Affinity products for Linux

[Snapseed]

7 hours ago, kamanderside said:

Maybe we should get Affinity for Linux crowdfunded at this point, so Serif can hire the extra peeps they'd need to port it / make it compatible with WINE or Proton.

I mean, if we're serious about wanting it to happen, we could help invest in it, yeah?   //wishful thinking

It is already technically possible to get Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher working well on Linux...but only by using virtual machine technology like VirtualBox, VMWare, etc. but that's best done with 16GB RAM upwards. Personally, I think that is a better solution than dual booting and other views are available.

 

[wonderings]

1 hour ago, Snapseed said:

It is already technically possible to get Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher working well on Linux...but only by using virtual machine technology like VirtualBox, VMWare, etc. but that's best done with 16GB RAM upwards. Personally, I think that is a better solution than dual booting and other views are available.

 

I have brought that up in the past. I run Windows as a VM on my intel iMac as well as M1 Max MacBook Pro, they run great. I was under the impression that VM's in Linux were not as efficient and did not run as well as they do on the Mac side of things. 

[msdobrescu]

Running in an application in a Windows VM it's not running under Linux, regardless where that VM is hosted.

I don't care if an application runs under Linux natively or through Wine. Any option is fine.

If crowdfunding is an option, that makes sense to try support Wine development as long as it is not accepted by the software maker.

[Snapseed]

1 hour ago, wonderings said:

I have brought that up in the past. I run Windows as a VM on my intel iMac as well as M1 Max MacBook Pro, they run great. I was under the impression that VM's in Linux were not as efficient and did not run as well as they do on the Mac side of things. 

I don't need to use any VMs because I found Linux softwares that work well for me but it apparently runs fine:

https://itsfoss.com/install-windows-10-virtualbox-linux/

1 hour ago, msdobrescu said:

Running in an application in a Windows VM it's not running under Linux, regardless where that VM is hosted.

I don't care if an application runs under Linux natively or through Wine. Any option is fine.

If crowdfunding is an option, that makes sense to try support Wine development as long as it is not accepted by the software maker.

It is probably better to raise such matters directly with Wine and Codeweavers staff directly and see what they say because Serif Europe has so far not given any signal that they are remotely interested in such a course of action (I am willing to be corrected on this matter).

https://www.codeweavers.com

[chiddekel]

35 minutes ago, Snapseed said:

I don't need to use any VMs because I found Linux softwares that work well for me but it apparently runs fine:

https://itsfoss.com/install-windows-10-virtualbox-linux/

It is probably better to raise such matters directly with Wine and Codeweavers staff directly and see what they say because Serif Europe has so far not given any signal that they are remotely interested in such a course of action (I am willing to be corrected on this matter).

https://www.codeweavers.com

On other hand, support codewaevers can increase plugin for figma that is use in web development for develope sites and web apps UI on corporate Linux Front-end and web developers machines.

[MattyWS]

On 5/31/2022 at 8:45 PM, LondonSquirrel said:

I don't know and I'm not interested. I'm only replying because it might appear rude not to.

No, you appear rude in every single post you’ve made in this thread. The others are right, you are just being toxic and hateful toward a request that people want and you clearly don’t want. When large companies like Valve and Nvidia are supporting Linux as a desktop and gaming platform, you can pretty easily see there is in fact a market for it.

I don’t even know why you’re still posting here, the only thing I can think of is you’re a Linux user that likes using a niche OS and don’t want it to get popular like some kind of hipster… or maybe you’re just a troll who never even touched Linux in the last decade. Either one is toxic.

[Pšenda]

10 hours ago, MattyWS said:

you are just being toxic and hateful toward a request that people want and you clearly don’t want.

Why are you constantly posting here (on the Affinity forum)? A request has been made (repeatedly - Linux users seem to have trouble finding or understanding the rules set out here), to which you have been repeatedly told that the application is not being prepared for this platform yet. And yet here you keep writing more and more posts / threads that are completely irrelevant for Affinity applications and their users !!! So who is toxic?
Why don't you discuss your Linux issues and benefits in forums that are designed for this? There you will definitely have a lot of grateful readers. Just insert a link here so that potential candidates can easily find your discussion. Thank you.

