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On 15/11/2017 at 7:11 PM, VIPStephan said:

Well, why won’t you be the first to jump the ship, and then Serif will develop Affinity for Linux. :D

 

I guess because it's one thing jumping ship on a hobby pc. Not so much when you rely on these programs for a living. 

 

I dabbled in Ubuntu for 3 or 4 years around 2010 but it was not viable to run PS in wine or lightroom in wine.....so back to Windows it was.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've yet to get that sensation of being too fed up with a system....In a recent but long term job, I used to handle everyday machines with the 3 OSes (sometimes several in same machines, other times with VMs, some having one only system, and very often, handling machines remotely ). Even a bunch of Linux distros and desktops. I yet to find one OS which I dislike... If anything, I don't like some specific aspects, like the limits imposed in mobile OSes, like iOS and Android. Kind of, unless one gets into console level, the thing is more limited (but for obvious and practical reasons). For example, iOS not having a real file system (in the way that I would prefer for pro work) or neither a more advanced color calibration system.  One gets to love the openness of Linux (and general philosophy), the "everything rock solid, ready, stable and easy" in the macs, and the very high compatibility and amount of pro software that you get in Windows. (and not gonna lie, to super cheap machines one can get for this system)

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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Dear Affinity Developers. Instead of asking for you to make Affinity for Linux, I'd rather ask what do you need to consider to develop for Linux? The thing is, we, web developers use Linux a lot more than other people. Which is a market niche that is growing. In fact, in my agency 50% of the people use Linux. So why dont you Kickstart your project and clear all doubts? We users can pay for the development and you get to grow to new markets. 

 

Let us decide. 

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2 hours ago, Bloque9 said:

Instead of asking for you to make Affinity for Linux, I'd rather ask what do you need to consider to develop for Linux?

The developers already mentioned what would be needed many pages ago. It isn't just funding, it is also finding & hiring people with both an extensive knowledge of the many nuances of the various & sundry functionalities that these kinds of applications should support and the programming experience that together would qualify them to develop high quality Linux versions. In addition, they also would need to find & hire people qualified to provide ongoing customer support.

 

No Kickstarter project can provide all that.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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We might soon be using Affinity apps on Linux via Windows virtualization with GPU passthrough without any lag or hitches (with native-like performance). These guys are hard at work on seamless Windows virtualization under Linux desktop:

Windows OS is running in its own window side by side with Linux applications (no host OS - guest OS switching) while using GPU passthrough.

This would allow us to use Windows apps without any (significant) performance penalty on Linux and run it isolated from the Internet - so no telemetry/data mining/spying/lack of user control. Linux would be the base system (also for any Internet activities) and the Windows apps without any real alternative would run via this technology.

This is something I want to try when I get a new computer. High-core-count Ryzens or new Intel CPUs should be good for this. I am glad that AMD caused high-core-count CPUs to move into mainstream and get cheaper.

Of course it might not be as seamless as running the native Linux app but it looks pretty promising.
I will donate at least a few dollars to the main guy working on this project.

 

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20 minutes ago, raptor said:

 

Of course it might not be as seamless as running the native Linux app but it looks pretty promising.
I will donate at least a few dollars to the main guy working on this project.

 

 

Very interesting...yet though, this requires Windows license purchase...

Interesting, anyway.

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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Anyway, what would be really demonstrating it is seeing a press file with like 40 layers (zooming, panning, making complex selection, some filters...), a file of around 7k x 7k pixels, in CMYK mode, loaded in.... Photoshop or Affinity Photo, and see how it goes. If it does provide at least an ok experience, a similar one with similar hardware in Windows (not a super-duper machine doing the test compared to a regular typical mid end i7 running Windows ).....I'd then start to believe it....

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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Hmmm....I fear one thing.... At some point, if this has success, MS can probably easily force some sort of barrier, to avoid loosing business here...Though, dunno, ppl would be needing a Windows license to do this, is not like they are loosing sellls... Oh, but they loose all the telemetry and control ... yeah, they might take action, I'm afraid...

