I just can't stand using Windows as OS anymore - Microsoft has gone to far - where is the PhotoLab for Linux?

DxO PhotoLab
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I am about to stop using PhotoLab as it is not supported under Linux and I can’t get it working properly using Wine.

To the DxO PhotoLab team:

  • Why is it so difficult to create a Linux version?
  • Do you realize that more and more are ditching Windows due to privacy concerns?

Please don’t respond with “minor user base” or something like that. Right now I’m seeing a lot of users just fed up with Windows. It is only a matter of time - currently I’ve switched 75% of my PCs at home to Linux Mint and EVERYTHING runs so much smoother now, no privacy issues, no MS idiocies.

For those who have not considered Linux before: I worked with IT in +40 years and tried Linux countless of times. The real difference now is that 99% of my issues with Linux was solved in no time using ChatGPT. And Linux Mint just feels like “home”, even though I’ve beeing using Windows since the 80s.

I hate dualbooting into Win11 just to use your software. Everything else works for me under Linux, even gaming. But NOT PhotoLab, it is so bound to MS that I am considering switching to something that works under Linux.

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You can add your vote here

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Just a reminder: “Linux” isn’t one operating system. It’s hundreds of distributions, different kernels, different package managers, different desktop stacks, different drivers, and different versions of the same libraries. Treating it as one uniform platform is exactly why most commercial software companies avoid it: there is no single Linux to support.

And the funny part is that if you’ve “worked 40 years in IT” but rely on ChatGPT to solve most Linux issues, that actually proves the opposite of your argument. Linux is powerful, but it’s fragmented and inconsistent, and that’s not an easy target for a vendor like DxO.

PhotoLab is deeply tied to Windows-specific tech (DirectX, .NET, Windows color pipelines, GPU drivers, proprietary SDKs). Porting that to Linux is not “just compile it for Linux”. It’s a major architectural rewrite. And because Linux has no unified graphics API or driver model, DxO would need to support multiple distros and GPU stacks. Even Adobe avoids Linux for the same reason.

The reason DxO supports macOS is that macOS is a single, stable, well-defined target. Linux simply is not.

If DxO one day sees enough commercial demand, maybe they’ll consider it, but pretending Linux is a coherent, low-effort platform for a complex GPU-heavy application is unrealistic. Wine running some apps doesn’t change the engineering reality.

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It really is difficult to write an app for an entirely new operating system. It essentially has to be re-built from the bottom up. Not to mention that it would require them hiring a full new team of engineers that would work on this constantly for updates, upgrades and bug fixes.

They probably do realize this, but I’m fairly certain that more users ditching Windows for privacy concerns are heading to macOS than they are to Linux. That’s just a personal estimate, though, based on what I have seen. I do not have any real research to back this up (please chime in if you do, though – I’m legitimately curious!)

Generally though:

DxO already has trouble with the engineering of the Windows and Mac version of PhotoLab. To add another operating system - which @PerttiS rightfully points out has multiple distributions - would only add further distraction and complexity for DxO to manage. I think this would then result in even MORE bugs for EACH of the platforms than there already are; they would simply be spread too thin.

As I’m sure you are aware, there really is NO major photo-editing company that creates software for Linux. Not Adobe, not Capture One, not Affinity/Canva, not On1, not Corel etc. etc. etc. And there is a good business reason for that – they would simply lose money if they attempted to develop and market for it.

While I sincerely hope Linux gets to the point where it is big enough to give Win & Mac a run for their money, it’s just not there yet and they can’t justify writing an entirely new app codebase just for that platform. I would switch to Linux in a heartbeat if there was a good photo-editing ecosystem (among a few other small things)!

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There were already stable Unix platforms such as IRIX on SGI hardware. This was the same closed concept as MAC computers, designed exclusively for the high-end video and graphics workstation market. The system was state of the art, very stable, and Photolab would certainly have run very efficiently. The market for this has collapsed due to competition from Windows and MAC, and it will not return. The most important success factor for Linux is its ability to run on standard MAC and Windows hardware, so a new version of a system comparable to SGI under Linux is almost ruled out.

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A see a few reason why not happen today. Note: I’m participate in two (2) commercial software port (and support) to Linux, so very small but real world experience here.

  1. No one buy it
    Frankly, in the end of the day, may the user base is quite small, if any. It’s may seems the ‘minor user base’ (what i also think valid anyhow), but i talking about the paying user base - DxO is a commercial software. ‘Everybody gangsta until the credit card payment required’.

  2. Platform fragmentation
    Lot of Linux distro / forks. Just Linux distros like more than 100? See next point → ‘Near impossible to support’
    Also lot of desktops, drivers and so on.

