I’ve been using Rawtherapee and Gimp for some time now and I’m pretty happy with this combo particularly after the help on using the de-noise tool and importing the DPC profiles for my camera.
The small desktop PC I use for developing photos is not very powerful and I was wondering what performance gain I would get from switching to Linux. I was a longtime Linux user during my university student time so I think I can take the jump pretty easily.
Main usage of the PC is photo management and web access.
Some a light distro to make most out of the not s powerful HW would be good.
Should I go with a standard Ubuntu installation or is there a photo centric distribution ?
I’m using Manjaro (arch based) with XFCE desktop manager. I really love Manjaro, since I’ve started using it I haven’t felt the need to try another distro.
Assuming your current OS is Windows, you will probably find things run better on Linux (but I can’t say quantitatively how much), and you would also gain the benefit of not running a steaming heap of spyware as an OS.
How “not very powerful” is the system? What’s in it?
To specifically answer your question, there is Ubuntu Studio:
Or you can go with a flavor of any distro that uses XFCE to stay lightweight.
Do you care about whether you are right current on the photography-related apps?
Right now, I have systems with OpenSUSE, Manjaro and Ubuntu. My “daily driver” is Ubuntu 18.04 with PPAs for the apps I want to be current, and that’s been pretty bulletproof.
Linux Mint is my suggestion. Based on Ubuntu but I find it’s friendlier Mate desktop is lighter; cinnamon one prettier; or can go for Gnome if you’re rich in resources. Dunno your computer’s particulars so yeah
I agree with the advice you have already received about using xfce as your desktop environment. It is light-weight but effective.
Distros are great fun
Presently I use Manjaro/KDE, and I like it very much. In your case, I would say Manjaro/xfce. But you have to remember that dIstros are really a personal matter… ask 15 forumers and you will get 19 recommendations…
As far as I remember, there are (have been?) two photo/graphics centric distros: Ubuntu Studio, and fedora Design Suite, but I believe that both would be overkill in your case.
Lubuntu is a fast and lightweight operating system with a clean and easy-to-use user interface. It is a Linux system, that uses the minimal desktop LXDE/LXQT, and a selection of light applications. Because of this, Lubuntu has very low hardware requirements.
I’ve been in a similar situation, deciding which distro to use when I switched from Mac to Linux.
Started with manjaro but I encountered a few hiccups here and there. Decided in the end to go mainstream with Ubuntu. I don’t regret it at all, even if it I’ve heard about it being a bit heavy as others said. I don’t see any major speed impediments, but I did buy a 2017 laptop with i7, 16Gb of ram etc., I don’t know how it will be with more modest specs.
Ubuntu gives me peace of mind as it’s one of the most used distro around so for all little things to learn etc I’ve always find plenty of docs around.
I think we are similar types. I had also been using Linux about 20 years ago as a student. Then I moved back to Windows because at that time Linux was not good for photography. I also like RT very much btw.
So, now I have 2 Linux systems on 2 pendrives. I left Windows untouched on my laptop’s ssd since the drive is not very large. The first Linux system is Ubuntu 18.10 (with Gnome), the second MX 18. My laptop has 8 GB RAM and is 3 years old.
As far as color management is concerned, Gnome and Cinnamon are really the best, easiest DEs. With 8 GB RAM, they run fine I think.
Depending on the Distro, other DEs resp. color management systems might be unreliable. Setting the profile with Displaycal unter XFCE/MX appears to work fine for me now. If you only profile your screen and do not want to load calibration curves as well, you can set the profile directly in RT and GIMP. That should work with any DE.
Anyway, I think that Debian-based Systems are very reliable. But I also want to mention that a week ago I had Manjaro instead on Ubuntu. Manjaro has lots of advantages, but it is not the most reliable system. Hardware-support is just great, and you always get the latest software. However, the kernel updated itself and after that my touchpad did not work any more and I could not find a good solution for this problem. So I went back to Ubuntu.
I think you will have to try several systems and need some time for finding out what is best for you and what you like best. You have many options, and sometimes that’s not helpful.
I can only tell you that, as far as color management is concerned, Gnome and Cinnamon are the easiest and most reliable DEs.
