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Better compatibility with Wine


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I know there is a strong voice for linux support, but it seems like we won't get it soon. While this isn't the result Linux users want, I understand the business reasoning.  So I am hoping that while we probably won't get a native linux version, how about a collaboration with the Wine project to get us an installable and usable Linux solution? I know this requires some effort, but hopefully it would be far less than writing something from scratch. I am confident that many of our existing Linux users would contribute time or money if needed to make this a reality.

 

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See older discussion 

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/search/&q=Wine&quick=1

Very unlikely, both on technical reasons and it doesn’t make any sense for Affinity on the business side.

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20 hours ago, rnmartinez said:

I know there is a strong voice for linux support, but it seems like we won't get it soon. While this isn't the result Linux users want, I understand the business reasoning.  So I am hoping that while we probably won't get a native linux version, how about a collaboration with the Wine project to get us an installable and usable Linux solution? I know this requires some effort, but hopefully it would be far less than writing something from scratch. I am confident that many of our existing Linux users would contribute time or money if needed to make this a reality.

 

I agree with you and while they don't make specific Linux versions, the separate makers of PhotoLine, PhotoScape and SageLight all make sure that their software works well with Wine so as to cater for Linux users.

Anyone can register with WineHQ to cast their 3 votes (yes, you really do get three votes) for Affinity Photo:

https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=39311

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Strange dichotomy here. Windows 11 includes (optionally) a subsystem that allows Linux software to be fully incorporated in the Windows environment, including GUI and the clipboard, completely seamlessly.

Linux includes (also optionally) Wine that alleges to allow Windows software to be run under Linux. But it is not seamless? Then fix Wine!

I do not see users of Windows requesting Linux software to be made more compatible with the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), so why should any Windows software be changed to be compatible with Wine? Just as it is up to the WSL to be compatible with Linux to run Linux applications, it is up to Wine to be compatible with Windows applications, not up to Windows applications to be compatible with Wine.

If Wine cannot handle Affinity software for Windows, complain to the Wine team to fix Wine, not to Serif to fix Affinity.

Or just do what most of us who need to run software for both Windows and Linux do: Use the Windows that has most likely come pre-installed with your computer anyway, and add WSL (it is free). Then you can run all Linux  apps your  heart desires and Affinity (and other Windows software) on the same computer.

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6 hours ago, Unleavened Tech said:

I don't want the Windows shell, Windows start menu, Windows Settings, Windows Explorer, Windows Image Viewer, etc.

Welcome to the real world. We don’t always get what we want. We just have to work with what is available. I, for example, would prefer to run all my software under FreeBSD. And since windows has no BSD layer, I have it harder than you with your desire to run everything under Linux.

There’s even an acronym for the situation: WYGIWYG (What you get is what you get).

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11 hours ago, AdamStanislav said:

would prefer to run all my software under FreeBSD

Yes! A true unified operating system rather than the pedantry of a kernel + hotchpotches of tools... FreeBSD is remarkably cleaner as an operating system than Linux is today. Linux went down a very horrible route of making things as complicated as possible.

I had some success running Windows software under Wine on FreeBSD, indeed PagePlus 11 runs fine.

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  • 1 month later...

I've only just noticed this thread.

A little background.  I was first introduced to Unix back when SCO and Xenix were a thing.  I remember the frustration with my first version of Linux, which was Open SUSE, back when you had to manually start up the X Server.  Since that time I have dabbled with Linux, but 99% of the time, I used Windows.  My reason for never making the switch to Linux full time was the woeful driver support and lack of applications.  Everyone says, look at GIMP, but I look at it and its interface makes Scribus look good.

Anyway, recently I tried out Clear Linux from Intel.  Very impressed, but in the end, I set up a dual boot with Windows 10 and Fedora 36 running KDE, which I am using to type this note on my laptop.  My baseunit in the other room is where the grunt of my work gets done, and it is there (as well as on this laptop) that I use my Affinity applications.  For me, in terms of priority, it's Publisher, Designer and then Photo.  Publisher is missing features and so is Designer.  But why am I telling you all this.
 

On my laptop, I have installed Microsoft Office as a web app (PWA) (as I have a 365 subscription).  This lets me run some of the office applications as though they were 'real' apps as opposed to web pages in a wrapper that can be used offline.  Now my understanding is that PWAs are generally written in Javascript.  I don't know what langauge Affinity-Serif use for their in-house coding, but it would be lovely to see the applications released in the form of WebApps as it would let me use the Affinity software in a platform agnostic situation.   This way, I could ditch Windows alltogether and make the full time leap to Linux.  Wishful thinking I am sure, but it would be nice if Affinity were to consider this as a viable option.

 

Steve

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  • 8 months later...
On 4/5/2022 at 6:35 PM, AdamStanislav said:

I do not see users of Windows requesting Linux software to be made more compatible with the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), so why should any Windows software be changed to be compatible with Wine? Just as it is up to the WSL to be compatible with Linux to run Linux applications, it is up to Wine to be compatible with Windows applications, not up to Windows applications to be compatible with Wine.

If Wine cannot handle Affinity software for Windows, complain to the Wine team to fix Wine, not to Serif to fix Affinity.

There are significant differences between WSL and Wine.  The first version was, iirc, an implementation of the Linux kernel API by Microsoft.  Since Linux is open source, they could document the API and write their own; it worked well enough to run Ubuntu on it.  WSL2 is a specialized virtual machine by Microsoft that runs a modified Linux kernel  to integrate with Windows.  It's great if you're a beardy Unix person or have used the command line in Mac OS to get things done.  I know I've used it in Windows to perform command-line magic.   Tends to work faster than Cygwin and easier than rebooting just to do some Unixy command line stuff (and don't get me started on Powershell.)

Wine is a different beast entirely.  It's an implementation of Windows APIs, written from scratch, merged from multiple projects over the years.  Windows is mostly documented but it's that mostly part that gets a lot of devs.  Further Windows has a mechanism for allowing multiple versions of the same libraries to be on the same computer, something Unixy systems tend to lack (how many times have decisions had to be made along the lines of, we can't upgrade Mac OS, this version of Creative Cloud won't run on the new system?)  Add to that the fact that there's commercial forks of Wine, one being Proton, Valve Software's fork they started working on because of Microsoft saber-rattling about making S Mode the default Windows mode aka no installing software outside of Microsoft Store.

So for what it is, Wine is amazing.  Sometimes I'm amazed that anything works at all, let alone that I can fire up a bunch of games in Linux Steam and they just work more or less the same as they do in Windows.  Ditto on apps that actually work in Wine.  But it tends to be older software because the undocumented/poorly documented APIs tend to be moving targets.  And of course because Wine doesn't have a mechanism for dealing with multiple versions of DLLs like Windows, you end up with projects like Lutris and Bottles, where they have mechanisms for installing multiple versions of Wine, and installing individual apps in their own directory structures. 

In the end I kind of don't blame Affinity for not porting.  I remember Corel ported Photo-Paint to Linux using Winelib and it turns out a lot of loud Linux users don't tolerate proprietary software, especially software ported by building Linux-native apps with Windows APIs, when they're not games.  It's probably possible for them to create a build, but the ROI isn't there and then they have to deal with Richard Stallman complaining that Affinity Photo isn't released under GPL3.

Edited by regeya
added a thought or two
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