Solarius

I'm one of those engineers that you're insulting, and I'm also the only engineer to reply to the posts on this thread, trying to help out the community. My time is valuable, and I don't want to waste it reading comments like that.

God bless your words my friend
Right now the only piece of software work focused missing on Linux is a graphic suit. We do have Inkscape that's in a good shape for vector but if I have to be honest, our raster editing is a mess.
Also, Scribus is not that good of a option for Publisher either.

well the brush lag isnt great, it flickers, but the pen pressure actually works without fussing around which makes it better than Adobe Photoshop(TM) Creative Cloud on Microsoft Windows(R)
I honor your efforts with this shitpost, please enjoy.

Not sure if anyone at Serif will see this, but just to be clear at least for the people here right now: I downloaded Affinity Photo this week because of this thread and the promise of Linux support. I will be making the next event flier for one of the art collectives that I work for as a test.

If I can get it to work on Linux, I will buy a license.

If I can get it to work on Linux easily or there is a possibility of native support, I'll convert my entire consulting business and all of our artists to it immediately.

If there is native Linux support, I will tag it in every bit of media we post and I will include it in all of the presentations that I give here in Tokyo. (I do this with Houdini already)
 
None of us want another cheaper Photoshop alternative that runs on Windows. We want to be free. You're all so close to helping us get there.


Plus, hardly any of our digital artwork or experimental installations run on Windows, anyway. For artists creating at the edge of the tech that's currently available, there's a lot of code and customization and Windows just isn't an option. Mac technically could be, but what client would pay for the added expense of filling a room with that hardware? Even if the project has the extra budget, there's just no way they'd be so wasteful with it.

The future of artwork isn't happening on Mac or Windows. And as a company making tools for artists and shipping on these platforms, I think that Serif should be at least a bit worried about this. Whatever these concerns are about the Linux ecosystem or profitability there, I'd say they are outdated at best.
 
Anyway, no need to get distracted with any more of that. We can get back to technical details. = )

I I wouldn't say people showing an unwavering interest in something is pestering. Most of us here have accepted Serif doesn't care about Linux, at this point I just see this as a discussion thread about the potential of it. I still don't really understand why people are coming into this thread to be outraged at people that have an interest in a different platform to them though. "How dare you keep showing interest in linux!! How dare you want your favourite software on on the OS you use!!!" - These are senseless comments and, I mean no offense to you here but yours too. Likening people to entitled children throwing a fit for wanting affinity on linux and discussing it? Apart from comments like these, this is mostly a grown up conversation. I use linux as a platform professionally as do many other creatives. There is a discussion to be had about the potential of it IMO. It's cool if you don't think this discussion is worthwhile, you don't need to get involved if you don't care about the topic. :)

Theoretical, anecdotal and hearsay in one post, good job. Why would it matter who uses what in a coffee shop?

By your same logic, go into a studio and see what people are using. I have never seen anyone using Affinity Photo in a studio. I have seen innumerable Photoshop users. Never once, not even one, Affinity Photo user. See how stupid that argument is? By your own logic you shouldn't bother with Affinity photo.

More people at my studio use Linux over Windows than they do Affinity Photo over Photoshop. What does that tell you? Absolutely nothing because it's anecdotal and not an average userbase. Stop trolling in here.

The most frontend/backend developers use Linux for their work. In fact, many web frameworks and tools will not even run properly in Windows or OSX. This is especially true of Windows without WSL. In the development space, Linux is the dominant platform.
These same developers do edit photos and vectors for their projects. This is especially true for frontend developers who frequently need to create or modify assets. I suspect this would be the largest professional audience for Affinity's products on Linux. I do not think it is a small market -- especially for Affinity Designer.
For sure, it's not as large a market as Windows/Mac, but it's not being shared with Adobe. When, you take this penetration into account, I would not be surprised if Affinity sold more copies of Designer on Linux than on other platforms.

it's a good point that there are various bugs. I find it to be a bug that it outright doesn't run on the platform of choice. How is asking for Linux support any more or less important than all the other requests around the forum? As I mentioned to other people here, I don't need Mac support, I dont care for being able to edit raw, so I don't care about the bugs for that platform or feature yet I don't go to bug reports and request threads for those things and complain about how much I don't need it... So why people are coming in this thread complaining that they don't use linux is beyond me lol. I do find it peculiar that people are so against requests that have nothing to do with them and don't affect them at all.

