Adobe’s suite of Creative Cloud apps are relied upon by many people for professional and personal use, but these programs have not been ported to Linux officially despite incessant requests from Linux users. This is presumably because of the tiny market share that Desktop Linux currently has.
Despite this, the community has found ways to bring Adobe apps to your Linux Desktop through Wine. But it can be difficult to get the Creative Cloud suite working in Wine due to compatibility issues with the multiple versions of the setup program available from Adobe’s website.
To solve this problem, Corbin Davenport created an installation script that helps you install any of the Adobe Creative Cloud apps on Linux without all the hassle. The script takes care of all the necessary configuration details and makes use of a lot of patches and tweaks to get things working.
Installing PlayOnLinux
The Creative Cloud Script was made to work with PlayOnLinux which is a GUI Front-End for Wine that allows you to easily install and use numerous apps and games designed to run with Microsoft Windows, so you need to install that first. Here’s how to install PlayOnLinux on the following Linux Distributions:
Ubuntu and Ubuntu-based distributions
Debian
Fedora
OpenSUSE
Arch Linux
Other Linux Distributions
Even if your distribution does not have PlayOnLinux in its repositories, there’s still a good chance you’ll be able to install it through some other means. There’s a generic package provided on the PlayOnLinux website that should work with any Linux distro, so consider checking that first.
How to Use the Creative Cloud Script
Once you have PlayOnLinux installed, download the Creative Cloud script from its Github Repository and save it to your computer.
Next, launch PlayOnLinux, go to “Tools -> Run a local script,” then select the script you just downloaded.
Hit “Next” to begin the installation process. This could take a while, so be patient. Eventually, once the installation completes, you should be able to launch Adobe Application Manager from PlayOnLinux and use it to sign in with your Adobe ID and download your Creative Cloud applications.
Note that this script does not give you free access to Adobe’s Creative suite. It only makes it easy for you to set up the Adobe Creative Cloud desktop program which can be used to install and update Photoshop, Lightroom, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, and other apps.
You will need a free Adobe ID and a paid subscription to download and use most of the applications in the suite.
Wrap Up
This script is not required to run Adobe CC apps on Linux. With a little patience, you can reproduce the same results even without using PlayOnLinux. However, using this script will make things much easier for you.
Keep in mind that not every Adobe CC app will run on your Linux PC. According to the developer, only Photoshop CC, Bridge CC, Lightroom 5, and the Creative Cloud manager have been extensively tested, so your mileage may vary.
Did you have luck running your favourite Adobe CC apps in Linux? Let us know in the comments section below.
Ayo Isaiah is a freelance writer from Lagos who loves everything technology with a particular interest in open-source software. Follow him on Twitter.
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