Chills

The problem is that you show Linux as a single thing. It actually looks like the diagram below, and that is only a partial one. 

 



 
Before someone asks about Windows, here it is. Note that all the Linux above also have multiple versions in each line. SO effectively Windows is only the same as two of the Linux Lines above. Ie Desktop and Server.  I assume we understand Windows CE or embedded isn't going to be an affinity target.   To be fair the Mac OS line in the UNIX family tree will also look a bit like the Windows one below though less so.  Whilst Apple has changed CPU they only tend to support one at a time and unlike Windows backwards compatibility, Apple only support a very limited number of older versions of the same OS thread. .  

 

There’s already no official release! What are you waiting for?

There is no Windows religion. It is just a work horse that is there, and the vast majority of  desktop business and home users use it. (over 80%?)  It is a tool that is comparable with "everyone else".   For most they don't care.    There are faults with it, as there are with everything like this.   But it just works on almost any hardware you throw at it and "everyone" does drivers and apps for it.  IT is what it is.
Macs do have more of a Fan-boy element became of the style and Apple cultivating it. Besides, people need to justify spending a lot more on a mac than a comparable PC.  MACs were more reliable because Apple controls the whole infrastructure. That said,  the shine has come off Apple of late due to changes in the way it works.  Also this wasn't helped by Adobe having a change of business model at a similar time. So many were reassessing their position.

Linux on the other hand has a very small part of the desktop market, usually only in certain sectors and its users shout many , many times louder than 90% of the Windows users. (most of whom couldn't give a monkey's)  The Linux users start shouting their user base has doubled...  From infinitesimal to insignificant and wonder why companies are not rushing to support linuxes

Linus Torvld has explained many times why Linux is not going to work as a mainstream desktop.... there are penalty of videos of him explaining it at conferences over the last decade. The other more significant reason: that he has talked about and got savaged by Linux people, is how the kernel is patched.  This coupled with how distributions are done make it a non-starter for most apps.

I have worked in computing for over 35 years, mainly on critical systems, and seen the problem people have with Linux. I Work with a company that supplies dev tools.  If you are working with Linux as a target the at a 10% surcharge as a line item because Linux is such a mess to support.  That is the commercial reality.   This is why the Linux is a region. Its devotees don't seem to understand economics or business. 

There is a business case for Linux but it is not as a desktop OS.

 

I honestly can't see that happening and Linux's market share must very significantly improve first before any company will consider porting over their software products to Linux. Until then, it's either a VM or Wine or switching over to the Linux cousin that is macOS. 
 

While each individual V2 installer is larger (for various reasons) than the each individual V1 installer, the individual installed V2 applications can be much smaller than the individual installed V1 applications because the V2 applications share a lot more of their ‘internals’ as a common installation.
Or, to put that another way, three installed V2 applications should take up less installed disk space than three V1 applications, when they have a similar amount of user-generated/installed content (brushes, assets, etc.).
This also mean that updating the V2 applications is quicker than updating the V1 applications as the ‘common stuff’ installed by the first update to a particular version of one application can be ‘passed over’ when updating the other applications to the same version.

With respect, I have been a 100% Linux user for years but even I recognise that huge barrier to more software being adapted for Linux is its low market share, 4%, compared with macOS's 14% market share. That makes it economically viable to produce software for macOS but not yet for Linux.
If you wish to do something constructive then be a Linux conversion evangelist and show people how good Linux is to help improve its market share.

What a pointless remark, and communicated in a way most will not understand.
 

On a factual point, you are wrong.  Having spent 30 years in critical systems, whilst it runs web servers Linux is not used in critical systems, in fact 178C and 61508 prohibit it.
Second factually, and most non-technical people make this mistake, Linux is NOT a UNIX.  Linux and UNIX are both POSIX API OS there are dozens of POSIX API OS and RTOS out there that are architecturally very different.,   What you are suggesting is that a Bentley Continental and a model T-Ford are the same bcause they both have 4 wheels and are painted black.
BTX I do know a couple of critical systems using Linux, but that is because they have done very heavy static and dynamic testing of the source, and it is a much modified Linux that is not publicly available.

That is why I moved form Adobe.
However, this does not mean anyone is going to jump OS if there are other tools available on their current OS, which there are.

Your argument starts with personal insults and them waffle. Nothing solid.

That is true for the professionals in the design, advertising and printing business. That said, I for example am not a professional. Far from it. I am just one of those numerous casual users who are happy that there is an affordable alternative to the Adobe subscription nonsense. And at the same time, I am a Linux user, too. So a Linux version of Affinity would be great for me and all the others who want to make the change towards Linux.

I wish you luck, as I agree with your comments regarding Microsoft.
However, as I'm not sure it will happen given the previous responses, wouldn't it be more worthwhile trying to aim for more organisation and focus in the FOSS community and to come up with a plan to fill the holes where creative-focused software is lacking on Linux?  The first step would be to have a clear plan of what's needed on Linux, the next step would be to discuss methods of obtaining grants and other funding to make it happen.
 

