Port to Linux?

[CHOPPERGIRL]

How much would it cost to port Paint.net natively to Linux as a stand alone app (no wine, etc), and make it freely available to all?

 

Give me a dollar estimate.  I have a job.  Thanks.  I use Manjaro / Arch Linux.  Pinta just don't cut it for me, and the Windows platform is dead.

 

Edited May 17, 2020 by toe_head2001
Removed potential spam link

[BoltBait]

From the FAQ:

 

On 11/5/2005 at 1:50 PM, Rick Brewster said:

(1) Will it ever be ported to Mac OS, GNU/Linux, or any other operating system?

(2) What about Mono support? Wouldn't that be really easy?

We will not be doing any work to directly support Mac OS, Linux, Mono, or any other platform. We are doing this in order to focus on the best quality and support for the platform that we develop on: Windows with .NET. Also, we simply do not have the resources or expertise to do any of this work.

 

[toe_head2001]

A port for GNU/Linux is not possible either. Nearly all the software libraries Paint.NET utilizes are proprietary and only available on Windows. Not even the user interface can be ported; which is why the Pinta folks created theirs from scratch with GTK.

 

There are, however, quality alternatives available on GNU/Linux.  Krita works extremely well if you're using a Qt desktop, and there's GIMP if you're using a GTK desktop... or you can mix and match if you want.

[Rick Brewster]

How much would it cost to fund development of that? At least half a million dollars, probably more. I'm dead serious and not joking. It would be an enormous amount of work and would require hiring Linux developers with expertise in UI and desktop software development.

 

Your best bet is to light a fire under the WINE team to get them to fix whatever is preventing Paint.NET 4.2 from working on it. Last I heard their Direct2D support still needed a lot of work, but I'm sure they also have incomplete support for WIC, DXGI, Direct3D, and UIAnimation.

 

There's approximately 0% chance of porting Paint.NET natively to Linux unless the Windows business itself goes bankrupt and is discontinued by Microsoft. It will have to be emulated through something like WINE. I bet you could do a Docker container too with a Windows image, but I haven't ventured into that territory.

[Rick Brewster]

2 hours ago, CHOPPERGIRL said:

the Windows platform is dead.

 

No it's not. Not even remotely close.