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1 hour ago, deeds said:

Interesting that you think the relative lack of creative users willing to pay for creative software, on Linux, is a negative thing. 

How do you plan to address this in a way that would provide both sufficient recompense and incentive for a company like Affinity to spend the millions of dollars in man hours (and even more in opportunity cost) to convert their software to the many fragmented versions of Linux?

Linux now has three universal file formats for apps: Flatpaks, Snaps, and Appimages.
They work on pretty much every distribution of the Linux, with Flatpaks being the most likely to be used by larger companies.

Hence, they (software companies) don't have to think about any individual distributions.

Furthermore, there are many people who would switch to Linux but don't because the very same companies don't make apps for the platform. I use Linux as my daily driver but will sometimes boot into Windoze when I have a specific software need that cannot be fully satisfied on Linux. For instance, some of my previous design files and assets are in .afdesign or .afphoto formats, and as such, I have no choice but to boot up Windoze.

This brings up another issue of proprietary file formats and incompatibility, but we're not getting into that. <-- However, just think about how Apple was forced to use a universal port. The world of personal digital devices will be better for it.

Hello .odt .ora .html .svg .obj 👋

All this to say: as much as you think that Linux users and the potential profit is next to nothing, it isn't helped by both potential full-time Linux users and hesitant software companies not being willing to take the first true step.

It'd be nice if people and companies didn't need to be forced to do the right thing and just did so off their own volition.

Convenience is both the thing that pushes humanity forward and the thing leading us to doom.

Not me though. Y'all be easy.
 

Primary System: Arch Linux (dual-booted with Windoze for some paid apps that can't run on Linux yet)
Secondary System: Android Tablet

Apps: Krita | CSP | Blender | Inkscape | Affinity Suite | Quoll Writer | NovelWriter

 

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7 hours ago, DDNN said:

t'd be nice if people and companies didn't need to be forced to do the right thing and just did so off their own volition.

is this about governments waiving public & private liabilities of therapeutic products for themselves and pharmaceutical companies? 

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4 hours ago, deeds said:

is this about governments waiving public & private liabilities of therapeutic products for themselves and pharmaceutical companies? 

Er, no. It was in reference to:

12 hours ago, DDNN said:

Apple was forced to use a universal port. The world of personal digital devices will be better for it.

Proprietary systems are hindrances to development on a whole because it's mostly done for selfish reasons rather than "It won't work the way I want it to unless I create something new." OR "This new thing makes everything better, but it can only be used with our 'optimized products".

Again though, that's a whole other topic. A far larger one.

Convenience is both the thing that pushes humanity forward and the thing leading us to doom.

Not me though. Y'all be easy.
 

Primary System: Arch Linux (dual-booted with Windoze for some paid apps that can't run on Linux yet)
Secondary System: Android Tablet

Apps: Krita | CSP | Blender | Inkscape | Affinity Suite | Quoll Writer | NovelWriter

 

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5 hours ago, DDNN said:

Er, no. It was in reference to:

Proprietary systems are hindrances to development on a whole because it's mostly done for selfish reasons rather than "It won't work the way I want it to unless I create something new." OR "This new thing makes everything better, but it can only be used with our 'optimized products".

Again though, that's a whole other topic. A far larger one.

As designers, we've taken it upon ourselves to see the world both as it is and how it could be.

I think you're blending the two, internally, which is causing idealogical bents to vent.

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On 12/29/2022 at 10:47 PM, DDNN said:

They leave it because they can't afford to buy a new computer when their Windows PC starts running slowly

honestly not even about being lightweight, i have a 5800x and a rx6700 rn and i've been daily driving linux for a few months now, such a breeze of fresh air over windows, felling in control of your OS and actually being encouraged to understand how it works and why instead of having to to read bug reports and hacky fixes to get stuff working (windows is so poorly documented than literally wine developers made correction to windows official documentation 💀)

up to date guide for the Affinity Suite on Linux :  codeberg.org/affinity-wine-docs

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4 minutes ago, Wanesty said:

and hacky fixes to get stuff working

notably referring to Affinity publisher crashing when searching for fonts in 1.10.5, that the only fix was to literally UNINSTALL A WINDOWS UPDATE ?! like wtf microsoft..
this literally wouldn't have happened with Flatpak btw

up to date guide for the Affinity Suite on Linux :  codeberg.org/affinity-wine-docs

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2 hours ago, Wanesty said:

this literally wouldn't have happened with Flatpak btw

This right here. If Flatpaks were made universal like Java attempted to be and all these companies and developers contributed to the code... 🤌

Convenience is both the thing that pushes humanity forward and the thing leading us to doom.

