Affinity products for Linux

[Snapseed]

1 hour ago, 1stn00b said:

Anyone can package it as a Flatpak even now so i don't see what's the problem. Their software still runs in trial mode if no key is provided so i don't see what's the big fuss.  So unless they specifically introduce supplementary blocks to stop us from using the software under Wine it doesn't really matter.

I agree with this.

Indeed, Serif Europe would stand to gain from any unofficial Flatpak because they would get extra revenue and income from doing absolutely nothing and they would have no obligations or liabilities either. A situation like that would be a win-win for everyone.

[Renzatic]

15 hours ago, jaizon said:

Idk, I've been using Linux for a few years now and I never got that bad of a experience with it.

Though it had improved by a considerable amount, Linux was a lot more fiddly back in the mid '10's compared to now. These days, I'd say that it's no more difficult to use than Windows, once you get used to the differences in how you install and manage apps.

[1stn00b]

You don't need to get used to anything : Open the Software Manager of your distribution and install the software you want : 1 click to install - 1 click to uninstall - everything gets updated system wide no need for you to individually update the software.  It's like Microsoft Landfill aka Store in  W10 & eWaste 11 but ten folds better : >

And as with everything in Linux the same thing can be done from terminal : like installing or not Microsoft GarbEdge : >

[ShadeOn]

On 8/26/2022 at 11:18 AM, 1stn00b said:

They can always chose a stable Wine release, make their Windows software run with that and bundle everything in a Flatpak package. Adobe products work with Wine because their software doesn't relay heavily or exclusively on the tooling Mac or Windows provides like for example DirectX Effects API that DXVK doesn't implement since is not benefiting games so we have to wait on Wine implementation that has a slower development cycle then other games related projects.

One of the problems i saw in this topic is the usage of clone accounts to troll Linux like this 2 :

 

It's a common practice i saw on other Linux discussions on other platforms , their final goal being actually to close the topics

@jaizon: U can always edit your original post instead of writing a river of consecutively comments, unless the purpose is to rapidly change the pages so the interesting topic parts gets buried away.

I've seen it all so i always presume the worst 😆

 

@1stn00b , I have to ask you to stop at this line, cause you already crossed the moral line by insulting me (very sharply in fact) with adding me as a "clone account" , when I am in fact active, main PC with Linux Ubuntu 20.04 since 2020 (and before this I was between 2015-2018 until I had to reinstall windows to do in Microsoft Office my University Diploma that year , and then get back on Linux after I bought a new PC). At this time I own 3 laptops (old as they are) with Win 7, 8.1 and 10 (but I share them with my mom cause she needs at least the 7 and 10 for work). Until now the newer one with Win10 with every "free" update, the performance decreases every year, so if drastic measures call, I will add a Debian or something on it later on.

The thing is.. you are incorrect, I am not against Linux or Windows or Mac (I could also say in my point of view that you go towards the extreme area of Linux users and that's not healthy) and still consider myself as a intermediate user myself, and use Win or Ubuntu depending on the job I need to do . And I agree that both OS have advantages and disadvantages, just like the new Android 11 on Nokia phones that don't have a stop slide button for updates, and it's practically a Win 10+ forced updates system. I myself still have a flip battery Samsung J5 2015 with Android 5 on it and am still happy to use it for my basic needs.

As the saying is... "saying without showing is half a lie" , for this matter I have added a image.

While posting, and being on the topic of packages you mentioned, I want to add my own search on this matter (some ideas in nutshell, at least how I see these) :

Snap, Flatpak are just some packages that are on a Linux distribution of choice, and adds the distribution's library dependencies out-of-box (something like that)

I for one.. rather make them in other formats that are neutral to all, and let communities do in those above packages for their distributions if it is.

Or there is .appimage (application) that is friendly to all distributions, it can save and plugins, profiles, makes updates on versions, and all dependency libraries are there, it's like a equivalent windows install app folder with everything in it (at least with Brackets Editor while I used it (they are still active))

And while we're here.. I joined the CodeWeavers team to translate from English to Romanian for their CrossOver application, since I use it too for Guild Wars 2 and other apps. Unfortunately, GW2 has URL ingame pasting bug and freezes in DX11, so I must use sometimes Playonlinux with dx9 so I could paste url links (or texts from a app) to a teammate with Back-End Java knowledge and to another teammate with knowledge on Back-End PHP for better quality translation (I am Web Designer & Front-End Web Dev (sometimes use graphics apps (mostly on Figma online for WD work),photography and collaborate also with other Web Designer colleague in Bucharest). I am also working with excel databases and doing including business intelligence/analytics (as you know.. many write in excel (and have databases as excel sheets) , and to trim down the size, they save them in pdf, and try to think doing this for all, then you receive them and have to remake them in excel format (and then add edited images and other information over the original information)(that's why I said PDF Databases and either I wasn't clear or most didn't understand what I was writing about)... and yeah.. for there are companies that do this for reasons, if you wonder)

