There might be a lot of reasons you might want to use foss softwares to animate. I will not dive deep into them and just cut straight to the chase. Even if you are not using or thinking about switching to linux the Free open source softwares (FOSS) listed here might help you if you are using Windows or Mac. 

Krita

Krita is an amazing software. You can use it to make sketches, illustrations, concept art and of course to animate. It might be the most straightforward animation software to download, install and use. Simply go to your distro's software manager and you will most likely gonna see there. You can simply download it by having flatpak on your system. Still let us put a link to Krita's web page where you can download it from. 

Positives: Very easy to install and use.

Negatives: Does not have a built-in frame identification system like in Opentoonz, Toonboom Harmony or Clip studio paint.

Krita

Opentoonz

Based on the software "Toonz", developed by Digital Video S.p.A. in Italy, OpenToonz has been customized by Studio Ghibli, and used for the creation of its works for many years.(1) This too is also an amazing software. Though it is just a little bit more complicated to install and use compared to other programs. 

Quick guide to install Opentoonz on linux.

Arch Linux

If you are using any Arch based system. You have an easier way of getting this program. You can just acquire it through the usage of AUR. Simply go to the software manager of your flavour of arch linux and type in opentoonz then install it.

Debian/Ubuntu/Mint

I personally use linux mint and you will not find opentoonz on any software manager that comes built in and you won't find it on flathub either. 

There are three ways you can go with this on linux mint or other debian derivatives.

  1. There is Opentoonz Morevna Edition It is a customized fork of the original opentoonz. I personally did not use this version that much. However it does work.
  2. Tahoma2D is also a fork of opentoonz that is wildly loved. Some even consider that it is much better than opentoonz. However i personally never tested or used this version before.
  3. Acquiring Opentoonz directly from the github builds.
    1.  Go to this github directory.
    2. Sign into github.
    3. Click on one of the builds that writes "master" on the rightside. Scroll down and download either one of the download options listed below. 
    4. Place the program in a suitable place on your computer and start using it.
    5. Note: It is not guaranteed that this will work. It might work and it might not work because these are simply automatic builds managed by github that are done when anytime a new update comes into the master branch. Tho in my own experience i did not have any problems with it. Just be careful.

Positives: A very nice to use program with a lot of functionality.

Negatives: Complex install and frequent crashes on certain systems. 

Non FOSS Abandonware Option: Macromedia Flash 8

Even though it is not FOSS, it is an abandonware. Meaning it is free to acquire and use. It is also a program that completely works locally. You can find the program from majority of places. For example Archive.org. Even though it is an old program it is still a very efficient and fast program to use to animate. To be honest i never experienced a faster animation workflow even after years of using other softwares when i compare it to the time i was using Flash 8. It might be old, it's tools might be limited but it still has a lot of functionality inside it. 

Quick guide to install Macromedia Flash Professional 8

  1. Acquire the software and download it.
  2. Acquire the Heroic Games Launcher from the software manager of the distro you use.
  3. Install all the latest proton and wine releases in your heroic games launcher.
  4. Run the installer of the Macromedia Flash 8 through the usage of either Ge-Proton or Proton inside heroic games launcher. 
  5. After the installation is complete your software has been installed inside a capsule-like file system. You should change the software path that is written in the game's section inside the Heroic Games Launcher to the .exe that will run the software. 

 

I hope this rather simple guide helps. I will try to expand on these tutorials as much as i can. 

Thanks for reading!