Anyways, Linux is many peoples platform of choice and there's no decent image editing applications, so it's understandable that we'd want the newest, freshest image editing application to begin it's life with a cross platform foundation. Lets face it, Affinity Photo is far from finished or complete and the longer Serif wait, the more work it'll be to get it working on Linux. I'd argue it was a mistake on Serifs part not to develop Affinity to be cross platform from the very beginning. It's not like it's impossible... Plenty of other software out there that works on Mac, Windows and Linux alike. I'd like to hear what Serif have to say about this anyway, more than negative nelly hobbyists who are angry that Linux exists.

Looks like this thread went somewhere else entirely.
If you aren't interested in using linux/affinity software on linux, just ignore this thread and stop looking for people to argue with.
As for affinity products on linux, A LOT of users(including me) would love to see them on linux and PAY for them just like every other
commercial platform doesn't matter the OS being used.
There are more than enough web developers, graphic designers and regular users that are using linux and need a better solution
that the currently available design software.
If someone from the affinity team is here, I would suggest making a survey to see some real numbers and post about it on twitter where a lot
of potential users are.
After that, maybe they can consider doing a linux version.

1% of the total desktop users does not equate to 1% of Serif's target demographic. Serif makes design software, not a universal application like a web browser, so you should be taking into account only Serif's potential customers in this argument, and not the entirety of computer users. The number of creative professionals that use (or want to use) Linux is higher than the total population.
The thing is, we don't know exactly what Serif's target demo is. If Serif is only interested in taking current Adobe users (who are ipso facto only Windows and Mac users), then yes, making a Linux version makes no sense. But I would assume that Serif is interested in more than Adobe's current customers that need design software: students, UI designers, front-end developers, film editors, 3D animators, software developers, and marginalized creatives.
I don't know what their target demo is, but I what Serif to know that there are designers who work in software development that want Affinity applications available in Linux, even moreso in web design. I know people who work in animation who would give anything to use something besides The GIMP at work because their 3D pipeline is Linux (Pixar, WDAS).
As someone who has a graphic design degree, who is currently working on 3D assets, does web design and front-end development as part of their job, I'm in Linux for 70% of my day. I spend $323 USD annually on software that I run in Linux (no VM, no WINE). It fluctuates every year, but this year I donated €40 to open-source software that I use in Linux and Windows. Not technically commercial software, but it's software I use commercially, and I gave them my money. That sounds like a business to me. It shows that if it was not open source, I would have paid at least that much money for the software. So abso-freaking-lutely, successful commercial Linux software exists.
Again, I get it. Serif might not care about large film or animation studios. They may not care about software developers. But I think it is the right of customers, and potential customers, to let Serif know that there's a need for it. So instead of pretending to know what Serif's demo is, accept that there is demand for it. The argument that an electric car shouldn't be made because not enough electric cars have been made doesn't make sense to me.

Also, if Serif ever develops a Linux version, please do it with Flatpak. Snap is pain with custom cursors, themes, and is very slow. However, at flatpak, for custom themes, there is stylepak, and for custom cursors, you just have to override cursors in the terminal.

As people have pointed out there are so many commercial applications that are on linux and are used. I use the Substance suite, Blender and Unity, which are my softwares of choice, but forced to use gimp/krita which aren't my choice. It's a mixed bag of FOSS and commercial. I think a lot of people consider Linux as a whole some kind of anti-consumer, anti-commercial, anti-paid software OS for hobbyist programmers with tinfoil hats but it's absolutely not like that. Linux is just one of three options that happens to be FOSS where the other two aren't (being FOSS is a good thing, not bad). Boggles my mind that it's even an argument for some people. 

