As an autistic person, I have to say thank you for having such a consistent format to every episode you produce. It's comforting that I can always watch an EC video and hear your greeting, intro, and outro and they will always be the same reliable and steady thing that has worked for years. I hate when a show I'm watching changes theme songs, or a youtuber completely changes up the intro and outro. If it worked for years why change it? But you have always been a youtuber I could count on to have those soothing and comforting norms that are always there for me. So thank you. And thanks for all the considerable work you put into these videos. This video does a great job of highlighting all the effort you go to when you make these videos and your audience appreciates it.

With Microsoft making these idiotic changes to Windows I can see videos like this becoming a necessity come October 2025

Linux is getting closer every day.

Astounding. What you do in 23 minutes winds up saving users days of spinning wheels, pulling out hair, and suffering bouts of sheer madness. Seriously.

Hi Chris, pro videographer here. At work in Windows we already switched from Adobe creative cloud to Davinci Resolve and we are not the only ones. We do almost everything in Davinci Resolve. Premiere replaced by Davinci Resolve. After Effects replaced by Davinci Resolve Fusion. We do in Fusion everything what we did in After Effects like camera tracking, motion graphics, info graphics etc sometimes in together with Blender for 3d work. Audition replaced by Fairlight. We do almost all the video production in one app. Sometimes we use Krita, Gimp and Inkscape. At home I use Davinci Resolve on Linux Mint. I shoot on Blackmagic Pocket 6k G2 and my Sony Xperia 1 III and 1 IV. For audio codecs, on Linux Mint someone made an addon in Context Action Menu additions that convert the audio from AAC to PCM with just right click on the video and from the context menu choose 'Davinci audio adjusment' and done! Yes, I do all my video production at home with Linux Mint.

It's great to see how far Linux apps have come, and especially companies like Blackmagic making Linux really feel like a 1st class OS for creative work. I still think there's a way to go, but if someone forced me to go full Linux for a month, I think I would still be at least 75% as productive. It also helps to not be married to one of the proprietary cloud environments like Adobe Creative Cloud storage!

One can hope that the perpetual licensed programs don't change their minds. It's been seen before. "Oh you can keep using the old version with your license, but if you want to use the NEW version, you have to pay again. And this time it's a subscription only"

usual high standard vid Chris - now I appeciate even more the effort you put in to give us all our weekly dose.

At 7:51 "....editing the video you are currently watching...." That reminds me of the scene in Spaceballs where are they start watching the movie to try to find the people they're chasing.... Great movie!! Good video so far....now I'll go back to it.

Hopefully you see this comment. Use Reaper for video/audio production in linux. I use it on windows and MAC, and it destroys most other DAWs. I primarily use it for audio recording and editing after ditching pro tools years ago. Anyways, it also has a linux native version, and it works great with my focusrite sound card and such in linux mint. **edit** There's a great youtube channel called reaper madness to learn and see reaper's abilities in action.

I like the review of non open source software that's available on linux. Just because you use Linux does not mean you can't use paid software.

I am gonna try this on 2011 imac 27" with i7 3.8ghz, 16gb ram, and upgraded Nvidia k4100m gpu, ssd 512. Thanks for all work you did putting this together.

As always, thank you for the in-depth coverage of multiple ways of doing something, giving your viewers a way to accomplish tasks, and allowing us to not be constrained to a single way of thinking.

Chris: creates video with PC Paintbrush and Windows Movie Maker, using a pinhole camera and for the mic, a tin can, string, and a pie plate. Audience: Can't tell the difference, because Chris has godlike editing powers and has empowered simplicity and clarity in every frame.

After decades of using Windows it's really amazing that now I can't wait for it to go the way of the dodo. It is well past its use by day.

It is really great to see all of this creative software running in Linux. I personally think there should be more campaigns to get this type of software supported by the mainstream linux distros as you outlined in you linux manifesto. This would allow more people to move away from Microsoft and start using software like you have shown.

Will definitely be looking into this when Win 10 support ends because I'm not "downgrading" to 11 or the upcoming ultra-spyware 12 version!!

