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Affinity products for Linux


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3 minutes ago, msdobrescu said:

@Renzatic, with all the sympathy for GIMP, as it's a big effort to offer a FOSS option, the looks doesn't matter without the functionality. It's usable, though, but far from what it should be.

The thing that boggles my mind is that, for all the recent FOSS success stories, why is it that Gimp, one of the founding FOSS projects, is still struggling along with just two developers receiving barely any funding for their work.

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1 hour ago, Renzatic said:

The thing that boggles my mind is that, for all the recent FOSS success stories, why is it that Gimp, one of the founding FOSS projects, is still struggling along with just two developers receiving barely any funding for their work.

They don't deliver according to this field's expectations and needs.

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I tried to ignore Linux by trying Mac. Nice walled garden, but too restrictive, so I went back to Windows.

Then I got rid of Adobe and went to Affinity because their products work on both iPad and Windows.

Now I have just thrown Linux Peppermint on a 2009 laptop with 8Gb of RAM in it which wouldn't upgrade to Windows 10. I love it and can't wait to show another disc in my desktop and put Linux on modern hardware.

I've been working in IT support for over 20 years now and my gut feeling is, Linux is going to become a serious player in productivity applications. I am now looking for commercial software which will run on distros and sure enough, they're out there.

As a consumer who is prepared to spend money on software I really want to use, Affinity really need to rethink their stance on Linux and join the revolution.

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@thedrumdoctor

Surprised you haven't been more involved with Linux as you are in IT support, at least for servers in LANs. But then, outside the IT sector itself, most users can only work in Windows and with MS office/productivity apps so it's no wonder in that sense.

The last straw in my own departure from Windows wasn't the bloatware and the spontaneous reinstallations of Skype.

It was the simple fact that Redis database - which only runs on Linux - was something I had to have for fast authorization in a web app.

I have had no trouble getting all the main IDEs to run on Ubuntu plus 99% of the main apps for audio, video, images (GIMP, Inkscape), document production, conferencing, web development, etc. And the much smaller usage of SSD space was such a welcome boon.

I was a bit lucky in that I had a Radeon GPU and free Mesa drivers were readily available. I hear it's not always such plain sailing with Nvidia and these users sometimes struggle with the functionality of their GPU.

Like you, I wonder how long it can be before the critical mass of Linux adoption we see happening in China will occur in the western hemisphere. The forced changes to working and education over last year or two may be the catalyst for this change. So many more people with much less money must get online for their work. Ubuntu offshoot distros like Pop, Zorin, Elementary and Neon are now very attractively skinned out to appeal to adults looking for an intuitive user experience. These distros will also attract junior users who want to spend their money on better CPUs or GPUs than on Windows/OS or Microsoft Office. IT savvy parents will be anxious to save cash by using the many free packages available on Linux for media and other pastimes.

Affinity is a package made by a commercial operation. It's taken them decades to get to where they are now. Fair dues to them for their achievement.

But Inkscape is an open source project which will inevitably consider the attractive functionalities of Affinity, Adobe Illustrator and other innovative packages.

 

Edited by tamjk
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53 minutes ago, tamjk said:

I hear it's not always such plain sailing with Nvidia and these users sometimes struggle with the functionality of their GPU.

Eh, it's only difficult if you're trying to install from the source code Nvidia provides. Almost every distro out there provides the compiled drivers in their package managers, which can be installed in about 5 seconds.

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22 hours ago, tamjk said:

@thedrumdoctor

Surprised you haven't been more involved with Linux as you are in IT support, at least for servers in LANs. But then, outside the IT sector itself, most users can only work in Windows and with MS office/productivity apps so it's no wonder in that sense.

It was always Windows on the server environments I worked in which naturally spilled over into desktops. One large factory I worked for had Macs in their design department, but the rest of the office stuff was always Windows. I've come into contact with a few odd bespoke bits of software controlling factory machines, scanners or door locking systems which were some sort of *nix with no GUI and CLI only. I also had the misfortune to look after a troublesome IBM AS400 machine which was 100% CLI. But I never had the need to dig much into the *nix side of things 9 to 5.

