Angry Birds, flash mobs, Russell Brand, fidget spinners. All of these were virtually unavoidable in the previous decade, and yet, like so many popular trends, have now largely faded into obscurity. But in a recent announcement, the developers of LightBurn have brought back a relic of the past that we thought was all but buried along with Harambe — popular software not supporting Linux.
But this isn’t a case of the developers not wanting to bring their software to Linux. LightBurn, the defacto tool for controlling hobbyist laser cutters and engravers, was already multi-platform. Looking forward, however, the developers claim that too much of their time is spent supporting and packaging the software for Linux relative to the size of the user base. In an announcement email sent out to users, they reached even deeper into the mid-2000s bag of excuses, and cited the number of Linux distributions as a further challenge:
The segmentation of Linux distributions complicates these burdens further — we’ve had to provide three separate packages for the versions of Linux we officially support, and still encounter frequent compatibility issues on those distributions (or closely related distributions), to say nothing of the many distributions we have been asked to support.
We’re not sure how much of their time could possibly be taken up by responding to requests for supporting additional distributions (especially when the answer is no), but apparently, it was enough that they finally had to put their foot down — the upcoming 1.7.00 release of LightBurn will be the last to run on Linux.
To really add insult to injury, LightBurn is paid software, with users having to purchase a yearly license after the time-limited demo period. Accordingly, any Linux users who recently purchased a year’s license for the software can ask for a refund. Oh, and if you’re holding out hope that the community can swoop in and take over maintaining the Linux builds, don’t — LightBurn is closed source.
While there are open source projects like LaserWeb that can be used to control these types of machines regardless of what operating system you’re running, losing LightBurn on Linux definitely hurts. While we try not to put our stamp on closed source proprietary software because of situations exactly like this one, we have to admit that LightBurn was a nice tool, especially when compared to the joke software that many of these lasers ship with.
The developers end their notice to Linux users with what seems like a particularly cruel kick while they’re already down:
Rest assured that we will be using the time gained by sunsetting Linux support to redouble our efforts at making better software for laser cutters, and beyond. We hope you will continue to utilize LightBurn on a supported operating system going forward, and we thank you for being a part of the LightBurn community.
So take comfort, Linux users — LightBurn will emerge from this decision better than ever. Unfortunately, you just won’t be able to use it.
If it were “just a few nice guy nerds like us who want to make something cool for ‘lasers’” this would be a very different discussion.
You speak like someone who suffers from narcissistic tendencies, you may want to look into that but you won’t because you know everything already.
I think this was in reply to a post that got deleted? But fwiw, we really are just a bunch of makers (though not all guys). I’ve been using laser cutters and CNC machines since 2012, and have been part of the 3d printer community since like 2008.
Sounds like a poor business decision to cut out your clients and force them elsewhere. I for one would pay more for a Linux distro. I will never support Windows anything. If its money you want just ask you might be surprised at the support. Ubuntu based would be nice. Thanks for all your hard work I have enjoyed Lightburn up till this point.
I use Lightburn. I wanted to use Linux on the computer I use for my laser engraver. Getting the USB port setup in Linux was a nightmare. The Windows version just works.
What I find more infuriating is that most dev shops just choose wrong (will die on this hill). Linux should be first not for a fan boy perspective but as the primary dev environment if you start in Linux first regardless of disto the road to Windows and Mac become so much easier than going the other way. Just about everything in Linux is free from a dev standpoint libraries and tooling something absolutely not true in the other systems. If all the time to develop and support a project are put into Linux first the business decision of not enough users or it is not profitable become completely irrelevant because Linux supports is now just standard cost of development it’s not extra. Linux first future proofs your product it doesn’t matter what happens to Mac or Windows it will always run on something. From the user side it is an easier ask to say it runs on (insert disto here) than you have to run only on win 11. Linux users can figure out how to get it on their favorite distro. I come at this from someone that has my own software business with all developments starting in Linux I support Windows because of the business side but it has a yearly cost to do such and dev time is not that cost it is compliance to not get trounced by all the AVs or defender I do not support Mac because the market share to cost is worse. It doesn’t effect the bottom line if I only have a few users on Linux but I have never lost a potential customer because of what is supported I loose them because of what is not.
I had considered using LightBurn but after this announcement they lost my money.
One of the problems which has lead up to their decision was that the Linux userbase was renewal rate was 50% AND the Linux userbase was shrinking, not growing. A good number of people who posted to the LightBurn forum were stating they were running older versions on their computers ‘at the machine’.
In other words, when the software works and works well there’s little incentive to upgrade. LightBurn v1.7xx while it will not be supported when v1.8 arrives it will continue to work forever.
It’s sad to see so many comments ignoring what this company has publicly stated.
Anyone knows what cross-platform GUI is used in LightBurn? It looks great!
Isn’t the use case for a SBC running Linux to control some sort of machine/peripheral imply that is dedicated to that task?
I would be much happier if a vendor said “we only support this install on a pi3, if you don’t have a pi3 you’re on your own or you could just buy a pi3”
They are doing the same thing but with some version of Windows and some version of Mac
How many different versions of windows are they planning on supporting? I already have a windows XT box connected to a 48 inch printer that won’t run on anything else, A windows 10 box that runs some Microsoft research lab software that is unsupported, some Adobe software from before they went to their cloud subscription model and a bunch of virtual machines. The windows 10 machine isn’t ever going to get upgraded to Windows 11 because of software incompatibilities and Windows 11 won’t run on that hardware anyway and I need the hardware to run some peripherals that won’t run on new hardware.
I have an Intel based Mac that is mostly used for music because it has a fire wire port that connects to an audio interface specific to a 8 channel electric guitar, plus there’s a lot of software that didn’t make the jump to later Macs. I also have an M1 pro MacBook but that doesn’t get plugged into any hardware usually.
I also have a few pi one is a hex guitar effects box, one is in a box with a bunch of single task images that I use as I need them.
If I were a vendor, I wouldn’t want to support any of those machines,