AS a developer I really can do most my of daily works on a Linux machine especially that all the tools I'm using are available for free on both Windows/Linux systems, Unfortunately one part of my job is to create Windows Desktop apps, and another part is that 99% of the people where I live are windows users, so it's hard to completely move to Linux while still need to provide support for Windows related software. Thanks Chris!

This video demonstrates very well how much expertise you have acquired in using so many of these very complex and sophisticated graphics, video, and audio software products in order to produce your always high-quality, production-value, videos. Of course they are only a corner of the many technologies you need to accomplish that, but I continue to be awed by your impressive expert knowledge and accomplishments with all of them. Studios need entire teams of experts to accomplish what you regularly achieve on schedule EVERY week!

I should switch to Linux, honestly; it's just a way better and cleaner system than Microsoft Windows.

If Adobe turns off the activation server for old versions it is your moral obligation to use a cracked version. Purchasing something means a transfer of ownership and not using something at the discretion of the creator.

Your channel is one of the very few channels that I turn on the notification bell for. Please review ultramarine Linux.

I've been compiling a list of linux alternatives and wine compatibility for all my windows apps, so this video is very serendipitous. I have a feeling a lot of people are in my boat are planning on moving to Linux as Windows 10 sunsets. Very informative and entertaining as always!

hey Christopher, there's also handbrake if you want too transcode video/audio to another format there's also kdenlive and for 3D you have blender

Im trying to depend less on Microsoft. So very useful video

Very impressive to see how far things have come for users of Linux - with changes coming down the line for Windows 10 & 11 users in terms of supported hardware, it may well be that more users will change to Linux for their creative tasks- then I can convert them to FreeBSD...ahem 🙂 Cheers Chris, take care - see you next week!

I've been doing design and video production in Linux for 8 years, open-source and free version like davinci resolve, Blender, Inkscape and more are my main ones and I never looked back to Adobe. Great video

Greetings Chris B. These challenge videos are such a great insight into the usability of Linux for new and prospective users. It's really appreciated.

Given the rather scary vision of future MSWindows, if Linux compatible versions of apps have some energy directed towards them I think there may be a huge market to be tapped into.

All of my video production is done in Linux! I use Shotcut to assemble the videos, TTS for narration (usually Ivona or Amazon voices), I use Audacity to record the TTS voice speaking, and voila! I have no need for web based video editors, or more advanced ones, as Shotcut does more than enough for what I do!

The culmination of your two week experiment shows just what’s available for Linux with the odd workaround to get things working smoothly. Thank you for an informative & interesting video it's always an education & I've learnt a lot. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with paying for software as long as it runs well on that particular Linux OS, hopefully the future for Linux users will be a lot brighter, escape the clutches of MS. I get really good results from Photopea & have enjoyed using it, I get the odd freeze from some of the effects but it sorts itself out. Take care Chris :)

Thanks. I have been making videos that capture the screen and I run a voiceover. Kdenlive has been meeting my needs, but it's good to know about other tools and their capacities. As usual, you're great over-explaining computers, but it's also great to have back-pocket information if I'm asked to do more.

I agree with the earlier comment about exploring the entire suite of tools in Davinci Resolve. Fusion is node based, not layer based, so there is a transition for AE users. But no shortage of how to videos on YT. Fairlight is a powerful audio editor, and DR's color correcting is the industry standard. H.264 aside, it's amazing what you can get for free. And it's performance in Linux is remarkable.

Thanks for covering DaVinci Resolve, as I was curious about it on Linux

Video editing has been one of the remaining areas of Linux desktop frontier which has been lacking reliable and versatile tools production for a very long time now. It's nice to see that the situation with the Video editing tools has slowly gotten better since the last time I checked!

Good stuff Chris. Other alternatives, not for video editing.... Darktable, Aftershot pro, NUKE, Bitwig Studio, Reaper, Re-noise, Studio one 6...

