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.