Renzatic

Yup. I was about to buy PL, but I couldn't shake the idea that I already own exactly what I want. It's just not in my preferred OS. So here I am, back in the world of janky font rendering, and clunky window management (seriously, why can't MS, with all the talent available to them, make task view animate smoothly), but all my preferred programs are immediately available. Wish I could have my cake, and eat it too. Best I can do for now is split the difference.

Well...uh...if you want to know a secret, I've since decided to dual boot. Not that this'll stop me from harassing people here for Affinity Linux.

The Topaz filters sound interesting, but otherwise it doesn't look like it does much beyond what Krita offers natively. Photoline, on the other hand, is actually pretty snazzy. Once I spent some time banging on the UI to make it a little nicer looking and easier to navigate, it's really good. It covers the things Krita falls short in, and does it all a lot faster. Course I'd still rather have Photo and Designer, but until that day comes when I can use them in Linux, PL will cover me quite nicely.

Paint.net is a fairly basic program, isn't it? Nowhere near what AP and Photoshop offer.

Thus far, I'm finding it feels like GIMP, if GIMP were actually good. Also, I love how the smudge brush is just called "finger."

I installed Photoline to see what it's all about. Seems pretty solid from what little I've seen, but man, that interface is like stepping back into 1998.

I wish I had some pots and pans to bang together here. I'd be all like *DANK* *DANK* *DANK* *DANK* *DANK* *DANK* *DANK* LINUX! LINNNUUUUUUUUXXXXX! *DANK* *DANK* *DANK* *DANK* *DANK* *DANK* ...and then I'd get my way.

Hey. Hey! Linux?

There are a lot of hoops you have to jump through to be able to vote on the WINE page, hence why even the most popular apps on the site have fairly low numbers. If you want a better example of how big the WINE scene actually is, it's better to hit up ProtonDB.

...I'm not allowed to say.

Yup. I've been checking on Akira for a bit now. Looks promising, but it's still very, very early days for it.

At the very least, it'll help grab the Wine dev's attention. Whether they do anything about it or not is up in the air.

You may call it lazy, but we call it what it is: BRUTAL LINGUISTIC EFFICIENCY! 😠 omg tmi olol

What else can we do except show our support? I guess there's always corporate espionage, though some people might consider that a bit rude.

I've already learned a bunch just from glancing around the site a bit. Thanks.

All I know is that Linux does almost everything I want it to do, but if I had my Affinity apps in among these windows, I'd be tickled freaking pink. You can do it, Mr. Ingram. You can convince your coworkers to make my computer life complete.

I've been dabbling with Linux about 4-5 years now. Been committed to it for about a month. For the most part, it's all a bunch of techy folk who like having full access to tweak their computers, always willing to help out someone who needs it. ...but on occasion, you'll be sitting there, minding your own business, when some guy who uses HURD pops up out of nowhere and tries to shiv you. They're rare, but they're around. I'm gonna guess that they're considering the unforeseen circumstances. Like say they run this campaign, get their funding, gather a ton of goodwill from the community. The hype is huge. Everyone's all stoked about getting a good Photoshop alternative on Linux. ...and after a year, they find they just can't get it to work. We have Affinity on Linux, but it's a janky, buggy mess. No one's happy. Feelings are hurt. Serif takes a hit to their PR. Now like I said, the chances of this happening are about slim to none. If they can get the program to work on Mac and Windows, they can get it to work on Linux with the same amount of time and effort. But considering how they're already pretty shy even talking about adding features to their already existing codebase unless they're 95% finished, and 99% certain it'll end up in the next point release, I imagine they spend a lot of time fretting over the what-if's, and probably wouldn't be too keen on throwing their support behind something they themselves aren't 100% sure of.

That's the more ideological stance on the matter, that information should always be free and easily accessable, and people should be allowed to view, tinker, contribute to, or delete everything on their computers. I can appreciate that stance, even though the absolute adherence thereto isn't all that important to me. I usually view the FOSS vs. proprietary debate from a nuts and bolt perspective, which I described above. In short, I like having the option to choose, and FOSS provides me with more than a few. That's the way I treat the whole affair. There's risk in the sense that it could lead to a potential PR nightmare if things don't go well. Yeah, it's pretty unlikely that the worst case scenario would come about if Serif were to go the crowdfunding route to gauge Linux support, but I can understand why they'd shy away from it a bit.

I see it as them being highly risk adverse. They're not doing what we want them to do out of spite or meanness. Rather, they're taking an overly cautious standpoint on the matter. It's our job to convince and/or annoy them into thinking otherwise. It may take a minute or two to do so, provided it ever happens at all, but the last thing we should do is start taking it personally.

To me, the one biggest advantage of FOSS software is that you don't have to worry about your favorite apps being shuttered, or bought up by a large company you don't like, a'la Allegorithmic and Adobe. The source code is always there for someone to pick up and fork. As far as the ideology is concerned, I'm one of those people who doesn't really care one way or the other. I see them as different structures to reach the same end goal. One is a company creating a privately owned product to sell to a customer base, the other building a community around a product offered for free, but accepting donations to further its development. Either way you go, someone's getting paid.

They don't, but they generally are the most outspoken on any Linux oriented messageboard. The really hardcore FOSS contingent really weird me out. They're such a hyperbolical bunch, always talking about closed sourced software in terms of good and evil. That's not evil. The secret police kicking your doors in at 2AM to eat your babies is evil. Proprietary software is just a business model.

Redsandro's story above explains why it's a problem from a market research standpoint.

Considering your Windows keys would work in Wine, you could still continue to use those, and help contribute to the total without any out of pocket costs. Though this does illustrate the one biggest problem with Linux, that it's users are a rather finicky, hard to predict bunch. What may appeal to Group A won't appeal to Group B, while Group C won't care either way.

The IT market is well represented in Linux land, and is one separate from the more day to day and design demographics that Serif would be targeting.

There are now enough votes to put Photo in the top 25! Dunno if we'll beat Final Fantasy XI, but with a bit of effort, we could top Photoshop.