I also sent a mail to a member of CodeWeavers (who offered me this opportunity) to send it to other more appropriate departments to analyze the 2 scripts on this forum and the url links to "the best part" of this forum. Can't guarantee anything, I just wanted to help out like @Snapseed said, at least with what I can, even if I can't add much value to this.

I am for a affinity suite variant on linux, but as I analyzed the situation, currently it's safer to do with Wine compatibility. And with your recent finding on a deprecating function that affects their highest income gain (from Windows), it's safer and better to focus on updating those on calm waters (and have a good compatibility function existing in Wine for it cause we're affected by it also) than update the function in a stormy water and starts to appear other problems in Wine transition with that.

Hope this clears out the wrong ideas and don't shoot someone before you see if it's a man or deer (many mortal accidents while doing hunting sport with guns) reference.

Cheers

 

 

[Snapseed]

3 hours ago, ShadeOn said:

@1stn00b , I have to ask you to stop at this line, cause you already crossed the moral line by insulting me (very sharply in fact) with adding me as a "clone account" , when I am in fact active, main PC with Linux Ubuntu 20.04 since 2020 (and before this I was between 2015-2018 until I had to reinstall windows to do in Microsoft Office my University Diploma that year , and then get back on Linux after I bought a new PC). At this time I own 3 laptops (old as they are) with Win 7, 8.1 and 10 (but I share them with my mom cause she needs at least the 7 and 10 for work). Until now the newer one with Win10 with every "free" update, the performance decreases every year, so if drastic measures call, I will add a Debian or something on it later on.

The thing is.. you are incorrect, I am not against Linux or Windows or Mac (I could also say in my point of view that you go towards the extreme area of Linux users and that's not healthy) and still consider myself as a intermediate user myself, and use Win or Ubuntu depending on the job I need to do . And I agree that both OS have advantages and disadvantages, just like the new Android 11 on Nokia phones that don't have a stop slide button for updates, and it's practically a Win 10+ forced updates system. I myself still have a flip battery Samsung J5 2015 with Android 5 on it and am still happy to use it for my basic needs.

As the saying is... "saying without showing is half a lie" , for this matter I have added a image.

While posting, and being on the topic of packages you mentioned, I want to add my own search on this matter (some ideas in nutshell, at least how I see these) :

Snap, Flatpak are just some packages that are on a Linux distribution of choice, and adds the distribution's library dependencies out-of-box (something like that)

I for one.. rather make them in other formats that are neutral to all, and let communities do in those above packages for their distributions if it is.

Or there is .appimage (application) that is friendly to all distributions, it can save and plugins, profiles, makes updates on versions, and all dependency libraries are there, it's like a equivalent windows install app folder with everything in it (at least with Brackets Editor while I used it (they are still active))

And while we're here.. I joined the CodeWeavers team to translate from English to Romanian for their CrossOver application, since I use it too for Guild Wars 2 and other apps. Unfortunately, GW2 has URL ingame pasting bug and freezes in DX11, so I must use sometimes Playonlinux with dx9 so I could paste url links (or texts from a app) to a teammate with Back-End Java knowledge and to another teammate with knowledge on Back-End PHP for better quality translation (I am Web Designer & Front-End Web Dev (sometimes use graphics apps (mostly on Figma online for WD work),photography and collaborate also with other Web Designer colleague in Bucharest). I am also working with excel databases and doing including business intelligence/analytics (as you know.. many write in excel (and have databases as excel sheets) , and to trim down the size, they save them in pdf, and try to think doing this for all, then you receive them and have to remake them in excel format (and then add edited images and other information over the original information)(that's why I said PDF Databases and either I wasn't clear or most didn't understand what I was writing about)... and yeah.. for there are companies that do this for reasons, if you wonder)

I also sent a mail to a member of CodeWeavers (who offered me this opportunity) to send it to other more appropriate departments to analyze the 2 scripts on this forum and the url links to "the best part" of this forum. Can't guarantee anything, I just wanted to help out like @Snapseed said, at least with what I can, even if I can't add much value to this.

