I do almost all raster work in Krita. Aside for drawing, I find it more than usable for photo editing. You just have to play around long enough to get the muscle memory and learn a few tricks.

I guess it depends on everyone’s preferences.

I am currently using Floorp, which also adds plenty of features. Haven’t tried Zen yet, but it looks interesting.

Currently studying Computer Engineering. I did manage to get most stuff working without needing Windows.

It came usually at the cost of extra work, but I’d say it was worth it. So far I even got to writing makefiles for C++ projects targetting some Atmel chip (Microchip Studio is Windows only). And in some cases I even found better tools than what they privided us with.

Unless you need some very very specific program or run into some wierd constrains you will be fine.