Wine, Virt-Manager/KVM, or VirtualBox

Support & Help Requests
#1

The wife has tried for 1/2 a year to find a Linux alternative which will work for her during major job duties as a graphic artist.

She needs to know if Wine, Virt-Manager/KVM, or VirtualBox would be best to address a production need she simply cannot fulfill without Photoshop. I worry about critters reaping havoc on her system via Wine’s indulgences - and will appreciate any advice I can give her on this topic, and/or on using Clam - if, indeed, this security software is a good way to go along with, say, Wine.

Everything is Linux for her now except Photoshop; so now she wishes to ditch her parallel Windows install and merely have some way to run this one Windows/Mac based product. :dizzy_face:

I would, very much, appreciate it if someone would rescue @randalicia_lisa regarding this whole issue, thanks! :sweat_smile:

#2

A suggestion from me would to be to use several Linux alternatives to Photoshop (install them all) and do a trial run possibly utilizing more than one app to finish a product!. (Sounds good to me!. :smiley: )

What type of work does she do on Photoshop that the others cannot do?.

Krita:

https://krita.org/

Pinta:

http://pinta-project.com/

Cinepaint:

http://www.cinepaint.org/

PixLR (Online editor):

https://pixlr.com/editor/

Paint.Net:

http://www.getpaint.net/index.html

MyPaint:

http://mypaint.intilinux.com/

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#3

Hi guys

Wine not looking very promising.

https://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?appId=17

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#4

Thank you for all these suggestions, however none of these meet my needs as well as the Adobe Creative Suite. I have spent countless hours trying to piece together a Linux based equilivant with no success.

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#5

I am going to try the VB, it looks like the perfect solution.

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#6

I have heard this from others using photoshop professionally. Nothing else seems to fill the bill.

That would allow you to run both windows and mate at the same time. I am not a windows user, but I do run mate in virtualbox and find it runs ok on 2gig of ram and two core processor (I found one core processor to be a bit sluggish).

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#7

Excellent, I have 8GB with a two core processor, so I should be in good shape. I would rather not use Windows at all, but until someone develops a comparable creative suite I have to.

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#8

I’m hear that Gimpshop did just that… :unamused:; too bad it was, apparently, sabatoshed a few years back.

It was still Gimp; but a respin - with the couple of crucial extras which Photoshop users are, evidently, wholly reliant on :no_mouth:. An equally huge deal about Gimpshop, was the fact that the interface - including icons/text-terms, were an uncanny clone of Photoshop.

#9

Virtualbox, without a doubt. Wine is very very flaky. I have windows on virtualbox for precisely the reason of Photoshop. Or, at least, I did, As time has gone on, I have managed to more or less fully wean myself off Photoshop.

However, I fully understand your wife’s need for the comfort blanket of knowing she has Photoshop there whenever she wants it. I was exactly the same when I first came to Linux.

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#10

Hi Steve, this post is akin to another which you and my wife are communicating on: A twofold query regarding our 'UUMATE' respin?

Thanks tremendously for chiming in on this; having input from you, to whatever degree, should prove fruitful - I have seen the follow through you have exhibited on other posts. But what a bonus, that you also work copiously with graphics software :smile:

I have told my wife about your response, so I suspect she is giving Ubuntu Studio a look over, before getting back with you. :relaxed:

#11

Running Photoshop CS6 (Ubuntu 15.10) on Wine only gets a “Bronze rating”!:

https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=25607

#12

That community sanctioned Ubuntu MATE respin (UUMATE) has everything @randalicia_lisa is going to need, including preinstalled Wine and VB :smile:. The problem is, she cannot get the Wine to work with the Photoshop - even after spending half a day on the attempt :grimacing:.

It would be great for her to get Wine to open PS; for she has a project almost due - which she did not want to have to reinstall Windows for :scream:.

#13

+1 for Virtualbox, it’s the closest way to run the Photoshop on Windows (which version, by the way?) alongside Ubuntu MATE with least problems later.

Wine, while great for many applications and games, Photoshop is one that will only cause glitches in the long run (not good for graphics artists who need it to work) from what I’ve heard.

