[An answer to "Can Affinity Photo Run in WINE on Linux?"]

The short answer, no

The longer answer, kinda

The installer will run once you have .Net 4/4.5/4.7 installed in your Wine Prefix (used staging 3.13) and completes without any problems. Its starting it up that gets rough.

The windows version of Affinity photo requires the Windows DWM for composition of the application screen and has some custom DLLs that dont seem to happy to hook into the WINE implementation of Windows. The DLLs just straight fail to load at all and while you can get it to attempt to run switching WINE to Windows 8/10 bypassing the Aero not enabled, the application crashes just after opening.

 

I haven't done extensive testing to get it to actually open, but truth be told you likely won't see good results even if you do. It'll likely run very unstable and slow which defeats it's entire purpose. I imagine because WINE doesn't have a complete DX11 implementation, doesn't have Windows DWM, and doesn't have/implement in full/doesn't implement the exact same any number of other necessary Windows parts it's just not going to be enjoyable. I don't know exactly how ingrained in the Windows ecosystem (dlls, etc)  the windows version of Affinity Photo is but my guess is more than WINE can deal with at this time. 

 

Hope this helps anyone on Linux looking for an answer and saves you from wasting your time trying to get an application going in WINE just to have it run awful.

EDIT: some issue could be a combo of it requiring .NET Framework and a 64bit install/Prefix. Wine can be a bit sketchy with .NET in 64bit prefixes and not all functions work running .NET application. Issues could also be arising from the rendering engine not enjoying running in WINE . Ive tried everything i ccan to narrow down exactly what issues are causing the DLLs in the program folder to not load and i have to just chalk it up to "AP needs fully implemented windows"

[Affinity products for Linux]

32 minutes ago, R C-R said:

One version of what these days is known as a 'meme' that has been posted all over the Internet:

 

i used 5.25" floppys in my class in grade school with an apple II to play games, then at home 3.5in floppys for saving pictures and music, used zip drives later on because they had "SO MUCH STORAGE" before fairly quickly moving to CDs/DVDs

[Affinity products for Linux]

8 minutes ago, toltec said:

 

Actually, I remember that well in 1987 or 1988. I was working for a print shop and was sent to see a customer about a job.

 

I met my first Mac. Up to then all our artwork was done using film typesetting and pasting artwork. Litho film cameras and Drum scanners the size of a room.

 

The guy gave me a demonstration and I was impressed. Not long after Imagesetters. 

 

What a revolution I witnessed. I remember whole sections of the industry disappearing forever. In fact some people learning a trade were redundant before they finished learning.

 

sorry to go off topic

 

cant say im old enough to remember any of that myself (not the 87/88 stuff but the 89 onward was alive, but not exactly old enough im about to be 29). I have been privileged to witness the huge swing in how computers and electronics are used in many different areas and it has been interesting to say the least. Kids these days never saved things to floppy (or even know what it is) and dont remember a time without smart phones. The pace of computers and technology over the past 30yrs has been amazing, so much so my younger siblings hardly remember the likes of dial up and computers sub 1ghz. Had a teen ask me why his ethernet cable wouldnt fit, turns out it was a dialup modem he was trying to plug into lol

[Introduce Yourself]

Hi folks, preferred name is Echoa (said like "Echo")

 

Im more of a hobbyist when it come to digital art, more recently with a heavier focus on photography with my main passion being tech/computers (hardware and software but more so hardware). I was using Adobe CC for about 5yrs now but got tired of a subscription and the extra in it that i never used but was paying for with what appeared to be little other option. Stumbled upon Affinity Photo and gave the trial a go, needless to say i fell for it immediately its a fantastic bit of software. I have already canceled my CC sub and moved to a combo of Affinity Photo + Aftershot Pro with Krita being my drawing application now that Autodesk moved Sketchbook Pro ot a sub model also (really unfortunate).

 

Glad to a see a healthy forum for AP, look forward to not knowing how to do something and getting some help lol and maybe in the future if affinity makes something more like lightroom/aftershot pro ill get that too. Keep up the good work guys

[Affinity products for Linux]

14 hours ago, R C-R said:

Nope. Neither POSIX nor SUS v3 certification make an OS a Unix OS. Again, this is yet another gross oversimplification.

 

Unix by definition is the family of OS derivative of the original ATT Bell labs, with OSx (iOS in turn) being considered the Unix with the largest install base, you can look into it if you like or believe it's not true I don't care. "Unix-like" (which really just means they didn't pay for Unix certification) systems like Linux are derivative of Unix (again responding like it,etc. But not directly using original Unix code), and in turn Android runs atop Linux.

 

Believe what you want, but that is what it is, that is part of what makes porting between them so relatively simple. I'm not much interested in simple "nope you're wrong" answers if I'm going tbh, so substantiate what you're saying besides just saying no because everything else seems to disagree with your statement.