I was thrilled to see autograph in the thumbnail, I'm an early adopter and fervently believe that it's got huge potential, it's nice to see a video about linux that does not shy away from proprietary software

It's great that we can do all this stuff on Linux now, eventually alot of us will be using Linux as our main systems if Microsoft continue along the path they are going along.

Hell yes mate! Best of luck, and thanks for the continued education through the years!

I do hope i can get into Linux again. I ran it on a 2400g system with no issues. However, i got a gaming laptop with a 30 series nvidia card, high DPI display, and proprietary fan system. The fan system unfortunately does not work well on Linux (I tried many distros, kernels, command line utilities). Plus, things like youtube still have no hardware acceleration on Linux. When more laptop manufacturers support Linux officially, that will make the experience so much better for average consumers looking to switch to Linux. Me personally, my next laptop will either be from a Linux manufacturer or Apple. Copilot makes Windows hard to use, and I'm saying this as someone that likes a lot of the design choices of Windows NT based OSes. Great video Chris!

Just finished watching your video.... I must say the last couple videos, I haven't noticed any differences in quality or "signature", so that is something pretty big as well. That didn't make as much sense as it did when it was still in my head....I I've been awake over 24 hours, so some things are little foggy. Highly interesting, thank you for making it. Good night!!

I would have thought that a video like this would have been more popular compared to some of your other ones. There are a lot of people that I think would have benefited from a video like this, because there are a lot of people who don't like using Windows and Adobe for their creative work. The algorithm really needs to push this video out to more people.

Hi Chris loved the video, I've now been using Linux mint on my main PC now for a month and also switched my laptop to also use Linux mint about 3 weeks ago. All your linux videos have been super informative and very helpful. A massive thank you for all the awesome content and keep up the great work dude.

Very interesting, so much solid possibilities. Thanks!

Another great video Chris. We are so far down the road that very technical applications are working on Linux. That's really great news. Any consumer can now have a great experience using Linux for basic use. Why anyone would use Windows is beyond me, it's become something that can harm you as you can see this week in the Microsoft news. We are inching toward Linux being mainstream. Thanks Chris!

You couldn't have expected the timeliness of this upload with the hot water both Adobe and Microsoft fond themselves in. Thanks! Excellent information.

Good to see this went well; 7 or 8 out of 10. I don't need to use Linux for these kinds of projects but good to see that you can do more & more in Linux with every passing year.

It's nice to have alternatives. It's too bad so many companies have adopted a subscription model. Most people don't mind paying for software. But we do object to paying FOREVER for the software we use. And since there are now alternatives to Adobe that work, they may have to rethink their model. (Though I doubt they will anytime soon.)

This was a brilliant video! Thanks for showcasing the power of Linux.

Thank you very much Chris.

20:27 makes complete sense for your workflow

The main problem I have switching entirely to Linux is that a lot of tools or odd things I sometimes use are only available for Windows, including a tool called "Royal TS" which is a suite for managing SSH, RDP, passwords and many more things which I religiously use for my homelab. I could switch to alternatives but it'd mean I either switch ALL my PCs and laptops to Linux or I use a mix of both, which sucks for consistency. I'm also way too used by now to the Premiere Pro workflow and use it for work too, so it's not too easy for me to say bye bye to Windows.

Like you I"m also using CS5.5 (Premiere, AE, PS in CS6). But it's great to know that when the time comes (and it will be WHEN, as my hardware won't last forever), that Linux / FOSS / non-Adobe is good enough for the job. Thanks also for the Photopea reminder! Adobe Delenda Est.

Great video -- which I watched on an IBM Quantum system running Qiskit. 👽

17:14 "To produce something that looks like PowerPoint" I actually do make a lot of the graphics for my videos using MS PowerPoint. Even some of my thumbnails I make on a PowerPoint slide.

Thank you for the video! I've installed the stable version of Debian Linux on my backup machine just to see how Linux runs on bare metal. Debian with the KDE desktop environment has been incredibly stable for me, I've installed all of the work and games apps so that this machine mirrors my main Windows 10 machine that don't have the TPM chip. When MS turns off support for Win 10 I have options now instead of being forced to upgrade my hardware to run software that I didn't want to run in the first place.

