- Photoshop now runs on Linux via patched compatibility layers, not with official support
- Creative Cloud installers fail due to missing Windows subsystems in standard Linux environments
- Wine has problems with Adobe installers because Internet Explorer behavior remains deeply ingrained
The long-standing incompatibility between Adobe's Creative Cloud suite and Linux operating systems remains a major obstacle for users transitioning to open source platforms.
Recent developments suggest that this barrier may be starting to weaken due to specific technical work, as a developer known as PhialsBasement has documented a method to install and run recent versions of Photoshop, specifically versions 2021 and 2025, on Linux systems.
This process bypasses the official installation path, which Adobe has limited to Windows and macOS environments.
Deciphering the installer's demands
The main challenge lies in the complex architecture of the Adobe Creative Cloud installer, which depends on specific Windows subsystems that Linux does not provide natively.
Wine's compatibility layer translates Windows API calls into POSIX-compatible calls, but has traditionally had problems with these installers. The main points of failure involved MSHTML and MSXML3.
These components represent the HTML and JavaScript interface of the installer and parse its XML configuration files.
The installer framework expects an environment that mimics previous Internet Explorer behavior, which standard Wine configurations cannot adequately reproduce. The fix introduces a series of patches that change the way Wine interacts with these subsystems.
To address XML parsing issues, the patches wrap data in CDATA sections to avoid strict parsing errors on Linux and also fix Wine's internal handling of handles so that system calls are routed and executed correctly.
A key part of the solution forces Wine to emulate the event handling behavior of Internet Explorer 9. This allows the installer's user interface to work as intended by its developers.
According to reports from the developer, these changes allow the installation process to complete without errors and the application to run with stable performance.
This advancement gives Linux users access to Photoshop as a capable image editor. It also suggests that other Adobe applications, including video editing software, could run on Linux in the future.
The developer initially pushed the fixes to Valve's Proton repository, a gaming-optimized fork of Wine, but the maintainers rejected them and suggested pushing them through WineHQ.
As a result, users who want to apply this method must manually compile a patched version of Wine from the developer's source code.
Despite the technical achievement, the path these patches took highlights the fragmented nature of support development.
The process requires technical expertise, which limits its practical scope and gives it more symbolic value than immediate widespread use.
This work shows that the barriers blocking professional creative software on Linux are not insurmountable, and early adoption of these fixes could improve access to other Adobe applications.
For now, Linux users must rely on unofficial patches, as there is no native support.
Through Tom Hardware
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