Not me though. Y'all be easy.
 

Primary System: Arch Linux (dual-booted with Windoze for some paid apps that can't run on Linux yet)
Secondary System: Android Tablet

Apps: Krita | CSP | Blender | Inkscape | Affinity Suite | Quoll Writer | NovelWriter

 

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3 hours ago, deeds said:

As designers, we've taken it upon ourselves to see the world both as it is and how it could be.

I think you're blending the two, internally, which is causing idealogical bents to vent.

When people use the words ideological or realistic, they tend to mean improbable or impossible. I'm not saying that's what you meant or even that you are of that mindset, but I feel those words are now cliches.

Does human life not already have perfections scattered throughout? Your favourite coffee or meal. Your favourite person. Your favourite vehicle.

It is absolutely necessary to blend the two.

Convenience is both the thing that pushes humanity forward and the thing leading us to doom.

Not me though. Y'all be easy.
 

Primary System: Arch Linux (dual-booted with Windoze for some paid apps that can't run on Linux yet)
Secondary System: Android Tablet

Apps: Krita | CSP | Blender | Inkscape | Affinity Suite | Quoll Writer | NovelWriter

 

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26 minutes ago, DDNN said:

When people use the words ideological or realistic, they tend to mean improbable or impossible. I'm not saying that's what you meant or even that you are of that mindset, but I feel those words are now cliches.

Does human life not already have perfections scattered throughout? Your favourite coffee or meal. Your favourite person. Your favourite vehicle.

It is absolutely necessary to blend the two.

Attempt to distract, diffract, or otherwise dissuade with semantics built on straw men all you like. People like this fella tend to know what that means about you.

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11 minutes ago, deeds said:

Attempt to distract, diffract, or otherwise dissuade with semantics built on straw men all you like. People like this fella tend to know what that means about you.

What?! 🤨

Political gif. Barack Obama gestures in disbelief, holding both hands up and looking around as if to ask, “are you serious?”

Convenience is both the thing that pushes humanity forward and the thing leading us to doom.

Not me though. Y'all be easy.
 

Primary System: Arch Linux (dual-booted with Windoze for some paid apps that can't run on Linux yet)
Secondary System: Android Tablet

Apps: Krita | CSP | Blender | Inkscape | Affinity Suite | Quoll Writer | NovelWriter

 

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4 hours ago, deeds said:

Er, no. It was in reference to:

Proprietary systems are hindrances to development on a whole because it's mostly done for selfish reasons rather than "It won't work the way I want it to unless I create something new." OR "This new thing makes everything better, but it can only be used with our 'optimized products".

Again though, that's a whole other topic. A far larger one.

Let me quote myself. You were the one who chose to stray.

Convenience is both the thing that pushes humanity forward and the thing leading us to doom.

Not me though. Y'all be easy.
 

Primary System: Arch Linux (dual-booted with Windoze for some paid apps that can't run on Linux yet)
Secondary System: Android Tablet

Apps: Krita | CSP | Blender | Inkscape | Affinity Suite | Quoll Writer | NovelWriter

 

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14 minutes ago, Twolane said:

So, basically, this: Affinity, please turn over your code to us Linux wheeler-dealers so we can port it and have everyone humpty-dumpty all over again. Yeah, that should work out pretty good for Affinity, I'd say. Heck of a deal, Jim - or whoever that guy was. My memory fails.

Those are your words and your interpretation of what's been said so far:
Two links:

Proprietary DAWs on Linux:
https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/List_of_proprietary_software_for_Linux#Digital_audio_workstations

Proprietary 3D apps on Linux:
https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/List_of_proprietary_software_for_Linux#3D_graphics

Are these companies drowning to your knowledge?

The two largest creative software giants are in list two. Though I suspect Adobe has since removed Linux support after acquiring Substance. I could be wrong.

But alas, since misinterpretation and bias is the king of this discourse, let me remove myself from it.

Barack Obama Mic Drop GIF by Julie Winegard

Convenience is both the thing that pushes humanity forward and the thing leading us to doom.

Not me though. Y'all be easy.
 