The current status of Affinity with Wine is a non-starter which is disappointing. I can go seamlessly from my iPad to Windows and work on Affinity files in cloud storage which evades me in Linux. I'm not having fun with Office365 either in Linux. Yes I can get it on browser but being able to work locally offline is a must for productivity. I don't mind paying for good software which would give me more power to use apps on Linux - whether that goes against the principles of the OS, I don't know. But for any software developer with apps on Windows/Mac/Android/iOS, Linux is surely a market waiting to happen? The increase in gaming on Linux seems to be a step in the right direction - though I don't play any games! If the same could happen with creative and music software there would be a lot of happy people.

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19 minutes ago, thedrumdoctor said:

I don't mind paying for good software which would give me more power to use apps on Linux - whether that goes against the principles of the OS, I don't know.

It's not against the principles of Linux to pay for software. Look at the Linux creator himself: "The Origins of Linux", "Tech Talk: Linus Torvalds on git" interviews.

If I remember well, he said in those that are not many true software developers and mentioned Microsoft and Adobe as being such software creators, besides their policies.

There is a bunch of users or distribution creators that are against paid and/or closed source software, but I don't know any.

I also pay or support free and open software (and closed software too), so you can't say a Linux user spends money, but a bit more selective, having a lot of options already.

Free or not, the people behind must earn their living or the means to continue creating the tools I need/like/use!

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38 minutes ago, msdobrescu said:

It's not against the principles of Linux to pay for software.

It's just a shame that the 'internet' view of Linux users seems to default back to being people who want everything on the platform as free. This inaccurate reputation is going to put off the likes of Affinity from developing for the platform which is sad.

I love Affinity's non-subscription software model and I'd happily pay for significant upgrades rather than go back to Adobe.

I'd happily pay for Codeweavers' CrossOver but sadly, Affinity products don't run successfully so far (in line with the Wine experience). It does appear to run Office 365 successfully enough for most people who have no choice but to collaborate using MS Office documents.

Perhaps there's hope in a movement who are willing to pay not to use Windows or Mac desktops. Perhaps then software companies will see mileage in the dev work to port for use with robust Linux distros.

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4 hours ago, thedrumdoctor said:

I'm not having fun with Office365 either in Linux. Yes I can get it on browser but being able to work locally offline is a must for productivity.

Haven't you tried LibreOffice software yet ?

While it may not look as good as MS Office, it does all the things the latter does - sometimes more, e.g. frames in LibreOffice Writer enable interesting résumé templates with different coloured columns, fonts, etc. I couldn't see how to do these in MS Word. See sample attached.

I don't think the Wine option is workable for Affinity. I couldn't get it going anyhow as my laptop is 64-bit only and making it 32-bit kills so many drivers and apps that it's not worth the hassle. I tried running it via Virtual Box but this took over 30 GB off my 250 GB SSD drive and I couldn't get Radeon driver reinstalled for Windows. It was slow and squinty to look at.

 

2 hours ago, thedrumdoctor said:

Perhaps there's hope in a movement who are willing to pay not to use Windows or Mac desktops. Perhaps then software companies will see mileage in the dev work to port for use with robust Linux distros.

You should appreciate by now that Serif is likely getting something out of both Microsoft and Apple for not providing a Linux native version of Affinity Suite.

That something could be a lucrative sales channel through Apple or Microsoft software bundles - promising a sales volume high enough to compensate for quite low sales margins. I just don't see Serif forsaking their current deals for the vague hope of something better from the "why pay" community within Linux. Having spent 5 terrible years of my own life in Nottingham, I don't expect any altruism whatever from any business sector there - individualism is the standard modus vivendi there.

