Twelve months into using Linux. Package update errors, unfamiliar applications, different file formats, different ways of running programmes — these are the recurring friction points since switching to Elementary OS 0.4 Loki. But they’ve remained manageable problems: solvable through Linux community forums, contained within my own workflow.
The reason I migrated was simple: legality. Linux isn’t user-friendly by mainstream standards, which is why it remains the domain of developers, sysadmins, and security professionals rather than general users. Its open-source architecture produces dozens of distros with their own strengths — and it’s free, which also makes it bewildering to newcomers.
Before leaving Windows 10, I was already using free, legal design software: Inkscape. Lightweight, capable, and genuinely usable for vector graphics, slide design, bitmap editing, and even basic web prototyping. The Adobe subscription — even with student pricing — wasn’t something I was willing to pay for, and the alternative was piracy, which wasn’t an option either.
The problem that emerged in the fourth quarter of using Linux: industry standardisation. Clients started asking for raw files from my workflow — and files produced on Elementary OS were frequently incompatible with the Windows and Mac environments they were using. Inkscape exports in .svg, which Adobe Illustrator can technically open. But several clients required .ai files specifically — the de facto graphic design industry standard — or .psd (Photoshop), or .cdr (CorelDraw). The only universally compatible format I could reliably offer was .pdf.
When a client asked for a high-resolution JPEG for print, the workaround became: export from Inkscape as PNG (its default), import into GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program — the Linux equivalent of Photoshop), convert colour profile from RGB to CMYK, re-export as JPEG. Multiple steps for what would be one step in a standard Adobe workflow. I got used to it.
The more significant problem appeared during job applications. “Can you use Illustrator?” — an honest answer of “I use Inkscape on Linux” ended the conversation at multiple agencies and companies before my portfolio was even reviewed. The ability to produce the work was irrelevant; the tool wasn’t the standard tool.
This is a relatively minor industry problem in isolation: software options are varied, individual designers make different choices, different workflows suit different people. Adobe products dominate the market, so .ai has become the industry standard — regardless of whether the software producing it is legitimately licensed or pirated (at agencies it should be legitimate, but that’s a separate question).
Designers working with legitimate free software have no choice but to keep adapting to market demands — even when the market doesn’t ask whether the standard tool is being used legally.
Hopefully the people hiring in the creative industry — particularly graphic design — understand that not every one of the millions of job applicants in this sector is working with the industry-standard application. The quality of the output should matter more than the name of the tool that produced it.
Footnote: Android — the most widely used mobile operating system in the world — is built on a Linux foundation.
