Paint.NET 5.2 Alpha (build 9739) contains extremely experimental support for WINE (which means Linux).
Some of you may be happy to hear this. Some may be not. It may make for some interesting debate, or something like it.
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How does a project literally named “.NET” manage to fuck up so bad as to need WINE instead of just Mono?
From the article:
Direct2D has always been the biggest hurdle for Paint.NET on WINE, and it’s clear that it will never be completed enough for Paint.NET’s use. And I can’t just “disable” the use of Direct2D. So, instead, Paint.NET now has an internal, from-scratch, clean-room reverse-engineered rewrite of Direct2D that it uses on WINE.
This was written by our good friend Claude. […] Most of this code is, as they say, “vibe coded.” By that I mean that it has not been thoroughly reviewed, it’s more “trust me bro” style. I cannot possibly review 180,000 lines of code, it’s just way way way too much.
If you don’t like AI, if you hate AI, if you refuse to run any software that AI touches, if your favorite pejorative is now “slop” … fine. Whatever. I’m not going to try and convince you otherwise. You’re entitled to your own opinion, I don’t care. But keep that talk out of here. You don’t have to use this. It’s clearly not for you.
So basically they hallucinated up a replacement for the Direct2D as a Linux compatibility layer.
.Net hasn’t been Linux-friendly for quite a while. Especially since 2023 or so there’s been a major shift away from cross-compatibility, which was a very strange decision to me. .Net is no longer a Linux friendly or cross-platform development environment; which to me was it’s biggest strength. So I’m honestly not surprised that there’s more components that are just straight up completely incompatible with Linux. Non-Windows platforms are now “second class citizens” in .Net land.
I remember vividly the moment when I upgraded a project from .Net 3.1 to .Net 6. Buried at the bottom of the patch notes, was a brief mention that some libraries (actually, a huge number of libraries) like System.Drawing are no longer supported on Linux. It was a catastrophe, causing so many random bugs and took literal months to recover from. For example, generating a PDF causing an entire web server to hang and use 100% resources. Entity Framework database connection quirks causing data loss and availability issues. Etc.
Wouldn’t it be easier to use a cross-platform backend, even if the interface was vibe-coded?
I think the point is that the developers doesn’t want to actually review the code which they can do with a self contained dependency which they then ship on a “take it or leave it” basis.
I kind of get it and I think it’s a more responsible approach than to vibe code the core engine of their application.
Ideally, yes; but cross-platform drawing libraries are like unicorns nowadays. SkiaSharp would probably work, but it functions completely differently and would require a rewrite of the entire program, which is a big ask.
Why would I use this over Krita or kolorpaint?
Don’t be a hater. This is a great thing. Paint.net is awesome for quick edits. It has a mature interface, and doesn’t come with a lot of fluff
It sounded less like a hater comment and more like a sell me this pen comment to me.
Paint.net is awesome and one of the reasons I used to keep Windows installed for dual boot. Then I found a Linux clone and I’ve been using that (Pinta).
Oh it’s literally a clone haha, thanks for sharing
Pinta is a GTK clone of Paint.Net 3.0, with support for Linux, Windows, and macOS.
Original Pinta code is licensed under the MIT License: See
license-mit.txtfor the MIT LicenseCode from Paint.Net 3.36 is used under the MIT License and retains the original headers on source files.
It’s what I’m used to using on my work computer that runs Windows. It’ll be nice using it on Linux too.
Might be nice if you’re used to it
Thank you for not saying The Gimp
Why would I use this over The Gimp?
The G.I.M.P. is for manipulating photos, not drawing.
Holy crap, yay!
Always liked using this program as it has just enough tools to be useful, including addons, but not overbearing for moderate image work.
Edit: A note for the group:
It is NOT “production ready.” I wouldn’t even call it “alpha quality”. It “doesn’t not” work.
Eyyy, I used to like that program quite a bit. Is there some controversy about it?
