[Affinity for Linux]

4 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

So why can Linus Torvalds, of all people, not RELIABLY get his software to run on Linux?

He can. He did. He is lazy. He didn't want to compile for 10 distro's. He found a solution in AppImage. Modeled after MacOS .dng.

[Affinity for Linux]

1 minute ago, LondonSquirrel said:

The final refuge of the Linux defender, warts and all, is the reference to FUD.

Or it's just the definition of what you're doing right now: spreading negativity while showing clear lack of understanding and ignoring the relevant parts of people who are trying to educate you towards more objective and uptodate ideas, even though your demeanor is straying.

[Affinity for Linux]

42 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

For example in Windows, there are the various versions of the C++ runtimes which can be installed. These are entirely separate from any application which depends on them.

For everyone else that's reading: Don't get rattled by this FUD.

Flatpak, the next generation of AppImage, works the same as described above. You can install multiple versions of the same components in Flatpak, and every other Flatpak can load them when needed.

AppImage just works everywhere. Flatpak is the same but allows separating often shared libraries. The latter is only beneficial if you are frugal about storage space. The former is beneficial if you don't care and want it to just work no matter what. Packaging one or the other is as simple as adding a line to your build script. For that reason, many software (e.g. the Non-Linear video Editor KdenLive) publish both, so people can choose.

[Affinity for Linux]

1 hour ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Even Linus Torvalds could not find a reliable way to distribute Linux software without a third-party kludge. I rest my case.

It is an open source component. The entirety of Linux consists of open source components made by multiple parties. By calling it a third-party kludge, you indulge yourself to a mind trick that can be utilized to criticize every single Linux component.

Let's Torvalds directly: I finally got around to play with the "AppImage" version of +Subsurface, and it really does seem to 'just work'.

An AppImage is a self-mounting filesystem image conceptually like a macOS .dmg file. So if it's good enough for OSX, you're just really bending backwards to criticize a good solution to an ancient problem.

Hohndel: [Mac got] this right. I control the libraries my app runs against. [...] With an AppImage I can give them just that. Something that runs on their computer.

[Affinity for Linux]

50 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

They never mention the 'shared object hell' on Linux. Wrong version of a library? Forget it, your software won't run.

Do people still make such an outdated argument and think they are contributing constructively to a discussion? AppImage has becoming increasingly popular in the last 15 years to solve this problem. Their portability became so popular that both Red Hat and Canonical made commercial versions 6 years ago. You get 33 officially supported distro's (and more unofficial) for the price of one.

[Affinity products for Linux]

40 minutes ago, wonderings said:

buy the computer that works with the software needed, not a computer for an OS that the software needed to do the job does not work on.

You're describing the current status quo. All the people in this topic do not like the status quo and are looking for ways to use their preferred OS.

If you want to understand the rationale here, try to empathize with the following: Many development tool chains are easier to use on Linux. For a long time tools like Docker didn't even work on Windows or OSX. Many developers left Windows for Linux, and in an attempt to keep these users in the Windows ecosystem, Microsoft invested $7.5 billion in Github, Mono, VS Code for Linux, WSL, WSL2, Linux kernel support etc, but it's still just not as nice as developing on Linux.

Perhaps big studios can have multiple dedicated computers with fulltime employees on them. But an Indie developer working from the living room dinner table does not want to buy two computers. They just want to do development and design on one computer, on one operating system. They often spend 80% of their time developing and 20% of their time in design, so Linux/development wins over Windows/design.

So they did buy a computer that works with 80% of the software needed. This topic is about the other 20%, more specifically Affinity Design and Affinity Photo. 

If it was the other way around, and 80% of their time was design, they might prefer a Windows computer in stead, but with this much usage, they would probably be justified in purchasing the expensive monthly Adobe CC subscription in stead of the more affordable Affinity suite.

Affinity is a more interesting indie developer option than Adobe. And Linux is a more interesting indie developer option than Windows. Therefore, Affinity should run on Linux.

[Affinity for Linux]

3 hours ago, ekalb52 said:

isn't Mac OS 10+ really Linux?

