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I would gladly pay for any adobe products on Linux. Once that pesky lack of Linux color management stuff is addressed.

I'm running 64 bit Ubuntu Linux OS on an 64 bit AMD Athlon single core processor with good results. I would love to see Adobe run on a 64 bit Linux OS running dual core or quad core procssing.

So far, Bibble runs Windows, Mac and Linux but not the 64 bit Linux OS (and there have been many Linux users to post on their forum making a request for 64 bit OS support). I much prefer the Lightroom user interface over Bibble or any other Linux application.

I'm currently experimenting with VM Ware to allow my few non-Linux applications to run in virtual environments on my Linux machines.

Yes, I would gladly pay for Lightroom on Linux - on a 64 Bit OS to take advantage of the benefits of 64 bits. That would be the ideal situation for me.

I've contacted some Linux development people about creating some color management software for Ubuntu Linux. I've even considered paying some offshore software engineers to begin developing it as open source and just get it done and released for further work.

Regards

"How many current Windows users would gladly jump ship if Adobe started putting out Linux versions of its software?"

I would at least sell my last Mac if that happened. I'd probably keep my Windows-machines due to some other software, but the office-Mac would die an awful death.

Those of you who'd like to "jump ship" to Linux are missing the point. I assume that you're already Adobe customers. Even if you'd prefer to be using linux underneath your Adobe product, that brings no additional revenue to Adobe. The only reason that Adobe would consider taking on such a difficult and expensive project would be if there are customers now using linux but not yet using Adobe, who would become Adobe customers if they provide the product. I expect that is a very small number.

Maybe in a coupla years...

Let's see: the last stat I saw showed about 95% of computer users were on PCs with Windows. Maybe 92% [I will give Apple a little slack here] so why would Adobe even think about Linux?

I wonder how many Mac users there are in the LR community? I bet it is in the 10-15% range. [that should bring some rain, but we need it here in the mid-West].

And if you think there are problems with LR on Mac or Win, I can hardly wait for the Linux problems. And we will have "so many users" who can help resolve issues. NOT.

Mel

I'm a big Linux user, working at a company who does Linux-based consulting for companies like Nokia, and use Linux exclusively at home. Until recently I've been happy with GIMP for photo manipulation (as I generally only used crop and levels), but now that I'm shooting RAW I want more control and Lightroom is very interesting.

I know for a fact that there are many other people like me: go to a Linux conference like GUADEC and you'll see a shockingly high proportion of SLR cameras, and the majority of these people are struggling with GIMP or attempting to use Bibble, which although capable is no where near as smooth or intuitive as Lightroom.

C'mon Adobe: we know you have an abstraction layer, so port that to Linux and put a Linux executable on the CD along with Windows and Mac OXS X.

>"How many current Windows users would gladly jump ship if Adobe started putting out Linux versions of its software?"

Even if they jump ship, it would make more or less the same total number of customers (some linux users would not buy Adobe programs because of the license, "not GNU", etc.) but Adobe would have another codebase to support!

I'm a small business person watching my industry change before my eyes. I can't afford to not look ahead and consider that the unthinkable can't happen in my industry. When I ask why would anyone ever want, then I often ask, what would have to happen to cause anyone to want ______ and then look around at the trends I see emerging.

They are beginning to put Linux on mobile platforms - CELL PHONES!

http://moblin.org/?cid=cim:ggl|opensrc_us_moblin|k9DFE|s
http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS8395255492.html

Stylish Linux phones
http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT9423084269.html

OK, there are more than 7 billion people on the planet. 25% of China's population ( greater than all of the US population combined) has an IQ in excess of 140.

Out of 7 billion people, how many will eventually decide to get serious and build a good Linux-based application like Light room.

It is only a matter of time.

Look at South African based web content management www.Joomla.org and see what world wide volunteers did to create this application. Then go look at www.joomlashack.com, www.ijoomla.com and all the companies that sprang up to take advantage of what a bunch of GLOBAL volunteers did to create something a great application.

Not all of the cool stuff will be conceived, designed and coded in the United States. That's old, old thinking.

