Thursday, February 14, 2008 at 11:16 AM
As you may know, Google uses Wine to implement Linux support for Picasa. Beyond that, Google has been supporting Wine in several other ways.
Perhaps the biggest news is that we hired Codeweavers to make Photoshop CS and CS2 work better under Wine. Photoshop is one of those applications that Desktop linux users are constantly clamoring for, and we're happy to say they work pretty well now. Perhaps not coincidentally, apps like Flash 8 are now starting to work in Wine, too. We look forward to further improvements in this area.
For more about what we've been doing, see my post to wine-devel and/or visit our list of Google Wine patches.
Share and enjoy!
53 comments:
CS2 was one of the only things keeping me on a windows box! This is fantastic news!
It's great to see google help with wine development, you people are my heroes!
Is there any chance to see some efford go into showstopper bugs in games? It may not be of any relevance for your picasa application, but there's a big mass who dosen't install linux due to lack of games.
Photoshop is probably the only piece of software stopping me swapping now... and i imagine thats quite a common reason.
THANK YOU so much :)
All right!
Kudos to Google for helping with Linux with this development :)
Any idea what's next?
Thanks to the Google guys for this great effort! I belive that getting adequate support for commercial applications is necessary for success of Linux on the desktop. In my experience, the key applications that have to run by this point are Photoshop, AutoCAD, 3D Studio (I know a lot of 3D suites are used and Autodesk already has Maya on Linux, but the user base of 3D Studio is inmense), and Reason, because the users of these products are already technically aware folks, many of whom would jump to Linux in a heartbeat if key applications were available.
Someone has to ask, so I will:
Any word on making SketchUp work better under WINE? Or better still, a Linux port?
you guys rock
Thanks Google! I vote for Google Talk support on WINE next. WINE badly needs SSL/schannel support.
I'll add to the sentiments of "The Amigo" above in begging for a port or wine implementation of SketchUp on linux. I'd really like to participate in the competition, but SketchUp isn't very friendly inside of wine at the moment.
Please?
Hiya folks, I'll make sure the sketchup team knows your desires :-) Keep the wishlist coming though, Dan and the Wine folks are certainly paying attention.
@Daishiman: Reason is -awesome-. just saying.
Awesome news. Now if only all my windows games worked under Wine. :)
kinda ironic i was discussing this yesterday to my friend on why i hate having to use windows for photoshop.
Just thanks!
Si, estamos de acuerdo en qe es una gran idea, pero qe sucede con el Gimp?.
Primero es una gran alternativa, y por lo demas, software adobe como que va en contra de la filosofia del Gnu, no creen?
I'm anxiously waiting for sketchup work well in Linux.
I agree with many of the people here... thanks for making dissapear one of the only reasons that keep stoping me from being fulltime linux.
I will also be waiting for sketchup for linux.
@sebastian:
Igual de eso se trata el open source, de tener alternativas, nadie te obliga a usarlo, es solo cuestion de gustos, y si a mi me place usar PS en lugar de The Gimp (que tambien uso, por su bajo uso de recursos)en mi Ubuntu, Opensuse, Mandriva o lo que sea, creo que es justo tener la opcion de hacerlo.
I'm hoping they can get Photoshop CS3 running in Wine at some point, hopefully before CS4 comes out :p
Better yet, get Adobe off their lazy bums and make them support Linux
Google, keep supporting WINE !!!
Thanks so much Google for this support!
I hope that your support will continue.
On the other hand, I want to ask something...
Is it possible to hire some software engineers to help Microsoft about vista SP1! :D
Once again, Google is doing the wrong thing for the right reasons....
It would have been wiser to push this money do developer proper Free Software alternatives.
collonut!
This is great news. But what about the current version of Photoshop : CS3. Will that be supported too?
This is great stuff. I also hope that they improve support for iTunes in wine. Quite an important app for many linux users, but unfortunately runs quite slow.
Those are great news! .. thanks Google ! ..