'Hey Serif, stop working on the iOS version of Affinity because most people don't even use it and it's wasting resources that could be put toward the OS I use!' 

What you're describing is not a reason for serif not to support linux, but in fact the problem caused by developers like serif for not supporting it. And as I mentioned before, again, is a bad argument in general. Most people use photoshop, so why bother developing affinity photo? Most people use windows, so why use linux? it makes no sense.

It's a self fulfilling prophecy. Not making Affinity photo for linux is the reason no one uses affinity photo on linux.

Also just as a side note, many schools use cheap or free software alternatives... Including linux. This is likely because schools tend to not want to use up all their budget on expensive software and thats great, in fact it should be encouraged. 

Understanding that the reason for there being a small fraction of users is key here. There's not many users because software developers like Serif aren't making the software for users on the platform. I think I've maybe mentioned this for a third time now, but developers not making software because of lack of users because of the lack of software from developers is a *stupid* reason not to make software for a certain platform. Linux is the superior OS compared to windows and the only thing holding it back is lack of software developer support. Of course people are more likely to use an OS when  the software they want to use is on it, and of course people aren't going to use an OS if the software they use is not on it.

So the answer to the problem is for the developers of software to support linux. It's not like linux is a limited OS like chomeOS. It's not limited to only some hardware. It'll only bring in more customers for serif.

Honestly until Linux has the software support from devs like serif it's pointless even comparing numbers, of course there is a lack of customers on linux right now, because there's nothing for them to buy yet.

No, I just don't like seeing people in this forum going into other peoples requests threads and basically saying they don't want said request to come to fruition because it doesn't affect them directly. Like I said, I don't go round complaining that Serif are so focused on the Mac version of the software when I don't use a mac, why would someone else complain about a linux version just because they don't use linux? It makes no sense to come into this topic with negativity toward the request. I'd go as far as to say it's pretty spiteful and selfish. "I don't edit raw images, why are serif wasting their time on improving that feature when I don't even need it!" 

You could go as far as to say there's only one major desktop OS, windows. because thats where pretty much every is, right? Who cares about having a mac version, right? Heck why are Serif wasting their time on affinity at all? everyone should just use photoshop, because thats what the majority of people use. Who needs options, right?

Well everyone is entitled to their opinions no matter how wrong. Windows, Mac and Linux are the three major OS's. Linux might be dominant in other areas, like how pretty much the majority of phones, supercomputers and servers are running linux, and in that sense sure you can say "it's not a major desktop OS" in that most people use Windows and the rest of the share goes to Mac then finally Linux... But it's still one of the three major OS's and it runs faster and more secure than windows. Literally the only reason the vast majority use Windows over Linux is;

1) basically all computers that aren't mac come with windows preinstalled and most people aren't bothered about changing their OS
2) most software runs on windows because developers make software for windows, because thats where the majority of users are (which is also partly the reason people stick to windows, it's really unhealthy relationship. Devs dont make software for linux because not many use linux because devs don't make software for linux, which is a stupid cycle)

There is nothing Linux can't do that windows can in theory. People *should* be using the fastest, most secure OS (linux), but people just use what they're handed to them which is windows most of the time. Thankfully this is starting to change. Steamdeck and all steam machines run linux, there are a few brands of pc that come preinstalled with linux most notably System76, which is kind of the apple of the linux world https://system76.com/desktops

So yea, just because you don't use linux doesn't mean it's not in the running. It *is* used by a lot of people, creatives and developers mostly at the moment, gamers secondly and slowly but surely, every day, non-tech-savvy people. Take a look at POP OS. it comes installed of the system76 computers and it's extremely user friendly, so much so that I'd actually set up my grandma a POP_OS pc than a windows pc. It's far more user friendly than windows, far more secure than windows, far *faster* than windows, can do all the normal, every day things people need just like windows can, but without the telemetry and bloatware. The only thing holding Linux back in this case is that developers for niche stuff like what we do need to start developing software for us to use on linux.