Primary System: Arch Linux (dual-booted with Windoze for some paid apps that can't run on Linux yet)
Secondary System: Android Tablet

Apps: Krita | CSP | Blender | Inkscape | Affinity Suite | Quoll Writer | NovelWriter

 

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Yeah, no. As in, no thanks. Those software lists will never convince anyone to convert, thank you very much. (Well, anyone other than the die-hard anti-Win.) I recall "trying Linux" a number of years ago. From what I can tell today, nothing much has changed, except the number of "versions" one can choose from running under this, that, and/or the other thing. That's helpful right there. Not.

A blank screen urging one to execute esoteric command lines from somewhere or other is unlikely to convince anyone otherwise, other than the above-mentioned users.

But perhaps I over-simplify. Pardon my ignorance.

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On 12/23/2022 at 3:11 AM, Wanesty said:

I am writing to request an update on the potential release of a Linux port of the Affinity Suite

 

On 12/23/2022 at 5:04 AM, Patrick Connor said:

There is no update Serif have no plans to port to Linux.

 

On 12/25/2022 at 10:29 PM, Wanesty said:

Did you ever discuss a Linux version or was it never mentioned in meetings from the beginning through today ?

Asked and answered. End of discussion. 

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57 minutes ago, Twolane said:

So, basically, this: Affinity, please turn over your code to us Linux wheeler-dealers so we can port it and have everyone humpty-dumpty all over again. Yeah, that should work out pretty good for Affinity, I'd say. Heck of a deal, Jim - or whoever that guy was. My memory fails.

I think it's even worse than that... Linux users tend to expect the targeted company to ALSO do the coding, and release it (the code), once it's done, as OpenSores, because... 

 

I've never known the reasoning, but reason doesn't seem to be any part of the equation, perhaps it's all purely emotional, inspirational and idealogical.

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27 minutes ago, deeds said:

I think it's even worse than that... Linux users tend to expect the targeted company to ALSO do the coding, and release it (the code), once it's done

I had forgotten about that. In any case,

On 12/30/2022 at 1:43 AM, DDNN said:

Linux now has three universal file formats for apps: Flatpaks, Snaps, and Appimages.
They work on pretty much every distribution of the Linux

So then: If I would like to try Linux, which file format should I use? Flatpaks? Snaps? Appimages? What are the inherent benefits of each, and what would serve my purpose?

Another question: Which distribution of Linux should I choose, and why? What are the benefits of each? Which version would serve my purpose?

I strongly suspect that by the time I had it all sorted and figured out, I'd throw up my hands and go back to Microsoft BASIC and Win3, or Apple BASIC and Print LPT1.

If I recall my "trying Linux" experiment properly, I believe I ended up with a nicely colored blue screen, complete with one purple-colored icon. It looked really nice (the blue-colored screen, that is). The sole purple icon, whatever that was (I can no longer recall), not so much. Although, with pretty much every current distribution of LInux and the assorted multiple universal file formats available these days, I'm certain it's all properly sorted by now.

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5 hours ago, Twolane said:

Those software lists will never convince anyone to convert

my main point was that peoples susceptible to buy affinity licenses (vfx companies and many more) are already using Linux..
Also having to learn a new OS for a job isn't too uncommon : MacOS is being used in a lot of creative companies/schools while windows is the most daily-drived desktop os

5 hours ago, Twolane said:

If I recall my "trying Linux" experiment properly

Do not treat a cat like you would a dog. Linux isn't windows, so of course it's different, you spent years learning your current OS, linux works way differently in many ways.

I only used MacOS a couple of times after years of being a windows user, it wasn't pleasant nor easy, do i kept a bad opinion about MacOS ? i did, because i wasn't willing to learn.

5 hours ago, Twolane said:

So then: If I would like to try Linux, which file format should I use? Flatpaks? Snaps? Appimages?

Only Appimages is a format here, it kinda works like a .dmg in MacOS ; it ships all the dependencies and the main app in a single file. it's kinda like windows's "portable App.exe"

Snap was Canonical (Ubuntu's Publisher) attempt at a new cross-distributions package manager but since it was pretty closed and bad overall (performances and compatibility wise, i think it sandboxes the apps but sometimes too much so there was issues with firefox not having gpu acceleration etc) : it's pretty much only used by companies using Ubuntu (and ubuntu server)

Flatpak is the package manager and Flathub is it's web interface, it's cross-distribution fairly easy to publish to, they're gonna add a verification system for big companies publishing their app there. It also have "sandboxing", it can restrict apps access to files, devices, protocols, internet etc, these restrictions can be edited via Flatseal

Flatpak is the most used at the moment since most developers and user likes it.

