IJ79WU/ref=tmm_dvd_title_0?_encoding=UTF...

Keep the fire hot on this CC Linux port issue, my friends. We've given Adobe every logical reason why they should do this, that we want this, and other major creative software and hardware vendors have already done it - in Hollywood, no less. They can't ignore us or give us excuses anymore. They should just make it happen.

Report · Oct 08, 2015

Adobe Supported Apple when OS 9 was around 2 percent of the Marketshare. That was back when the only thing keeping Apple afloat was creative professionals. Things were much better back then for creative professional because the whole OS was tailored for Power Users Creative Professional Work. THAT IS WHAT WE WANT AGAIN ADOBE! An OS for Creative Work NOT social networking! If you supported Apple with a 2% market share of mostly creative professionals in the late 1990s why can't you do it today with Linux users? I want and OS that renders 3 gig photoshop Bus Wraps effectively without crashing and freezing! I want an OS that when I open the Process Manager there is not 150 processes running in the background for junk that I do not use that are tide into the OS!

Report · Oct 08, 2015

BTW, we already use EditShare Connect on our edit systems and EditShare's GEEVS master control playback server for our TV channel, just FYI. They have HQ's in the U.S. (Boston, MA), the U.K., and Australia, as well as offices in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and the Asian Pacific regions. So they're not chicken feed.

Report · Oct 08, 2015

It seems that the posts from the community all have valid points. I'm going to go express from a different angle. I really like the creative cloud and it's a good start. Maybe what adobe should do is revisit the CC design and make it truly cloud, local platform independent. I understand some of the software like Premiere require some processing power. However, that should be something they look into. Then it should not matter linux, windows, whatever. I fall in the same category of the others where the only reason I have windows is because of Adobe. The rest of my life runs on linux.

Report · Oct 09, 2015

I Don't think cloud solutions would be a good idea, not until every single video editor has at least a 10Gbps connection to the servers. which pretty much no one would have currently. Even if they did, adobe would still need to develop a front end for each platform if the backend was in the cloud. This is basically what's being done for photoshop on chrome books but makes no sense for anything like after effects, premiere or audition.

‌also, lightworks from what I hear is great, but I haven't tested it enough to learn it since it is rather different from the editors I'm used to. Blender had the same problem at the moment, I need to learn to use which is a slow process when I'm doing all my other work as well which is why I am forced to dual boot. Adobe should just provide the best software and let users decide what OS to run it on, instead of locking us into choices we don't like.

Report · Oct 09, 2015

I do not think a Cloud based version of Photoshop is possible either for professionals. For amateurs yes. I routinely have PS files over 1 gig and I have to use PSB format instead of PSD.

Report · Oct 13, 2015

A NEW HOPE...

Fingers crossed...

Today I responded to a follow-up with Adobe Tech Support for a totally unrelated issue and offered something for their "suggestion box". Then I brought up a sort of "speaking of suggestions...", then asked him/her about the Linux port. I'm not sure about whether s/he was talking about the first suggestion or about the Linux port, but this is what I had written after I made my first suggestion (basically about lifting the 1 GB restriction on file sizes for Adobe Creative Cloud storage):

While you all are at it, how ‘bout some love for the Linux platform finally? Major companies like Autodesk and EditShare are already doing it (see my posts on “Creative Cloud For Linux (Ubuntu)" - https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1057800). Right now our department is on Windows 7, and we hate Windows 10. We’re also not interested in investing in all new hardware just to go to Mac (it was hard enough getting approved for the systems we do have!). Once extended support for Windows 7 expires, we would really love to have Linux be an option for us on our existing machines, probably a popular Debian-based distro like Ubuntu or Mint (which is based on Ubuntu). Talk about a performance increase we would get on our existing machines running Linux-native Creative Cloud software! Contrary to popular belief, we would still be willing to pay our regular subscription rates even after switching to Linux. If Autodesk and EditShare can make a business model work with Linux products (e.g., Maya and Lightworks, respectively), so can Adobe!

To which s/he replied:

Thank you for your response.

I appreciate your cooperation and your feedbacks to enhance the adobe capabilities.

I will definitely be sending your feedback to our engineering team to take a look at it and to make it work.

It was really nice talking to you. And please feel free to contact us for any issues with Adobe.

Thank you!

I really hope that person was also including reference to that latter paragraph I wrote about Linux. We'll see. The tech did say "feedbacks", plural. Now if only the engineering team can be convinced, and more importantly, if they can convince the suits.

