I spent much of today trying to get WinApps running on NixOS. The VM performance is meh after following all the setup steps in the documentation, and I can’t get the RDP part working. I’m not asking for help, which would probably take lots of back and forth commenting. but if I should even try to continue. The steps don’t even mention Nix, only how to install dependencies via package managers.
I tried finding videos of Photoshop in WinApps but didn’t find any, to see what performance actually looks like. Would it even be decent, or should I just suck it up and do GPU passthrough? Ideally I’d like Photoshop a window part of my linux desktop instead of switching back and forth between OSes. Making something work has been a PITA so far.
Winapps is too slow for gpu-heavy apps, like photoshop actually is.
So I went with Gimp 3. It does everything I need. Gimp 2.10 didn’t, but the new version, 3, does. Sure it has quirks: e.g. when selecting a layer with bg transparency, it selects the whole layer (including the empty parts) instead of just the parts that aren’t empty – you need to do layers -> alpha to selection to get the contents. Another one: to get transparency when you delete parts of a layer is to add an alpha channel to that layer (otherwise you get a bg color). But if you learn these few quirks, Gimp does everything photoshop does pretty much.
If you have old PSD files that have adjustment layers or smart objects, pass them via Photopea, and export as TIFF. Then load on Gimp3 and move to that for life.