[Snapseed]

On 6/3/2022 at 2:21 PM, Pšenda said:

Why are you constantly posting here (on the Affinity forum)? A request has been made (repeatedly - Linux users seem to have trouble finding or understanding the rules set out here), to which you have been repeatedly told that the application is not being prepared for this platform yet. And yet here you keep writing more and more posts / threads that are completely irrelevant for Affinity applications and their users !!! So who is toxic?
Why don't you discuss your Linux issues and benefits in forums that are designed for this? There you will definitely have a lot of grateful readers. Just insert a link here so that potential candidates can easily find your discussion. Thank you.

With respect, no one is being forced to read or to comment in this particular thread. Furthermore, it is perfectly legitimate to politely make requests for new features in the Affinity range of good products and to ask that more operating systems are covered such as Android or Linux.

This thread is also very useful because allows Linux users to share details of existing Linux software that can be used instead of the Affinity range of software. Personally, I would be quite content if the Affinity product range just ran well with Wine/CrossOver.

Anyway, one criterion of good image editors is how well they deal with astrophotography (Affinity Photo is increasingly popular in that respect, e.g. in Astronomy Now magazine and mentions online, because it does not come with an exorbitant cost or a forever rental contract) and three celestial objects are presented below that have been processed in Linux with Pixeluvo, Fotoxx and PixInsight respectively:

[Leigh]

Several of the more recent posts in this thread have been reported to the moderators. I know this is a sensitive subject for some but please avoid personal attacks and keep it on topic 👍

[Snapseed]

The potential option of using the Affinity softwares via a virtual machine on a Linux computer has already been mentioned above in this thread and it turns out that an existing forum member, Hartmut Doering, has been able to make this solution work very well. His helpful advice is reproduced below:

"Hi,

AP has currently no maintainer for Wine, that's why it does not work flawlessly like PS in Wine. But I found a way to make it work. Instead of Wine which "emulates" Windows and needs a Maintainer who asks Serif which Libraries AP needs and puts them in the AP-Wine-emulation, I use Virtualbox.
Virtualbox is a complete Virtual Machine, I had to install Windows in it.
I found out AP worked flawlessly in Virtualbox when I give the Virtual Machine (VM) 8 GB of RAM and a separate SSD from Mint. Also, 3D Acceleration needs to be turned on. 
- The downside for some people is, you need a Windows Licence Key for this approach.
+ The upside is you have for example a super sturdy Mint Workstation, and Windows runs controlled inside it, with drag and drop and all the good stuff.
+ Also, you can snapshot the VM, so when I start it, it does not boot Windows and such. It just opens a Window with the Windows 8.1 Desktop and AP already open and ready to use. I just have to drag my file over in AP, hit fullscreen and get stuff done.
+ All these, Windows-Registry stability problems or updates that interfere with my schedule are gone.
+ Also, I can use 8.1 far beyond its support cycle because I can manage what access to the Internet I allow the VM specifically."

[MattyWS]

On 6/3/2022 at 2:21 PM, Pšenda said:

Why are you constantly posting here (on the Affinity forum)? A request has been made (repeatedly - Linux users seem to have trouble finding or understanding the rules set out here), to which you have been repeatedly told that the application is not being prepared for this platform yet. And yet here you keep writing more and more posts / threads that are completely irrelevant for Affinity applications and their users !!! So who is toxic?
Why don't you discuss your Linux issues and benefits in forums that are designed for this? There you will definitely have a lot of grateful readers. Just insert a link here so that potential candidates can easily find your discussion. Thank you.

I disagree with a couple of your points. This is a topic about affinity photo potentially being for linux so of course people will talk about it the topic. It's not toxic to keep on-topic. It's far more toxic to go into someones request thread and say how they don't want the request because it's not relevant to them. I'd be like me going into a thread about mac support and saying "barely anyone uses mac, Serif shouldn't waste their money on supporting you, all their money should be used to develop their products on windows where I use affinity suite". Kinda silly to do this, right? If you aren't interested in a request the best thing to do is to just not comment and the literal worst thing you can do is trash the request *because* it's not relevant to you, which is exactly what a certain someone has been doing in here.

To your other point, why don't we discuss the linux/affinity topic on linux forums? What would that achieve really? We'd be having the same conversation but with more linux users and no affinity devs eyes on it. We *want* Serif to see this topic, we want a discussion on why this would be a good request. There's really no harm in anyone continuing this discussion. Though like I said I'm under no illusion Serif will act on any of this so even though I own the affinity suite on Windows and iPadOS, I can't use the windows version anymore. Sad times, as affinity designer would also be an amazing addition to linux (I use designer way more than I use photo).

