I tried installing the “Linux native” version which IMHO is as far from anything resembling Linux native as possible.
The upside is that it works, loads a camera-specific raw file (Pentax KP PEF in my case), displays its contents after some hesitation, allows me to make some changes which have almost uncontrollable results and then save the result as a jpeg, DNG or both.
The downsides are just far too may. This is not a “RAW photo editor” by any stretch of the word. This more or less equates to shooting jpegs in-camera with little control over outcome, file size and/or quality of results.
Taking the results which to me look totally overcooked, probably what Adobe has determined its customers are most likely to favor: bright and very lively colors which almost hurt the eye. Very little microcontrast other than a fake USM approximation and a color curve which does away with any finesse.
Then on to file sizes: the jpeg is almost impossibly small at 5.9Mb for a 24mp file, result of lots of lossy compression I suppose. I don’t think I would want to have a very good DSLR and then loose so much detail in saving.
The DNG is enormous. Whereas the original PEF comes in at 34Mb, the resulting DNG is double that at a whopping 68Mb
The space required on-disk also has a huge footprint: with 74.5Mb for the program directory plus another 162Mb for the Adobe DNG converter itself (plus the various bits and pieces strewn all over the various Windows subdirectories) RethinkRaw hogs almost a third of a Gb of diskspace.
For comparison, Darktable installs into 29Mb and RawTherapee is slighly bigger at 104Mb. Darktable outputs that same PEF file as a 25.8 Mb jpeg with a lot more microdetails and far better colors and contrast.
So I just have to ask: what is the point and why call it a “RAW photo editor” rather than a “ADC shell” if you have not added, augmented or changed any of the editing options offered by ADC and limit the 8-bit output to low quality jpeg?