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Affinity products for Linux


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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 by Stun Damage
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9 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.

Thanks for the heads up! I haven't read it all, and I don't have the time anyway, but I can see how it is going - the Linux mob will not take no for an answer, even when the 'no' is from DxO itself.

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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.
:D

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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 :D). 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 by Stun Damage
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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).

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
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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.
:D

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.

 

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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."

AffinityInVM.jpg

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 :)

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10 minutes ago, D’T4ils said:

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 :)

That is excellent news that you have found a smooth solution to get Photo and Designer working very well on Linux via VM - happy days! Personally though, I wouldn't even try with anything less than 8GB to be on the safe side.

For anyone else reading this post, Gnome Boxes should be available in the relevant Linux software store and you can install Windows plus other Linux distributions. It is also possible to install macOS using Gnome Boxes and online instructions are available on how to do just that.

Here is an introductory guide to Gnome Boxes:

 

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4 minutes ago, Snapseed said:

For anyone else reading this post, Gnome Boxes should be available in the relevant Linux software store and you can install Windows plus other Linux distributions. It is also possible to install macOS using Gnome Boxes and online instructions are available on how to do just that.

Unless things have changed recently, Gnome Boxes doesn't let you passthrough a GPU. I wouldn't use Photo or Designer in a VM that lacks that option.

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1 hour ago, Renzatic said:

Unless things have changed recently, Gnome Boxes doesn't let you passthrough a GPU. I wouldn't use Photo or Designer in a VM that lacks that option.

Too bad that would scare you off. Remember this is not Photoshop, we’re talking about Affinity tools, which are way more considerate on your resources.

And if you’re right and Gnome Boxes does not allow you to pass-through a GPU, then that means it was using my integrated graphics card, which worked perfectly fine in my case :)

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3 hours ago, D’T4ils said:

Too bad that would scare you off. Remember this is not Photoshop, we’re talking about Affinity tools, which are way more considerate on your resources.

And if you’re right and Gnome Boxes does not allow you to pass-through a GPU, then that means it was using my integrated graphics card, which worked perfectly fine in my case :)

incidentally if you have a cpu like mine (5950x) which doesn't have integrated graphics you're going to have a bad time in VM without some kind of GPU pass through.

As others have said though a good option for serif would be to get affinity working through wine which it *almost* does work, just some small issues of all the UI being blacked out. lol I'd be happy with using wine tbh. The World Machine devs have WM working practically natively through wine, it's actually perfect. the other day I even rendered out a 16k raw heightmap in under an hour. and had a terrain rendered in blender with ease. It's kind of amazing really wine is like magic.

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On 6/13/2022 at 11:41 PM, MattyWS said:

incidentally if you have a cpu like mine (5950x) which doesn't have integrated graphics you're going to have a bad time in VM without some kind of GPU pass through.

As others have said though a good option for serif would be to get affinity working through wine which it *almost* does work, just some small issues of all the UI being blacked out. lol I'd be happy with using wine tbh. The World Machine devs have WM working practically natively through wine, it's actually perfect. the other day I even rendered out a 16k raw heightmap in under an hour. and had a terrain rendered in blender with ease. It's kind of amazing really wine is like magic.

I have to say that l like the way that they have worded it:

"Compatible with Windows 7+

World Machine runs natively on a Windows PC.

(Mac/Linux users: No official support is available. However, we've heard good things using Parallels & WINE)"

In time, it would be nice to see similar wording also apply to Affinity Photo, etc in respect of Linux.

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4 hours ago, beez said:

I also see Affinity Designer on WINE to be a very happy middle ground if tested and indirectly (not officially is even fine as long as they do it in the backroom and don't tell anyone in order to prevent support requests and complaints of bugs) supported and made to work. I think a lot of people would be more than fine with this path. I know far too many people who have some more limited machines that are working wonderfully with Linux, but find it a burden and sometimes impossible to deal with or live with Windows that would like to use Linux to work with the Affinity line of software products. I use a Mac and it's fantastic, but a lot of people are frustrated with Apple abandoning older (and very powerful) systems who are moving to Linux since they cannot at all tolerate Windows.