Anyways if not Serif, I hope at least one company prevails and does the correct thing in supporting all three main desktop OS's. There maybe less stats on who uses linux since by it's very nature, linux distros tend not to collect data on it's users. I imagine there are a lot more than the stats are suggesting, especially when you consider entire cities and country governments are switching to linux and the largest games distributor is banking on linux so it's certainly becoming more the norm these days, even if its mostly governments switching en masse for the moment (I think governments being on linux will only help normalize it). I'll try not to get too political but countries like Russia being sanctioned and unable to acquire windowsOS or macs is also a sure reason for software devs to start supporting the OS people can actually use freely, which is why I happen to use Linux now even as a professional game developer. I've found it a positive experience so far, basically all the software I need is supported. Houdini, Unity, Unreal, Blender, World machine, Substance Suite.. I'm all good on linux apart from a decent photo/vector editor, which I *can* live without even if I don't want to.

If you disagree with my points here I'd love to engage in a constructive discussion as to why. Obviously not everyone uses linux but I feel like the "I don't use it so it's a waste of devs money to support it" is a non-argument and non-constructive to this discussion.

[MikeW]

@MattyWS, @Pšenda...

This thread is a Pinned Thread. This can only be done by Serif staff.

I think there is at least one good reason why it is a pinned thread--if for no other reason than to keep the discussion in single place. 

But MattyWS is correct, why not just avoid posting here? It is a legitimate topic.

[MattyWS]

1 hour ago, LondonSquirrel said:

There you go again. There are not three main desktop OSs. There are two.

there you go again, there is 1. Everyone uses windows why use anything else.

you're tiresome trolling is getting really old

[GuernseyMan]

5 hours ago, MattyWS said:

Anyways if not Serif, I hope at least one company prevails and does the correct thing in supporting all three main desktop OS's.

I agree with a lot of what you've said, and I hope that eventually they do release a Linux version. I just don't think the time is right.

I'm not sure about doing the "correct" thing as the proper terminology here. It makes it sound as though Serif have some sort of moral obligation to support Linux when they don't. There are two correct courses of action for any company: The one which gives the greatest benefit or the one which does the least harm. Up to now Serif have said they have no interest in a Linux version and I assume that is a sound business decision rather than some kind of arbitrary dislike for the OS.

The thread is kind of winding down a bit, and there has been a lot of off topic, and sometimes quite rude comments; from both sides. Serif have been remarkably patient, there aren't many companies that would put up with users actively promoting the products of competitors on their forums yet this is exactly what we've seen. In the UK we would consider that bad-form.

Serif are not Google, or Valve or a Government body. They are a small company with 200 odd employees (that's about 200 employees, not 200 employees that are odd!) Valve are currently cash rich if their latest financials are to be believed so can throw money at a project, if it fails they can just walk away. Their core demographic is gamers who are notoriously fickle about hardware and software (prepare to see a mass exodus to Linux if they think they can get an extra couple of FPS, and then back again when Microsoft brings out the next must-have feature for gaming on Windows).

 

[MattyWS]

3 minutes ago, GuernseyMan said:

I agree with a lot of what you've said, and I hope that eventually they do release a Linux version. I just don't think the time is right.

I'm not sure about doing the "correct" thing as the proper terminology here. It makes it sound as though Serif have some sort of moral obligation to support Linux when they don't. There are two correct courses of action for any company: The one which gives the greatest benefit or the one which does the least harm. Up to now Serif have said they have no interest in a Linux version and I assume that is a sound business decision rather than some kind of arbitrary dislike for the OS.

The thread is kind of winding down a bit, and there has been a lot of off topic, and sometimes quite rude comments; from both sides. Serif have been remarkably patient, there aren't many companies that would put up with users actively promoting the products of competitors on their forums yet this is exactly what we've seen. In the UK we would consider that bad-form.

Serif are not Google, or Valve or a Government body. They are a small company with 200 odd employees (that's about 200 employees, not 200 employees that are odd!) Valve are currently cash rich if their latest financials are to be believed so can throw money at a project, if it fails they can just walk away. Their core demographic is gamers who are notoriously fickle about hardware and software (prepare to see a mass exodus to Linux if they think they can get an extra couple of FPS, and then back again when Microsoft brings out the next must-have feature for gaming on Windows).

 

These are fair points. When I say "correct" what I mean is a project from the start would be coded to be as agnostic as possible which they've done to an extent. And yes other companies have major cash income to be able to throw at a project like SteamOS, however you'd think they wouldn't have done that if they thought linux wasn't a worth while endeavour.

