The workflow on Linux is very different, you just have to get used to it, but it's ok if not better in some ways. I mean instead of designing websites in raster with a bit of vector, like people do in Photoshop, you would have to do it in vector with a bit of raster, because the raster editor there being Gimp and all is quite limited and slow, but the vector one (Inkscape) is very powerful. So, for people coming from Photoshop it could be a refreshing learning experience, beneficial for productivity.

You can configure Gimp so that UI is very similar to Photoshop. For example, check out these options:

http://doctormo.deviantart.com/art/Gimp-2-8-Photoshop-Tweaks...

http://lifehacker.com/how-to-make-the-gimp-work-more-like-ph...

For painting, there's https://krita.org/en/ which has some excellent features.

Take your pick:

https://pixls.us/software/

(disclaimer: I write Filmulator)

Gimp's UI makes me really sad :( -- I used to be a HUGE proponent of it, since I had grown up using it. I had never known photoshop before, so gimp's UI made sense to me.

3-4 years ago they seem to have changed (apparently to make things closer to photoshop, is my guess?), and now it seems like the UI sucks for everybody.

For years I ran Windows in a VM on a Linux desktop and used Photoshop that way. Very easy solution and the mouse controls for interacting with the VM were awesome too; it was about as close to a native window as you could get.

Same for me - last I checked, Gimp's UI is too damn awful. But I only need 5% of PHotoshop's features (smart selection, fill with color, resize, crop, optimize for web) to optimize images for web work

Erm... Krita?