Chrome for the less demanding and linux for the more demanding. Chrome os flex is going to get rather popular.

Hi, Chris, Thanks for another great video. I'm very happy that decent apps are now available for Linux and I hope that will encourage more people to move away from the evil Windows and Macs. 😏

Amazing video, I love to see proprietary software included in search for what's actually the best that linux has.

100% agree with the UI scaling comment at the end, life would be so much easier

Just the video I needed to see. Adobe (and gaming) are the two things that keep me on Windows.

Great analysis. I had been searching such content for long time.

Great video as usual! I love seeing the comments about Linux gaining user share here 👏! I built a career over decades as an expert in not only some technologies but also how to effectively apply them on Windows. And then when I was forced to move to Linux, I realized how much (useless) effort that effective application was. Now I wouldn't go go back for any reason. If you're a developer there is NO reason to use Windows unless you're making products only for that ever-worsening platform. And in this day and age, there are always alternatives.

As someone who hates, loathes & detests "Subscription Only" software, and avoids it completely on principle, it was really nice to hear of all these Adobe alternatives, particularly as two of my computers are likely to become Linux machines after Oct '25.

Great video. Linux is making leaps and bounds towards full compatibility.

Wish I could make the switch to Linux given Microsoft's increasingly inane changes they've been bringing to Windows, but unfortunately, unlike video editing programs, Krita isn't a satisfactory replacement for my digital painting apps on windows. Great video as always Chris.

Greetings on this fine Sunday. I really love these Linux workflow alternatives even though I do absolutely no video editing myself. No criticism towards Ubuntu but I'm curious why you chose that particular distro?

Impressive video. Makes my poor excuse for video production look like a poor excuse for video production. Looking for forward to your next video!

Awesome content, and very relevant! It seems Microsoft gives us more and more reasons to stop using Windows every day!

A very interesting experiment indeed! It was nice to see how one can put together a video with all sorts of stuff using Linux and the software available for it. Autograph looks to be a great piece of software, but good grief, is it pricey? As a wise person said to me, "they're proud of their [redacted]!" Also, I spotted a goof-up at 9:28. I think it's meant to read "No h.264 or h.265 in Linux free version" instead of "No h.264 or h.264 in Linux free version". Please don't worry about that too much. With all that said, here is a small contribution to the tea fund! Love you, Chris. 🤗

The only issue with this comparison, is that it might work well when you operate as an individual. As soon as you you have clients or a company to deal with, certain default programs and standards are just being expected. So practically speaking, this is the biggest problem for choosing Linux, because most of those professional tools just are not compatible with Linux. Not even with Wine.

The only reason why I have a Windows partition on my main machine is for video editing (which I rarely do!). I would so love to get rid of it and do it in Mint. This give me hope, thanks Chris!

Excelente vídeo.. this just goes to show how mutch work and time goes into to making this amazing educacional vídeos.. wish you well

I would recommend buying the Resolve Speed Editor mini keyboard and shuttle wheel. Costs a little more than a Studio licence but comes with a Studio license included so the speed editor effectively costs about £80 more and gives an even better editing experience.

Thank you for the informative video with great video production qualities.

A great video - although I don't use these tools, it's really refreshing to see realistic, usable alternatives to Windows. It must have been really satisfying to make, and that comes through with the (at times) almost gleeful delivery!! Also, any move away from the execrable subscription model is to be celebrated.

Another bonus is you don't have Adobe breaking things in new and exciting ways every other month. And Lightwave seems to run under WINE.

I never knew autograph existed. Looks fascinating though!

Dang, not even close to first. But I love your stuff so much. You keep going, sir.

Great video, Chris. I really appreciate the good work you are doing for the people who are trying to transition from Windows to Linux. Just wanted to ask if you can make a DaVinci Resolve tutorial?

Very interesting experiment. For a content creator the workflow and toolchain is question of getting things done in sensible timeframe. If something doesn’t work, no content gets published and soon the refrigerator is empty. Everything must be familiar and efficient.