Report · Oct 14, 2015

yeah lets hope something actually happens with this but it if not, it wouldn't be the first time Linux support was sent to the engineers for nothing to happen. It happened with the original getsatisfaction petition when the thread was closed and an official response said "its on the table for our engineers" five years ago. I would love it to happen and hope that it does but I wouldn't count on it too much. Especially since I recently installed on win 7 ultimate n edition (because it was the only Iso I had at the time) to find the Windows cc needs windows media player to work and the mac version probably (as well some things in after effects in Windows) uses QuickTime, neither of which are available for Linux. So Adobe would need to need to use something else for Linux or just use something cross platform for all systems. They may use this as an excuse not to do it but I think it would be worth the work if they want to keep their subscribers and open the possibility for new subscribers in Linux

‌

Report · Oct 14, 2015

Well, I think with Adobe being the 800-pound gorilla in the room, if Adobe decided to port its Creative Cloud software to Linux, the whole rest of the creative tools industry would tend to follow suit, I would think. And if Adobe made this decision to go forward, I would hope they'd coordinate in advance with all the plugin and helper software vendors, e.g., Zaxwerks, Red Giant, etc. before their own Linux release date. Hardware vendors such as AJA and Blackmagic Design are already on board with Linux drivers. (In my case, I would also need Digital Juice and SmartSound to make Linux versions of their software and plugins.) Don't know about QuickTime, though, as that's made by Apple. If they ported QuickTime to Linux, that might hurt Mac sales...although they already have a Windows port. To this day, I'm still amazed that Apple ever made a Windows version of QuickTime. I think Apple ought to ditch QT anyway, they can't be making any money with it, I mean, who buys the Pro version when there are plenty of import/export features within NLE's and standalone media converters. Everyone ought to go to open standards for handling multimedia anyway. I wonder what EditShare is using for their media standard, since their Lightworks editor has a Linux version.

Report · Oct 14, 2015

The only reason I use Windows is for Adobe. I'm still using Windows 7 Ultimate because I despise the interface of Windows 8 and 10 (a full blown joke). Eventually, I'll be Linux only and if I have to forfeit Adobe then so be it.

I'll continue to use Adobe for now, because I've used their products for years and they do have pretty good quality. There's tons of free products that are right behind them though, so it's only a matter of time before other companies catch up. If those companies offer Linux, I'm going to switch and at that point there's no reason to go back.

**The Windows market would obviously shrink massively if ALL software was available on any OS. Ubuntu will only keep growing, and eventually it'll have a good chunk of the market. **

Be proactive Adobe, and add Linux support.

Report · Oct 16, 2015

I'm a web developer and programmer. I'm working with designers, who use Photoshop and send me .psd files. I can open psd but I can't get some information from psd files like the font information without Photoshop. So I have to keep Windows installed on my second computer. If I could buy a Linux license for Adobe Photoshop my life would be so much easier.

Report · Oct 16, 2015

belka.ew wrote:

I'm a web developer and programmer. I'm working with designers, who use Photoshop and send me .psd files. I can open psd but I can't get some information from psd files like the font information without Photoshop. So I have to keep Windows installed on my second computer. If I could buy a Linux license for Adobe Photoshop my life would be so much easier.

I think you will need to wait for another 10 years (or more). At present nobody thinks Linux has any future; even Richard Stallman strongly believes that Open Source has been destroyed beyond repair because although they are giving away their work freely, THEY ARE NOT FREE as he wants them to be free. He thinks the only way forward is to use his software (GNU) and not Ubuntu (he mentions specifically not to use Ubuntu) because Canonical is passing users' search activities to Amazon. Now he must know something about Linux because he is the founder of GNU!!

I use whatever is available for my work as long as I can make a profit out of it otherwise, I don't use it at all and I tell my employers to look for alternatives. Adobe products have served us well so far on Microsoft Technology and I see no reason of changing this unless something else better and profitable comes to market. I thought, desktop is dying, is it not? Linux may not see Adobe desktop products as far as I can see. Even the old pdf reader and flash is no longer developed for Linux these days; Is this not the case?

Report · Oct 16, 2015

At present nobody thinks Linux has any future;

ok It would be logically enough to say that I think, that Linux has future in order to disprove your statement, but I suspect there are a few more people than me thinking that.

Richard Stallman doesn't agree with the understanding of the term "free software"... Well... but honestly: who cares, what Stallman thinks? Stallman and FSF did a great thing and founded an open community and made the idea of the free software popular. But free software is developed by the community and is free to be used as the community chooses. There are a lot of opinions in the community what free software is, therefore there a lot of licences and not just the GPL. Whether Stallman agrees with it or not, it is his problem.

I'm currently not an Ubuntu user, I have Slackware Linux installed both on my desktop and my server. Maybe I wouldn't recommend anybody else to use Ubuntu, but anyway I appreciate very much, what Ubuntu does for the popularization of free software. Why Slackware? Slackware doesn't have any "free software" policy like Debian, you are free to use what helps you to get your job done. I accept it if somebody wants his software to be closed; I don't have any problems to install it on a free system.

Even the old pdf reader and flash is no longer developed for Linux these days; Is this not the case?

