Jump to content
You must now use your email address to sign in [click for more info] ×

Affinity products for Linux


Recommended Posts

2 minutes ago, MattyWS said:

I wonder if Serif would allow people with MS Store purchases to transfer their licenses to use the downloadable installation from their store (or maybe we already can?).

No.

 

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, walt.farrell said:

No.

 

Ah, oh well it's ok, an extra £150 to get a full suite is no big deal. I'll just repurchase from the website once it works well enough via wine. Probably my own fault for relying on the windows store too much a few years prior

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, 1stn00b said:

If u run it thru Wine u use the Windows license you already have, the same way u wouldn't pay to run it in a Windows VM. When Serif launches a Linux version then yes we can talk about another OS that they can charge for.

The problem that @MattyWS has, I think, is getting his Microsoft Store version of the Affinity applications installed to run under Wine. It is reasonably clear how to get an Affinity Store version installed: just run the installer under Wine.

But you don't normally get an installer for the Microsoft Store applications.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@1stn00b , sry to disappoint you, but I can speak at the level of my team that we researched in this topic.

If you use in virtual machine Windows as OS , then it's needed a Windows xp/7/8/10/11 license.  If it's a Linux distribution, FreeBSD , then no.

In Wine isn't needed any license of the OS that it's trying to imitate for the applications to run.

I personally had my cup of tea with Windows since old 95's days onward and after the forced updates in the 10 was the limit, and on 11 forcing to change hardware even if previous OS versions didn't have any problem with it (it only was slower ofc). Currently am using Windows and Linux depending on what is needed. (I preferably work mostly on Linux Ubuntu which has some stability and as I researched.. it offers more updates than other distributions, so for companies this is good thing)

At my current client, he asked me to check on software that could convert PDF databases into Excel/Calc and have Windows support and Linux as backup if we need to change the OS if 10 will start "becoming slower" and 11 is out of the idea for hardware before 2018 (and for some reason nowadays if you install Win 10 or 11, you need the SSD drives.. the classic ones aren't "optimized" anymore). 

For the results, we found that Wondershare has good software for Windows, but not for Linux, and Able2Extract has same (or better results) and has a Windows and Linux variant.

The Linux variant for .deb has known bugs at 20.04 and 22.04 but the developers cooperate and I asked them to keep me updated cause they have a better chance to win and be a "go to out of the box variant" of PDF converter for Linux. They have and a .rpm variant but didn't check how it works there, since the company wants Debian or Ubuntu later. (and yes..this is a proprietary software, but as long as it works or has a windows variant functional until at linux is repaired (or we will use 16.04 or 18.04) we're good and can sleep better tonight for the day of tomorrow)

Mostly at this client, they only work with excels and need to manipulate images. The Libre Calc and MS Excel (from how much we use similar functions) are compatible and all is fine while under the .xlsx format. But as I understood from 1 or 2 articles a few months ago, MS wants with Office 2021 variant, it's primary format to be changed to the odt one (or something similar).

The Calc has better productivity in adding information and go faster at desired sheet , while Excel still is better at adding simultaneously more than 1 images and manipulate them at same time before hitting "Enter" and has better productivity there. Calc unfortunately has only 1 image upload at a time but has more options on how to manipulate it.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Serif software licenses have nothing to do with Microsoft software licenses. Your super specific use case scenario doesn't have anything to do with this topic. 

I ask you not to continue with a river of text explaining that because "PDF Databases" don't work for you is the reason Serif doesn't offer a Linux version of their software.

 

 

Fedora Workstation 39

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Indeed, Serif Affinity suite has it's own licenses

Microsoft Office has it's own license

Microsoft's Windows OS has it's own license

The difference is.. you don't need Windows OS license to use Microsoft Office, but you need Microsoft Office license to use them legally if you have a company and clients use them most. The fact that Libre Office and other similar ones (even payable ones) try to help out with compatibility regarding MS file formats and filling a existing gap is welcoming.

 

"I ask you not to continue with a river of text explaining that because "PDF Databases" don't work for you is the reason Serif doesn't offer a Linux version of their software."

I don't mind if Serif doesn't have their native client on Linux truth be told. I, as some others here, would like at least in Wine to work out and that's why I joined in to give my vote for the limited software options existing in a OS of choice.

To be honest, I think Serif Team are right on not planning a release for Linux (at least in this current situation) because they chose to have unique libraries to stick to a OS, instead of creating personal libraries multi-platform in the 1st place years ago, and because the majority of them voted for this, they have bugs to solve with 2 different but similar technology so to say.. . As being in this situation, we adapt and Wine is a safe bet today.

But as others mentioned, we just offer our gratitude here and our votes, but always the developers have last word and decision when they are ready to move into new green fields ; and until then.. we use Affinity in Windows (or Mac), or equivalent/similar and still try out sometimes on Wine if either sides did more progress. 

Most of us can have hope now that it's already in a alpha functional state and can progress. By Wine's ratings, I could rate this as Bronze because it can be installed, start-up works, and playing around with some functions. Silver is when there are no more glitches and less crashes , Gold is when 99% works, and Platinum is when 99% works at minimum and can get to near native Windows app equivalent speed.