Now there is NOBODY, absolutely NOBODY in the Linux community who thinks about digital RAW photography. As a matter of fact, I'm sure they've never even HEARD of digital photography or RAW format until last night at about 11:30 PM. They are probably not bright enough to find the shutter release anyway.

http://rawstudio.org/compatibility.php
http://www.linux.com/articles/56128
http://cybercom.net/~dcoffin/dcraw/
http://linux.die.net/man/1/kipidcrawclient
http://photobuntu.wordpress.com/2007/10/23/on-workflows-openraw-and-dn g/
http://dplinux.org/
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6635
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9000
http://www.oreillynet.com/linux/blog/2007/10/digital_photo_management_ in_li_1.html
http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2007-10-24-011-26-OS-HW -HL
http://swik.net/photography+linux
http://bugbear.blackfish.org.uk/~bruno/panorama-tools/
http://theplaceofdeadroads.blogspot.com/2006/02/high-dynamic-range-pho tography-with.html
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-28734.html

Dell & Linux
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/linux_3x?c=us&cs=19&l =en&s=dhs

GIMP 2.4 released 5 days ago (10/24/07) with a refreshed look and functionality - how long until RAW files are supported?
http://www.gimp.org/

Fstop, (admittedly not sophisticated but it works) which works side by side with GIMP and does import RAW files is a part of Ubuntu Linux's installation.

http://f-spot.org/Features

SEVEN BILLION PEOPLE: How many of them can write Linux code and will do it for free?

What would be their incentive? No product in the market place to fill the need?

How do you compete with free other than get there first and do a damn good job of it?

I would REALLY, REALLY like to see Adobe products on Linux and so would a lot of other people.

>GIMP 2.4 released 5 days ago (10/24/07) with a refreshed look and functionality - how long until RAW files are supported?
http://www.gimp.org/

gimp already supports RAW through the outstanding and completely color managed ufraw plugin. I use ufraw standalone on OS X all the time.

rocky hardie (wtf?)

This is what's called a "business opportunity." If Linux is actually viable for photographers, and there's a market for a Lightroom-like product on Linux, but Adobe doesn't want to build it, then someone else can.

The Lightroom folks can decide if it makes business sense to port to Linux. A few things about Linux which make it stink for commercial application development:

"Linux" is actually about 5,000 different distros with all manner of combination of library versions, etc. Shipping an executable binary for "Linux" is exceedingly difficult as you have to have 20 or 30 different version for different distros (if you say, we support RHEL 5, then you get a bunch of Gentoo goobers whining).

Linux is also really lacking print drivers, video drivers, etc., and for things outside of servers, is just FAR FAR behind other platforms in terms of technology and in terms of market share.

Those people in India and China today aren't so fond of paying US prices for software. China is piracy central.

Sure, and Pixar writes their own software for Linux. It's easy when you write the software yourself.

With market share for "prosumer" or professional photography, the market share is like 40% to 50% Mac, 59% to 49% Windows, and < 1% Linux.

It's a business decision, and for now, there's just no demand.

As for Linux video drivers... sure it has 3D acceleration, but the optimization is for crap. Seriously, look at the benchmarks.

I think most of the Linux apps from Adobe are oriented toward servers, where Linux is well established, and not toward desktops, where it is pretty much for geeks and corporations running specialized Linux apps.

Why did I, as a small business owner choose to work in Linux?

My former career background was in Semiconductor engineering and manufacturing at AMD and Motorola. I'm now in financial services for the past 10 years.

I have had countless frustrations with my Windows systems crashing, virus infections, trojans, security holes (I have sensitive personal and financial information on my systems).

I've lost more money from desk tops that became so corrupted that I or my staff could not function and customer service suffered. I was spending $125/hr tech time while my customers needed my production NOW.

When I learned that Ubuntu Linux had a stable desktop and server application and there were virtualization applications to help me bridge the gap on my Microsoft only needs, then I began to look at Linux in my off time from work.

Having software upgrades like Vista, with all of the challenges we have seen and then my main software not being compatible has been another issue - then there is the cost of the OS license purchase, etc.

Mainly, it was I was tired of the headaches of Outlook locked up, crashed systems, etc.

One day, I got mad and decided I had had enough and I was going to find an answer come "hell or high water". I was beyond angry; I wanted to find the little ******* who wrote the **** that was on my computer and I wanted to torture and mutilate the little F***** before I burned his dead carcass and piss on him to put out the fire. That is where I was when I decided to look for other ideas.