I am for a affinity suite variant on linux, but as I analyzed the situation, currently it's safer to do with Wine compatibility. And with your recent finding on a deprecating function that affects their highest income gain (from Windows), it's safer and better to focus on updating those on calm waters (and have a good compatibility function existing in Wine for it cause we're affected by it also) than update the function in a stormy water and starts to appear other problems in Wine transition with that.

Hope this clears out the wrong ideas and don't shoot someone before you see if it's a man or deer (many mortal accidents while doing hunting sport with guns) reference.

Cheers

 

 

In particular, thank you very much for doing this and it is very much appreciated. Now, at least the developers at CodeWeavers know about the most recent promising developments and hopefully they can build on the work that has already been done.

I think it is the interest of CodeWeavers to put some effort in trying to get Affinity Photo (and then Designer and Publisher) to work with CrossOver/Wine because that will ultimately boost CrossOver sales if Photo, Designer and Publisher work well with CrossOver.

[Renzatic]

9 hours ago, 1stn00b said:

You don't need to get used to anything : Open the Software Manager of your distribution and install the software you want : 1 click to install - 1 click to uninstall - everything gets updated system wide no need for you to individually update the software.  It's like Microsoft Landfill aka Store in  W10 & eWaste 11 but ten folds better :

That's assuming what you're looking for is either in your package manager, or there's a handy .flatpakref/.rpm to download. God forbid someone's mean enough to send you a program in a tar.gz file.

Basically speaking, I just tell people that flatpaks are in /.var/app, and everything else is in /.local/share in your home folder. If you have raw app files without an installer, just pop them in one of those folders, and if want it to integrate with your desktop so that you can discover it through a search, or pin it's icon to the taskbar, you have to write a .desktop file, and drop it in /.local/share/application. Having to do this is getting more and more rare by the day, but there are still occasions where you have to do it.

...wish someone told me this years ago.

[1stn00b]

I don't understand why you try to complicate things. Do you have all software available in  Microsoft Landfill ? Nope : >

 

[Renzatic]

1 hour ago, 1stn00b said:

I don't understand why you try to complicate things.

Cuz Linux.

[Kristatos]

@Kajac

@jaizon

Here is a solution to install 3.5 to get Affinity Photo running:

To install .net 3.5:

• install and switch to Lutris-7.1 Runner
• go to dependencies and install dotnet3.5sp1
• if the installation still fails, switch to WIndows XP, install 3.5 and switch back to 10
• switch runner to Cafe-7.15

Complete installation:

• make a new bottle (application environment), Win10, 64-Bit
• install and switch to Lutris-7.1 Runner
• go to dependencies and install dotnet3.5sp1, dotnet40, dotnet48, allfonts
• switch runner to Cafe-7.15

After installation, enable DXVK, Vulkan and add --no-hw-ui in the starting arguments field, as described in previous posts.

 

Edited September 17, 2022 by Kristatos

[jammer2000b]

I was wondering if I could get some help with getting Designer to save files.  Each time I try to save I get the   "Save failed because access to the file was lost."

I followed the instructions with installing a new bottle using the custom Environment.  I selected the attached file.  Set the --no-hw-ui option.  Designer goes through the licensing and then comes back to the main Window just fine.  I create a new document and I cannot save it due to the above error.  I have tried path permissions using flatpak override --filesystem=/home/myuser
 

I have tried changing a ton of option inside of the bottle application.  Not matter what I do I cannot get the message to go away and get a successful save.

Appreciate any help you can provide.

AffinityCustomBottleRecipe.yml

[jwilkes]

Hi. Just passing by to say: I found this software, thought it nifty, and would've bought it right away if there was a Linux version of it (whether flatpack, .deb, or whatever). 

Fiddling with wine and Lutris however is an effort I'd only put in when I really *need* the software.

Carry on...

[1stn00b]

I'm waiting to see how the version 2.0 of Affinity Software performs.

[D’T4ils]

@1stn00b is that something the Serif team is already working on? 😮

[1stn00b]

Well i bought Photo & Designer in 2016. It's about time they put out a payed upgrade 😆

[jammer2000b]

I guess the question is has anyone been able to save from Designer while running from bottles?  I see some questions about it, but it is hard to tell if there has been any success on that front.

[alexleduc]

I would buy it all again in a heartbeat if it was made for Linux, but to be honest I'd prefer they ported it to Electron as a proof of concept and then hosted it on the cloud like Figma did before it was gobbled up by Adobe for 20 Billion. The writing is on the wall for desktop apps developed for a particular OS. Affinity Designer could become the #1 competitor to Figma overnight if was a cloud/browser-based product. We don't need this to be ported to Linux if it runs in a Web browser.