  3. Near impossible to support
    You need to hire a Linux expert. And need to prepare for all the distros, gui, etc. “The real difference now is that 99% of my issues with Linux was solved in no time using ChatGPT.” → Maybe. May not a good point to build (port) a commercial software and support based on that. Linux distros also may has different upgrade cycles, like rolling (at least usually Arc) or LTS, etc.

  4. Lack of ecosystem
    Like lack of Adobe Photoshop. Off course you can say: its has a Gimp or others. But they may lack of few functions, etc. Anyhow its goes to the next point and the ‘Users leave’ point.

  5. Free alternatives
    See Darktable or others. But see next point → Users leave

  6. Users leave
    Quite often (!!!) users switch in the meantime to Win/Mac! May because ‘lack of ecosystem’ point. And switching percent can be quite high! Or may leave due the other alternatives (see previous point). Or may when paid upgrade time arrived and they switch to other app (see point 5). I not say the last happen every time, but happen.

  7. Linux can be stable, but some point GPU drivers / GUI may not so fine
    Linux is continuously evolving, and drivers stack ((or whatever its called) also change. May some drivers abandoned, some switched to different type (AMD change a few months ago?). See ‘near impossible to support’.

  8. ! Issues stay the same (!) than in Windows/Mac.
    Actually issues / bugs stay the same, why change at all just because of Linux?
    Actually as far i see current PL 9.2 main issue is about about DxO not communicate (!) required GPU VRAM amount for features, others is smaller bugs, and some need to tune (like AI prompts/model). None of them goes better just because its runs under Linux.
    Also performance not sure better, stability may not better.
    Stability in other hand pretty good also on Windows/Mac.

Why is it so difficult to create a Linux version?

Forum colleagues already describe quite well. I like to add one point: some software has Linux port/version because its written first for Irix(SGI) or similars! And not the other way around. As PC/x86 and GPU start to powerful enough, Windows more stable, they also port to Win/Mac. Some company already drop in the meantime the Linux port/version and keep only Win/Mac.

Do you realize that more and more are ditching Windows due to privacy concerns?

I not see this, especially not see in photographers. Usually they not spend ‘40 years in IT’… Some change to Mac from Win.

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Hi,

That’s a very one-sided view.
Professional software vendors routinely support one or two reference Linux distributions (RHEL, Ubuntu LTS, SLES, etc.). Nobody expects full coverage of every downstream fork. Selecting a target platform is simply a matter of defining a supported ABI (Application Binary Interface) and package baseline.

So, DxO can simply pick one well-established distro — and I’ll gladly follow.

Regarding the “macOS is a single, stable, well-defined target” argument: this is only partially true. Windows and macOS both undergo significant API, driver, and subsystem modifications across releases. In contrast, enterprise-grade Linux distributions offer multi-year ABI stability, predictable kernel maintenance (LTS), and controlled update policies.

So the issue isn’t that “Linux” is inherently fragmented — it’s that a vendor must choose a well-defined distro and support its stable environment. Many companies already do exactly that without problems.

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You gladly follow. But others may not, as “But i have this and that (different) distro because of xyz reasons”. If you use like 5000 EUR/year software, you use what vendor pick and no ‘but’. I don’t think it’s can be the case of DxO one time: €239.99.

it’s that a vendor must choose a well-defined distro and support its stable environment. Many companies already do exactly that without problems.

Yes, many companies does that. I see a lot of HP workstations with CentOS what required for exact software suite (but nothing else). Runs without problem.

But also many companies does on the top of that (than exact distro) like: “and only if you use exactly the x or y HP workstation (certified) - and only if x or y FC card (certified) and only if FC card in Slot3 and only if SAN storage is x or y or z (certified)”.

Shortened example (for Flame): Only customized Rocky Linux 9.5 and only in HP Z6 , Z8, Dell precision xyz, and only with nVidia RTX6000 or RTX5000 in slot 1 and 3, and Atto FC card in slot 7 and storage like Quantum x series or Netapp y series. Sometimes they also provide ‘Driver kit’ for the certified stuffs to ensure no issue. May they use exclusively Nvidia GPU and not a word about AMD card support, and so on. If you use not certified stuffs, support may not to happy to help you out.

Pardon to describe this section in some details, but i think many of us not encounter stuffs like that before when some (only some) cases what means ‘companies already do’.

Of course lot of companies not or not so ‘strict’ on this things.
But quite a few companies strict.

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I’m confused. You ask the question but then you deny them the most obvious answer. It is a minor user base.

How minor? I asked ChatGPT and it told me ~4.1%. Now, if we compare this to macOS, which is ~5.5% then it doesn’t seem so bad. But then I asked it to break down Linux by the major distributions.

The largest percentage was Ubuntu at ~40%. So that’s ~1.7%. Less than a third the size of macOS. For all its issues, macOS is a known quantity with a formal developer programme provided by the sole company that builds it.

What would DxO do if their chosen distribution suddenly became mired in a battle for control that splintered it into two (or more!) user bases?

