Originally posted by twilhelm A question for you Linux and Darktable users...
What are the benefits of using Linux with Darktable? I haven't used Linux since the early days, so I'm a little behind on that part. My current computer is about 2 weeks old, and there's a couple of things I'm going to add in the next few weeks. With this in mind, will it benefit me to use Linux? My primary use of this computer is my photography, I have two laptops for everything else.
I'm new to Darktable also. Although in just one day of using the Windows version, I've been able to find my way around a lot of it. I was a Lightroom user since version 1, but I will not do subscription, as many here have said also.
Tony - I think there's two parts to this answer...
Linux, as an operating system, is a complete alternative to Windows. The software is different - for example, Microsoft Office doesn't run under Linux, but there is a great alternative called LibreOffice that does most (perhaps all?) of the same stuff, and reads / writes MS Office files. There are various different flavours of Linux, and various different graphical user interfaces that work with them. The type of Linux OS and GUI front end you use radically changes the user experience. I'm using a standard install of the current major version of Linux Mint, which is based on both Debian and Ubuntu versions of Linux, with the Cinnamon front end which is based on GNOME 3. I find it to be a remarkably mature operating system and desktop experience, not dissimilar to my previous experience with Apple Mac (I'm sure current Mac users will reel in horror at me saying this, but it's a while since I used a Mac
). Compared to Windows 10, I find Linux Mint and typical everyday software to be noticeably faster. Different, and it takes a bit of getting used to - but, if your main use of a PC is an internet browser, office applications, and (more on this to follow) image processing, it offers all the same capability, just in a different way.
Darktable was designed from the ground up to run on Linux. There's a beta Windows version, sure, but the Linux versions are much better - more stable, fuller functionality, and (based on the last Windows release I tried), just much better overall. As an alternative to Lightroom, it has both advantages and disadvantages. Overall, I find Darktable more flexible, but slightly less capable in a few key areas, for image processing alone. It's a close run thing. Lightroom library management is much better, so if that's an important factor, you really need to look at additional Linux software to carry out that function. But it's out there - you just have to get used to the new workflow, which isn't necessarily so integrated and straightforward.
For committed Windows users, I think there's an argument for installing Linux and Darktable alongside. I now spend most of my time in Linux, and miss very little of my old Windows environment, but there are occasions where I jump back to it for a day or two. My aim, over the next year, is to ween myself off the things I like with Windows and go 100% Linux. I can't say whether that would work for you, but I believe in my case it's viable. Certainly, despite some minor limitations, I think Darktable is more than capable of becoming my day-to-day RAW processor
And now to your question... What are the benefits of Darktable under Linux? Well, it's a community-developed OS and community-developed RAW processor with no commercial aspirations. Both parts are completely free to install and use - and will remain that way. That includes updates, both for reliability and new functionality. The downside is that you might often find yourself as an unwitting beta tester on new releases - but you don't have to take those releases. The choice is yours...