 

Regarding the licenses from Microsoft Software Center and independent downloadable client from main developer website , this has been same situation to other software or games.

One of them which I use is the game called Guild Wars 2. They have a downloadable client, and they have plans to launch a Microsoft software center one (or Steam), and licenses from each of these are independent.

Plus there is same thing that happens to this game client similar to Affinity's case : the one from software center/Steam can't be installed on Linux, but the one from developer's website can be installed through Crossover or Playonlinux.

This is because it's mainly built for Windows environment (and had a Mac version too, but they dropped it a few years ago because they couldn't keep it up with Apple's changing plans). But they are known to the community that 1 or 2 developers remained after 2006 (or something in this year area after release of GW1 ) to help out with bugs (or hints) that Wine team couldn't solve to make it most playable (and no guarantees whatsoever, those of us who try to use it on Wine are doing on our own risk which we accepted from the very beginning)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/2/2022 at 2:45 PM, Frozen Death Knight said:

Question to Linux users, what's the Linux equivalent of Windows Ink/WinTab API for drawing with tablets? How well supported are Wacom tablets?

(sorry I'm a bit late to answer this) I have a Wacom Intuos5 touch M which works just fine on Linux Mint. The *only* issue when I moved the tablet from Windows to Linux a year ago was programming the ring modes beyond mode #1. However, updates to the my desktop's drawing tablet gui since made it very easy. There is more information about the drawing tablet interface project here https://linuxwacom.github.io.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/4/2022 at 3:20 AM, 1stn00b said:

Serif software licenses have nothing to do with Microsoft software licenses. Your super specific use case scenario doesn't have anything to do with this topic. 

I ask you not to continue with a river of text explaining that because "PDF Databases" don't work for you is the reason Serif doesn't offer a Linux version of their software.

 

 

There are basically 4 ways of buying for desktop computers. You can buy from the Windows store, or you can by directly from Serif for Windows. This needs distinction, the Windows version of Affinity is bought in 2 ways. Buying from the Windows store has its limitations as you can only install it with the Windows store. If you buy the Windows version from Affinity you get the downloadable installer and have to register the product yourself (Windows store handles that). Same thing on a Mac, you can buy through the Apple App store or direct from Serif. So yes software licenses do have something to do with Microsoft and their app store. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, wonderings said:

and have to register the product yourself (Windows store handles that).

Registration is something optional that the user can choose to do, and it does not depend on where the user purchased the product. It is always a user option, and a user action to take if they want to.

Validation is handled automatically by the Windows Store. For purchases from Serif it's done manually by the user, while installing the application, by entering the Product Key and email address associated with it.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

55 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Registration is something optional that the user can choose to do, and it does not depend on where the user purchased the product. It is always a user option, and a user action to take if they want to.

Validation is handled automatically by the Windows Store. For purchases from Serif it's done manually by the user, while installing the application, by entering the Product Key and email address associated with it.

I used the wrong verbiage, it is the registration key or validation that is different when purchasing through the Windows store or direct from Serif. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/3/2022 at 8:56 PM, 1stn00b said:

If u run it thru Wine u use the Windows license you already have, the same way u wouldn't pay to run it in a Windows VM. When Serif launches a Linux version then yes we can talk about another OS that they can charge for.

when you buy affinity of the Windows Store, what you get is a download of the application as a .appx file which is basically a zip of the installed folder of the application that just runs. Sadly for Serif this actually means anyone who can bypass the payment system and download the appx file can actually just use affinity on windows without a license and I hope that by my pointing that out, Serif become aware of this and find a way to fix it before too many people pirate it.


Of course what this means for me is that I can't "install" affinity through wine as the windows store version doesn't come with an installer, just a folder of the files with the exe for the application. For me to get hold of the affinity photo installer would require me to purchase it from the Serif website instead of the Windows Store. :) I have no problem doing that when it starts to work well on Wine. After all, I did say in this very topic that I would gladly rebuy Linux versions of Affinity and this would be no different.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, MattyWS said:

when you buy affinity of the Windows Store, what you get is a download of the application as a .appx file which is basically a zip of the installed folder of the application that just runs. Sadly for Serif this actually means anyone who can bypass the payment system and download the appx file can actually just use affinity on windows without a license and I hope that by my pointing that out, Serif become aware of this and find a way to fix it before too many people pirate it.

Does the Windows Store not require you to log in before downloading? Do you not have to have your Windows machine somehow linked to your Windows Store account in order to run the Windows Store applications?

My Mac has to be authorized with my AppleID otherwise none of my Mac App Store applications will run. It has to be the AppleID that also purchased the applications.

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.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Old Bruce said:

Does the Windows Store not require you to log in before downloading? Do you not have to have your Windows machine somehow linked to your Windows Store account in order to run the Windows Store applications?

My Mac has to be authorized with my AppleID otherwise none of my Mac App Store applications will run. It has to be the AppleID that also purchased the applications.