I'd like to use Google talk on Linux very soon ..
Huebert - Wiser? A very small investment (add code to WINE) gets a big payoff (PhotoShop CS2 running on Linux).
A native port would be cool and all, but it would take a lot of time (big investment) and only be appealing to a small subset of a small audience (small payoff).
This'll do for now, I'm sure.
This is great news, and thank you. I would be even more excited to see InDesign work on Linux than Photoshop.
Photoshop is a great program, but GIMP is more than good enough for most people, and photos are widely exchanged in interoperable formats like JPG and PNG anyway. So no Photoshop is not a huge problem.
Although I like Scribus, I don't really think anything comes close to InDesign on the Linux side, and even worse, designers and such like to pass around these InDesign files that are unreadable with other apps. So no InDesign is the real sticker for me!
I appreciate Google's effort, but my curiosity asks why Google is doing this? Is it for pure philanthropy or for some practical purpose (such as needs of internal employees)?
No sería mejor, en vez de ayudar a que Photoshop corra en Linux, invertir en mejorar Gimp para que alcance a Photoshop?
Wouldn't it be better to help Gimp grow and reach Photoshop instead of running Photoshop on Linux?
Thanks for the work!
Personally, I'd love to see Motorola Phone Tools working under Wine. Having to run WinXP under VMware to synch my Linux phone with my Linux PC is just plain dumb.
I completely support this effort. Good luck, Google. Still, I wish Adobe would start porting over Photoshop to Linux; that way it would run native.
Its good that google is improving wine. Thats OK. But, I think the improving the GIMP will be more fesible than getting the Photoshop work on linux.
Linux is free, keep it free.
I think it's Good support.If we can use them easily, every possibility is coming.
anyway good!!
How about Paint Shop Pro? I have been a PSP9 user for many years. I haven't even upgraded to the latest versions because it serves my purpose well, and I don't intend to learn new products as it already works well for me.
Any chance for Google to sponsor PSP9 to work well in wine as well? The dialog boxes are horrible and simply unusable. It's the only app that keeps me from making the total switch.
Once Paint Shop Pro 9 works perfectly, I'll no longer need to reboot to, nor install, Windows on my computer.
Awesome !! Thanks Google :)
What about Adobe Lightroom? In my opinion it's one of the most important app as well as AutoCAD which should have official linux port.
What about funding more native applications like Pixel image editor at http://www.pixelimageeditor.com ?
I was thinking lately that wine had major improvements last year, now I know the reasons behind it ;)
Thanks, keep the good work, and I hope someday you guys give to one of the internals the task to integrate wine better with KDE/Gnome (using themes and file open/save dialogs), that would thw windows programs just... native! :)
To people complaining about supporting WINE instead of Gimp:
by improved wine you get a *lot* of win32 programs (including both comercial and free) not only photoshop. They are just focusing on it now, as they can simply switch next time to get Virtualdub, Winamp, iTunes or others.
I want AUTOCAD on Linux ... please.
I must say that is a good thing, as a lot of people need a professional image editing application on linux that can read/write PSD but I too think those funds would be better spent on improoving The Gimp as it's a great application which could replace Photoshop one day.
To people complaining about supporting WINE instead of Gimp:
by improved wine you get a *lot* of win32 programs (including both comercial and free) not only photoshop. They are just focusing on it now, as they can simply switch next time to get Virtualdub, Winamp, iTunes or others.
You miss the point of supporting gimp instead of wine. By supporting Free (as in free speech) graphics programs, you are helping everybody who wants to do some graphics work. In contrast, by supporting wine you help people to run more non-free expensive software which many people can't afford and which locks them in.
If Google management is amenable (and assuming that there is no desire to implement internally), I would very much like to see a similar contract for supporting at least one reputable (US) tax preparation software package. This is the sort of application which is unlikely to be produced and maintained in an open source fashion since it must be updated annually and whose value lies not so much in the software itself but the encoding of the tax rules.