Serif, please see this highly voted item: https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=39311

And please dedicate a silent NDA bound developer to the WINE cause.

I agree that many people would be quite content with the Affinity product range working well with Wine and at some stage l hope that progress can be made in this area.

l am not sure what the the highlighted bit means because l think it would be more logical to first start talking to CodeWeavers' CrossOver developers.

 

 

 

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This thread is coming up for 5 years old.

I've got software which runs on Windows, some on Linux and some on both. For most of the Windows software that I have there is a thread like this one which follows the same tired format. Someone asks for a Linux port, the company says categorically that it has no plans to do this then there is an entitled stream of posts about how they will regret it when Linux finally takes off and how, if they port it, there will be a sudden exodus to Linux. It's an attempt to pander to the company's ego as how important they are in the global software market.

There's the "It's easy to make it cross platform" comments when the writers clearly have no idea just how complex a major software project is. Especially trying to re-engineer software to run on a new OS after 5 years of development.

Even the "Well just make it work with Wine etc., because that will be simple" won't have any effect. No company will change the code of it's commercial software to make it run on an unsupported system. Serif couldn't care less that 318 people have voted for Affinity Photo to run on Wine.

The final nail in the coffin for all of these threads is that the company knows, better than anyone, that they just won't have the sales from a Linux version. At the moment even the most optimistic statistics puts Linux market share on the desktop at less than 5%. In some industries it will be higher, sciences have always traditionally favoured Linux as the the VFX industry but its still not enough to warrant throwing resources at it when there are a host of unresolved issues (look at the other threads on this forum if you don't believe me).

"When my daughter wanted a pony I said no. Even she stopped going on about it after a couple of months"

I'd like them to port to Linux but really, this thread is just pestering now. It's serving no purpose other than making the Linux "community" look entitled and naïve.

 

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Dear, Serif/Affinity, thank you for the great and accessible tools!

I must say, I understood your point, no problem, I have found my tools to replace pretty well the WIndows apps I need under Linux.

I won't use Windows or Mac or Android for my needs, so it's OK if you or others won't provide Linux tools.

Anyway, following this topic over time, I must say that I see here posters that are obviously paid to discourage, otherwise I don't see the point of all these approaches, direct or even rude, or apparently empathize with the Linux users then actually discouraging again those requesting Linux. No wonder why some reactions to those are in the same spirit.

Why not doing the right thing, just close the topics of this kind and if you really need to know how many users would like to have it under a specific OS, open some poll for that and that's it?

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On 6/13/2022 at 8:37 PM, Renzatic said:

Unless things have changed recently, Gnome Boxes doesn't let you passthrough a GPU. I wouldn't use Photo or Designer in a VM that lacks that option.

You actually fail to understand the purpose of Gnome Boxes : it's just a very simplified interface to allow you to use/create fast and easy of virtual machines - hence the auto-download of distros and quick no hands install : >

No one is stopping u from opening Virtual Machine Manager (virt-manager) and making your own custom virtual machine or even modify the one made in Gnome Boxes since the underlying virtualization tools used by both programs is the same : >

 

 

 

gnome-boxes.png

VirtualManager.png

Fedora Workstation 39

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4 hours ago, GuernseyMan said:

This thread is coming up for 5 years old.

I've got software which runs on Windows, some on Linux and some on both. For most of the Windows software that I have there is a thread like this one which follows the same tired format. Someone asks for a Linux port, the company says categorically that it has no plans to do this then there is an entitled stream of posts about how they will regret it when Linux finally takes off and how, if they port it, there will be a sudden exodus to Linux. It's an attempt to pander to the company's ego as how important they are in the global software market.

There's the "It's easy to make it cross platform" comments when the writers clearly have no idea just how complex a major software project is. Especially trying to re-engineer software to run on a new OS after 5 years of development.

Even the "Well just make it work with Wine etc., because that will be simple" won't have any effect. No company will change the code of it's commercial software to make it run on an unsupported system. Serif couldn't care less that 318 people have voted for Affinity Photo to run on Wine.