Screenshot from 2021-08-03 17-05-22.png

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2 hours ago, tamjk said:

it does all the things the latter does

It still has problems with compatibility with MS Office, and that counts a lot. I have seen apparently simple, straightforward forms in Word format which look ugly as hell in LibreOffice. They were so ugly that I could not possibly send them back like that, and I had to make use of MS Office. 

I do use LibreOffice (and before that OpenOffice, and before that StarOffice). Standalone, it is very reasonable software. Except for the database, which both requires Java and is clunky and unstable.

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14 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

It still has problems with compatibility with MS Office

For compatibility with MS Office you have to use SoftMaker FreeOffice (or their paid version) or OnlyOffice. Both are available for Linux as well.

The main reason for incompatibility are the different file formats ODF (LibreOffice) and OOXML (MS Office), or rather the double conversion.

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17 hours ago, tamjk said:

Haven't you tried LibreOffice software yet ?

 

Not yet, I'm kind of reluctant because of document sharing. But really, there's no reason why I shouldn't try it. However, there are more harder-to-replace items of software I'd rather spend my time on trying to find workarounds for. It may come to the point where desperation forces me to go fora Mac running on Linux using hardware pass-through but I'd rather not go down this route.

I have an Office 365 subscription which was a no-brainer for the 6-licences install which gives a family of 4 Office 365 on all their devices and more importantly, 1Tb of cloud storage each. I use Word, Excel, OneNote and if I'm feeling like I really need to punish myself, Outlook. I only wish Thunderbird ported to iOS.

99% of the time, I don't really use the Office suite via a browser and for some archaic reason, prefer to work locally on a device. I'm not massively fond of relying on a constant internet connection to guarantee my productivity. I reserve the right to pull the plug on my internet connection as I feel - or have that situation forced upon me on where online connectivity is poor or simply unavailable. As a species, we are becoming far too complacent and reliant on internet-only technologies and various 'health' apps advising us what we 'should' be doing (exercise/diet etc). I'm happy being able to work offline on a train or a plane and sync my docs when there's an internet connection. Anyway, I am digressing somewhat, but every user has their own reasons for wanting to be in control of how they work.

Quote

You should appreciate by now that Serif is likely getting something out of both Microsoft and Apple for not providing a Linux native version of Affinity Suite.

Good point; I'd actually not thought of that aspect of potential business agreements. If that is the case and let's face it, we'll never get to know what Serif have agreed to, then the only hope lies in the work of people like CodeWeavers.

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On 8/4/2021 at 11:11 AM, IndigoMoon said:

For compatibility with MS Office you have to use SoftMaker FreeOffice (or their paid version) or OnlyOffice. Both are available for Linux as well.

Good shout on the SoftMaker FreeOffice - thanks! I only use Word and Excel on a daily basis and this does both quite beautifully, at least for my simple needs at home and at work.

I’m looking at buying Insynch for my cloud access as it covers both OneDrive and Google Drive. ODrive is another great cross-platform multi-cloud (selective) sync application, but the monthly rental is too steep for my liking. 

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5 minutes ago, anto said:

I tried to run apps on linux in Crossover. All Affinity apps i can install (from msi file) and navigate menu items. I have installed Photo and Publisher. Works also Personas. Only when i try to open or create new document apps freezes. Seems that apps launches more faster then in windows, but works only interface.

Could developers give some ways which libraries or dependencies use Affinity apps?

 

I believe that there's a way to see what API calls a WINE program is making through the terminal. I haven't done it myself, but it'd be something to look into if you're really interested in getting it running.

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On 8/13/2021 at 9:07 PM, anto said:

I tried to run apps on linux in Crossover. All Affinity apps i can install (from msi file) and navigate menu items. I have installed Photo and Publisher. Works also Personas. Only when i try to open or create new document apps freezes. Seems that apps launches more faster then in windows, but works only interface.

Could developers give some ways which libraries or dependencies use Affinity apps?

 

Thanks for the video, but how frustrating it is to see everything but a new document appear on the screen. This is so, so close, but no cigar… Maybe the Crossover developers can work this one out in the future as it seems to be their mission.

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