Which Linux OS are you using and what is your photography software of choice?

For me I've settled on Fedora Workstation (just got updated yesterday to Fedora 38). Why? It's both cutting edge and stable, usually have the latest software updates and advancements. Some don't like Gnome's workflow as it's keyboard driven but I've gotten use to it.

As for photography software settled on Darktable and Gimp. I do keep RawTherapee as a backup but find Darktable more capable. Am I satisfied with Darktable? Not really, it's overly complicated with a steep learning curve. Also the noise reduction lags behind the commercial options that have moved to AI.

What are you using?

Edit: I have been considering dual booting so I can run DxO for the AI noise reduction.

I used Darktable and GIMP also, but on Linux Mint, which isn't as superior as it used to be. ImageMagick was useful for batch operations, Geeqie for viewing.

One problem with Linux is that you are at the mercy of PC vendors for your hardware. We are somewhat or very unhappy with all our x86 laptops. When my HP Omen 17 fan failed, I switched to Apple M1 Air. GIMP finally works well (it didn't at first) and I recently installed Darktable for old times sake. DxO PhotoLab is easier to use and not overpriced if you buy it on sale in November.

I still like Linux for open-source software development and will install a VM when the ARM ones are more mature.

On DPreview I heard about a new open-source noise reduction package. I'll try to find a pointer to it.

I think you are talking about nind-denoise. Haven't tried it. It's not user friendly but I hear it's nowhere as good as DxO.
github.com/trougnouf/nind-denoise

I started using Mandrake Linux when it just came out, then continued with Mandriva, and now Mageia 8.
For raw processing, I settled for AfterShot Pro, with all its quirks, and Gimp.
Corol is very poor at maintaining AfterShot, mostly, they use deprecated libraries, I will end up running it in a VM with an older Mageia version. Alternatively, I may end up running Nikon NX in a Windows VM. But my main OS will remain Linux.

JC

Linux Mint 20.3? About the best I've tried so far. Played around with a bit of raw conversion & photo editing with Darktable, Raw Therapee & Gimp. Couldn't use it as an only system, I run Silkypix Developer Studio Pro11 for that in Windows. The Panasonic only version is ridiculously cheap, non subscription, & Panasonic actively promote it in their camera sales, so it does a pretty good job. That's about the only thing keeping me with Windows though.

I'm waiting for Chromebook/Chromebox to come out with some decent non subscription photo editing software, & then probably run with that. Love my little Chromebook, runs ridiculously well on very basic hardware

Linux mint latest version on an Asus Zenbook i7. Darktable and geequie do all I need.

Tried rawtherapee, couldn't get my head around it.

I'm using Mint 20.3. It seems to be good OS for me. I can use it as my only OS. When I bought this "new computer" I installed Windows in dual boot but I have not used it. Now I wonder if I should take that Windows partition to use and format it to ext4.

I develope my RAWs in RawTherapee, export as 16bit tiffs and continue fine tuning in Gimp. Often I do sc. flat stitching manually in Gimp.
If I take panoramas rotating the camera, I stitch those in Hugin.

It was quite a lot learning when I changed my workflow from Adobe (LR/ACR/sometimes_Captureone/PS) to open source software. Now I can do most edits I want to do with RT/Gimp. Not tried Darktable. My goal, to get as good picture as I can, is still the same, but I had to learn new ways to get there.

If I do focus stacking, I'm stitching in Enfuse. I've got very good results but also very bad ones. I think the bottleneck is align_image_stack. It makes mistakes. So something to learn is still left. Do anybody have good tips to focus stacking?

How is Darktable more capable than RT? I thought it was less capable, a simpler raw developer.

Kubuntu for me. It's Windows-like (more so than Mint/Cinnamon, IMHO), and as I spend more time in Windows than linux I really appreciate that. I rarely use linux for photo software; that's LR/Photoshop.

Edit: I should mention that I use linux frequently, just not for photography. Main use is website development, for which I use linux with a LAMP stack as a development/test/staging server. It's ideal for that, as one can tinker with file structures, software etc more easily than on an external commercial host using c-panel or whatever interface they provide.

Using Linux Mint (21.1) Cinnamon as my daily driver, with Win7 in VirtualBox if I need something I cannot do in Linux.

Tried out DarkTable; powerful but just could not get comfortable with it. Tried RawTherapee, but the fork AnotherRawTherapee was more comfortable for me. If I need to do more than the simplest touch-ups, I export a TIFF for GIMP.

I also like using FotoSketcher, and I was able to get it to run in Wine, but it sometimes hangs on >100% (enlargements) but rarely in Win7/VBox. I tried XnSketch, but it didn't have as much variety as FS.

ssepan1

desw

I use Ubuntu but I have the desktop to be set up almost like Windows using a couple of add ons. You don't need to choose a flavour of Linux just for the look of the GUI. They're highly customisable.

Very nice looking desktop, David. Which window system is that, Unity? Most Ubuntu screenshots I see have two panels (taskbars, docks) which is a waste of space. Personally I like panel on the side, but that looks possible.

Yes TimoK, I believe Darktable is more flexible than RawTherapee because it has more modules and they can be run stacked. I don't understand use of Corel Aftershot because DT/RT/ART are better in my experience.

For me darktable is easier to use once you understand the concept of the pixel pipe (in effect, the way information flows within the program). Better UI. Better masking. More flexible modules. Easier to use DAM.

Less capable it is definitely not.

Others may differ, this is my experience (I am not a post processing guru). I got my head around DT before looking at RT so the RT interface seemed to me confusing and messy, and I gave up with it. Andy Astbury's videos on RT helped but I still found it a mess. But that's me.

I've been using Debian Stable on my desktop computer for a couple of decades now, even though I initially used Redhat (installed that on a machine assembled from second - hand parts when I was still a student in late 90's). I find that a decent compromise for a machine used by both me and my SO. While software can get a bit out of date near the end of Debian release cycle, it's stable and reliable for a daily driver and I can build newer versions of e.g. Darktable myself anyway.

I mostly use Darktable, Rawtherapee and GIMP for photography - related needs.

The default Gnome desktop. The dock has been expanded to full width and placed at the bottom mimicing windows taskbar. A windows 95 style menu button left side of the now taskbar (still got the tablet style menu button as well). All customisations done using Tweaks and Arcmenu add ons. It's not too difficult to get a near windows look.