However those are only really useful for cross-plateform deployement, a lot of distribution will (if they can) do a custom build tailored to the distribution and they'll add it to their own package Repositories

5 hours ago, Twolane said:

Which distribution of Linux should I choose, and why?

if you want a stable system as a user, ubuntu and fedora are good right now, however if you are a company and/or are willing to pay for a good customer service you're gonna turn to proffecional ubuntu distribution or RedHat Entreprise Linux - RHEL

if, as an user you want to learn your system and tinker with it, distro like ArchLinux, NixOS, VoidLinux or even BSD

But honestly asking that is the same as asking which suite of office software to use, either use the one your school/company use, choose simplicity and pay microsoft, or search and compare multiples alternatives.

You are most likely using the os you're using because it shipped with your pc, (because of Apple and Microsoft aggresive marketing toward schools and companies in late 90- early 2000).

Most peoples don't tinker with their pc, Companies however, needs to optimize everything to be profitable. And for a lot of them it means : same exact hardware and software by sector for ease of maintenance. and this far Linux is one of the most stable and easily deployable OS i mean look at servers...

 

The majority of peoples use windows as their desktop os thus the majority of web browsing on desktop, is done on windows.

Serif did understood that companies are more important and that why they prioritize MacOS (fast ARM M1 support vs still no .msi installer).

One of the point discussed was that no one will switch to Linux if Serif were to release their suite there, i'm honestly not sharing this opinion now that i know how crucial stability and ease of maintenance is to companies and professionals (you know, the peoples actually funding it).

up to date guide for the Affinity Suite on Linux :  codeberg.org/affinity-wine-docs

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On 12/30/2022 at 5:02 AM, deeds said:

Interesting that you think the relative lack of creative users willing to pay for creative software, on Linux, is a negative thing. 

How do you plan to address this in a way that would provide both sufficient recompense and incentive for a company like Affinity to spend the millions of dollars in man hours (and even more in opportunity cost) to convert their software to the many fragmented versions of Linux?

I have to ask if you have ever used Linux because that comment makes no sense whatsoever.

There are now universal containerised package types, such as Flatpak, and so all a company or free software provider has to do is supply the software in that single format and it will work on all Debian, RedHat and Arch based Linux distributions.

That is not the issue. The real and only issue is that desktop Linux's current overall market share is at 2.77% (figures from Statcounter for November 2022) and that is significantly behind that of both Windows (75.11%) and macOS (15.6%).

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I don't quite understand the point of this discussion in this forum, although Linux systems have obvious advantages.

In particular, they are often free, powerful and flexible operating systems that have a lot to offer users who are willing to take the time to learn how to use them. They were also cheaper to use and maintain, and made better use of the CPU. They are still particularly effective only for short-term work.

But, they are no longer what computer users expect, whether they are customers or software producers. This is reflected in the market share, where there has been a small but steady erosion of all Linux systems for years.

The most visible pitfall seems to be that Linux systems are not as user-friendly as other systems. They are complicated to install and then customise. They actually require a thorough knowledge of the system being used and one quickly comes to the use of the command line. This major effort is probably the reason why those who have mastered it have paradoxically become fans of it and proselytise it so much.

The result of all this is that the number of professional and recreational applications remains very limited since they only engage fans. These applications themselves often remain pale ersatz of what is done elsewhere, except when they have decided to switch to other operating systems

Another recurring problem is the instability of Linux systems, with occasional bugs or security problems undermining their reliability and security. By e.g, we are in January 2023. The most recent bug (December 2022) was in the Debian system and changed the way the database server configuration file was processed…

6 cœurs, 12 processus - Windows 11 pro - 4K - DirectX 12 - Suite universelle Affinity (Affinity  Publisher, Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo).

Mais je vous le demande, peut-on imaginer une police sans sérifs ?

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I am a Linux user who has used Scribus for years and Indesign for about 2 years. I just purchased Affinity Publisher 2. It seems to have a lot going for it beyond not being 'rental' software. BUT as of now the only thing I use Windows for is Indesign and Affinity. It is a pain to have to reboot and share file back and forth. I know that there is a poor track record of for profit software being adopted by Linux users. (open source / freedom and probably cheepism). But I think that would change given compelling software like Affinity were usable on Linux.

Just my thoughts...

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