But other DE’s and distros might be interesting, too. MATE might be interesting… maybe even LXQt. Bunsenlabs Helium got good reviews in the press, too… Xubuntu is nice, too… however, there might be a problem with color management. Important here is the question, whether you depend on (software) calibration or not. But Debian or a Debian-based system with a lightweight DE and Displaycal might work well here.
Since I have the feeling that you are no programmer or computer scientist, I would not recommend Arch. Manajaro might work well - or not.
There are many Linux distros out there and many of them are really good. But not every distro might be ideal for you.
Hi! I use Ubuntu/Gnome 18.04 on an old i3 Delll laptop with 12 GB of RAM. I’d risk saying that the ammout of RAM you have should drive your desktop management choice. I think Gnome is a bit heavier than others (maybe the heaviest) but with 12GB I’m ok. I chose Ubuntu because it’s mainstream and have tons of tips over the internet.
I don’t know if there’s a photo-centric distro, but I’ve had a very good experience running Debian in my workflow based on Darktable and Rapid-photo-downloader. I maintain the latter in Debian and I help with the former, so both are fairly up to date.
I understand it’s not exactly your workflow, and that might not be so useful then - I don’t know how fast updates trickle into Debian for RT and Gimp, but I would assume Gimp is pretty up to date. The trick is to run unstable or testing, which might bring a bumpy ride, especially now that we’re approaching the freeze, but I think it’s worth it.
I run Debian stable for my editing machine. I use the gimp appimage from @Carmelo_DrRaw and the flatpak of darktable. This gives me a super stable base and up to date apps.
maybe just one little addition: if you only have 1 screen, every DE should be ok. You can set up color management easily with Displaycal or colord-kde. But with more than one screen, I would recommend a distro with Cinnamon or Gnome. Basically, there are 2 important versions of Linux: Debian and Arch. Debian is quite old already… but I think for most users it is the better option. Well I wonder when Manjaro/Arch will fix the touchpad issue. I might just go back to Manjaro.
maybe just one more edit: I am using MX now since a few days. Apparently, the support in the MX forum is very good. I remember asking a few things in the Ubuntu forums, too, but the members were not far as competent and helpful. And Manjaro appears to be similar to Ubuntu as far as forum support is concerned.
That’s strange, I’ve never had issues with my touchpad, and Manjaro never update the kernel by itself. It always prompts me that there’s a new kernel version available, but it lets me choose if I want to install it or not.
The only problem I’ve had is with support of the USB3.0 dock based DisplayLink. I found it tricky to get it working, and when I upgrade the kernel I have to reinstall the evdi kernel module, which wasn’t obvious to me at first. But now that I know, it’s easy to circumvent.
I also use Manjaro. Wide variety of software easily available and easy to keep everything updated. It rarely requires messing around with snaps, flatpaks, appimages, etc.
That being said, Manjaro isn’t for everyone. Manjaro makes thing easy, but it isn’t always simple.
It is definitely better suited to the inquisitive type who wants to learn.
Ubuntu and/or it’s 92,000,000 derivatives definitely offer the widest range of available resources as the desktop user base is very large.
Solus is the distro I recommend for people who want it to “just work” and not have to think about much.
Manjaro will update the kernel but it will not upgrade you to a different kernel. So if you are running kernel 4.14.94 it will update you to 4.14.96 but not 4.15 or 4.19.
It also offers the ability to have multiple kernels installed and easily switch between them which is sometimes useful if you have less mainstream hardware.
I am using Debian 9 Mate on Lenovo i3 CPU with 16GB of RAM. Can do panorama stitching up to 12 frames, using Hugin. So consider plugging more RAM, it will work much faster. Opening 24 MP picture exported to tif GIMP needs 8GB of RAM, will open it with less but it goes to swap and it slows it significantly. Do not know much about Rawtherapee since I am using darktable.
Ubuntu, if you can’t build on your own from source will help you with PPA. The same is valid for Mint which is based on Ubuntu, there is also Debian based Mint.
I was using Ubuntu until they started force feeding community with Unity ‘get over it, Unity is here to stay’ what made me quite upset and I removed Ubuntu from my hardware.
Mate desktop is lighter; cinnamon one prettier; or can go for Gnome if you’re rich in resources. Dunno your computer’s particulars so yeah 