Anyway, your comment doesn't help anyone. If you don't use Linux and you don't have a need for affinity photo on linux fine, just don't make anti-comments. I don't use Mac OS but I'm not going to sit here and complain that Serif are wasting time on the Mac version of the software even though like 90% of people use windows. Linux support is being requested because people want it.

It's much like Photopea I suppose, though I really *really* don't want to have to use photoshop in web browser just because adobe and affinity are being equally stubborn about supporting only 2/3 of the major OS's. It's sad that affinity doesn't even work through wine... 

I do have a question for the affinity staff though, what would it take for you guys to be convinced that Linux is a good platform for affinity suite?

I use the OS every day. I know I use it, because it has simple use cases we take for granted. For example, you've likely forgotten how often you just Ctrl+Alt+Delete into a Task Manager or Alt+Tab Tab Tab to the next window or hitting the windows key and immediately typing what you want to find. They are windows things that become a habit. I have already noticed that I try to Swing my mouse cursor to the left top of the screen... On the windows work computer (on Linux Gnome it brings an overview of all opened apps and workspaces). Still using windows at work every day, but it's been eating my brains out for a year now and the fact that it's so incorporated in every-day application use is scary, because I have to admit that I'm still being dependent on it... When I hate it.

On Linux my creative work load consists of Blender, Davinci Resolve and would be Affinity, then there's the other load consisting of VS Code - Web Designer. So not always using Design Apps, but still a Designer. I also make use of Computer hardware for playing games. Blender and Affinity are 30% incorporated in my daily work, the rest are creative hobbies and starting to freelance. I'm no big shot painter who ONLY uses ancient elephant tooth-fiber hair for their work or else they may not get the perfect stroke, so I can live without Affinity. Like I lived without Adobe for a while until stumbling upon Affinity. I just don't want to switch again and don't want to wrestle the damn windows updates anymore for some better FPS and render times. I'm limited, which brings me to your 2nd line. 60 Is a lot for me and the cancellation fee with adobe was GOD DAMN 360 EUROS when I couldn't pay the 60! Damn hated adobe for that. Pay was irregular, no freelance jobs at the time, 60 was a month of food. Pay is better now, but I'm still living in low standards, so I have to keep my spending in check. I can afford to pay adobe the 60, but then I'm trapped again. One person and three programs. I mostly end up opening one program a day, but I find use in all three over the month, so it's not ideal or good enough to go back.

 

@wonderings@Pufty Yeah, I agree with you. I'm not saying there's great design talent in copying the Mac & Windows themes. There really is other original UI designs out there that are better and get out of the user's way. (I just picked the most recent example which probably isn't the best) - Also it's hard to capture how an OS feels to use simply with screenshots.
Ubuntu / PopOS (The og OS. One of the most supported and customizable OS's with its extensions and tweaks. I didn't warm up to it at the beginning coming from MacOS but it's grown on me.)
InstantOS (focusing on snappy keyboard driven interface for power users)
HaikuOS (A little retro, kinda cute, looks and functions different to most)
FerenOS (Feels quite nice, modern, yet familar, quite smooth and functional)
TinyCoreOS (Probably the smallest modern GUI OS)
There's this other weird one that's the most original OS ever but the worst to use! LOL. But it was amazingly light and fast for a graphic intensive OS. The only thing it had going.
Pling OS Themes has 51,078 UI themes there! Some are copies, some are very different and experimental. Some are really cool.
There's tonnes more of course. And I'm not just talking about the tool bar, dock, file manager. I'm guessing most people on a thread about linux is a linux user and has probably distro-hopped right?
Also saying that apart from the cool alternatives, which might scare aware new users to gnu/linux, there is the Mac/Win clones to ease people in. And making the point that g'linux is so damn customizable, it's like a UI buffet!
.....
Sorry, were we supposed to be talking about Affinity on Linux? What more can be said?
 