I’m honestly surprised they support macOS, but for the longest time, those have been the two choices and the macOS user base has been steadily growing for years and has traditionally been strong in the creative field.

There’s a reason “The year of Linux on the desktop” is a running joke.

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I’m not surprised Wine doesn’t work with PhotoLab given the complexities involved (low-level optimization, GPU programming, etc.).

However, for me PhotoLab works excellent using virtualization (KVM/Qemu) on Ubuntu with GPU passthrough (RTX 4060). Yes, this requires a Windows license, but you don’t have to dual boot. The downside is that the passed-through GPU can’t be used on the host system, but nothing prevents you from spinning up an Ubuntu guest which can then use the GPU (since virtualization is so easy and seamless nowadays). It was also surprisingly easy to set up: add a kernel parameter to isolate the GPU from the host, reboot, then add the PCI device in the virtual machine. (And check out looking-glass.io for something really cool!)

I have had neither stability nor performance issues with PhotoLab 8 – and that is practically without any optimization tunings (since everything works fine, I’m too lazy…). PhotoLab 9 felt considerably slower in use, but with 9.2.1 things seem better. Haven’t experienced a single error or crash on PhotoLab 9, but to be fair I’ve only tried out AI-masking on one session so far. (AI-sky masking also worked without errors, but the results were so poor it felt pretty useless anyway.)

Regarding a Linux version: I don’t think that’s going to happen in the foreseeable future since they obviously have big problems maintaining the existing platforms. Also, I would rather use a stable Windows version with KVM than a buggy Linux version (which feels like a genuine risk…). (For example, Linux Civilization players were better off using the Windows version with Proton/Wine than the actual Linux version!) I think the fragmentation arguments are exaggerated (there are many examples of complex software running perfectly on the main distros) – rather, I think it’s about customer base: there are simply too few Linux based photographers willing to pay for a Linux version of PhotoLab. Asking ChatGPT on desktop user shares is probably misleading: traditionally, Linux users have been programmers, computer security researchers, etc., while Mac has since long been strong in creative fields. So the Mac customer base is probably much higher, and the Linux user base, unfortunately, probably much lower.

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where is the PhotoLab for Linux?

In your dreams.

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What, something on linux doesn’t work properly? Gasp, never heard of that before. Why not run an actual Windows VM under linux? Then you can run all the apps which will never get ported to the hobby OS inside the VM.

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I was working as a consultant, writing Windows software when the time came to replace my luggable Dell laptop.

A friend recommended switching to Mac as, at that time, they were cheaper and more powerful. When I raised the point of having to use Visual’Studio for Windows, he told me about Parallels virtual machine software, which meant I could run VS under Windows in a VM on the Mac and just turn off Windows and have the joy of macOS for everything else.

Of course that was years ago (Windows XP). Then I started developing for Mac with Apple’s free tools and have never looked back.

Why not look at a VM that runs Linux, either as host or guest?

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My son, a programmer loves MAC. He says that it runs on top of LINUX.

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Well, actually, it’s a version of UNIX known as BSD. It is far more tightly controlled by Apple and extremely tightly integrated to Apple specific hardware, without the need to cater for home built machines, whose components cannot be guaranteed.

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I agree with @zkarj that we just have to consider market shares when demanding DXO to port Photolab to Linux.

I once worked more about 20 years for a Distributor of IT-products in Scandinavia, first as a Product Manager for all of Microsofts products and later as a developer of their business solutions. So I have worked together with all the big hardware and software companies of those days: IBM, Microsoft, Computer Associates, Lotus, Wordperfect, Ashton Tate … more than 200 companies.

In the nineties we helped Micrfosoft on road shows and educating “the channel” of resellers.

From that experience I can say from my hart that THE APPLICATIONS are everything and the OS close to nothing. In these days Windows Server was not born yet (then called Windows NT (New Technology).

Windows (before Windows 3.0) was really rudimentary and the LINUX guys joked about and called it "halv a operating system (it lacked network support really) for half a computer, but it did not take long before both IMB OS/s, LINUX and Apple MacIntosh was truely marginalized and the reason was that Microsoft that had a suite of desktop-apps (Word for Windows, Excel and PowerPoint) that they packed in MS Office that instantly marginalized the software giants of that time Lotus and WordPerfect. So it was actually MS Office that killed almost all the competition both for the applications and the OS.

Both Lotus and WordPerfect chose to go with IBM OS 2 and Microsoft and IBM (that once had cooperated in developing the Lan Manager OS) split and started to develop Windows and OS/2 separately. Novell Netware OS dominated the server OS-market and like Lotus and WP had all three around 60% of their respective niche markets at that time.