When installing Windows in Virtualbox, consider enabling 3D/2D acceleration and give plenty of RAM so Photoshop runs smoothly.

You can also enable a “seamless” integration feature so the Photoshop window “blends” with the Linux desktop, and enable both drag-and-drop and shared clipboard to make both worlds closer together. :thumbsup:

I believe Adobe have a web version of Photoshop with their subscription based software, but I never looked into it.

If you also find the time, chime in to discussions on Adobe’s forums demanding Linux support… they’re either really stubborn, greedy, inexperienced, lazy or some evil corporation is paying them to not port this popular software to Linux…? (Conspiracy, that may not be true… :wink:)

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#14

I agree with others above that installing Windows in Virtualbox is a way to go, especially if you don’t have much time to learn new software.

I would say it was the same when you first try Linux based distribution like Ubuntu MATE and for first few weeks your itching to go do something on Windows when you are short on time, but eventually you learn new way and don’t feel the need to go check other out.

Same was with Gimp when I first start it out, it isn’t easy but I found it best to just search how to do something on youtube or other places and also got some courses that teach you how to use Gimp, I think one was even how to design professional book cover, but I haven’t got trough it all yet, so don’t know if it covers everything. I also recently be able to use some Photoshop brushes in Gimp with no problems at all :grinning: but haven’t checked many that I have on other PC. There sometimes seems to be a few more steps needed when you wanna get same effect you would get in PS and I miss easy layer styles, but I think I will rather learn how to do more stuff in Gimp and other graphical programs that work on Linux rather then PS which sadly doesn’t.

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#15

I have the same thoughts regarding the evil corp. conspiracy. I have used the Adobe subscription, but had to revert back to older version after the twenty-fifth anniversary update that required 8 GB to run properly. I have since upgraded my PC and switched to Linux OS, but I would prefer not to use the cloud version if at all possible. Thanks for your helpful VB advice, I hope to get it all properly set up later on today. :relaxed:

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#16

If you do install Wine, make sure you also install the package “winbind”, it is not installed by default I believe?:

sudo apt-get install winbind

Samba is an implementation of the SMB/CIFS protocol for Unix systems, providing support for cross-platform file sharing with Microsoft Windows, OS X, and other Unix systems. Samba can also function as a domain controller or member server in both NT4-style and Active Directory domains.

This package provides winbindd, a daemon which integrates authentication and directory service (user/group lookup) mechanisms from a Windows domain on a Linux system.

Winbind based user/group lookups via /etc/nsswitch.conf can be enabled via the libnss-winbind package. Winbind based Windows domain authentication can be enabled via the libpam-winbind package.

You might want to check that “winetricks” also installs!:

Wine is a compatibility layer for running Windows applications on Linux.
Applications are run at full speed without the need of cpu emulation. Wine does not require Microsoft Windows, however it can use native system dll files in place of its own if they are available.

This package includes a shell script that can be used to download and install various redistributable libraries that may be needed for some programs to work in Wine.

I AM NOT SURE IF THE ABOVE WILL HELP ANY BUT IT WON’T HURT?. :confused:

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#17

Thanks for the info, UUMATE is my OS with Wine already installed. Do I need to add the winbind? I am going to use VB for the Adobe software, but I will be using Wine for Powerpoint, I love Libre Office, but Impress is not as full featured as PP as far as design options and I use it to create video advertisements and other promo materials for my clients.

#18

If you are using MS Office then you will need winbind!. Copy the following command and see if it installs, if it says that it is already installed, all is good!:

sudo apt-get install windbind

:smiley:

#19

Thank you for the input Ele, it’s not really about learning new software, it is more on the lines of a lack of an integrated software suite for the print and publishing industry. The transition from Windows to Linux was fairly easy, I used Mint, then Ubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, and now I have just installed UUMATE (Ubuntu MATE respin) which is packed with productivity features; however I will need to stay with the Adobe Creative Suite until an enterprising developer creates something equilivent for Linux users that will seemlessly work with the industry standard.

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#20

I will do that. Thanks! :slight_smile:

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