As for promoting other products, I don't know, people here are really suggesting different products that are on Linux so it's really not competing with Affinity if they have no intentions of coming to the platform but yes, it's bad form. I for one am not trying to drive anyone away from affinity. Affinity suite is barely used by the masses and I believe it to be the better option going forward instead of photoshop (much like I feel linux is the better platform going forward) so I'd only ever recommend Affinity unless people uise Linux. I say it's a shame because the paring of Affinity Suite and Linux would be a power play on Serifs part.

[Snapseed]

5 hours ago, GuernseyMan said:

I agree with a lot of what you've said, and I hope that eventually they do release a Linux version. I just don't think the time is right.

I'm not sure about doing the "correct" thing as the proper terminology here. It makes it sound as though Serif have some sort of moral obligation to support Linux when they don't. There are two correct courses of action for any company: The one which gives the greatest benefit or the one which does the least harm. Up to now Serif have said they have no interest in a Linux version and I assume that is a sound business decision rather than some kind of arbitrary dislike for the OS.

The thread is kind of winding down a bit, and there has been a lot of off topic, and sometimes quite rude comments; from both sides. Serif have been remarkably patient, there aren't many companies that would put up with users actively promoting the products of competitors on their forums yet this is exactly what we've seen. In the UK we would consider that bad-form.

Serif are not Google, or Valve or a Government body. They are a small company with 200 odd employees (that's about 200 employees, not 200 employees that are odd!) Valve are currently cash rich if their latest financials are to be believed so can throw money at a project, if it fails they can just walk away. Their core demographic is gamers who are notoriously fickle about hardware and software (prepare to see a mass exodus to Linux if they think they can get an extra couple of FPS, and then back again when Microsoft brings out the next must-have feature for gaming on Windows).

 

1. Personally, l would regard good Wine/Crossover capability as catering for Linux users. For example, PhotoScape is Windows only but their developers make the effort to make it Wine compatible so much so that the Snap version could easily be mistaken for a native Linux version.

2. I do recommend and suggest the Affinity range of products to people using Windows and macOS because they are good and they are are reasonably priced so making them really good value for money. Since there are no Linux or Wine-compatible versions of the Affinity softwares, I think it is fair to mention alternatives that are already out there because those products are not direct competitors with Affinity products precisely because Serif Europe does not yet make Linux or Wine compatible versions of their softwares.

3. If anyone is reading this thread who uses macOS or Windows but currently does not use Affinity products then l strongly recommend that you check them out starting with the videos below:

 

[komahime]

Do you know that the vfx industry is using Linux as their main platform? Because of this they have a separate machine to run software that doesn't run on Linux. And thanks to Adobe's acquisition of Allegorithmic now they have to pay extra dollars to get the linux version of the Substance software (3D Texturing Tool). Just my 2 cents about Linux not being a viable market.

[GuernseyMan]

I do, and I would hazard a guess that Serif do as well; being as they are in the business. If they have a separate machine to run software that doesn't run on Linux then they can obviously run the Affinity applications on that machine, should it be a valid part of their workflow. This is a good example of an industry running the software that they need whilst being agnostic to the OS.

The problem with this is that if this industry as a whole uses, say, 500 licenses and Serif make them available on Linux they will just move to Linux when they need a new license. That's no additional sales for Serif. When v2 comes around Serif will be selling Linux licenses rather than Windows/Mac rather than in addition to.

At the risk of repeating myself, Serif know their market and will act accordingly. They will only move to Linux when it is clear that not being in the Linux market will affect their sales. They have information which we don't about their demographics, based on proper market research.

It has stopped being a thread about Affinity products on Linux and just become a general evangelise about Linux. You don't need to convince me, I use Linux, but my workflow includes Linux and Windows (whatever works on each) as I consider the OS to be immaterial. I spend my time using software not mucking about with OS settings.

27 minutes ago, komahime said:

Do you know that the vfx industry is using Linux as their main platform? Because of this they have a separate machine to run software that doesn't run on Linux. And thanks to Adobe's acquisition of Allegorithmic now they have to pay extra dollars to get the linux version of the Substance software (3D Texturing Tool). Just my 2 cents about Linux not being a viable market.

