Forward-looking: Linux powers the vast majority of the world's computing infrastructure, yet it has long struggled to gain traction with everyday users – and with creative professionals, where macOS often holds an edge over Windows. That could change in the near future if one developer's work is accepted into Wine's codebase.
A developer known as "PhialsBasement" has recently merged several commits into Valve Software's custom Wine build, introducing a way to install and run Photoshop on Linux systems. This "patch" may eventually achieve a truly unprecedented goal, which is making the open-source platform compatible with some of the most widely used creative and image editing tools on the market.
The changes target long-standing problems encountered when installing Adobe Creative Cloud on Linux. According to the dev, Creative Cloud fails largely because of gaps in Wine's compatibility layer – gaps that prevent key Windows components from functioning correctly.
Wine is already a powerful tool for running Windows games and applications on Linux, but it still lacks support for several components Adobe relies on. PhialsBasement highlighted two major missing pieces: Microsoft's legacy browser engine used to run web-based Windows applications (MSHTML), and the XML "core" services required by script-based software on Windows XP SP3 and later (MSXML).
The new patch aims to bridge those gaps, making Wine compatible with Adobe's Creative Cloud installer framework. The dev tested the code with both Photoshop 2021 and Photoshop 2025, reporting that the installer completes successfully and that both versions can run on Linux, albeit with some minor issues.
Other users who tested the patch have confirmed improved compatibility, though Adobe's software remains far from seamless on Linux. Still, many in the community are offering constructive feedback and guidance, particularly around how PhialsBasement can navigate Wine's submission and review process.
The coder initially submitted the changes to Valve's GitHub repository but was later instructed to resubmit them to Wine's main repository on GitLab. That process can be slow, but contributors are encouraging PhialsBasement to persist.
Adobe Creative Cloud remains the company's subscription-based hub for managing photos, documents, and design workflows. Photoshop, one of the suite's main tools, is still widely regarded as the industry standard for image editing.
Despite WineHQ's reputation for moving at a "glacial" pace, many in the Linux community argue that enabling Photoshop and Creative Cloud support is simply too important to ignore. If successful, the dev's work could help remove one of the last major barriers keeping creative professionals off Linux altogether.