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

Am I the first person in 2018 asking for a Linux version?

 

Probably... I already got my Windows Versions... Would like to work with Affinity natively on Linux... Just like I do with PyCharm or any of the IDEs from JetBrains. At the office, I'm forced to use Windows (10 atm) but I go home and I can still push/pull code from the same codebases on my Ubuntu machine... so damn nice... I know its a dream... just saying...

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  • 2 weeks later...

One more vote for a Linux version.

 

(I know I know... Affinity is not considering it. But I would like to make my opinion heard regardless).

 

I would buy it.  So would my company.  We do 3D content creation using nearly 100% Linux machines.  We have a few Windows machines in order to run Photoshop, but the combination of Adobe's terribly incompatible color management and Windows 10 being the weird, only partially supported OS in our pipeline makes me want to tear my own hair out.  We also have Affinity running on a few of these machines and I really like it.  That said, with PS available, it is hard to pressure our artists into switching.  The one thing that would make them switch would be the ability to work exclusively on their Linux boxes.

 

I've read some of the comments on this thread (but nowhere nearly all of them) and I want to point out that we are sticking with Linux because that is the best OS for all of our other content creation software as well as all of the common, custom pipeline work we have done. Zealotry has nothing to do with it. For our purposes, Linux is simply faster, more reliable, more of an industry standard, and offers us the tools we need to get our work done more so than Windows or MacOS (though MacOS would be the next most logical choice if they would just up their OpenGL game). Affinity (or Photoshop) are tiny pulls in the direction of non-Linux systems that are swamped by the pulls from our other tools that run much better under Linux.

 

Affinity running under Linux (snap package? flatpak?) would make me incredibly happy.  Affinity with a python scripting language would make me break down in tears of joy.

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Just a semi-related question, is it possible to run Affinity software on Linux by using 'Wine' or some other "emulation" software that imitates Windows on Linux? I am increasingly more and more unsatisfied with Windows, (vulnerability, complicated and not-working updates, clogging of data, constant pilling up of useless old files, useless support, win10 auto forced update fiasco.....are just some of the reasons) I would really, and I mean really like to move away from it to Linux.

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17 hours ago, Mandu said:

Just a semi-related question, is it possible to run Affinity software on Linux by using 'Wine' or some other "emulation" software that imitates Windows on Linux? I am increasingly more and more unsatisfied with Windows, (vulnerability, complicated and not-working updates, clogging of data, constant pilling up of useless old files, useless support..are just some of the reasons) I would really, and I mean really like to move away from it to Linux.

I have no way to officially say one way or another, but I would highly doubt it. From what I understand, Affinity uses hardware acceleration for their apps.  From what I read on another thread here about Linux they indicated that it was fairly unlikely to work (or, at least, work well).

I'm 100% with you on the wanting to completely ditch Windows, but for now I don't think you can do that and still use Affinity products.

Edit: A minor correction: You can ditch Windows and still use Affinity products if you use a Mac.  That is what I do at home.  Two Linux machines (my primary desktop is a 12 core, 24 thread machine with 72GB RAM running CentOS and my mobile machine is a Dell XPS-15 running Ubuntu), and an old Mac Mini (2012 i5 with 16GB RAM) because I used to be all OSX all the time (before Apple completely insulted its "pro" clientele with their "pro" machines) and I still need one consumer friendly machine to run the SW that I bought over the years that doesn't work under Linux - SW like Affinity.

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And  there's this other massive huge bunch of people, even pro freelancers (hello!), pretty happy and comfortable with Windows 7, 8.1 AND 10 (able to deal with any issue, update, setting, whatever.... handle Macs, Windows machines or Linux at console level, do whatever task with it, and still rather preferring Windows... ;)   )..... I'm one of those nasty, evil users.... And we got (maybe should say "ownz") the numbers.... :P 

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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28 minutes ago, SrPx said:

And  there's this other massive huge bunch of people, even pro freelancers (hello!), pretty happy and comfortable with Windows 7, 8.1 AND 10 (able to deal with any issue, update, setting, whatever.... handle Macs, Windows machines or Linux at console level, do whatever task with it, and still rather preferring Windows... ;)   )..... I'm one of those nasty, evil users.... And we got (maybe should say "ownz") the numbers.... :P 

 

That is very good news for you then.

