After using Photoshop for a few years, moving to Linux was a real pain in the ass. Many will argue that Gimp is an excellent Photoshop alternative which we totally agree. However, the learning curve involved to master Gimp and the short-cuts was the biggest challenge.
In our case, we just need an image editing software to resize, crop and make simple edits, quickly. We didn’t really need all those fancy functions like content-aware. So when we heard that Adobe Photoshop CS2 has a Platinum rating on Winehq, we were ecstatic. If you are too lazy to click on the link, Platinum rating on WineHQ basically means
“An application can be rated as Platinum if it installs and runs flawlessly ‘out of the box’. No changes required in winecfg”
Why Adobe Photoshop CS2 you ask? Some time back, Adobe disabled the activation server for CS2 products due to technical issues. Because of that, Adobe has made its CS2 products available for download along with the serial numbers. In other words, Adobe CS2 products including Photoshop CS2 is free to download.
Adobe has disabled the activation server for CS2 products, including Acrobat 7, because of a technical issue. These products were released more than seven years ago, do not run on many modern operating systems, and are no longer supported.
Adobe strongly advises against running unsupported and outdated software. The serial numbers provided as a part of the download may only be used by customers who legitimately purchased CS2 or Acrobat 7 and need to maintain their current use of these products.
As you have read from the message above which was taken off Adobe, you may only use the serial numbers if you legitimately purchased CS2. We’re assuming you have a legitimate copy of CS2 so lets move on to installing Photoshop CS2 on Ubuntu Linux. For this tutorial we installed Photoshop CS2 on Ubuntu Linux 13.10.
Initially we installed the latest version of Wine which was Wine 1.7 and after an Ubuntu Linux update, Photoshop CS2 stopped working. So if you want a working Photoshop CS2 on your Ubuntu Linux, we would suggest that you follow these instructions in detail.
Install Photoshop CS2 on Ubuntu Linux
Step 1: You need to be logged in to Adobe in order to download Photoshop CS2. You can login or register an account here.
Step 2: Once you are logged in, you can download Photoshop CS2 here.
Step 3: Store this Photoshop CS2 serial number some where, you will need it later – 1045-1412-5685-1654-6343-1431
Step 4: Install Wine from Ubuntu Software Centre.
Step 5: Because we’re lazy, we also installed PlayOnLinux. PlayOnLinux is a front-end for Wine, helps you to easily set stuff up with a nice graphical user interface.
Step 06: Open PlayOnLinux and click on Install. A new window will now appear and click on Install a non-listed program.
Step 07: Choose to install a program in a new virtual drive. This creates its own section. We like it clean.
Step 08: Select the following:
- Configure wine
- Install some libraries
Step 09: Select 32 bits windows installation.
Step 10: For the Windows version, we chose Windows 7.
Step 11: You will now need to install some Windows DLL and Components. Choose the following:
- corefonts
- gecko
- vcrun6
Note: You will need to click agree / install when some windows pop up.
Step 12: Browse for Photoshop CS2 installer. Installation will now begin.
Once installation has been completed, you will have the option to create a short cut. Once the short cut has been created, you can run Photoshop CS2 from the short cut.
If you’re getting the error “Unable to continue because of a hardware or system error. Sorry, but this error is unrecoverable” follow the steps below.
This issue is basically caused by a corrupted config file. What’s odd is, it would run fine the first time, then the second and subsequent launch will end with that error. There are two methods of fixing this.
Method 1
Step 1: Delete the preference file which can be found in your Photoshop CS2 wine folder. The file you are looking for should be named Adobe Photoshop CS2 Prefs.php.
Step 2: Start Photoshop CS2 as normal and delete the preference file each time before starting.
Method 2
Step 1: This method is more efficient and you only have to delete the preference file once. First, delete Adobe Photoshop CS2 Prefs.psp then start Photoshop CS2.
Step 2: Before closing Photoshop CS2, change the file permission of Adobe Photoshop CS2 Prefs.php to read only. Once you have done that, Photoshop CS2 will not get that error message from a corrupted preference file.
