Adobe Photoshop has never officially supported Linux, and the software has remained exclusive to Windows and macOS. While users have historically managed to run older, standalone releases through compatibility layers, newer versions tied to Adobe’s Creative Cloud ecosystem have been effectively locked out—until now.
A developer known as PhialsBasement has discovered a method that allows modern versions of Photoshop, including Photoshop 2021 and Photoshop 2025, to install and run on Linux systems. The findings were shared publicly on the r/linux_gaming subreddit, where the developer outlined a series of targeted fixes to address long-standing compatibility issues.
I Made Adobe CC Installers Work on Linux [PR In Body]
byu/HearMeOut-13 inlinux_gaming
The core issue lies in the Creative Cloud-era installer itself. These installers depend heavily on Windows-specific components that Wine, Linux’s Windows compatibility layer, does not fully support. In particular, Adobe’s installer relies on MSHTML and MSXML3, subsystems responsible for rendering HTML and JavaScript interfaces and parsing XML configuration files. Wine does not natively reproduce this behavior with sufficient accuracy, causing the installer to fail outright.
PhialsBasement developed patches that correct these incompatibilities at a low level. The solution involves wrapping certain data elements in CDATA blocks to bypass strict XML parsing behaviour on Linux and fixing internal identifier handling so system calls are routed correctly.
The patches also force Wine to emulate Internet Explorer 9-style behaviour, which closely matches the environment Adobe’s installers expect.
With these changes applied, the developer demonstrated that both Photoshop 2021 and Photoshop 2025 installed successfully and operated smoothly under Linux. According to testing, performance is comparable to running the application on Windows, with no obvious instability during normal use.
The patches were submitted to Valve’s Wine fork used for Proton, but they were declined and redirected to the upstream WineHQ project. Valve reportedly advised that the changes should be reviewed by Wine’s main maintainers first, particularly since the fixes are not related to gaming. While this slows down potential adoption, it keeps the work aligned with Wine’s long-term development process.
For now, the solution is not plug-and-play. Users must manually build a patched version of Wine using the developer’s GitHub repository. However, the implications are significant. If these fixes are eventually merged into Wine itself, it could remove one of the largest barriers preventing creative professionals from adopting Linux as a primary operating system.
Until then, running Photoshop inside a virtual machine remains the more accessible option for most Linux users. Still, this breakthrough represents one of the most meaningful steps yet toward broader Adobe Creative Cloud compatibility on Linux.