@ben: We're well aware of the SSL/SCHANNEL issue, there's a couple of other quite popular programs that need that as well. The problem is that there's not even a handful of people in the project who know enough about this to finish it in around a man-month or so. And those people are all busy as hell working on other stuff. So if anybody wants to give it a spin, I'll happily be among the people helping you to get your head wrapped around the SSPI API.
Or to quote a notorious chair thrower, Wine needs "developers, developers, developers, developers".
You miss the point of supporting gimp instead of wine. By supporting Free (as in free speech) graphics programs, you are helping everybody who wants to do some graphics work. In contrast, by supporting wine you help people to run more non-free expensive software which many people can't afford and which locks them in.
You also miss the point of supporting Wine. Windows would never have been successful if it didn't support DOS programs. For Linux to succeed in the desktop, it must support the large body of existing software which people already use.
Google did not work on Photoshop. Google worked on Wine. By getting the APIs that Photoshop uses working on Wine, a large body of software also begins to work.
My favorite software, an astronomy program which has features KStar doesn't have, started working correctly on Wine since Google contributed improvements to the Wine API, even if Google is probably unaware of the existence of such a niche program.
By supporting the Gimp, you improve adoption of the Gimp. But by supporting Wine, you improve adoption of Linux on the desktop.
More people using Linux will, in the end, result in more people using native Linux apps.
The free software ideals aren't picked up overnight by ordinary people. It grows on them by using Linux and learning more about it on a day to day basis.
For people who already bought Photoshop and want to try Linux, they will encounter a dead end. But give them Wine to show that they have a choice and that their money isn't wasted, and they get to experience the whole culture that is Linux. Soon, they will switch to the Gimp in due time.
P.S.
Regardless of ideology, professionals would not switch to the Gimp unless it offers parity with Photoshop features such as CMYK support.
Thanks for this! Now, please: Google Talk for Linux, and get that Toolbar 5 on Firefox, not just IE! Thank you. :)
Now, what u think about Corel Draw??? :D
I'll second (or whatever multiple) the requests for Autocad, Sketchup, Indesign and Quickbooks.
These are by far the most common sticking points I've encountered in my informal evangelism.
That's fine, but I ask you, why Google doesn't sponsors GIMP Improvements?
I mean GIMP could be powerful as now Photoshop is.
Thanks!! with Photoshop & dreamweaver in Ubuntu nothing keeps me from ditching Microsoft Windows XP
Finally!
"That's fine, but I ask you, why Google doesn't sponsors GIMP Improvements? I mean GIMP could be powerful as now Photoshop is."
Again, you miss the point. The whole idea is for Linux to be compatible with Windows software, in the same way that Windows's initial success was due to its ability to run DOS programs.
Google didn't work on Photoshop, they worked on Wine. If Google sponsors Gimp, then more people would use Gimp, one Linux software would improve, so what? But if Google improves Wine, more people will use the Linux desktop because a lot of existing software that people *already* use would work.
Don't you want more people to use Linux?
Please read my previous post. My favorite astronomy software which has features KStars doesn't have started working since Google worked on Wine. This gave me reason to use Linux full time. I may believe all your free software preachings but if I can't do my work as an astronomer, I can't use Linux.
Remember that getting people to use Linux is a whole different thing from converting them to the ideology. You don't pick up the ideology overnight. It grows on you.
This whole idea that one is not allowed to use Linux until he gets converted to a free software evangelist doesn't make sense.
If you want more native Linux software, if you want more people to work on native Linux software, then you have to improve its market share.
No amount of evangelism will make Linux rival Windows in usage. If you believe all Linux users should first be believers, then Linux is doomed to be a niche platform.
Great, I am a Photoshop user, so now its only Sketchup and I can really ditch MS. I've been running Sketchup in a VirtualBox WinXP, and although it works fine it is quite slow with a complex model, so its not really the way forward.
thank you guys!
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