Draw and paint in Linux
Sketch Artist
If you are looking for an open source drawing program, Krita and MyPaint both offer graphic tablet support and brushes. Deciding which one works best depends on your specific needs.
When it comes to an open source alternative to Photoshop, most people think of Gimp. However, Gimp isn't the only raster graphics (aka bitmap) editor for Linux. For drawing and painting, users quickly realize that they need more than Gimp, including brushes, Wacom-style graphic tablet support, and artistic effects. Krita and MyPaint are two open source alternatives that are specifically designed for digital artists.
Krita [1], once the black sheep of the KOffice bundle, has received a lot of attention as a standalone application. A prominent participant in the Google Summer of Code since 2008, it has grown into mature, production-ready software with paid developers.
MyPaint [2] is a simpler, more basic drawing application with fewer features. However, simplicity can be a great advantage, attracting many talented artists, including David Revoy, the prominent Blender animation specialist and the creator of many MyPaint brushes. Although the latest stable version, MyPaint 1.2, dates from 2017, solid work is being done on version 2.0.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

News
-
Blender App Makes it to the Big Screen
The animated film "Flow" won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature at the 97th Academy Awards held on March 2, 2025 and Blender was a part of it.
-
Linux Mint Retools the Cinnamon App Launcher
The developers of Linux Mint are working on an improved Cinnamon App Launcher with a better, more accessible UI.
-
New Linux Tool for Security Issues
Seal Security is launching a new solution to automate fixing Linux vulnerabilities.
-
Ubuntu 25.04 Coming Soon
Ubuntu 25.04 (Plucky Puffin) has been given an April release date with many notable updates.
-
Gnome Developers Consider Dropping RPM Support
In a move that might shock a lot of users, the Gnome development team has proposed the idea of going straight up Flatpak.
-
openSUSE Tumbleweed Ditches AppArmor for SELinux
If you're an openSUSE Tumbleweed user, you can expect a major change to the distribution.
-
Plasma 6.3 Now Available
Plasma desktop v6.3 has a couple of pretty nifty tricks up its sleeve.
-
LibreOffice 25.2 Has Arrived
If you've been hoping for a release that offers more UI customizations, you're in for a treat.
-
TuxCare Has a Big AlmaLinux 9 Announcement in Store
TuxCare announced it has successfully completed a Security Technical Implementation Guide for AlmaLinux OS 9.
-
First Release Candidate for Linux Kernel 6.14 Now Available
Linus Torvalds has officially released the first release candidate for kernel 6.14 and it includes over 500,000 lines of modified code, making for a small release.