 

[MattyWS]

8 hours ago, komahime said:

Do you know that the vfx industry is using Linux as their main platform? Because of this they have a separate machine to run software that doesn't run on Linux. And thanks to Adobe's acquisition of Allegorithmic now they have to pay extra dollars to get the linux version of the Substance software (3D Texturing Tool). Just my 2 cents about Linux not being a viable market.

part of the reason I use linux actually is that Blender runs faster (by a substantial amount) and Houdini+blender is part of my vfx workflow. As I do videogame VFX I'm not in need of adobe products to do any of my VFX thankfully, which is also part of the reason I can use Linux as it doesn't have a massive impact on me that adobe chooses not to support this platform.

I wouldn't say it's not a viable market though, if anything I would much rather have just one OS to rule them all. Surely it says something that VFX peeps use linux and windows... if windows were that one OS to rule them all then they wouldn't use linux in the first place. 

As Guernseyman pointed out though Linux is not without flaws and you can sometimes go down a rabbit hole of endless tinkering (which is nice that you can, but annoying that you sometimes have to). Some distros are made to just work out of the box like ZorinOS, which is stable, polished and comes with a bunch of bloat applications out of the box so you can just get started. I had to distro hop for a year to figure out which distro I wanted to stick with and that can be a problem in that its confusing and not straight forward as a platform off the bat, however since all distros can kinda do the same things it's a non issue once you realise. For example you could install endeavour, zorin, pop, fedora, manjaro etc etc etc and they all have that same version of discord, blender and other applications that work on all distros. Once I kinda felt this to be the case I could settle on one and get work done just like Windows and Mac. No need for that endless tinkering. ^^

I think once people pass that mental hurdle that linux is just endless tinkering and distro hopping and realise it's just another set of OS's that do the same things it becomes clear that Linux can compete just fine with Windows and Mac as a marketplace for consumers, hobbyists and professionals.

Anyways what OS isn't without problems... you have to use commandline just to uninstall a browser on Windows which I wouldn't call very user friendly/simple and MacOS almost suffers from the same problem linux does, a lack of software support (granted, it's better on Mac but it's still an issue compared to windows which runs everything) and fewer users than windows by far.

[Stun Damage]

Excuse me for starting on a semi-offtopic note, but in the DxO Photolab forums there was recently this thread. You'd deem it innocuous had it not come up just a few days after the last post in this monstrosity.

Now, unlike Affinity Photo, DxO Photolab is not a 50$ general imaging software, but rather a 220$ specialized RAW developer. You could call it a photo workflow app, but its database/DAM capabilities are rather limited and its pixel editing tools non-existent, i.e. it usually needs both a front-end app for culling photos and a back-end layer based one in order to form a smooth workflow. Something like On1 pretty much provides all three of these steps at just a 100$, as well as even more features in the actual development stage. So, why choose DxO then? Superior RAW rendering, optics module and noise reduction. An obsession with pure image quality is literally the only reason one would pick Photolab over anything else in the field. So, we can all imagine that a Linux version of this app is going to become a hit and sell like hotcakes, right? After all, that's what Linux users tell us. If only DxO take 4-5 months out of their yearly development cycle just so they can port it...

So, @MattyWSyou wonder why people are hostile to your request? We wouldn't mind if you pestered Adobe or some other corporate monolith about Linux. But what you are trying to achieve here is to actively deceive a small independent company that Linux is a financially viable market. Sure, Serif are in all probability smart enough to ignore this, but that doesn't excuse the desire to push them into a venture that would both harm them financially and severely slow down the development of what they already have. In this sense, your request is objectively malignant. Not intentionally so, I'm sure, but still ignorant at best and morally objectionable.

But most of all, it's self-centered. Consider this: There are a lot of request threads for an Affinity DAM (the number is comparable to the Linux threads, actually). You don't see any resistance there, do you? Now, I positively don't need nor care about an Affinity DAM, but I still support it. Why? Because it'd be beneficial to Serif; it's the missing link in their suite that would allow most photographers to switch over from Adobe. On the other hand, I personally could certainly use an Affinity After Effects alternative much more than the DAM, but I wouldn't request it. I realize it's a bad business idea. And indeed, there is skepticism in such threads. You see, the world doesn't revolve around me/you. One has to think about the future of his chosen software. I do care about the future of Affinity because I have invested in the apps (time much more so than money).

In the last 5-8 years, we've had a lot of small creative software studios that punch well above their weight and provide rather valuable alternatives to the industry giants. Please, do not take this for granted - they are already utilizing all of their resources. Stop trying to push them into doomed ventures just because it suits you. A few - even a few hundred - users on a forum do not demonstrate actual demand. By the sheer virtue of being here, you are already an edge case and not representative. Just for a moment, step out of your VFX industry bubble and look at the world. A for-profit business doesn't have any moral obligation to think about The Future of Computing (TM) and try to push an outlier OS at their expense. This is not a chicken and egg situation - we all know what comes first. It's not the commercial software.  