I am against Affinity apps on Linux as it is hard to guess what distribution should be supported. They are too many here. If you choose Ubuntu what about Red Hat Linux or other? I will be open thread about simulation using for example Wine and if it easy to implement suggest developers what can they do to open this option. Sometimes adding simple specification or answering internal question can add new experience here.
I don't see point supporting Linux on the first place as the most common platform for graphics developers are Windows and MacOS. I use all Affinity apps on both. I don't see any real advantage of Linux on place MacOS if I want MacOS experience. I'm separating from Open Source matter as it is taste matter. Except ideological reason like paid walls and some advantage for very power users (like customisation of OS) free of charge is not deal breaker when some hardware like Loupdeck is not native supported on Linux and if you have bad luck anyway you can not move full experience from MacOS and Windows. It is reality.
I think the best at the end is platform what is more comfortable for you to use because flexibility. If you choose Linux I respect that. My opinion is simply move to part how run Affinity apps using existing projects like wine and start pointing what is needed to run it better as the best compromise here.

Before I go any further, I am a long term Linux user and I would very much like to see the Affinity product range be ported over to Linux. However, that's not going to happen until the Linux user base grows to match that of macOS. Only then will it become viable to economically port over the Affinity products to Linux.
In the meantime, anyone can use the Affinity products on a Linux computer via the virtual machine technique as set out by Hartmut Doering below (which conveniently does away with the need for a dual boot situation):

While those statistics are interesting, the Linux market share will have to be more like 14.31% before software companies will start to sit up and take notice of potential Linux customers (and I say this as a content long term Linux user).

Is this of any use?
It is "Install Affinity apps (Designer / Photo) on Debian Linux"

It comes down to one thing: Money. Do the sales outweigh the development cost? If not, it's a no go in any business. 
Linux is fine, and I have it on a VM, but we all know that half the people on linux are there because they don't like to pay, which makes it even harder to justify, even if you had enough people who wanted the program. Designers, for the most part, are not building computers and putting Linux on.

As you say: Affinity have no plans to do a Linux version.
I am sorry if reality (both the engineering and the commercial sides) upsets people.
I will leave you to it. 
 

I can't produce sources right now, but this is referring to interviews with Serif staff and leadership that were published before the iPad proof of concept versions were shown. The near infinite zoom and tiled rendering feature from their floating point precision rendering system in Designer seems to have come from this project. As far as I remember, the decision to develop an Adobe competitor on top of that engine was made then, and that was the start of Designer for Mac.
But I'm sure someone from the dev team could give you a much more comprehensive answer.
The Windows versions use mainly .NET for the system specific parts whereas the Plus range used C++. What you describe might just be as simple as some component of .NET Framework relying on a different DirectX version than for example the Affinity renderer. Unlike the Plus range, the Affinity apps use a shared core and everything was developed on top of that, most likely from scratch, judging from all the stack traces I have seen after something crashed. Also keep in mind that modern DirectX, Vulkan, Metal etc. wasn't even around or at least not used when the Plus range was in active development.
Again I cannot provide specific links off the top of my head, and I don't know how up to date that information is, but this has been what Adobe has communicated in the past about their overall user base. It might also vary quite a bit from region to region.
As I mentioned in this thread before, Photoshop product manager John Nack has on his blog also stated that the reason for Adobe not to go to Linux was not a lack of a market or user demand, but that it would only shift part of their existing user base to Linux instead of generating new sales and expanding their market, which seems to have been their strategy for quite some time now ("Photoshop Extended" was probably the first overt attempt at this even before subscriptions). Which makes sense – you just have to keep subscribers happy enough to not cancel, but if you want to grow the profits, you need to instead invest your resources into features that attract new customers or sell additional products (more cloud storage, stock photos, …).

You are calling me a "moron" whilst I have over 30 years of professional SW development and run Linux here (having been a user since before KDE).  What I am saying are the engineering and commercial reasons why your fantasies are unlikely to ever be fulfilled, BTW, a position supported by Linus Torvalds.  Also, Affinity have said there are no plans to have a Linux version.

If you want an adult conversation based on engineering and commercial reality, fine. If you just want to expand on fantasies, go ahead, but you will get called on them. People only call for other people to be banned when they have no coherent or substantive argument against them
 

If the mods see this, they may want to consider banning you from this discussion or at least issuing a warning, since it is unacceptable to call a fellow forum member a ‘moron’. Please read the forum guidelines.

OT: so has the Citron 2CV with restored ones going for over £10,000!!!  Which is nuts.
(I changed on a program about them last night, I assume the Trabi's have a similar following)

The only way I know of to run Affinity Photo well under Linux is using Windows in a virtual machine as per Hartmut Doering's useful advice below.
I can't see Serif Europe or other software providers making their products available for Linux until such time as desktop Linux's market share approaches that of macOS.

As someone who has been in the SW industry for over 30 years, I am giving you a dose of reality.
4% is not better than 0% when it costs you far more to develop and more on an ongoing basis than you can ever recover. 
It is a net cost, there is no gain.

Linux is NOT a "community dedicated to making things work and supporting one another"  as Linus has said many times, it is a very fractured and desperate group which is why there are thousands of different Linux Distributions all changing asynchronously usually with no predictable roadmap.   In fact, there have been steps to throw both Tovolds and Stallman out of FSF because the religious didn't like it when they told some home truths about the state of Linux development. Particularly in the Linux Kernel.
I don't hate Linux, I have two Linux machines running here at the moment (along with Windows PC's and Macs)  but having a degree (BSc) in computer operating systems I understand the internals of OS and RTOS.   None of them are perfect, but I don't have rose-tinted (or religious in the case of Linux) glasses when I look at them,

So like it or not reality is reality and the numbers don't add up for a Linux version of Affinity.
It is that simple no matter how loud you shout.

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