Thanks! Wonderful video, even though there was the tiniest little typo in about 9:30 to about 9:50. (In written words: system has neither h.264 nor h.264.) Fortunately, I could hear your voice (neither h.264 nor h.265), and you have a very good teaching voice. Looking forward to your videos.

This was so needed. Hit hard on this, please. I am so done with Microsoft.

Now we have stable diffusion and image generations with Krita ( krita-ai-diffusion ) to compare with Photoshop.

That whole monthly ransom thing isn't for me. Ill just stick with kdenlive. Thanks for the video.

Thanks I needed this for a friend very well explained thanks alot Miguel.

Go Linux Go Go 🐧

My brother is in the audio end of things (unlike me, the visual). He swears by Reaper (can't get it to work on my Linux laptop as it's too old), but FYI.

Good afternoon, here checking todays subject. Will be back later to watch!

Kdenlive is more then enough of advanced for me and it is completely free (as in freedom and opensource)

I have the Studio version of Resolve so your links to scripts to load it in a more modern distro are very welcome. Wishing you well.

Great video! Never heard of Autograph before, will try it out.

The biggest issue I have with buying into any software ecosystem, if the fear of being locked out of my files by the software going out of business, or an economic hardship meaning I can't work until I pay the monthly ransom.. That's what I love about my FOSS heavy tool set. I'll never be locked out of my creations.

Hi Christopher, I love the video. On and to the point. I think the comparison has to be moving towards "your data" and privacy and "MS CoPilot+" (the announcement might have come out after you edited the video). It isn't always about what is better but what is safer should be a part of it. Windows 11 is incredibly "NOISY" and in your face with "do this", then "try that" and "Why isn't Edge your default browser?" It is no longer simply an OS, and IMHO Apple is doing the same.

Resolve kinda has everything. And Fusion (standalone or in Resolve) is a better compositor, but if you absolutely need layer based i can understand not using Nuke or Fusion. A great software for video and audio converting is Shutter Encoder.

Adding to the Davinci resolve format problem: you can ask chatgpt to write you an ffmpeg script that converts the video and audio into a perfect version to use in Davinci Resolve

Very nice! I'm trying to get away from Windows 11 and onto Ubuntu. This may prove most helpful.

I come more from a desktop publishing perspective. Pains me to say it but Adobe Indesign doesn't have an equal; its "pre-flight" tools to find problems, it's use of the Pantone colour system, and other features, are unbeatable. Scribus is the main FOSS alternative but it's not ready for serious printing. I did a Diploma in graphics design so I know all these programs well. I hate alot of what Adobe did. Even before Creative Cloud Adobe CS5 had sliders that allowed people to make their own tools. Then Adobe removed them despite people wanting them to stay. I am no Adobe apologist I can assure you.

Final Cut Pro's good too (but full purchase for Mac or subscription for iPad), but it's best that DaVinci Resolve is free alternative for Mac or iPad (since latest iPad Air/Pro have same M-series chips)... P.S. I'm here for free video editing software 🎬❤

I would never pay for Lightworks purely on the basis of it being on the subscription model. Autograph is clearly overpriced compared to DaVinci being 1/3 the price for a permanent license. I really like that you not only sought out alternatives that were native but also as powerful and didn't limit yourself to free software. Most people doing these challenges show that the software alternatives exist and can do basic stuff and leave it at that. You went further and wanted to know what the workflow would be like I terms of ease and/or efficiency. However, given that you won't shift shows that there's more roadblocks than finding alternatives. There's not a few huge things making the switch non viable, it's usually a dozen or ton of tiny reasons. Whether it's their favorite game not working, their preferred apps not working, alternative software not being viable, or Linux not playing nice with some hardware or vice versa. Sure Ubuntu and some alternatives and some scripts worked for this limited scope experiment. And yes, production software for Linux has come a long way since OpenShot was considered good. But it's still miles as a WHOLE from being viable as a daily driver.