Oh god YES! I paid for paint.net on Windows because it's the only software I find reasonably simple AND reasonably advanced, covering all my usage.

The lack of a linux version was a huge disappointment, especially since most of my computers are switching to windows (I have 2 more on windows and was evaluating moving one of the two over!)

I see they finally got the domain name paint.net. They used to be at getpaint.net, and the paint company that owned paint.net had a link saying something like 'if you are looking for the graphics software, go to getpaint.net'.

I know nothing about writing an image editor or graphics programming but maybe someone here can fill me in - would it be more or less difficult ("would it take more or less tokens" is probably the right question to ask these days) to replace the Windows-specific APIs with cross-platform alternatives (I guess Skia instead of Direct2D and something like Avalonia or Uno instead of Win32-based UI?) instead of re-implementing Direct2D?

Apparently the author got a surprising amount of backlash on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/rickbrew.bsky.social/post/3muiv4phe...

Here is the source code of the last open source (MIT) release from 2008

Wonder if it can be built for modern Linux

https://web.archive.org/web/20080000000000*/http://www.dotpd...

I didn't realize Paint.net was closed-source now. What's the best alternative, Pinta?

This is via Wine, so presumably it should also run on Macs now.

Paint.net is the only thing I miss from my days on Windows machines, so super excited about this!

Unlikely to see wide distribution on Linux given the license

Paint.net used to be an open source collaboration project by Rick Brewster, a Microsoft Employee and the students at the University of Washington. Today it is a private closed source project accepting donations, and still headed by Rick Brewster.

The full thread[0] about how it runs on Wine is quite interesting:

> Direct2D has always been the biggest hurdle for Paint.NET on WINE, and it's clear that it will never be completed enough for Paint.NET's use. And I can't just "disable" the use of Direct2D. So, instead, Paint.NET now has an internal, from-scratch, clean-room reverse-engineered rewrite of Direct2D that it uses on WINE (triggered by using /wine). It lives in PaintDotNet.Windows.Direct2D1.Managed.dll. This was written by our good friend Claude, without whom this would NOT have been possible and would NEVER have happened.

> Most of this code is, as they say, "vibe coded." By that I mean that it has not been thoroughly reviewed, it's more "trust me bro" style. I cannot possibly review 180,000 lines of code, it's just way way way too much. For reference, the rest of Paint.NET is about 700,000 lines of code and I've been working on it for over 20 years. I did thoroughly review any code that had to be changed or added elsewhere in the Paint.NET code base (refactoring and integration points, etc.). Over time I do hope that more of this code will be vetted by real humans and also by more advanced AI models.

[0]: https://forums.paint.net/topic/134563-%F0%9F%8D%B7-extremely...

This seems fun. I like Paint.net. Will try it out when its finished. I understand the backlash against LLM stuff and have my own reasons for not liking it that much. If its disclosed though, I don't mind. The rest of this comment is claude wondering why I have not run into that much LLM assisted software and games.

I've been trying to find at least partially LLM made software, software features, and games to try that's not a chatbot/agent/harness/mcp server for well over a year now. So far I'm up to one library, one piece of software (Trilium Notes), and zero games I'm using on a weekly basis. I almost had a file browser, but they stopped working on it and it was not working well with Windows DPI scaling. Found one okay song, but it had that cheap LLM feeling. I do see a lot of LLM generated memes of influencers. I keep thinking I should be finding lots of software and games to try out. Ports, clones in various languages, decomplications, feature additions from people that did not have enough time to work on them by hand, that sort of thing.

Only four out of 50ish games on my wishlist (mostly small teams or solo devs) have AI disclosures. AI seems to be used most often for texture and icon placeholders, voice acting (sometimes to be redone with real actors), translations, icons, and signs in-game. Two games had to state that they are using other systems besides LLMs for their AI features.

When I do find projects, I still run into the same pain points I did as before. Namely being too slow to load, DPI scaling issues, general errors so the software does not run, and most often the instructions as listed don't work but you can still get the software to run if ask the LLM that generated the software how to run it because the instructions LLM generated did not work for you. I'm assuming there is a lot of AI stuff going on the in background and backends of SaaS products and websites I use but who knows.

Yes! This is by far the number one program I've missed since I left Windows years ago. GIMP is so unfriendly, krita is for drawing, pinta is a very shallow clone that only just stopped crashing a few months ago. Paint.net is just better in every way.

Paint.net was originally MIT licensed but the author closed its source because people did not give him credit. Note: The MIT license does not require credit.

https://blog.paint.net/2007/12/04/freeware-authors-beware-of...

Paint.net likely still benefits from the announcement of "Open Source Alternative To Microsoft Paint" long after switching to a proprietary license, which I find more dubious than using MIT-licensed code without giving credit to the author.

Also I rather doubt a "clean-room reverse-engineered rewrite of Direct2D" can be "written by our good friend Claude, without whom this would NOT have been possible"?

How much in tokens/Claude subs would it cost to make a paint.net open source clone?

Seems like the kind of software that with enough tokens an agent would be able to create from scratch autonomously (because you have a clear goal and reference)

I'd guess with 5 max subs running fable 5.1 almost non stop it should be doable in a couple of weeks.

It's nice to have more options, so far I've managed to handle most of my Linux graphics needs with https://www.photopea.com - amazing broad support of document image formats, full-featured edits and all running in the browser.

Sounds good, but why a .Net app can't work with .NET 10? Does it use Windows-only features?

That's awesome news. Many good free apps that run on Win/MacOS should be ported to Linux.

Hugged to death? website is not working for me from the xfinity network.

paint.net is amazing for basic png editing, I've dreamed of this day. It'a the only thing I miss from Windows. I don't understand the slashback at all.

> and EXTREMELY experimental support for running on WINE/Linux.

So it needs Wine.

wow if the paint.net people are trying to win an award for most popup advertising on one web page, they have my vote!

It is very buggy, was AI slop coded, and barely works.

This is not a good release.

Don't support poorly made software. Use Gimp, Pinta, or Krita on Linux.

Wine is not the same as "runs on Linux". Able to be run on Linux with wine, sure.