A +1 here for the Linux crowd. I Main POP!_OS and the only image manipulation applications worthy are Krita and Gimp... A proper package like the affinity line would be a hit IMO. Linux is no longer for the one or two nerds in the crowd, it's becoming more and more mainstream. 

If the developers need a reason, I would like to use Affinity as an example. Windows is the current King, so why use Linux? Photoshop is the current King, so why use Affinity Photo? The similarities are great IMO. A solid alternative OS deserves a solid alternative photo editing package. And just look at how professional this OS is, and how lovely Affinity would look on this! (screenshot from my pc)

So yea, I think there's a market for it and a hefty gap that Affinity could jump into as well. Substance Designer/Painter, Blender, Unity engine, Maya, Unreal engine etc etc they all have native linux versions.
 

I know you've already been quote-hammered on this, but I feel like adding my own two cents into the mix.
Linux's open sourceness is something of an aside. Yeah, you do have a fair number of FOSS zealots flying the ideological flag over the penguin, but when you get right down to it, it's just an OS, same as Windows and MacOS. There is no requirement that all software released on an open source OS has to be open sourced itself. Anyone can put whatever they want on Linux, proprietary or not.

Here is one more vote for "Affinity for Linux", especially when it comes to Publisher. When I look at what's going on with Windows 11, I see one more good reason for me to switch to Linux, at the latest when Win 10 support will expire.
However, there's mainly one thing keeping me "locked-in" so far: There's no Linux version of Affinity, and the range of DTP alternatives for Linux is terribly narrow. With Affinity running on Linux, it would be much easier to shut Windows down on my PCs finally.
So, if Affinity and the penguin will become friends (I hope they will), keep a licence ready for me.

I have used WinApps for a while (with 16Gb of RAM), when I needed my Affinity suite for small graphic works on a big project that required me to be on linux. It does not crash and work fairly well, until you try to do stuff. Then you realize that the interface is really slow and barely usable when you need to display several elements (which is a common case) : adding a point to a curve could take from half a second (blank page) to a few minutes (big file). I ended up switching OS again as it was more efficient…
It looks like the display relies a lot on hardware acceleration (and that makes sense), a feature that is in most cases unavailable on virtual machines. Unless you have a dedicated second graphic card for your virtual machine (which is not common and requires specific hardware and setup), forget about it. More dedicated RAM/CPU won’t make it more usable.

WinApps is a great option for cpu-based softwares (I have used it for Rhino3D almost flawlessy), for Affinity apps it requires too much hardware and power to be reasonably considered as a viable option in my opinion.

For years I've been wanting to move off Windows and onto Linux, but without pro apps for a graphic designer, I can't. I understand the chicken and egg situation - No designers using Linux because there's no apps for them. There are no apps for them because all the graphic designers are using Windows/Mac.
I truely do not care what OS I'm using. I started on Macs and loved the interface, but moved to Windows because Mac's hardware stopped giving me ports and storage. (When you live in Africa, we can't just fit in with first world thinking of "everything in the cloud" and just connect wirelessly. We barely have electricity, let alone always-on highsleed, affordable broadband) It was a hardware decision not an OS preference. I support Affinity because I've always been a sucker for the under dog. It's as much of a poke in Adobe's eye as it is a better financial choice. (I suspect that's the case for many Affinity users).
I apply the same attitude to Linux. It's the under dog and want to support it.
I don't even care what distro I have to use. If Affinity announced that their apps only ran on one speciffic Linux distro, eg: Mint KDE, I would choose that distro as my Linux OS. If they chose Manjaro or Suse... done.
Side note... I'd support a kickstarter fund - even if it's to guage the financial viability of Linux support.

I use Linux every day as a programmer and web designer. I have already bought all Affinity products, but unfortunately I have to boot the Windows partition in order to be able to use them. So far I have failed with wine, I could still install vmware or virtualbox, but that is somehow not very satisfactory. In short, I'm already a paying customer and I use Linux 99% of the time. I would be very happy if Affinity products would run on Linux.