I have spent many THOUSANDS of tech support dollars as a result of virus infections and corrupted/crashed/unstable workstations and I'm tired of it. My IT guy, a 9 year Cisco systems admin vetern, tells me we have our system secured using recommended standards.

Those thousands of dollars weren't some big corporation's dollars. They were MY dollars; my WIFE'S dollars; my family's dollars.

Others in my industry express the same frustrations and at least one business owner has asked that if I find a Linux solution to our industry, to let him know.

I'll be publishing technical articles and providing workable, stable software solutions to a whole industry when I am confident of my results. But mainly, I'm doing it for myself and the satisfaction of knoing I and my staff can work without being electronically molested by unseen forces.

Actually, I've never considered Mac and it's OS as something to run my business on since I would be locked into their hardware (which is beautiful, by the way).

Windows, Linux or Unix always been, in my eyes, an operating system for business due to the way it has been used on servers; only recently has the Ubuntu Linux become focused on the desktop and that was appealing to me.

With that said, just this week a friend of mine who works for Sun Microsystems tells me that he successfully loaded OS-X on a PC and it works just fine; additionally, he has loaded it onto his Sun workstation and it worked with the exception of some driver. I haven't personally seen this, but I trust my friend's word.

His MAC has been up and running for two years without a crash.

An interesting note is that Sun's blade servers advertise that I would be able to mix operating systems such as Windows, Mac OS and Linux.

With the relatively recent advent of VMware www.vmware.com many more things are possible that weren't even 6 months to 1 year ago.

This is highly interesting: http://vmware.com/company/news/releases/fusion1_1.html

I can see running VMware on a "stable" Linux platform and having a "virtual" Mac or Windows operating system. If my Windows becomes corrupted or gets a virus, then I just dissolve the virtual operating environment and restart it -in seconds - as if it were a fresh install. (interesting: a real virus in a virtual environment. Dissolve the environment and the virus ceases to exist. Like a trap door into a bottomless pit. A fitting end to a virus.)

This can be done on a server OR work station.

Thanks for the ideas and debates! :-)

Rocky

The generic answer to your question is Yes. At one point Adobe even went so far as to offer a Linux beta version of Frame maker - which is to my knowledge the only application they have that supports UNIX. After a very brief beta appearance, Linux was dropped. Why it was dropped depends on who you are talking too. Most agree that a primary factor was the additional development and support costs when compared with the additional revenue that would result. As good as Linux is, for consumer applications its market share is something less than itsy-bitsy. Marketshare translates into revenue. Little marketshare means little revenue.
"It's not personal, it's business."

Dave Huss

Maybe Adobe will someday build Linux versions, but in the meantime, those of you wanting a first rate, non destructive, editor/convertor ought to be taking a look at lightzone, which now has a linux version in beta ready to download. Lightzone , by the way, just got an Eddy Award from MacWorld as the best of the editing/converting software out there. It runs circles around Bibble in my opinion.

I tried it about 18months ago, and was not too impressed with anything but the concept behind it. I have recently started to use it extensively, and it has not only speeded up my workflow, but offers features, including masking, that are not available in Lightroom--thus saving me a lot of tedious trips to PS for layers work that can be done amazingly fast and effectively within the mainstream LZ workflow. If it is anywhere near as high quality and effective on Linux as it is on a PC and Mac, you can kiss UFRaw and the Gimp good bye for photo editing. They have a long way to go to get in the same league as Lightzone.

Don't get to excited, It was written in November 2004.

I have no intentions of turning this in to a Windows is better than Linux or
anything like that. However, I think it is interesting and even sad that the
vast majority of consumers and even professionals have little interest in
switching to Linux. I think until Linux can offer a lot more than just low
cost or free OS Linux has moved as far as its going to on the desktop. Those
using it now in place of or in a dual boot setup are geeks and not really a
large enough market to sustain most companies developing for Linux.

We also must not forget what jumping in to the Linux pool feet first did to
Corel Corporation. It almost killed them. I think a lot of companies are
going to be remembering that, remembering how close Corel came to buying the
far simply because they decided that Linux was the wave of the future.
Unfortunately Linux isn't and I doubt it will ever be much more than a
curiosity for most people.