No. Mac OS X is officially Unix, and GNU/Linux is not. (GNU's Not Unix). So while some basics share a common ancestor, the higher level stuff needed to make an app today is very different.

More importantly, I suppose OS X software uses the Metal API where the art board needs to be implemented in the Vulkan or OpenGL API on Linux.

As for the interface, I assume that it also uses a Mac OS specific toolkit. So pretty much everything needs to be re-implemented, except for the render core, which the Affinity team explained is platform independent already, and likely shared between the Windows and the Mac OS X version.

[Affinity for Linux]

24 minutes ago, Mark Ingram said:

Basically all that post did was highlight the concerns that we have, that people outright reject the concept of paid software on Linux.

One last quote: This made me think of that Hiri commercial email client.

Quote

Hiri says it didn’t initially consider Linux support. They assumed that Linux users wouldn’t want to pay for software.

Indeed, some early feelers put on Reddit reinforced this hesitation, with the general paid software = bad mantra in full flow.

“Linux users got in touch to see if we had any plans to support Linux. We gave them [an early alpha]. the users stuck around. Not only did they stick around, they gave us thoughtful feedback and were willing to send logs etc. to help us squash bugs. (...)

We learned that the more we were willing to support the community, the more willing they were to invest the product – with feedback and a bit of cash.”

And the efficiency of Snaps made it even easier still.

The result: Hiri’s gamble paid off.

The company now has a “very healthy stream of revenue from Linux users” according to Power, who adds that Linux “are a pleasure to deal with compared to others. They just love this stuff.”

https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/07/linux-users-are-more-valuable-customers

[Affinity for Linux]

3 minutes ago, Mark Ingram said:

Yeah I'd definitely be interested in seeing how many users we had via WINE!

There are certain places you can check to see if your Windows program is running on WINE. Perhaps there are more modern methods.

1. ntdll.dll:wine_get_version
2. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine
3. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wine

I have no idea how simple/complex the WINE problem is, so I don't know if we can expect WINE to work soon or never. But if you can build some checks now, they will already be there once WINE starts to work with Affinity products.

[Affinity for Linux]

2 minutes ago, Mark Ingram said:

On Linux however, we don't know if there are going to be enough people willing to pay for the software, to fund the development. i.e. what's the _potential_ market size of photo editing on Linux? (It has to be potential, because the current market size is zero).

Basically all that post did was highlight the concerns that we have, that people outright reject the concept of paid software on Linux.

Fair enough. That's why we hope to get the WINE support. I would recommend a WINE check in your software though, so you can gather telemetry on how many users run your Windows version on Linux. You'll get an insight for free. You may notice that there aren't enough Linux users and your suspicions were right. You may even want to share the percentages after a year or two, to stop this discussion with some statistics as opposed to suspicions from both sides.

[Affinity for Linux]

40 minutes ago, Mark Ingram said:

 

59 minutes ago, Snapseed said:

I get the impression that a subsection of Linux users want software to be both open source and no cost so that they do not have to pay anything or donate anything.

Exactly that. And that's exactly why apps and games aren't flocking to the Linux desktop.

There is indeed a subsection of Linux users, just like there is a very big subsection of Windows users that use pirated software for the same reason. This thread is a testament to the Linux users that do want to pay, and even indicated wanting to pay double.

Linux users are willing to pay most compared to Mac and Windows users. Please focus on those users.

[Affinity for Linux]

11 minutes ago, m.vlad said:

Oh well, this went as well as I would've expected. 

Sometimes I don't understand why sincere attempts like this actually get downvoted. I understand that people who don't care don't upvote, but downvoting? That's actively thwarting something potentially good for Linux. Perhaps some of us can upvote this. I just upvoted. You can find the tread in r/linux when searching for the title ("Getting a good design app working on linux").

Remember, do not post a direct link to the thread. Reddit removes/shadowbans threads that get too many votes through a referral link.

[Affinity for Linux]

2 hours ago, Michael Tunnell said:

What incentive is there for a community campaign to support a proprietary piece of software that has no interest in supporting the platform? (...)