Edited June 13, 2022 by Stun Damage

[MattyWS]

10 hours ago, Stun Damage said:

Excuse me for starting on a semi-offtopic note, but in the DxO Photolab forums there was recently this thread. You'd deem it innocuous had it not come up just a few days after the last post in this monstrosity.

Now, unlike Affinity Photo, DxO Photolab is not a 50$ general imaging software, but rather a 220$ specialized RAW developer. You could call it a photo workflow app, but its database/DAM capabilities are rather limited and its pixel editing tools non-existent, i.e. it usually needs both a front-end app for culling photos and a back-end layer based one in order to form a smooth workflow. Something like On1 pretty much provides all three of these steps at just a 100$, as well as even more features in the actual development stage. So, why choose DxO then? Superior RAW rendering, optics module and noise reduction. An obsession with pure image quality is literally the only reason one would pick Photolab over anything else in the field. So, we can all imagine that a Linux version of this app is going to become a hit and sell like hotcakes, right? After all, that's what Linux users tell us. If only DxO take 4-5 months out of their yearly development cycle just so they can port it...

So, @MattyWSyou wonder why people are hostile to your request? We wouldn't mind if you pestered Adobe or some other corporate monolith about Linux. But what you are trying to achieve here is to actively deceive a small independent company that Linux is a financially viable market. Sure, Serif are in all probability smart enough to ignore this, but that doesn't excuse the desire to push them into a venture that would both harm them financially and severely slow down the development of what they already have. In this sense, your request is objectively malignant. Not intentionally so, I'm sure, but still ignorant at best and morally objectionable.

But most of all, it's self-centered. Consider this: There are a lot of request threads for an Affinity DAM (the number is comparable to the Linux threads, actually). You don't see any resistance there, do you? Now, I positively don't need nor care about an Affinity DAM, but I still support it. Why? Because it'd be beneficial to Serif; it's the missing link in their suite that would allow most photographers to switch over from Adobe. On the other hand, I personally could certainly use an Affinity After Effects alternative much more than the DAM, but I wouldn't request it. I realize it's a bad business idea. And indeed, there is skepticism in such threads. You see, the world doesn't revolve around me/you. One has to think about the future of his chosen software. I do care about the future of Affinity because I have invested in the apps (time much more so than money).

In the last 5-8 years, we've had a lot of small creative software studios that punch well above their weight and provide rather valuable alternatives to the industry giants. Please, do not take this for granted - they are already utilizing all of their resources. Stop trying to push them into doomed ventures just because it suits you. A few - even a few hundred - users on a forum do not demonstrate actual demand. By the sheer virtue of being here, you are already an edge case and not representative. Just for a moment, step out of your VFX industry bubble and look at the world. A for-profit business doesn't have any moral obligation to think about The Future of Computing (TM) and try to push an outlier OS at their expense. This is not a chicken and egg situation - we all know what comes first. It's not the commercial software.  

I agree with your sentiment, a small, for-profit company should focus on profit first and go where the masses of users are. They have no obligation really to listen to anyone on this forum and they can do what they want. I'm not trying to strong-arm Serif into porting to Linux in addition to Mac, iPad and windows and no one really has to agree that it's the best thing to do. It is absolutely my opinion here but I think developing for Mac, Windows and Linux is a good thing, at least for the end user to have that choice.

Without getting too much into it, I outright disagree with Microsofts ToS for windows which is why I don't use it, and I never really got along with Macs and feel it's the last OS I'd want to daily drive (this isn't bias here, I have an iphone, apple watch, ipad, apple tv and airpods etc, I love apple). This leaves me with linux, I agree to their licenses, the DE offer me the ability to work how I want to work and for the most part all the software I need is there (save for affinity suite).

I guess you could say it's selfish for me to ask Serif to bring Affinity to Linux but at the same time, other small companies and even large companies are supporting linux. Not all of them, mind you. I get that not every software company supports a linux version of their software which is kind of what I'm getting at by asking for it. There's no harm in asking at least, and at most, people requesting software for linux is a good way to show there are people asking for it.

