Petition to bring the Affinity Suite to Linux

[Nebbed]

Many creative hobbyists and professionals have grown tired of the Adobe Creative Suite, myself included. From the overly aggressive subscription fee, to Adobe's rampant push for AI integration which has led to well-justified privacy concerns, it has caused the general sentiment over Adobe’s Creative Suite to become increasingly negative. And thus, it has led many people to switch to the Affinity suite with Photo, Designer and Publisher. Which provides all the essential features needed for professional graphic design, for a reasonable one-time price. 

For similar reasons, in recent years, many have grown frustrated with Microsoft Windows. Myself included. From random updates that Windows pushes even when you don't want them, to advertising pushed onto users that have already paid for Windows, to security concerns, and even to privacy concerns due to Microsoft's push for AI integration onto Windows with Copilot. Currently, the Affinity suite is available on Windows, macOS and iPadOS. However, more and more creatives are unsatisfied with the platforms Affinity is available on. With Linux's user-base growing more and more overtime, we want to see the Affinity suite officially supported on Linux through its various distributions (or distros for short). Even supporting just one popular distribution, such as Ubuntu, would allow you or the community to support it for the entire ecosystem, via projects like Linux Flatpak.

Additionally, it's worth noting that people are already using the Affinity suite on Linux via Wine, with limited success. It has issues that are virtually impossible to resolve without a native port however, and it isn’t a particularly elegant solution. People are invested in your products, and the wants and values of the Linux userbase align strongly with Affinity's market. The most recent public statement from Affinity regarding Linux support was from a staff member in an FAQ back in 2019. But a lot has changed since then, and thus, this push for Linux has only grown exponentially… For instance, the general userbase for Linux has more than doubled, from less than 2% in 2019, to nearly 4.5% of all computers worldwide now.

There is ever-growing evidence that the Linux community wants the Affinity suite ported to Linux, and are willing to pay for a Linux version of the Affinity suite if official support is made available. We want to show the Affinity team at Serif that this is in fact the case. And we hope that through this petition, we can make the Affinity suite on Linux possible.

#AffinityOnLinux

https://www.change.org/affinityonlinux

Edited January 23 by Nebbed

[Komatös]

@Nebbed 

 

[Nebbed]

14 minutes ago, Komatös said:

@Nebbed 

 

In its current state, the Affinity suite on Wine is not stable enough to be sufficient, especially with Designer and Publisher (Photo's okay but still it's got problems). Thus the push for a native port to Linux. I've already spent the past week trying to use the Affinity suite through Wine, and it was a nightmare to use with performance and stability issues.

Edited January 23 by Nebbed

[Jan Klima]

I would love to see Affinity on Linux - not sure if the devs realize but there is NO DECENT graphics software for Linux. Literally NONE. And if anyone brings up GNU / GIMP - think twice before you do - its not in the same league...not even the same sport I would say.

 

These days - I do most of my work on Linux but when I need some gfx work I have to restart to windows which is pretty annoying 😞 

[Pšenda]

 

[Pšenda]

8 hours ago, Nebbed said:

With Linux's user-base growing more and more overtime

I've been hearing similar enthusiastic reports about the "massive" departure of users from Windows and the "huge" growth of Linux users for 30 years now, and so far it's still not a big deal. Regardless of the fact, as has been stated many times here (for example here https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/226834-can-we-crowd-fund-a-linux-version/#findComment-1331797 and in countless other threads about Linux), the actual number of users is not at all significant for application development and its profitability.

See also

 

Edited January 23 by Pšenda

[PaulEC]

People have been expecting Serif to base decisions on an imaginary voting system for years; I suppose getting up petitions to tell them how to run their business is no worse! 😉

[Winduss]

I don't think a petition is gonna change anything, however it would be nice of Serif to test Affinity in stock Wine.

It's the same with games, you don't necessarily have to make a Linux build, or even give support to Linux users, but as long as you at least test and verify that it works in Wine/Proton, users will be happy enough to use it.

I do run Affinity on Linux, a custom Wine build and even then it still occasionally crashes and suffers from certain memory leaks.

[Snapseed]

On 1/23/2025 at 2:49 AM, Nebbed said:

Many creative hobbyists and professionals have grown tired of the Adobe Creative Suite, myself included. From the overly aggressive subscription fee, to Adobe's rampant push for AI integration which has led to well-justified privacy concerns, it has caused the general sentiment over Adobe’s Creative Suite to become increasingly negative. And thus, it has led many people to switch to the Affinity suite with Photo, Designer and Publisher. Which provides all the essential features needed for professional graphic design, for a reasonable one-time price. 

For similar reasons, in recent years, many have grown frustrated with Microsoft Windows. Myself included. From random updates that Windows pushes even when you don't want them, to advertising pushed onto users that have already paid for Windows, to security concerns, and even to privacy concerns due to Microsoft's push for AI integration onto Windows with Copilot. Currently, the Affinity suite is available on Windows, macOS and iPadOS. However, more and more creatives are unsatisfied with the platforms Affinity is available on. With Linux's user-base growing more and more overtime, we want to see the Affinity suite officially supported on Linux through its various distributions (or distros for short). Even supporting just one popular distribution, such as Ubuntu, would allow you or the community to support it for the entire ecosystem, via projects like Linux Flatpak.

Additionally, it's worth noting that people are already using the Affinity suite on Linux via Wine, with limited success. It has issues that are virtually impossible to resolve without a native port however, and it isn’t a particularly elegant solution. People are invested in your products, and the wants and values of the Linux userbase align strongly with Affinity's market. The most recent public statement from Affinity regarding Linux support was from a staff member in an FAQ back in 2019. But a lot has changed since then, and thus, this push for Linux has only grown exponentially… For instance, the general userbase for Linux has more than doubled, from less than 2% in 2019, to nearly 4.5% of all computers worldwide now.

There is ever-growing evidence that the Linux community wants the Affinity suite ported to Linux, and are willing to pay for a Linux version of the Affinity suite if official support is made available. We want to show the Affinity team at Serif that this is in fact the case. And we hope that through this petition, we can make the Affinity suite on Linux possible.

#AffinityOnLinux

https://www.change.org/affinityonlinux

This question keeps coming up and the answer is always the same. There is currently zero chance of Serif Europe making Linux versions of their good products because the desktop market share for Linux is so low (4%) compared with the likes of macOS (14%) so the potential customer base is just not there yet.

In the meantime, you can use the Hartmut Doering's VM method to get successfully get the Serif products to work in Linux (it's better than dual boot):

[thoxy]

My perspective on Linux's 4% market share is the following:

The main reason for Linux's limited adoption is that users typically stick with their default platform, which is usually Windows. The average user won't bother changing their operating system, and often they wouldn't even know how to do it on their own.

Another significant factor is that many users require specific software that only works on certain platforms. This reinforces the use of the platform targeted by software developers, which is predominantly Windows. This creates a cycle where users remain locked into Windows because that's where their essential software runs.

This situation makes it difficult for users to migrate to Linux, as they're effectively blocked by software studios' choices. Linux's market share grows so slowly because software companies rarely release their products for it.

While there are some positive examples like DaVinci Resolve and a few others who compile their software for Linux, they remain the exception rather than the rule. If software studios continue to ignore Linux and maintain their head-in-the-sand approach, Linux's market share will remain stagnant.

Linux is destined to remain in the shadow of its counterpart, not because it isn't pre-installed on machines, but because software is rarely developed for it. This self-perpetuating cycle continues to limit Linux's growth potential. That's my view on the matter.