I don't want to explain in too much detail as I don't want anyone to do this and pirate Affinity software but for me to try to get Affinity working on Wine I found that you can download files from the MS store via web browser using the store link, you don't need to log in or pay for anything. which IMO is a massive loophole as once you get hold of the appx file you can literally unzip it and find all the files in there, fully working. You can also find them on your pc locally assuming you purchased it but I couldn't find the local files at first so I tried via browser instead. That said I did buy the serif products on the MS store so I had no problem morally doing this for myself. to try on linux. Getting affinity software in the appx format *does not* work on linux and would be pointless for anyone to try it. Get it from the serif store. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was quite happy with the last posts of the guys here on the forum. Anyway, I tried to get past bottles, but I couldn't!

I have exactly the problem of .NET 3.5... I tried several configurations and even things similar to the YML file that was posted on a few pages ago but without success, if anyone has any suggestions I would appreciate it!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Kajac said:

I was quite happy with the last posts of the guys here on the forum. Anyway, I tried to get past bottles, but I couldn't!

I have exactly the problem of .NET 3.5... I tried several configurations and even things similar to the YML file I posted on a few pages ago but without success, if anyone has any suggestions I would appreciate it!

Same, I actually was able to import the config and install Photo, bit couldn't launch it

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, jaizon said:

Same, I actually was able to import the config and install Photo, bit couldn't launch it

 

 

 

 

It must be some small detail we're missing.

When I can run, I will test to see if the tools I use are ok! If they are, I won't even waste my time on windows anymore!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Kajac said:

It must be some small detail we're missing.

When I can run, I will test to see if the tools I use are ok! If they are, I won't even waste my time on windows anymore!

Would be good if it was done in bare wine inst. That way we could see what's wrong

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Kajac said:

I have exactly the problem of .NET 3.5

We only use that version of .NET for the installer itself. The actual app uses .NET 4.7.2. You could extract the internal MSI from the outer installer exe by using "app_name.exe /extract" - though you'd still need .NET 3.5 to do that (you could run Windows in a VM first to extract the MSI).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/13/2022 at 10:39 PM, Kajac said:

I was quite happy with the last posts of the guys here on the forum. Anyway, I tried to get past bottles, but I couldn't!

I have exactly the problem of .NET 3.5... I tried several configurations and even things similar to the YML file that was posted on a few pages ago but without success, if anyone has any suggestions I would appreciate it!

Actually i think this is a bug in Bottles for now - but they have a 2 week release cycles between versions.

In order to make it work for now create a custom bottle and import the yml configuration file as a Custom Recepie - and the most important part chose Caffe as Runner - if u don't have it on that list use Preferences in main window to install it prior to creation.

affinitybottlecustom.png.90c4977b28ca2ba5bfa14338b084fe99.pngaffinitybottlerunners.png.3cc08e35dcfaa90f302805b9ddb255ff.png

After you install the programs you need to Change Launch Options for each program and add --no-hw-ui to the Command Arguments and you are good to go 😆

affinitybottlearguments.png.254d89dde35a49a2ddc10a0bd438deb3.png

After that the programs will run - sorta -  since Publisher it's actually unusable crashing without reason just by looking at it - and also if all of them are started together they kinda work on turns - so for now one at a time is safe bet : >

affiintybotteallprograms.thumb.png.1470c1b07766addd2c8fd8c3c107f123.png

 

L.E : Bottles just got new update with more goodies : https://usebottles.com/blog/release-2022.7.14/

L.L.E : Made slimmed down configuration file to install Affinity in Bottles (deleted everything inside i didn't find necessary) and attached here. The setup files i'm using are the ones i got directly from my serif account and they install without problem.

AffinityInstall.png.32d583ff2dead89b9efed3d22b9106e8.png

 

 

AffinityCustomBottleRecipe.yml

Fedora Workstation 39

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@1stn00b first of all, thank you very much for taking the time to create that little guide :)

And now to the good stuff, I follow every step and the installation ran smoothly, but once I hit the play button for the installed Affinity Photo, nothing happened at all :( Which version of the installer did you use? 1.10.5 didn’t do it for me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, 1stn00b said:

Actually i think this is a bug in Bottles for now - but they have a 2 week release cycles between versions.

In order to make it work for now create a custom bottle and import the yml configuration file as a Custom Recepie - and the most important part chose Caffe as Runner - if u don't have it on that list use Preferences in main window to install it prior to creation.

affinitybottlecustom.png.90c4977b28ca2ba5bfa14338b084fe99.pngaffinitybottlerunners.png.3cc08e35dcfaa90f302805b9ddb255ff.png

After you install the programs you need to Change Launch Options for each program and add --no-hw-ui to the Command Arguments and you are good to go 😆

affinitybottlearguments.png.254d89dde35a49a2ddc10a0bd438deb3.png

After that the programs will run - sorta -  since Publisher it's actually unusable crashing without reason just by looking at it - and also if all of them are started together they kinda work on turns - so for now one at a time is safe bet : >

affiintybotteallprograms.thumb.png.1470c1b07766addd2c8fd8c3c107f123.png

 

OMG, thank you, it stils fells a little sluggish, kinda slow too and there are some screen teraring, but even the presure sensitivnes in my graphic tablet is working

image.thumb.png.cd33966732e630647ef1bb47aef063ae.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Guidelines | We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.