Why would WINE be interested in that without Serif's involvement?

Because that's precisely what WINE is all about. 

[Affinity for Linux]

9 minutes ago, Michael Tunnell said:

If Serif truly wants to know how many people are interested and if it is worth doing they should just ask the question to the Linux community. I have a podcast with a decent sized audience so I could get the word out of them asking the question but I do need them to ask the question and provide a way for Linux users to answer it.

I don't think Serif has interest at this point in time, but we have interest in getting Wine support. So if you have a decent sized audience, you could offer them the WineHQ voting experiment and see if they want to help vote Affinity Photo to the top of the list. 😃

You could tell them about the community effort to get attention from the Wine team, not Serif.

[Affinity for Linux]

If we can seriously get 150 people to cast 3 votes for Affinity Photo, then the next 150 people can vote for Affinity Designer and they'll both be the top two.

Keep in mind that this is an interesting experiment (Thanks @Bez Bezson, I didn't even know about that vote option) to get attention from wine devs checking the list. It is not a guarantee that someone will fix the wine problems.

[Affinity for Linux]

 

6 hours ago, Bez Bezson said:

Okay, so Serif aren't keen on giving us a dedicated Linux version, but lets see if we can get it Wine compatible.

If you go here;  https://appdb.winehq.org/  and create a login, then you can vote on what apps you want Wine fixed to work with.

Once you're logged in, search for Affinity and if you go into either of those there should be a 'vote' button. You have three votes, and you can give multiple votes to the same app if you want.

The more votes we can give Affinity, the more likely it is to get fixed for Wine.

Let's give this a try. Cast votes for the latest reported version. We only need 407 votes to be at the top of the list.

[Affinity products for Linux]

 

6 hours ago, Bez Bezson said:

Okay, so Serif aren't keen on giving us a dedicated Linux version, but lets see if we can get it Wine compatible.

If you go here;  https://appdb.winehq.org/  and create a login, then you can vote on what apps you want Wine fixed to work with.

Once you're logged in, search for Affinity and if you go into either of those there should be a 'vote' button. You have three votes, and you can give multiple votes to the same app if you want.

The more votes we can give Affinity, the more likely it is to get fixed for Wine.

Let's give this a try. Cast votes for the latest reported version. We only need 407 votes to be at the top of the list.

[Affinity for Linux]

On 2/17/2021 at 4:52 PM, Mark Ingram said:

We use Direct3D11 for rendering the document, Direct2D for rendering the tool layer, and now, optionally, OpenCL for hardware acceleration. These should all be things that Wine can cope with, so I'm unsure why there would be a specific problem with artboards. If someone from the Wine project wants to reach out and discuss it with me, I'd be happy to talk.

Thank you Mark. 

If I understand correctly, the thing that is stopping Affinity products from opening the art board is a special version of Vulkan child window rendering (VkChildWindow), and it affects DxO PhotoLab and Autodesk Fusion 360 too. This issue is tracked in this bug: https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=45277

I'm not sure that is the whole story, but it makes sense to see what happens after that bug is fixed first.

After that, if there are more Affinity specific bugs, what would be the best way for a developer to contact you?

[Affinity for Linux]

19 minutes ago, Mark Ingram said:

Unfortunately, $70,000 really wouldn't justify the development of 3 apps on a new OS.

But how about putting some small developer resources in figuring out why Wine stops working? You could use the telemetry to see how many people are running on Wine.

Copied from other thread:

On 1/31/2021 at 3:24 PM, Redsandro said:

Serif could put some small developer resources in figuring out why Wine stops with initializing the art board. There are multiple solutions for OpenGL, DirectX, Vulkan etc out there that might get this to work without much development cost. You'll either find out the solution is simple or complex. Isn't it a risk worth taking?

They could even list an AppImage for Linux containing Wine and the Windows version on their downloads page and call it a courtesy release without support. Wouldn't this be low hanging fruit for Serif?

