I’m going to try out Linux again after a 20 year break. I will be dual-booting with Windows because of some work-related stuff. So my Linux distro will be for my personal computing.
I know that “best” is highly subjective, but I’m wondering if there’s a particular distro or base distro that is best for photography. These are the kind of criteria I’m thinking of:
ease of installing the latest darktable version
ease of installing darktable dev builds
colour management - I have a Calibrite Display Pro so want to use that
HDR support (for a future monitor upgrade)
fast and responsive for photo editing
ease of printing and installing printers
ease of backing up to a NAS and/or the cloud
access to other open-source photography tools, like Shine Stacker, etc.
ease of running software without native Linux support, such as Sony’s/Fuji’s pixel shift combiner software
Other than that, I’ll be using it for browsing, music, occasional gaming, and tinkering.
My current hardware:
Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D 8-Core Processor 3.00 GHz
Installed RAM: 32.0 GB
Storage: 1TB NVMe, 1TB SSD, 1TB NVMe4, 1TB SATA 5400rpm HD
Graphics Card: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (12 GB)
Pen and touch: Pen support
I’ve been building and messing with computers most of my life, so I’m not a complete noob. But I’m not a programmer and prefer GUIs to command lines. However, I’m comfortable with things like regex when the need arises.
Thanks for any recommendations! (I know some of you have given your thoughts in another thread)
I’m surprised no one answered. I would look into a KDE based distro since they seem to be on top of things when it comes to HDR and other stuff that caters to creatives. Fedora KDE , or Kubuntu which is Ubuntu’s KDE Flavor or MX Linux KDE which is based on Debian.
Printing for the most part is plug and play from testing. Photo printing can be hit or miss and the same can be said for camera software running through Wine or Bottles.
As for Apps , most can be found in the distro software center with some niche apps requiring you to go to site for download.
Wouldn’t Calibrate support necessitate X11, which Fedora has dropped and Plasma is dropping in 6.8? So, even if Wayland color management is there, darktable has to work with it? Perhaps this has been fixed, but the situation has been rather messy.
I’m not really too deep in the knowledge of Color Calibration on Wayland. I did find this article about it. I know that HDR works really with recent versions of KDE from what I hear from friends and see online.
If you happen to choose Ubuntu, make sure your allocation for the / partition is generous. You may choose to replace the packages that are packaged with Snap subsequent to installing, but they will be there as Snaps on day one, and if they get updates you will have multiple copies. I find that 32 GB is enough to avoid having to do cleanups often.
I don’t know if there is one. Of course, something like Ubuntu Studio will come with a heap of tools: audio, video, arts etc. But audio is the one that tends to need special treatment, prioritising processes, etc.
Gamers and home theater, but professional Calibration work can’t be too far off. It wouldn’t surprise me if it were added in by the end of Summer or Fall. With the speed of progress that seems to be pouring through the Linux Community over the last few yrs.
I’m just starting my research and have read various blogs, but as usual with all things Linux, there is so much information to wade through, and opinions are varied. One of the big points of discussion right now seems to be about Snap packages. I can see why some people immediately give up installing Linux, because it’s hard to know where to start and which advice to trust.
I haven’t read too much into Snap yet, but the fact that the backend seems to be managed by Canonical does give me pause. It doesn’t seem in keeping with the Linux spirit somehow. Maybe it’s nothing to worry about, but I think I’d prefer to avoid it for now until the dust settles.
So, maybe not pure Ubuntu.
@epeeist , what are the features of Tumbleweed that you like so much? Anything that sets it apart from other distros? I took a look at the website, but it doesn’t really give any information about its features, what DE it runs, etc.
@Tim I’ve heard that Arch is better for advanced users, and I think I’d rather restart without diving right into the deep end.
@Nexis4Jersey i was interested in Fedora KDE Plasma, but it sounds like it will be dropping X11 support and going full Wayland, which is a problem for DisplayCal. But this isn’t something I know much about yet. So if I want DisplayCal working immediately, I would be best with X11. But then I’ve also read that you just need to manually import the icc profile into Wayland, and it should still work…
If this is a priority for you go with Linux Mint Cinnamon for an Ubuntu underbelly sans snap and with X11 support. The guys behind cinnamon are working on Wayland support, too but I think them dropping X11 is not as close as with KDE. I’d be optimistic that proper colour management will come to KDE/Wayland, too but that will probably take more time.
Linux Mint plans on supporting X11 until Ubuntu removes it which is rumored to be in 2028. I foresee any of the remaining Wayland issues solved before then so it shouldn’t be an issue.
Yeah, I can go along with that. Good luck with whatever you decide.
But, to a significant degree, I think people are intimidated by Arch Linux just because so many other people tell them they should be. IMO, it is not the bear that so many people say it is.
I can see that, especially as there are distros like CachyOS that don’t look particularly scary.
I keep settling on one distro and then changing my mind! So I think I’m just going to get my old laptop out and try a few to see what gels.
One question that no one seems to have answered yet is whether there is a particular distro or WM/DE combo that makes installing Darktable dev builds easier? Or are they all pretty similar?
I guess installing an appimage is similar across distros… sorry noob questions because it’s been a while!
Yeah just go for it ! As I said: pick one based on vibes, go from there. As I think @Tamas_Papp once wrote on this forum: Linux is much more uniform then one thinks. All the people writing/creating content around different distros try very hard to make interesting content based on differences and hence tend to over-emphazise those. How those differences matter to the end users experience is a very different story.
It is very similar across all distros, especially should you use the AppImage.
Thanks for the wise words.
If I remember rightly from when I last used Linux, it was just .deb and .rpm packages. So all this Flatpak, Snaps and AUR is new to me. Similarly, I hadn’t heard of Wayland or half of the desktop environments that are now available.
As I’ve seen many people say, the best thing about Linux is how much choice you have, and the worst thing about Linux is how much choice you have…
! As I said: pick one based on vibes, go from there. As I think