 

I'm happy that you get to use your preferred app on your preferred OS.

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I was saying this as a light joke, of course. 

 

I have been a Linux user for a very long time, and during  a certain time, Linux was my preferred OS. (more of a KDE than Gnome person, in its days, but handled comfortably several Ubuntus in the very later times, though was very happy too with that Kubuntu thing in its moment..)  And have had multi-boot machines, with up to 3 linux distros (not using linux provided boot/partition utilities, but others, DOS based, of my own preference (often, a combination of several), that allowed me to configure Windows boot stuff in ways non usual... well like I do everything in Windows/DOS/Linux, etc...., people configure stuff very poorly, and then complain about it...happens the same with the actual applications... .is a kind of user, the prob, imo.... ), and had also as boot options a pair of very different Windows versions (non OEM). I'd boot at each moment an OS depending on the set of tasks to do in the day or bunch of hours. That ended being non practical, as no matter how much you minimize your OS mainteinance, there are always stuff to handle, drivers to fine tune, etc. At some point, time started to be more valuable than anything, as I got more professional in making graphics. So, decided for the Windows route. But I've used Slackware 1.x, red Hat 4, Debian, and quite a bunch of old distros, along many years. What I use now as applications are ironically majorly applications that could be perfectly used with ANY of the 3 OSes, as Wings3D (WONDERFUL 3D modeler) is supported for Mac, Linux, Win, and so are Libre Office, Blender,  Krita, Thunderbird. These are my bread and butter. Almost every day use kind of stuff . And this could be loaded in a Linux distro (or any sort of Mac) just as well, or even better (Blender for example renders slightly faster). True that I also use quite Clip Paint Studio (ye olde manga Studio, BTW, only WIN/MAC version...no Linux, so evil .... ;D ;)  ) and Affinity Designer, but the irony is despite preferring by much to use Windows for compatibility with the rest of the humanity, among other heavier reasons, like, the software available in a bunch of areas (and trust me, I KNOW what is available for graphics for Linux, much better than most modern or current Linux die-hards...And better than most of them where are the limitations at professional levels. ), but the funny thing is I end up using cross platfom open source for a lot of my activity, if not for the majority of it. (anyway, I use Max, Photoshop, Illustrator, Zbrush at companies when am contracted as employee there, no other way round, it's their workflow, it's the set of established triple A tools. And happy with it too, as I love those tools. )

 

My change back to Windows (was with the Linux + Windows thing for a great bunch of years)  was a bit that I was tired to swim against the freaking stream (if that's the English word), and against all sort of obstacles (like independent software authors thinking CMYK mode in a 2D tool was not sth of interest to add, lol... ). It's been decades hoping the situation with the software applications for graphics creation would change. I don't have that kindda time now. Blender, Wings3D, Krita are TOTALLY getting there where the others should be, but I'll enjoy 'em from my Windows, thanks.

 

 

 

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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24 minutes ago, SrPx said:

swim against the freaking stream (if that's the English word)

 

We would usually say “swim against the tide”. ;)

 

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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Or is it "swim against the current?"