… and what did Microsoft? They started to port a slightly old version of Excel (version 2.21 I think) to IBM OS/2. I saw it a demo but I don´t think it ever got released. Then Microsoft decided not to port anything at all to OS/2. They went all in for Windows and Windows apps. IBM OS/2 was renamed to “WARP” and just died slowly in the shadows and both Lotus and WP had to adapt to Windows but were too late and never got back on track again. Microsoft even made a migration solution for Novell Netware users. Novell continued to believe they had a market share of 60% until they realized a lot of their installed base had migrated to Windows NT with “one click”.

Later Novell let the altruists developing LINUX developing for Novell for free when Novell decided to go LINUX by packing that OS and offering support. It was their way of staying competitive :slight_smile:

In the middle of the nineties Microsoft got under the loupe of the American authorities worried about Microsofts dominance. They dominated both the OS-side and of that reason they also got a good insight in what their competition was up to when they wanted MS help to adapt their applications to Windows. The authorities treathened to split Microsoft. Probably to avoid that fate Microsoft decided to port almost all their important applications to MacIntosh - in order to invent some kind of competition. If that had not happened there would probably not have been any Apple today.

So of these reasons I really think the applications is everything and the OS not very important and for most people it was mostly something we needed to start the applications.

Windows 3.0 landed on planet Earth on May 22, 1990 and Microsoft released it also at hotel Foresta outside Stockholm ands we were there to present all the Windows software we had at that time and we really felt that it was a start of something NEW. Finally the OS could use all RAM-memory in the machine and leave MS-DOS behind, It was the moment when Microsoft finally had a graphical interface that felt like more than a slightly confused, colorful jacket draped over MS-DOS. Program Manager, File Manager, 386 enhanced mode, memory management — all of it felt like wizardry at the time.

On the stage at Foresta the Windows-evangelist screamed “The future us so bright that you got to wear shades” and then they started to throw a lot of sunglasses out to the auduence - it was in the beginning of the summer too - the best time of the year too when people stood in front of their at least four weeks summer holidays just trying to forget the dark, wet and freezing cold winter. Sweden at that time almost closed in July. Today it had been six weeks of paid holiday.

Before version 3.0 Windows was just a File Manager living and crippled as it was on top of the old desktop OS MS-DOS. The memory of these machines of those days was so limited that many using MS Excel did what they could to avoid even starting the memory hungry Windows and instead they just started a smaller Run-Time Windows. For me that history is really symbolic when it comes to stressing that the applications are everything and the OS “nothing” else than something that let us start the applications.

I have worked many years in the industries of my country too and for the many in the industry the Mac-platform is just niche-desktop toys for aesthetes and creators in music and publishing. In mozst other businesses there is not even any industry standard software - not to talk about more specific industry software. That is just made for Windows and the same goes for a lot of periferals that are not a part of the protected work shop of Apple.

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It’s a chicken and egg problem. The reason Windows dominates the corporate world now is because Windows dominated the corporate world in the 2000s. That’s it. The lethargy of so, so many companies who couldn’t be bothered to consider another platform because Windows was so dominant.

My own company, fairly large for my country, said for so many years that Macs were impractical. Except they’re not. One chap said “Macs aren’t designed for enterprise.” I corrected him that “Our enterprise is not designed for Macs.” Guess what. In the last couple of years, managers have been allowed to use Macs and… gasp!… they work.

I used to work for a company some years ago. When I joined they used OS/2. Then switched to Windows NT. These days they offer Win11 or Mac to any new employee — free choice unless their role has constraints due to software. You might class this company as “fairly large” to make this work. Their name? IBM.

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Yep, you are right. The view that Mac is not able to handle enterprise is a short-sided. Most major enterprise software is made for both Mac and Windows (or there is at least an option of the same type of software for either platform).

In fact I know product and business managers from several large corporations (Starbucks and AWS/Amazon Inc.) and their systems are all on Mac. One has to specially request a Windows machine, actually, if they happen to really want it instead.

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DXO is a small company, they don’t have the resources to develop and maintain a version for an OS that represents only 5% of the desktops OS market. I really hope it changes but now its dual booting.
From my experience Photolab cannot run under Wine because of the licence control that use WMI, and the 64 bits version of WMI is not supported by Wine. By the way Affinity suite work very well in Wine.

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No, as I wrote above, you don’t have to dual boot. It’s a shame if Linux users needlessly lose out on PhotoLab because of this misunderstanding.

In the 2000s, dual booting was the only performant option for running multiple OSs (Mac owners may remember Apple’s “Boot Camp”) — but since at least 10-15 years there’s widespread hardware support for virtualization and PCI passthrough in CPUs and motherboards. And Linux especially makes this very easy, and with a minimal performance penalty (it’s even built into the kernel).

Yes, a well-written native Linux app would be nice, but while a big deal 20 years ago, it’s not today. Let’s instead focus on getting DxO to sort out all those bugs!

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