Summary

  • Adobe CC installers can run on Linux via Wine, letting Photoshop and other CC apps work.
  • 2021 and 2025 CC installers were made to run; usability is good, though some features (drag-n-drop) can falter.
  • Patch was submitted to Valve's fork but closed; the community may push it into the main Wine repo for wider use.

As much as I love using Linux over Windows, I will admit that you do have to make a few sacrifices when making the switch over to the world of FOSS. For instance, some apps don't have a Linux version, neither official nor a third-party workaround, and you have to find an alternate app that does something similar, albeit not perfectly.

Photoshop was one such hurdle, with people needing to migrate over to something like GIMP to get an advanced image editor. However, someone over on Reddit has finally cracked the code and found a way to get the Adobe CC installers working on Linux via Wine. This means you can use apps like Photoshop within Linux, and while it may not be perfect, it sounds very usable.

Adobe Photoshop finally works on Linux via Wine

Alongside the rest of the CC suite

As spotted by Phoronix, Reddit user HearMeOut-13 posted some excellent news over on the Linux_Gaming subreddit. It shows them installing Adobe CC on Linux with Wine, which is something people have been waiting for for a long time now.

The creator claims that the patch allows both the Adobe CC 2021 and 2025 installers to perform their jobs and get apps like Photoshop up and running on Linux. As you might imagine, it's not perfect, but the creator says it's usable:

Photoshop 2021 itself runs butter smooth, only issue i have had is drag-n-drop but that could just be my wayland stuff.

The creator then submitted the changes to the Valve repo for everyone to use. People questioned why they uploaded it there and not to Wine's repo, to which the creator responded:

Valve's fork is more likely to actually review and merge it in a reasonable timeframe. If it lands there and proves stable, it has a better chance of eventually making it upstream anyway. That's historically been the path for a lot of Wine improvements.

Unfortunately, at the time of writing, it seems that Valve has closed the submission and asked the creator to submit it to the Wine repo instead. As such, it may be a little while until we see Adobe installers running in Wine, but you can check out the code for yourself if you like. Here's hoping the community can band together and get something convenient and easy-to-use for people moving over from Windows to use to install Adobe CC.