Adobe Lightroom Classic on Linux via Wine

Status: Working as of 2026-05-29 — install, launch, the Develop module, manual edits, and GPU acceleration all work. AI Masking does not (see KNOWN_ISSUES.md).

This repo installs and runs Adobe Lightroom Classic (the local-catalog desktop photo app — NOT Lightroom CC / "Lightroom Desktop") on Linux with Wine. Run ./start.sh for a guided menu, or call the scripts/ by hand. You can install Classic from Adobe's standalone offline Set-up.exe, or get the full Creative Cloud desktop app (Apps panel + updates) and install Classic from there.

Thanks to sander110419 — for the original idea on Lightroom-cc-on-linux and the patched DLLs (mfplat, d2d1, hnetcfg). That work is what this project built on to get Lightroom Classic running on Linux.

Tested environment

Component	Version / detail
Host OS	Arch Linux, GNOME (Wayland session)
Wine	11.10 (Staging) — also tested on 11.9
DXVK	2.7.1
vkd3d-proton	3.0.0 (real D3D12)
GPU	Intel Iris Xe, Vulkan working
Graphics driver	X11 / Xwayland (default; Wayland-native is opt-in)

DXVK and vkd3d-proton are vendor-agnostic, so NVIDIA and AMD GPUs should work too — we tested on Intel Iris Xe.

What works

• Installing Lightroom Classic — either from the standalone Set-up.exe or via the Adobe Creative Cloud desktop app.
• Launching into the Library module.
• The Develop module and all manual edits (sliders, tone, color, masks you paint by hand, crop, etc).
• GPU acceleration (Prefs > Performance detects the GPU once vkd3d-proton's real D3D12 is installed).

What doesn't work

See KNOWN_ISSUES.md. Short version:

• AI Masking (object / subject / background detection, AI Denoise) — Adobe's on-device ML models are encrypted; the failure is inside Adobe's proprietary decrypt-then-load step, not a wine gap. We declined to reverse-engineer it.
• Color histogram is monochrome when GPU acceleration is on (a DXVK 2.7.1 limitation; photo colors are correct). Turn GPU off for a full-color histogram at the cost of speed.
• HDR is not available (needs native Wayland + compositor HDR, which crashes LrC on this GNOME / wine combo).

Prereqs

• 64-bit Linux, recent kernel
• Wine 11.8 staging or newer (wine --version → wine-11.9 (Staging) or similar)
• winetricks (recent), mingw-w64 (to build the stub DLLs), Vulkan drivers
  • vulkan-tools
• A source of vkd3d-proton (winetricks vkd3d, or a Proton / GE-Proton runner)
• A valid Lightroom Classic license and Adobe's standalone offline installer (Set-up.exe + its sibling products/, resources/, packages/ folders). Adobe gates the download behind a login; you provide it.
• ~10 GB free disk for the prefix + install

Quick start

Install the prereqs above, then just run the menu:

git clone https://github.com/sander110419/lightroom-cc-on-linux.git
cd lightroom-cc-on-linux
./start.sh

./start.sh is an interactive hub: it detects how far you've got and marks the recommended next step with an arrow. Each entry just runs one of the scripts/ for you, in the right order. Follow the arrow:

  1) Prepare wine prefix (setup)              ← start here
  2) Install GPU acceleration (vkd3d-proton)
  Install Lightroom Classic — pick ONE route:
  3) via Creative Cloud — online installer    (recommended; full CC app + panels)
  4) via Creative Cloud — offline ACCCx.zip    (back-version; panels stay blank)
  5) via standalone Set-up.exe                 (simplest if you only want Classic)
  6) Post-install fixes
  7) Run Lightroom Classic
  8) Run Creative Cloud app
  g) Add to application menu  (desktop launcher; asks DPI + virtual desktop)
  k) Kill the wine session    (if an app hangs or won't relaunch)

Stuck? If an app hangs, shows no window, or won't relaunch, pick k (wineserver -k) — it kills the leftover Adobe background processes without touching your install. The safe "off and on again" before resetting.

Just want Lightroom Classic? Do 1 → 2 → 5 → 6 → 7. For step 5, drop Adobe's standalone installer at resources/installers/lightroom/Set-up.exe (with its sibling products/ resources/ packages/ folders) first.

Want the Creative Cloud desktop app too (Apps panel, updates)? Use route 3 — the online installer (Creative_Cloud_Set-Up.exe, dropped in resources/installers/). The offline ACCCx.zip (route 4) is a back-version whose panels never load under wine; see GUIDE.md §5.

Prefer to run the steps by hand, or want to know what each does and why? Every script is documented in GUIDE.md — the menu is just a convenience wrapper around them. The launchers honor LR_DPI (HiDPI, default 144) and LR_DRIVER (auto/x11/wayland, default x11).

How it works

See GUIDE.md for the full walkthrough — every fix explained and why it's needed. The non-obvious pieces:

1. Patched d2d1.dll registering CLSID_D2D1ColorManagement (wine doesn't ship that builtin effect; LR's startup probe needs it). (sander110419)
2. Patched mfplat.dll with a MFCreateSampleCopierMFT forwarder. (sander110419)
3. A tiny hnetcfg.dll stub returning an empty firewall-rules enumerator, so Classic's in-process COM load of hnetcfg (firewall config) succeeds instead of failing with c0000135. (sander110419)
4. Windows 11 OS version — the standalone Adobe installer rejects anything below Win10.
5. winegstreamer disabled during install so the installer UI doesn't abort on the stubbed mfplat.MFCreateAudioMediaType.
6. vkd3d-proton's real D3D12 to replace wine's fake placeholder adapter, so the GPU is enumerated and qualified.
7. Lowercase symlinks for Adobe-bundled DLLs (wine's PE loader is case-sensitive on disk).