The final nail in the coffin for all of these threads is that the company knows, better than anyone, that they just won't have the sales from a Linux version. At the moment even the most optimistic statistics puts Linux market share on the desktop at less than 5%. In some industries it will be higher, sciences have always traditionally favoured Linux as the the VFX industry but its still not enough to warrant throwing resources at it when there are a host of unresolved issues (look at the other threads on this forum if you don't believe me).

"When my daughter wanted a pony I said no. Even she stopped going on about it after a couple of months"

I'd like them to port to Linux but really, this thread is just pestering now. It's serving no purpose other than making the Linux "community" look entitled and naïve.

 

I I wouldn't say people showing an unwavering interest in something is pestering. Most of us here have accepted Serif doesn't care about Linux, at this point I just see this as a discussion thread about the potential of it. I still don't really understand why people are coming into this thread to be outraged at people that have an interest in a different platform to them though. "How dare you keep showing interest in linux!! How dare you want your favourite software on on the OS you use!!!" - These are senseless comments and, I mean no offense to you here but yours too. Likening people to entitled children throwing a fit for wanting affinity on linux and discussing it? Apart from comments like these, this is mostly a grown up conversation. I use linux as a platform professionally as do many other creatives. There is a discussion to be had about the potential of it IMO. It's cool if you don't think this discussion is worthwhile, you don't need to get involved if you don't care about the topic. :)

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1 hour ago, 1stn00b said:

You actually fail to understand the purpose of Gnome Boxes : it's just a very simplified interface to allow you to use/create fast and easy of virtual machines - hence the auto-download of distros and quick no hands install : >

No one is stopping u from opening Virtual Machine Manager (virt-manager) and making your own custom virtual machine or even modify the one made in Gnome Boxes since the underlying virtualization tools used by both programs is the same : >

 

 

 

gnome-boxes.png

VirtualManager.png

I'm quite the noob when it comes to virtual machines and my pc doesn't work well with them, but are you saying it's possible to pass through GPU to a VM in Boxes? If so I'd love to be able to do this

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8 minutes ago, neptronix said:

Would Serif listen to us if we crowdfunded a giant pot of money to support a linux port?

No they wouldn't, they have said they wouldn't.

So why don't all the Linux people crowdfund a giant pot of money and come up with a far superior graphics suite? [my I-am-not-actually-serious face emoticon]

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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1 minute ago, Old Bruce said:

No they wouldn't, they have said they wouldn't.

So why don't all the Linux people crowdfund a giant pot of money and come up with a far superior graphics suite? [my I-am-not-actually-serious face emoticon]

in a perfect world, people would jump behind Gimp like they did Blender. xD I don't actually know what made Blender such a success though, whatever it is, Gimp must not have it.

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1 minute ago, MattyWS said:

people would jump behind Gimp like they did Blender.

For no discernible reason Gimp became MySpace and Blender became facebook

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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37 minutes ago, MattyWS said:

I don't actually know what made Blender such a success though, whatever it is, Gimp must not have it.

Blender is organised, it has actual employees, it has organised funding. Blender (the Foundation and Institute) has a vision for its product. This vision means that nobody comes along and muscles their way in or buys their way in to how they think Blender should be. Blender is very clear about this. From their web site: 'We will hire or involve the developers for topics that align well with the Blender roadmap'. In a part of the graphics world where software is typically priced in the thousands (not forgetting the large costs for render farms), Blender sticks out as being thoroughly professional and free. In practical terms, no 3D designer or developer will hold their nose if you mention Blender. They are more likely to say, ah yes I know about Blender.

GIMP alas does not match any of those points. While you can use GIMP to do professional work, it is frankly not a great or enjoyable experience. It's hard to work with.

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7 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Blender (the Foundation and Institute) has a vision for its product.

All you Linux fans here in this topic have a vision for a product, namely a graphics suite. What is stopping you? Lots of talk about crowdfunding for Affinity, why not go crowdfund for a brand new Graphics Suite Foundation and Institute and then make something better?

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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