As for your point about bugging Adobe for linux support, I would rather not use photoshop if I can help it (thats why I use affinity) and their software is a hot mess of legacy code hidden behind a rent-to-use paywall which as an individual I can't get behind. My point about serif with affinity is that the affinity suite is fresh and new, they have the chance to build something agnostic from the get-go and I'd hate for them to get to 20 years down the line and say they can't port it to linux because *their* code is now overly complicated and unruly. If they can get behind this early I think it'd be better than to decide years from now that linux is a good idea.


TLDR; IMO, in an ideal world all software would be platform agnostic and should be built that way from the start and serif has only really just begun their journey with Affinity, they have time to make this happen still.

[Stun Damage]

Sure, your reasons for choosing Linux are sensible and I'm not disputing any of them (and defending Windows is the last hill I'd die on ). I even respect that you put your money where your mouth is (well, Linux is free, but you still have to accept a slight-to-moderate amount of inconvenience in order to stick to your principles). That's the only way for Linux, really - its userbase needs to grow despite the lack of software support and only then the commercial apps will come. It's more people like you that would make that happen. However, port begging for-profit companies is not the solution. It's a misguided, if well-meaning, attempt to alter the market perception. You saying that you want something doesn't show demand at a useful scale. You can't possibly know how much demand there is, nor do you understand how much demand Serif actually needs. Yet you project an absolute conviction that a Linux port is a good idea and can't possibly harm them. Do keep in mind, this is not a feature request - you are asking for a lot here. And fact is, you are one person. You are not providing useful/actionable information about demand. What you are doing is trying to skew perception.

I think a lot of this comes down to you being in VFX. That industry is an outlier, as there is a huge overlap between Linux "nerds" and VFX artists (I guess it comes with computer literacy?). Companies like Foundry are not targeting broad and general markets, they know the type of studios they sell to, so having a Linux version is a no-brainer. That's if the software wasn't actually developed on Linux in the first place, which is often the case with VFX apps. But it's not the case in most other markets. 

How much effort and money a Linux port requires varies vastly between apps. We are all well aware that there are platform-agnostic options that make porting trivial. This does not matter for software that isn't already built upon such a foundation. Affinity (and DxO for that matter) run native interfaces, which is to say they have basically built the entire UI two times over. A linux port would mean a new version (and also diverging support for that version in the future, indefinitely). Do you have any idea how much dev time this takes? I know it sounds kinda silly that the UI should be one of the main hurdles in porting, but it absolutely is. Consequently, this:

1 hour ago, MattyWS said:

If they can get behind this early I think it'd be better than to decide years from now that linux is a good idea.

is wrong. It is already too late for Affinity to become effortlessly cross-platform. The amount of work on a Linux port would probably be comparable to the Windows one. And for how much of the market? The point is, you don't seem to understand how much you're asking for here and are consequently bugging the wrong company. Concentrate on cases where a Linux version is actually viable. This means one of two things: 1) Platform agnostic foundation - a Linux port would be trivial 2) A large corporate behemoth that can spare the resources on a non-trivial port without significant repercussions. Affinity is neither of those things. (Adobe was just an example of the latter. Otherwise, we agree that their rental model is a non-starter and the software itself is only getting increasingly slower and less stable over time, so wouldn't be very desirable even at a reasonable one time fee. That doesn't make Affinity on Linux any more viable than it is, however. You should pick a better target for your bugging).

Edited June 13, 2022 by Stun Damage

[walt.farrell]

15 minutes ago, Stun Damage said:

It is already too late for Affinity to become effortlessly cross-platform.

The Affinity applications were written from the beginning to be cross-platform: Mac and Windows. Most (I think) of the code is common, but the UI layer needs some platform-specific functions. And there are some additional platform-specific functions (scanning on Mac, System Palettes on Mac, for example). But a good chunk of the code would port over easily.

The biggest issues I see in adding a 4th platform (any 4th platform) come from a combination of development for the platform-unique portions (added staff), QA testing/certification (added staff, largely), customer support staff, and the coordination issues (the code for all the platforms needs to be released at the same time).

[Snapseed]

3 hours ago, MattyWS said:

I agree with your sentiment, a small, for-profit company should focus on profit first and go where the masses of users are. They have no obligation really to listen to anyone on this forum and they can do what they want. I'm not trying to strong-arm Serif into porting to Linux in addition to Mac, iPad and windows and no one really has to agree that it's the best thing to do. It is absolutely my opinion here but I think developing for Mac, Windows and Linux is a good thing, at least for the end user to have that choice.

