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The only thing stopping me from making Ubuntu 12.04 my main OS is that a lot of programs I use on Windows 7 and Mac aren't available for download on Ubuntu.

Why don't popular programs like Photoshop or World of Warcraft support Linux?

Also, would a company have to create the program (eg: Photoshop) for every possible distro (Gentoo, Arch Linux, Ubuntu, etc...), or would they just have to make one binary and it would work across all distros?

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I think market share is very important aspect, because producing complicated softwares (like Photoshop) or game (like Warcraft) are too expensive for software production companies and when market share of an operating system (Like Ubuntu) is low then the sell of this kind of software will be low therefore produce this king of software (expensive and complicated) is not beneficial for software production companies.

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For the most part, distribution doesn't matter a great deal. However, the nice thing about the open source community is that in those certain situations where it does matter, everyday Linux users are happy to take over the management of software packages in order to ensure a program they enjoy using is stable on their distribution of choice.

When you're dealing with closed source software, though, this becomes harder. In this situation, the producing company holds the responsibility for ensuring the stability of their software on all platforms, and that is quite a big project to dedicate a workforce to, especially when it's only for the benefit of a minority of users.

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    I would also like to add, that those closed source software company's don't see the potential in Linux. They think Linux OS's won't succeed, and that they aren't advanced enough to have their programs on them. Adobe, the creators of Photoshop, have even dropped support for Adobe Air on Linux Computers. If you want a program that is a lot like Photoshop, I would suggest getting GIMP. It's available in the Software Center, or you can install it VIA Terminal by following this tutorial: howtoubuntu.org/how-to-install-gimp-2-8-in-ubuntu-12-04
    – pgrytdal
    Sep 3, 2012 at 15:56
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Ubuntu is a very high built open source flavor, many of the gamers of today use windows for their "goto gamer gooru" Ubuntu is mainly meant for software development and network debugging and setup. However Ubuntu is capable of having artistic measures such as gimp 2.4 as in a Basic rundown version of Photoshop, but not made by Adobe. Back to the gaming case there is not really a whole lot you can do besides run a designated "wine program" which is compatible with the wine runner. Anyways if your a gamer gooru then your going to have to face the inevitable that Ubuntu or any other Linux Distro cannot run many games today that are meant for a dedicated graphics card and or a dedicated computer which is ported with graphics capable of running any game at maximum settings. art Graphics and Photo wise you can depend on Gimp, but its not a reliable as Photoshop.

P.S no the company wont have to make a "ex Photoshop, that would be one discombobulated bunch!

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