Photoshop 'critical' for Linux

Photoshop has been voted the most important application to be ported to Linux, according to initial results of a survey carried out by software vendor Novell.

The online public survey, which has been running since mid-January, asks people what "key applications they need to use in their business that are currently not available on Linux". Scott Norris, the editor of CoolSolutions, Novell's community Web site that is running the survey, said last week that the survey has already received 10,000 submissions.

So far, the most-requested applications have primarily been design, Web publishing and multimedia tools, with Photoshop, AutoCAD, Dreamweaver, iTunes and Macromedia Studio heading the list.

Norris said that these results show that Linux on the desktop has matured, as in the past there was primarily demand for basic applications such as word processing, email clients and Web browsers.

"As peoples' needs in those arenas [basic applications] were filled, they wanted media players for their music. An interest in graphic design and manipulation became more apparent. Pretty soon, people not only considered the possibility of Linux as a multimedia platform, but, as we can see, they are now demanding it," he said.

Although Norris claims that the need for a decent email client on Linux has been "filled rather nicely", with applications such Thunderbird, KMail, and Evolution, a study published by the Open Source Development Labs in November last year found that the lack of a powerful email application could hinder the adoption of Linux on the desktop.