My guess is that it changed from open source to a proprietary license. From Wikipedia:
Initially, Paint.NET was released under a modified version of the MIT License, with the exclusion of the installer, text, and graphics.[9] However, citing issues with the open source code being plagiarized by others that had rebranded the software as their own and bundled user content without their permission, the availability of the source code was restricted, in December 2007 Brewster announced his intent to restrict access to components of the program (including its installer, resources, and user interface).[10] In November 2009, the software was made proprietary, restricting the sale or creation of derivative works of the software.[10][11]
that was the old controversy. nowadays it’s the latest alpha release (v5.2) being coded in large part by AI
The “what about second breakfast” meme comes to mind. Thanks for clearing that up!
Give it a few more minutes.
ETA: I don’t usually lob grenades like this, but this is an issue people need to deal with.
Aw, come on, don’t leave us guessing! There’s a controversy I don’t know about it! How am I supposed to establish my moral superiority?
i bestow upon thee the gift of READING THE ARTICLE!!!
sorryanyway rick brewster, the dev of paint.net, used Claude to code the compatibility code for Linux. on one hand i can understand it because Direct2D is a piece of shit but on the other hand i feel like he could’ve gone about this in a different way than slopifying his codebase.
honestly? imo it should not have existed at all then. i feel like this is going to be really bad for the long run if Rick starts using AI not only for the compatibility layer but also for paint.net’s core codebase.
and frankly i think if he had made the codebase open source again we would have made a lot more progress on Linux compatibility. paint.net doesn’t really have a solid reason to stay closed source imo, especially because Rick has already shown that he can handle copyright infringment cases when he secured the paint.net domain (his reasoning for making the codebase closed source was that people were stealing his code, rebranding it, and publishing as their own. imo his decision didn’t do much as you can still decompile the binaries, change all the branding, and then recompile and publish, so this only really hurt contributions to the project and nothing else)
Do you know the legend of stone soup?
A traveler goes to a village that has fallen on hard times. Nobody will give him food. He stops at a farmer’s house and says, “I have a magic stone. It will dissolve into a rich broth full of flavor and nutrients that will make enough delicious soup for the entire village.” So the news goes around town that there will be a soup feast, and everyone brings something to contribute: some vegetables, some meats, some spices, and they all enjoy a delicious soup, never realizing that the traveler had scooped a plain and simple stone out of the cauldron before the guests had arrived.
I feel like AI is kind of the traveller here and the 180,000 lines of shitty code is the stone, and all the work people are going to do in making that code performant are the real ingredients.
aye, i also really hope this will turn out good in the end. but you know what they say - hope for the best, prepare for the worst. at the same time…
[…] and all the work people are going to do […]
if i recall correctly i think Rick is the only person calling the shots in terms of development. if that’s not the case then your sentiment holds up a lot but if he really is the only one then i’ll keep being worried. i’ve seen too many developers go down the AI path and absolutely gut their image as a result and i hope that’s not what’s gonna happen to paint.net, there’s genuinely no other program like it
Yeah, this is one of the huge benefits of open source. Someone can just fork Paint.Net and make it Linux-compatible; zero work from the original developer, and everyone benefits. Instead, it’s a walled garden because that kind of behaviour was considered “stealing”; and then they have the nerve to complain about the workload after shutting everyone out. Like, yeah, that’s what happens if you try and do everything internally; it means you actually have to do everything yourself.
It already happened. It’s called pinta and based on the last open source version of paint.net
i bestow upon thee the gift of READING THE ARTICLE!!!
Aigh! I’ve been cursed!
Wow, I thought it would be a pretty dry article, but it turned into an anti-anti-AI rant.
I’m gonna make some popcorn. BRB.
i know right LMAO i need to get some popcorn too
I guess people don’t trust the company that coined “Embrace, Extend, Exterminate” to run an open source project? .NET is run by Microslop.
Yeah, but isn’t paint.net an independent project? I’m fairly sure the .net part of the name refers to the library it was built with at one point, not that it is part of MS’s .NET division.
Well, if you don’t know about the details, it’s because you’re not cool like me who totally does know about it but I want you to arrive at your own conclusions. /s
.NET has been open source for many years now, runs on Linux, and is stable
In fact, it runs on linux so well this software had to re-write .NET components from scratch to make it actually run on Linux
Direct2d is not a .NET component
That’s like saying Microsoft owns .com because they have Microsoft.com
Pinta?
Nah I’m good.