No. flash is a past technology in the web. I don't have flash installed in my browser for several years and don't have any problems with it. To be honest, adobe could stop to waste its time for the flash development for Windows and Mac aswell. I can enjoy internet radio, watch youtube videos, watch movies without flash. Flash and MS silverlight was the reason I left maxdome for google play movies and netflix. I mean google play (books without adobe's DRM stuff and movies) and netflix support Linux users and win customers this way.

For pdf there are a lot of alternative pdf-readers that are good enough for the common use case for all the operating systems.

The thing with Photoshop is more the case with the OpenJDK. There was OpenJDK and Sun/Oracle JDK. The first one is free, the second one isn't. The first one buggy and unusable, the second one buggy, but not so much. But I just have Oracle JDK installed on my Desktop and on my server and happy with it. If I think of Gimp it has now much better psd support, than some years ago, but it isn't perfect and compared with Oracle JDK and OpenJDK it isn't Gimp's main purpose to support psd.

I didn't use Photoshop for a year or two and installed now a demo-version and I like it, it is nice, it works much faster on the same laptop than the old CS versions. But I can't install it on my working PC. On the other side I can't use Windows on my working PC since the running of a test web server and web development in Windows is a hell (I had some experience with it in the past). Photoshop is very complex software, it is understandable that it is very difficult to write an alternative editor or just a viewer. I really don't see any solution to the impasse.

Report · Oct 18, 2015

IBM and Linux

Report · Oct 19, 2015

Matter in Portuguese. Speaking about the version of Houdini for Linux. The software version costs approximately five thousand dollars. Proving that software does not need to be free to run on Linux.

Houdini: Software de composição, animação e efeitos especiais 3D para Linux - Diolinux - Linux, Ubun...

Report · Oct 22, 2015

belka.ew wrote:

I'm a web developer and programmer. I'm working with designers, who use Photoshop and send me .psd files. I can open psd but I can't get some information from psd files like the font information without Photoshop. So I have to keep Windows installed on my second computer. If I could buy a Linux license for Adobe Photoshop my life would be so much easier.

Hi, I’m using with success two ways to discover content of PSD files:

Upload PSD on Adobe Creative Cloud
Use Bracekets editor Creative Cloud Help | Work with Extract for Brackets (Preview)

But I need also InDesign, Illustrator, etc... working on Ubuntu. It so similar to MacOS. I thing It must be some kind of cartel deal between Apple and Adobe...

Report · Oct 27, 2015

If Linux has no future Why steamos are working to revolutionize the market for video games? Including Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo doubt that the future of gaming is the current format consoles.

But moving away from the video game market in particular I is completely indifferent What if Linux has no future because if you add users of different distributions exceed MacOS use? And because this endeavor with many detract from the work behind Linux?

Are you happy with Windows or MacOS? I congratulate you, and I do not want the software that work with OS do you want to work is there something wrong with that? I'm willing to pay for the product, you can still happy with Windows, Mac or whatever you work, and I will be happy for me, is everything, what they think some of the future of Linux is another thing that truly brings me carelessly, and finally Linux is OpenSource OpenSource precisely because if one of the eminences project leaves nothing happens because there are millions of anonymous programmers nonprofit working to keep the project alive can you say that Windows or Apple? Of course not, if they decide to abandon the development of its products you can already think migrarte to Linux or whatever it at the time because its source code is private and no one they know what they are doing and how they are doing.

OpenSource is not only a method of distributing software / hardware, it is a culture that even now has another name is something that we ever using something as simple as a light bulb do you think that if Thomas Edison had discovered that wonderful invention and had not shown the world its operation could turn the light on at the moment? That's OpenSource, share knowledge to improve and develop ideas, that is the Open Source culture and that Richard Stallman was not invented in 1985, that is something that is with us since man is man.

Report · Oct 27, 2015

Hi, I'm using with success two ways to discover content of PSD files:

Upload PSD on Adobe Creative Cloud

Use Bracekets editor Creative Cloud Help | Work with Extract for Brackets (Preview)

But I need also InDesign, Illustrator, etc... working on Ubuntu. It so similar to MacOS. I thing It must be some kind of cartel deal between Apple and Adobe...

A bit late, but I just wanted to say thanks! This Bracekets editor seems to be a really great thing.

Report · Nov 19, 2015

Adobe, you MUST port your Creative Cloud software to Linux. Either that, or work with Microsoft to get them to straighten out their mess. With the recent updates to Windows 10, they've eliminated the ability to turn off automatic updates - which always involve a reboot. The only other option they offer now is to delay the reboot, but just by always automatically downloading and installing, that tends to hamper performance in any case, especially with heavy applications like Premiere. Not only that, but one of Windows 10's updates broke the ability to install a third helper software I use in my video editing. It gives me some error about not having a certain 2008 C++ distributable, or something crazy like that.