Without getting too much into it, I outright disagree with Microsofts ToS for windows which is why I don't use it, and I never really got along with Macs and feel it's the last OS I'd want to daily drive (this isn't bias here, I have an iphone, apple watch, ipad, apple tv and airpods etc, I love apple). This leaves me with linux, I agree to their licenses, the DE offer me the ability to work how I want to work and for the most part all the software I need is there (save for affinity suite).

I guess you could say it's selfish for me to ask Serif to bring Affinity to Linux but at the same time, other small companies and even large companies are supporting linux. Not all of them, mind you. I get that not every software company supports a linux version of their software which is kind of what I'm getting at by asking for it. There's no harm in asking at least, and at most, people requesting software for linux is a good way to show there are people asking for it.

As for your point about bugging Adobe for linux support, I would rather not use photoshop if I can help it (thats why I use affinity) and their software is a hot mess of legacy code hidden behind a rent-to-use paywall which as an individual I can't get behind. My point about serif with affinity is that the affinity suite is fresh and new, they have the chance to build something agnostic from the get-go and I'd hate for them to get to 20 years down the line and say they can't port it to linux because *their* code is now overly complicated and unruly. If they can get behind this early I think it'd be better than to decide years from now that linux is a good idea.


TLDR; IMO, in an ideal world all software would be platform agnostic and should be built that way from the start and serif has only really just begun their journey with Affinity, they have time to make this happen still.

I think it is worth quoting Serif Europe's very own TonyB on this matter:

"Affinity is mainly written in C++ with the Mac version front-end written in Objective C. Scripting will be Java script as we feel this will cover the largest use cases people want."

Therefore, it won't necessarily be as easy as when using cross platform software at the outset for creating graphical user interfaces such as Qt as used by Bibble, which is now Corel AftershotPro, hence the Linux version of that software.

Personally, I think it is a more realistic request to ask our friends at Serif Europe to consider looking at fine tuning the Affinity range of products so that they run well with CrossOver/Wine and that might, for example, involve cooperation with CodeWeavers' own developers. I am pretty sure that they would be open to such cooperation because that would be a win-win for everyone.

As with all the other thread requests for features, what people forget/don't know is that Serif Europe is 100x smaller than the huge Adobe Corporation in staff numbers and so they cannot do everything. Indeed, I think it would be potentially risky to try to enter already saturated markets such as image organisers or RAW editors, for example.

 

[D’T4ils]

On 6/6/2022 at 1:11 PM, Snapseed said:

The potential option of using the Affinity softwares via a virtual machine on a Linux computer has already been mentioned above in this thread and it turns out that an existing forum member, Hartmut Doering, has been able to make this solution work very well. His helpful advice is reproduced below:

"Hi,

AP has currently no maintainer for Wine, that's why it does not work flawlessly like PS in Wine. But I found a way to make it work. Instead of Wine which "emulates" Windows and needs a Maintainer who asks Serif which Libraries AP needs and puts them in the AP-Wine-emulation, I use Virtualbox.
Virtualbox is a complete Virtual Machine, I had to install Windows in it.
I found out AP worked flawlessly in Virtualbox when I give the Virtual Machine (VM) 8 GB of RAM and a separate SSD from Mint. Also, 3D Acceleration needs to be turned on. 
- The downside for some people is, you need a Windows Licence Key for this approach.
+ The upside is you have for example a super sturdy Mint Workstation, and Windows runs controlled inside it, with drag and drop and all the good stuff.
+ Also, you can snapshot the VM, so when I start it, it does not boot Windows and such. It just opens a Window with the Windows 8.1 Desktop and AP already open and ready to use. I just have to drag my file over in AP, hit fullscreen and get stuff done.
+ All these, Windows-Registry stability problems or updates that interfere with my schedule are gone.
+ Also, I can use 8.1 far beyond its support cycle because I can manage what access to the Internet I allow the VM specifically."

Last week I finally got completely fed up with Windows, mainly because once again they pushed updates down my throat that led to another infamous blue screen. So during the weekend I took the time to give Linux (Pop!_OS specifically) another chance without even looking back.

The thing was that yesterday I was in need of access to Affinity’s tools, and so I decided to try the VM approach once again. This time I went with Boxes, which made the process incredibly easy (specially because of the express install it offers). I only needed to give the VM 8 GB of RAM (it probably would’ve worked with only 4) and I was good to go. I’m pretty new to Linux and VMs, so I’m not sure if Boxes too care of the graphic card side of the matter to make use of my Nvidia card, or if it simply stuck to the integrated one, but Designer as well as Photo worked perfectly fine without any issues whatsoever and quite fluently too. I was honestly very impressed