 

[alexleduc]

22 minutes ago, alexleduc said:

I would buy it all again in a heartbeat if it was made for Linux, but to be honest I'd prefer they ported it to Electron as a proof of concept and then hosted it on the cloud like Figma did before it was gobbled up by Adobe for 20 Billion. The writing is on the wall for desktop apps developed for a particular OS. Affinity Designer could become the #1 competitor to Figma overnight if was a cloud/browser-based product. We don't need this to be ported to Linux if it runs in a Web browser.

 

Linux has Chrome (and all Chromium-based derivatives like Edge, Vivaldi, Brave), Firefox and some Webkit-based browsers (Safari's engine).

Figma was eating both Adobe and Serif's lunches. Now it only eats Serif's lunch. The advantages of sharing and co-editing documents in the cloud in a web-based tool is where growth is. A transition is going on.

[ShadeOn]

Yes, Adobe bought Figma (announced at the end of September 2022) . This means there is a chance that Adobe will increase price and the free stuff will become more limited than what Figma has to offer now (at the time of writing) (or they add some new free stuff but step by step will reduce them again).

Figma done a good job until now, offering a good experience free usage so that new Web Designers that enter this job domain to feel safe, able to use all tools available and have a decent portfolio to show off at job offerings. And best of all... if you can't pay monthly anymore, you are still able to have access to the projects and tools (in free use mode, which is acceptable). Companies buy the standard monthly fees as a ~donation~ for the continuous development.

I am sure that Adobe will somehow play with Figma to modify/adapt it to be closer to Illustrator alternative (or rename it altogether), since they already have the online Photoshop variant, and only Illustrator and InDesign is still needed to have the full suite adapted for online. I do go forth and speculate they will make also a Figma clone to create a InDesign variant.

If the limitation will start to roll out or prices will go up in Adobe expensive style, we already get ready to save the projects and move on to other options.

Currently, the closest project near Figma capabilities and experience is this : https://penpot.app/ , and it's in beta (time of writing)

To be honest.. I prefer to use offline tools as backup, especially since most countries warn people to get blankets, candles and canned food cause of possible blackouts that could be hours or days. This wouldn't be a problem if some teammates can't join for the time being if they get unlucky, but it would really be a big problem if the connection to the main server is affected by the offline status, cause it affects the productivity altogether. I don't want to enter the e-mail or the login verification subject (if it is on another server, in another country, and if it's 2 steps verification and e-mail server is down.. you can't login into the app for work) cause it has many scenarios.

[1stn00b]

And like i said before :

On 7/1/2022 at 11:05 PM, 1stn00b said:

Also since Serif business model is to sell a unique non-sharable license on every platform they support i'm 100% sure not only that they won't support the Wine community, but make sure in the future that their Windows Apps will never install on Wine again : >

They fixed us by packaging the new V2 Affinity software as MSIX crapware 

[jaizon]

6 minutes ago, 1stn00b said:

They fixed us by packaging the new V2 Affinity software as MSIX crapware 

Is it available already?

 

Never mind, just saw it on official website, gonna test out to see if it's worth switching now!

[MattyWS]

3 hours ago, 1stn00b said:

And like i said before :

They fixed us by packaging the new V2 Affinity software as MSIX crapware 

is that to say that this MSIX will not be installable on linux via wine at all? D: I had high hopes. I purchased the full v2 suite anyway in the hopes it might work on linux, but I do have an ipad/thinking of getting a macbook as well so it's no major loss... but I do daily drive linux so it'd kinda suck if the devs went a route that blocks us entirely

[j0e.org]

We just got a "V2", but no Linux support and no DAM. Nothing new...

[1stn00b]

Well i just booted into W10 and got this :

 

So yeah great V2 indeed : >

Isn't the point of msix pakage format to provide all necesary dependencies like i have with Flatpak ?  What a shitshow

 

[Kamei Kojirou]

Honestly, I'm not surprised. They have made it very clear this isn't a platform they want to support and that's totally fine and their choice. That being said, I love what they are doing by being an alternative to Adobe's subscription model. But I also won't be buying software that doesn't work on the platform I use either, and that's cool too.

 

[jaizon]

14 minutes ago, j0e.org said:

Nothing new...

I don'y know hat you mean, we got build tool, linked assets, non-destructive raw edits, new live-filters, new masks based on color and luminosity, and the list goes on...
The fact that it is not installable on Linux sucks though, we were almost there. I hope there's a fix.