 

Actually, it is all three:

 

https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/swim+against+the+current

 

I have also used all three OS's and then some.  My first days doing this work was on SGI onyx and onyx2 before moving on to the Irix and O2.  I still have my old O2 case that holds my thermos now. :)

 

I can't make myself use the motif theme though.  I hated it back in the day and I hate it even more now. :)

 

 

I am not absolutely against Windows (and we are certainly drifting off topic now, but this is fun :) ). The issue for me is that our entire pipeline is *nix based.  Every last bit of it.  That includes the applications that we use that, even if they are generally cross platform, the 3D performance is best under Linux because of their better OpenGL stack.  But more importantly it also includes a ton of custom written "glue" that makes the pipeline work.  Nearly all of that is in python, QT, C, C++, with a bunch of bash, tcsh, and even a smattering of perl scripts for good measure.  This pipeline is nearly 25 years old now and while rickety at times, has been worn pretty smooth such that we can turn large projects around in fairly short order.  We can barely make parts of it work under OSX.  It breaks completely in Windows.

 

At home I dual boot Windows on my XPS laptop because why wouldn't I?  I rarely do it because I rarely need Windows (and I have a Mac Mini for those times that Linux doesn't cut it - and WTF is up with Linux and battery life?  Sheesh).  But everyone needs to find their own best workflow.  If I didn't have all this daily exposure to our Linux workflow, I would probably find running Linux at home to be less than ideal.  In fact, even now, if Apple weren't such a crap company when it comes to high end computing, I would drop Linux in a heartbeat for OSX.  But since nearly all of my work goes through a Linux pipe at work, I find it much easier to maintain some sort of continuity at home.  If it weren't for that I might switch to Windows for my freelance as well.  I still don't like it because I am really really much happier with the scripting and file system integration that I have under Linux, but it isn't a make or break thing for me.

 

Ultimately I understand why Affinity targets Mac and Windows first.  I would never suggest that they don't, nor would I suggest that anyone else should go Linux first.  But I am completely willing to say that we are nearly a Linux only shop (of about 150 people, but only a fraction of whom actually use Photoshop) that would adopt a Linux version of Affinity in a heartbeat because it would mean that we could:

 

A) Drop Adobe and their asinine color management in favor of OpenColorIO. Also, have you ever talked to Adobe's lead color engineer? I'm not going to name him, but if you have ever dealt with him, you will know what I mean. That is a reason to abandon Adobe in and of itself.

B) Drop Adobe and their asinine subscription only model (we haven't upgraded past CS6 specifically for this reason)

C) Drop our secondary windows machines which only get used when we are in Photoshop

D) Drop Adobe because, c'mon.

 

I know we can already do A,C, and D now on our windows machines, but it is nearly impossible to get an artist to switch tools absent some external pressure. Having only a single, Linux box would be the impetus to make the changes.

 

I'm not holding my breath.  I just wanted to state my preference.

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4 hours ago, bvz said:

Ultimately I understand why Affinity targets Mac and Windows first.  I would never suggest that they don't, nor would I suggest that anyone else should go Linux first. 

Ultimately, this is about just one thing: is the market demand for Linux versions of the Affinity apps strong enough to justify the expense & diversion of limited company resources needed to develop & support them?

 

It seems obvious that at least for the next several years the answer to that will remain a firm "no." As it is, the Windows versions of Designer & Photo are still not as well optimized or as bug free as the Mac ones. Several items on the 1.x version road maps have as yet not even made it to the customer beta stage. Publisher for either platform has been delayed several times. The iOS version of Photo still needs work. The iOS version of Designer is not yet in public or customer beta & the as yet unnamed Affinity DAM apparently is still somewhere in the alpha stage of development.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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3 hours ago, R C-R said:

Ultimately, this is about just one thing: is the market demand for Linux versions of the Affinity apps strong enough to justify the expense & diversion of limited company resources needed to develop & support them?


Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Serif about the size of Allegorithmic (Substance Painter, Designer) and similar software in terms of scope? And still they managed to make linux ports without going bankrupt.

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7 minutes ago, mauriciomarinho said:


Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Serif about the size of Allegorithmic (Substance Painter, Designer) and similar software in terms of scope? And still they managed to make linux ports without going bankrupt.

Thanks, then we'll get right on it :) 

He didn't say we would go bankrupt if we did. He said our resources would be stretched too thin, so the general customer experience (development and support) would be reduced which is not what we want. It's not all about the money. We are not saying never we are saying not now.

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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