[Affinity products for Linux]

13 hours ago, IanSG said:

You've got that backwards - consumer choices were based on the availability of the software, which in turn was based on the ease of writing, publishing and making money from that software.  By the time Linux was anywhere near being a viable option the potential customers had already established their positions elsewhere.  I can remember being involved in Microsoft v Apple strategy meetings in the 1980s - years before Linux had even been thought of!

 

 

Back in the late 80s/early 90s is when the "Mac is for designers" idea even started. For a while before nearly every home had a computer it was kinda true, but that hasn't been the case for 20yrs. It's not backwards to refer to the case of software today vs 20yrs ago. 

Then you absolutely would've been talking about windows vs Mac in a meeting, but Linux was an infant then and windows had been a UI over MS-DOS (that hasn't been a thing since XP).

Today's landscape is different, the Linux is finally a viable option, windows is from the ground up entirely different, and OSx while still being Unix based is far more custom than it once was. This day and age not including Linux as a possibility comes down to where consumers are/look, and most still think if you run Linux "isn't that for hackers and like computer geniuses?". When for 10yrs with the likes of Ubuntu have been focusing on user experience but that's what people think, so that's what software developers looking at prosumer and consumer space go with. 

 

Linux is realistically perfectly capable option, but the consumer mindeset and base simply isn't there as far as companies view it, and logically they follow the money that's guaranteed. 

[Affinity products for Linux]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

Nope. iOS is, like the Mac OS (& to some extent Linux), a UNIX-like OS, but there are fundamental differences among all of them that make saying they are all "based on" the same thing at the kernel (or any other) level a gross oversimplification. For example, in the Apple OS's I/O operations rely on a modular, layered, dynamic runtime architecture, much of which is not resident in kernel space. Among other things, this is why until recently iOS provided no direct access to the file system at all, & even now it is strictly limited to operations that are very difficult for malware to exploit. Other fundamental differences include the implementations of the memory management & VM systems, & the Windowing systems.

 

So in a sense, sure, you can say iOS is a 'Unix-based system', but it is neither particularly meaningful or accurate.

 

So to clarify, are you saying that the software industry itself is somehow ignorant of the supposed benefits of coding for Linux? If so, do you think that might possibly be just a wee bit over-the-top & appear to be yet another gross oversimplification that those in the industry (like Serif/Affinity) are likely to ignore?

 

No I'm referring to the consumer ignorance and the software industry following the consumer, which isn't necessarily bad because you follow your money but it hurts adoption of alternatives like Linux.

 

iOS and OSX can run most of the same things Linux, BSD, and Unix can. They're all part of the Unix family with alot of commonality. They are at their hearts Unix systems, they act like, respond to same commands, etc. Just like a Unix system. They are even listed as Unix derivatives under the Unix family of systems, XNU (Aka OSx), Linux,BSD, all Unix and all siblings  The differences come down to ideology regarding UI/user experience, security, and infrastructure. It is alot easier to go from OSx to Linux than it is to go to windows because 90% of the work is done already when you target OSx (the graphical shell and anything tied to apple specific API being the only real issues), you just have to account for difference in things like how they deal with drivers,etc.  Simply put, if you work like Unix, respond like Unix, you're Unix regardless of the mask you put on it (OSx is even Unix certified)

 

There is no reason a Linux version couldn't be made as they deal with Unix systems already, the consumer mindeset just isn't there regarding Linux, so they don't want to risk a market that isn't a guarantee. There is no technical reason they can't do it.

 

Edit: in response to the long comment above this. It really is the fault of the Linux community as a whole that they haven't entered the consumer space in force. It's only in the last 10yrs or so that several distros have put a huge focus on the common user. It's almost too little too late. Maybe it could change and software companies might gain interest, but the community took so long to realize they might maybe need to change that they continue to stay relegated to the "for nerds" space to this day.

[Affinity products for Linux]

On 1/10/2018 at 7:44 AM, R C-R said:

 

My phone certainly does not use a Linux kernel & a great many websites & servers use something other than Linux.

 

 

 

Im sorry for the necro but this I had to comment on. 

 

This statement is pretty well wrong, unless you use a Windows phone or the cheapest garbage phone possible you guaranteed have either the Linux kernel or a Unix kernel, thats just plain fact of the matter (iOS and Linux are Unix based systems)

 

Second, Linux/Unix flat dominates the web, it runs everything minus a hand full of people running maybe windows server which I'm not 100% sure Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc., Everything you've come to use every day, the servers that got you here, all likely run Linux (and the 3 listed actually do and contribute to it) . Being conservative 90% of the web you know is Unix/Linux, 10% is Microsoft/Other. 

 

Linux isn't supported simply because of the slew of ignorance and misconception displayed throughout this thread permeates to the software industry that perpetuates these ideas. Linux isn't an unknown, it's everywhere, just not as much in homes. There isn't a reason it can't be supported, just most companies don't want to because of the idea "Linux is for nerds" and other such things expressed here. It's a mindset issue not a technical issue, period.