 

[Affinity for Linux]

33 minutes ago, Mark Ingram said:

I think that's a pretty good summary unfortunately. I say unfortunately, because I'm a big Linux fan, and as I work here, I just can't imagine how we could justify the (initial and ongoing) development costs. 

Hi Mark,

Do you also still read the other topic?

  

On 1/29/2021 at 7:54 PM, Redsandro said:

I remember years ago [Affinity] rejected the idea [of WINE] because they don't want a slow and bad user experience, but as people have since pointed out, Wine (and sometimes Proton) cause apps to run at near native speed. Sometimes (in the case of Vulkan) even faster than their native Windows counterparts. Has someone from Affinity addressed the idea of working towards Wine compatibility, now that they have a correct idea of what Wine performance is like?

 

[Affinity products for Linux]

12 hours ago, jpintos said:

If Serif open a presale (like a kickstarter crow funding) selling a Linux Version and supossing they raise i don know.... $500.000 (i don't know what number could be profitable to make a Linux Version) and if the goal is not raised the money is back and do nothing.

Affinity had already responded to this idea a year or two ago and rejected this.

The last suggestion from the community that does not have a fully informed response is to work around the Wine incompatibility (and perhaps package a Wine-loaded appImage to offer on the download page). Perhaps they can consider a fundraiser for investigating the wine incompatibility.

[Affinity products for Linux]

19 hours ago, VectorVictor said:

Serif could use this as a marketing and PR move

Yes, it's an interesting thought.

Serif could put some small developer resources in figuring out why Wine stops with initializing the art board. There are multiple solutions for OpenGL, DirectX, Vulkan etc out there that might get this to work without much development cost. You'll either find out the solution is simple or complex. Isn't it a risk worth taking?

They could even list an AppImage for Linux containing Wine and the Windows version on their downloads page and call it a courtesy release without support. Wouldn't this be low hanging fruit for Serif?

[Affinity products for Linux]

1 hour ago, zeknoss said:

imagine it runs with nearly native performance with the minimal effort from Affinity.

Affinity could detect Wine and see how many people actually run it on Linux.

With those non-speculative statistics, they can decide whether or not it's worth it to develop a native Linux version.

Remind me, did someone from the Affinity staff address the idea of getting it running on Wine? I remember years ago they rejected the idea because they don't want a slow and bad user experience, but as people have since pointed out, Wine (and sometimes Proton) cause apps to run at near native speed. Sometimes (in the case of Vulkan) even faster than their native Windows counterparts. Has someone from Affinity addressed the idea of working towards Wine compatibility, now that they have a correct idea of what Wine performance is like?

I mean, Affinity, are you still reading this? Look at a recent benchmark.

[Affinity products for Linux]

12 minutes ago, wonderings said:

It is not an argument.

Exactly, it's a non-argument with a high degree of "duh", and literally no one thinks what you are saying and repeating. It's a textbook straw man, and it doesn't bring any value to this topic. You are giving the impression of refuting an argument, whereas the proper idea of argument under discussion was not addressed.

Most people here ask for a Linux version. Others even plead for a Linux version. Some argue that a Linux version would be a good economic decision, and part of them indicate that they would be willing to pre-pay, crowdfund, or even pay double or more.

No one actually believes Serif owes them anything. That includes you. They don't owe you(r preferred OS) their undivided attention. So let's keep this topic a place where people can join to indicate their shared wish for a Linux version in order to show Serif that there is actually a desire for this. A place where we can discuss possible deployment platforms and distro support.

Quote

[FAQ] Affinity on Linux?

We won't rule out making a Linux version of Affinity in the future if the right Linux distro comes along with a reliable deployment platform that will allow us to recoup our development cost for the Linux version.

 

[Affinity products for Linux]

5 hours ago, wonderings said:

Software developers do not owe you or the Linux community anything.

  

On 11/24/2020 at 6:18 PM, wonderings said:

This is a business and they owe nothing to anyone.

 

On 9/9/2020 at 5:54 PM, wonderings said:

They do not owe the Linux community anything

 

This must be the most ignorant and useless waste of time line of arguments to ever appear in request for Linux support ever.