For some people, the migration to the Linux platform is still complicated by the lack of native Adobe tools, especially for those who have been working with them for many years, any change is complicated and this is understandable, although in general there are alternative tools and efficient, you may still want to use the Adobe suite. In this case, you either use a Dual Boot system (Windows or macOS) or appeal to virtualization and Wine.
If you choose Wine, there are several possibilities, however, before we proceed I would like to make my position clear regarding Wine: It is a palliative, that is, do not see it as the standard solution to your problem, many may even call it “gambiarra”, but I see Wine as a project of great engineering value, which when it works, can be used without any problems, after all, that’s what matters, right?
The ideal, of course, is to always use the native tools of the platform you are going to use, but in many cases Wine proves efficient enough for you to work. If you still have a dependency on Photoshop, for example, but would like to use GIMP, consider checking out the project PhotoGIMP that we keep here at Diolinux, I use it daily and it ends up being very comfortable for those who learned to edit images with Adobe Photoshop, it even works on Windows, if you prefer to use GIMP on the Microsoft system.
If you want to see a little more about the subject of Adobe and Linux, this other video will also be interesting.
A “miraculous” script
Let’s go to the topic of the article itself. In the previous video I showed you how to install only Adobe Photoshop, however, the Adobe suite is made up of several other software that may be useful for you. To perform this experiment we are going to use a software called PlayOnLinux.
Many people think that Wine and PlayOnLinux (and CrossOver) are different things, but in fact the last two are just interfaces for the first (for Wine).
PlayOnLinux is free and is found in the repositories of all distros, even having a version for macOS, called PlayOnMac, which allows «apple» users to run games and applications that only exist on Windows on their systems. PlayOnLinux (or PlayOnMac) intent has a unique purpose: Provide the user with an interface full of resources to work with Wine, manage its versions and, what is the case now, use ready-made scripts to automate the installation of certain programs.
If you want to learn more about PlayOnLinux it is necessary to have a little patience, it is a software with many configuration options, but luckily we have a video on the channel (very long) that details practically everything you need to know about this tool, it’s free, so enjoy:
1 – The first step to use this Script that installs Adobe Creative Suite Manager on Linux is to download PlayOnLinux, so do as you prefer, you can usually find it in the Application Center of your distribution.
2 – The second step is to download the Script that installs the Creative Suite, you can download it from here.
Tip: Access the page on GitHub where the Script is hosted, press Ctrl + S and choose where you want to save it.
After downloading the Script, just run it through PlayOnLinux. With the software open, go to the “Tools”And select the“Run a local script“.
A window will open for you to browse your files and choose the Script you downloaded from GitHub, just select and proceed. After that we will have a great “Next, Next, Finish” session, like most Windows programs.
Eventually PlayOnLinux will ask for your permission to download some things, like Mono, Gecko and some other components that will be useful to run the Adobe Suite Manager. Just click install.
At the end of the installation, a window with the Adobe software manager will open, you must log in with your Adobe account normally, just as you would on Windows or macOS, if you already have the licenses to use the purchased software for your account, they will be available automatically in their full versions.
If you do not have the programs purchased, you can use the “trial version” of each one for 30 days.
Just select the software you want to install, after “Adobe Application Manager” downloads the software you can start it.
When opening any of them, you can use the version trial or enter your details to use the full version as well. The updates also work correctly, I installed Photoshop and updated it to a newer version by the application itself.
I didn’t get to test all the programs, but among the ones I tested I had different results. Photoshop works perfectly, without removing or putting. Illustrator opens and works too, but I understand glitches in the interface.
Notice how the tools are distorted on the left side. Interestingly, I was able to run Adobe Illustrator without these problems using the same Photoshop prefix that I showed in the first video of this article, so if you need it, using that method can be an alternative.
Audition, which was the other one I tested, didn’t even open, however, it is very possible that with fine adjustments in PlayOnLinux you will have better results. Debugging Audition, I realized that it needs a DLL called “AuUI.dll”, maybe installed it, to work.
Another one that works perfectly is Fireworks. I have seen many Web developers complain that they receive images made in Adobe Fireworks with multiple layers for page templates and have difficulty dealing with it on Linux eventually.
Another “sweetness” of photographers that works perfectly is Adobe Lightroom:
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| On Linux, running Windows software to edit the macOS xD wallpaper |
A nice tip is to create shortcuts for the programs, so you can start them individually without having to open the Adobe software management program.
You can find the option to create shortcuts on the “General”In the prefix settings of PlayOnLinux, in case of doubts, consult the manual video that I put earlier in the article.
My opinion about the Script
As I said at the beginning, this is nothing more than a palliative. If it works, great! Use it and be happy! But don’t put all your hopes in here, some programs like Photoshop really work very well, almost as if they were native, if it weren’t for the integration with the distro’s original file manager, using Wine’s, but that’s a little detail relevant to the general context.
Speaking of the Script, it promises to install Adobe’s software manager and in fact, it does, but the programs that make up the suite do not use all the same resources of your computer and the system, so some or not worked (for me at least), or worked with bugs, such as Illustrator, however, fortunately some of the most famous ones ran without apparent problems.
Working with more viable alternatives
It is good to make it clear that there are tools that are multiplatform, that is, that you can use not only on Linux, but on Windows and macOS as well, and that are extremely powerful. If you usually accompany our DioCasts, you must have seen the number of guests that we have already brought who use Linux to work with graphic and audiovisual arts. I will leave some episodes as a suggestion here for you to check, but if you go through it you will find many more:
– Professional Audio Production on Linux
– Kdenlive, GIMP, Krita, Inkscape and more!
– Graphic Design and Audiovisual Production on Linux
– A graphics with Linux
These 4 episodes added together give about 4 hours of content related to the topic with several professionals from each of the areas, it is worth checking if you are still reluctant and have doubts about these professions using software that runs on Linux. You can just let them scroll in your browser while you do other activities and enjoy the content, I’m sure it will be very useful.
I will stop here, I hope the article was useful and that it helps you in some way! ?
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To the next!