It is a shame Windows Vista is total trash, but there is really no other
viable alternative. Though I do have to say the Mac looks better than it did
a few years ago. But, I have to say I am concerned that since Apple's change
to Intel processors they seem to have a great deal more bugs and secuity
issues with their OS. It maybe more user friendly and that is debatable, but
I don't think it is all that much more bug free and secure. Kind of makes me
wonder about the intel processors. Seems strange that this started with that
switch.

Robertg

I don't think security is down to the processor as the problems we see are at a much higher level. Modern processors including Intel give all the memory protection facilities you need and a good operating system will take care of.

Some of us do see Windows as a mess. User friendliness is what you're accustomed to. I've seen people used to other systems stumble on Windows and people learn other systems quite easily. Vista starts to add more security, but it is becoming ever more complex too. It's also still based on the age old COM technology simply because ripping that out would be so hard to do - a pity as some of the potential in Dot-Net is lost because of it. Anyone who's had to delve deep into Windows will know how complex it is inside. There have been some very good ideas, but in my experience I'd say that there's a lot of trouble there too.

Windows is where it is because once upon a time it was in the right place at the right price point at the right time. Apparently there was some interesting 'marketing' to go with it and that was that. It's not set in stone though. Big behemoths have come down before.

Hardware is becoming so cheap that the cost of software is becoming incredibly significant. An OEM copy of Windows is now a significant part of the cost of the machine to run it. Buy Office for your new laptop and you can spend half the cost of the laptop again! This should force prices down. Maybe it will. One thing that is happening is that vendors are looking for alternatives and we are starting to see low end PCs that do everything most people want that run Open-Office not Microsoft Office, and in some cases Linux not Windows.

Poorer countries are coming online. Microsoft seem to have turned around India, which at one point was looking at Linux in government and with a population of a billion and an expanding economy would have killed Microsoft's monopoly. There are other populations too. I can't tell how this will play out as it seems that Microsoft are aware - hence the Classmate and the stupidly cheap licenses for third world countries.

I personally would like to see the monopoly broken. I see a lot of excellent development outside Microsoft that would be squashed if total monopoly took hold. This can happen if we had a situation where it becomes impossible for anyone else to enter the market, a situation perhaps where access to the net becomes impossible without Microsoft's proprietry protocols. This could concievably happen in the world of richer entertainment and DMCA like protections against interoperability or growing proliferatoion of software patents.

I think this would mean the end of innovation in computing. Like all good businesses Microsoft only need to invest where there is gain. When they thought they had the browser market, investment in IE stopped. It is only the competition from Mozilla, only possible thanks to the current relative openness of the web, that we saw IE7 and will see IE8. It is thanks to Java that we have Dot-Net, and I think thanks to OpenOffice that we have Office 2007.

The worse case scenario to me would be a future where we all rent software from Microsoft who no longer need do anything but sit back and rake in the money.

So bring on the cheap PCs running Linux! Bring on single purpose devices like the TomTom range which run Linux! Hopefuly we can get past the chicken and egg and get the apps for Linux.

By the way - Lightzone is interesting. I have the 30 day trial copy. I've had fun playing with the zone management tools. They're nice. I prefer them to Bibble even with the Ansel plugins. I need to get used to a lot more. £75 I think it was for basic - but maybe worth it when I've recovered from Christmas spending. I'll add it to the list of would-likes along with Nikon's image stabilised lens and some pro-sound gear for field recording...

>Found this on Wired web site about Linux's concerted drive to be user friendly with a forecast that Adobe Photoshop could be supported in Linux within a couple of years.

The article contains this interesting paragraph:

>Linux famously has problems with hardware support. Wireless networking cards and graphics cards can be a hassle to get working, even in the "easy" distributions. There are software issues as well, from support for MP3s and popular fonts, which can be solved with a little bit of trial and error, to the lack of Linux support in popular productivity applications like Adobe Photoshop. And then there's the big one: the conspicuous absence of the video game industry's most popular titles.

And if that does not scream stay away from my machine I'm not sure what would :).

I hope that after reading this, people begin to understand that Linux has begun to move out of the land of Geeks and into Main Stream - even high school class rooms, laptops and mobile phones. The user interfaces have an artistic main stream look and feel and the ease of install improves every month. The Linux community is not sitting on it's hands so stop looking in the rear view mirror.

Just keep your eye on the ball, my friend because the pace of Linux implementation from more user friendly desktops to mobile platforms is on an accelerated growth curve.

Yes, a lot of people are only wanting to use FREE software and that is in the process of changing as I'll present.

The game is rapidly changing every 6 months. Everything has life and development cycles. Linux is moving through the "everything free" phase to more main stream adaptation where profit seeking entities are developing applications for small to enterprise business.

Linux is fast moving away from "geek land" as you can see.

KDE 4.0 desktop just released. See screen shots.

http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.0/desktop.php

GNOME 2.20 desktop release (simply scroll quickly for overview)

http://www.gnome.org/start/2.20/notes/en/

GNOME Mobile Initiative

http://www.gnome.org/mobile/ (check out Nokia N Series phone and the Vernier Lab Quest, which I think is way cool all by itself)

http://www.vernier.com/labquest/ (watch professional video of kids doing science experiments with attractive, sophisticated, Linux-based hand held data acquisition and analyzer.

http://europe.nokia.com/phones/n800

You gotta love this one (lots of Adobe wannabes) http://www.linuxappfinder.com/alternatives

http://www.linuxalt.com/

NOTE: In an earlier post, I noted that there are 7 BILLION people in the world and most of them are NOT English Speaking Americans like me. Take note of how many languages the Linux applications have been translated into. LOTS AND LOTS of languages for the other 6.7 BILLION folks around the world, some of whom quietly work on developing software.

NON- Free business applications (now we are getting into main stream)

Professional grade audio software below (free software, pay for support - hybrid of free and non-free business models)

http://64studio.com/screenshots

Enterprise Level email server

http://www.axigen.com/ (PERPETUAL LICENSE - PAY ONCE)

Zimbra Collaboration Suite and email server (9 Million PAID mailboxes - does that qualify as non-free commercial Linux application to be used on the desktop?)

http://www.zimbra.com/ (over the air sync to mobile phones just like Exchange Server but less costly)

Remote Desktop Access software/hardware appliance for tech support (Windows, Mac, Linux)

http://www.bomgar.com/linux/?gclid=CPrMvZewvpACFUV0OAodJUZ7Ww#demo

Business Ready Open Source office applications From Spike Source (Windows and Linux) I found this company from the Tech Republic web site . . . a VERY interesting Open Source Software company as you will see.

http://spikesource.com/

http://spikesource.com/spikesource-intro.html (audio video - very interesting)

http://spikesource.com/suitetwo/ (enterprise collaboration suite)

Take note of the management team (Kim Polese, CEO and original product manager for JAVA development - hyper competitive business woman with track record for business sucess)

http://spikesource.com/company/management.html

Ubuntu Linux Case Studies (Oakland University, Johns Hopkins University, German Airline Pilots supported with Linux Notebooks)

Remove the rear view mirror and keep your eye on the road ahead because that is where the future of Linux is headed.

All those Linux Distros are too much to develop for and they are unstable. Valid Point.

Select ONE and focus on it: Ubuntu Linux www.Ubuntu.com

1. Google Ubuntu Linux and read about how it is the Leading Distro, why
2. Google Canonical, the corporate sponsor of Ubuntu
3. Review the features, functionality
4. Works on PC and MAC

Ubuntu "Just Works"
http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/desktopedition

Ubuntu for Grandma
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuForGrandma

http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/desktop/features

Personally, I like the look and feel of Ubuntu Studio (regardless of the maturity of the tools in this offering) and I have the same functionality for my home, work or play.

http://ubuntustudio.org/screenshots

I was a hobbyist in Amateur "ham" radio in the 1970's. We were "experimenting" with using a touch tone key pad to access the ONLY radio repeater tower in town (Austin, Texas USA) so we could place calls from our hand held 2 meter portable radios to a land line (tape, glue and wires). It was like a party line and only one radio operator could access the tower at a time.

We we still do it today and now know it as the cell phone.

>Dude, get a blog!

http://www.rockyhardie.com/MyBlog

Haha that's funny. That music is priceless.

That was sarcasm in case you didn't notice. It's super cheesy.

You are free to not go to the site, go to the site and turn off your speakers first or turn off the music when you arrive.

Thanks for taking the time to look me up and post your uncomplimentary comments. I'm touched.

Big CHEEZY smile to go with the cheezy music. ;-)