Affinity products for Linux

[GuernseyMan]

Been a user of Serif products for as long as I can remember and very rarely commented (in fact I had to make a new account just to post on these new forums! (and misspelt my name)

I've been watching this topic since the start and have a couple of things to say:

I'm in the same position as a few people on here. It would be nice for me to use Linux day-to-day but there are a few programs which I want to use and only run on Windows; the Affinity software amongst others. It would be great, for me personally, if Serif decided to make Linux versions or even just modify them so that Wine could handle them. I am, though, old-school and choose my O/S to run the software I need, not the other way around.

However; I understand how business models work. Serif will have paid for market research and/or conducted their own market research into this topic. No-one on this forum is privy to these results so we can't comment about how many users would, or would not, use Linux versions. The whole point of market research is that, unless there is an overwhelming need, the company will keep quiet on the results. Openly available "statistics" are generally presented by special interest groups and can should be taken with a pinch of salt when making business decisions.

It has to be remembered, as well, that Serif are not out to manipulate the market. Why would a company create software for an operating system in the hope that users will migrate to that OS and therefore create a market? Especially when that software is available on the two main desktop OSs. In order to encourage Linux uptake they would have to stop distributing Windows and Mac versions which is commercially unviable.

The actual demographic they are looking at are potential users of their software who exclusively use Linux. Anyone who uses multiple OSs will simply buy that software on another platform (it doesn't mean they would buy it twice so it's still only one sale).

Serif will make any decision based on a proper business practice. They are unlikely to take much notice of a few users on their forums.

[Komatös]

On 11/16/2021 at 2:06 PM, Alfred said:

Thanks for the ‘heads up’. Nextcloud looks like a useful option.

OffTopic

If you're tech-savvy, you can set up a small home server with its own cloud using a Raspberry Pi.

If you don't want to tinker yourself, devices from Synology, QNAP or ASUSTor are recommended.

The advantage is that you can access your data without being connected to the internet. 

But you also have to realise that a "home server" is not cheap, 

However, the devices are so versatile.  
 

[LondonSquirrel]

5 hours ago, GuernseyMan said:

Anyone who uses multiple OSs will simply buy that software on another platform

The year of the mythical 'year of the Linux desktop' in a nutshell. Linux is the cul de sac of desktop operating systems.

[Pufty]

15 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

The year of the mythical 'year of the Linux desktop' in a nutshell. Linux is the cul de sac of desktop operating systems.

Have you tried it?

[anto]

German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice and GNU/Linux.

[LondonSquirrel]

4 hours ago, Pufty said:

Have you tried it?

I've been using Linux for about 25 years. 

[LondonSquirrel]

2 hours ago, anto said:

German state planning to switch 25,000 PCs to LibreOffice and GNU/Linux.

A whole 25,000 PCs. Not even the steam from a drop in the ocean compared to Windows.

[Pufty]

48 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

I've been using Linux for about 25 years. 

Now try windows. All flavours of driver reinstalls, forced updates, unremovable programs and unresponsive programs for days. Windows would be dead today if it wasn't for Task manager. Meanwhile on Linux it's been a damn pleasant surprise. So much "it's difficult" and "don't use it" kept me away for so long and that hurt my experience more by staying with windows than actually going through with the switch.

Gotta be some paleolithic linux version you're using if you're having issues today. I've tried a couple and it's just plug and play. Literally kept around some USB drives and got bunch of different distributions or flavors on them.

[nBlaze]

21 minutes ago, Pufty said:

Gotta be some paleolithic linux version you're using if you're having issues today. I've tried a couple and it's just plug and play. Literally kept around some USB drives and got bunch of different distributions or flavors on them.

Well, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. Last week I had to do urgent video conference - webcam on my main PC died and it suddenly turned out Linux really doesn't like the webcam in my Asus Transformer. After an hour of tinkering I just gave up and decided to just install Win11. Got everything working within 30 mins - preparing installer USB included.
 

Sure, went back to Linux afterwards - 2 hours of actually using Win11 was enough to make me hate it - but it's not always as simple as plug and play.

[OS1]

I've been using Linux since RedHat 5.2 and ejected WinDOS for home use when they went anal about licensing with XP. My work laptop has been purely Linux for the past 12 years, and on and off for 5 years before that. We currently have one laptop where Linux doesn't support the webcam and another where Win 10 no longer supports the webcam. However, we have many more laptops that won't get a look in for Win 11, but they'll happily run Ubuntu 21.10. I've had to rescue many more WinDOS installs using Linux than the other way around. It's very jarring when I have an IT support task on a WinDOS machine, the clunky UI, the constant disk thrashing and the unfathomable settings! I installed a Linux WinDOS look a like on an old i3 laptop for video conferencing and just left it in the conference room, no one even realised it wasn't WinDOS! I thought there'd be howls of indignation, but there was nothing. That's the laptop where Win 10 no longer supports the webcam and one of the ones which won't get Win 11, but it'll happily run the latest Ubuntu complete with webcam. Fans of any OS will happily throw mud at other OSes, without bothering to get to grips with the other OSes. There are plenty of foibles in Linux, and which ever desktop you run on it, there are plenty in macOS, but there are also plenty in WinDOS.

[LondonSquirrel]

1 hour ago, Pufty said:

unremovable programs

Installable programs too. Like Adobe. Like MS Office. You know, the sort of things which whether you or I like it, are the 'industry standards'.

[Pufty]

1 hour ago, nBlaze said:

Well, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. Last week I had to do urgent video conference - webcam on my main PC died and it suddenly turned out Linux really doesn't like the webcam in my Asus Transformer. After an hour of tinkering I just gave up and decided to just install Win11. Got everything working within 30 mins - preparing installer USB included.
 

Sure, went back to Linux afterwards - 2 hours of actually using Win11 was enough to make me hate it - but it's not always as simple as plug and play.

Point taken. At home will try my laptop's cam by curiosity. It just ain't doom and gloom either. I was expecting 'doomsday' when I made the switch, thinking that I'm going to sacrifice all that I hold dear.

 

12 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Installable programs too. Like Adobe. Like MS Office. You know, the sort of things which whether you or I like it, are the 'industry standards'.

And the industry can be (soft version) silly sometimes. I CUT the fat with adobe by going Affinity + Davinci to sate my needs, but Office? The Libre thing works fine. Worked from home handling excel sheets and had no trouble on day 1 of using the alternatives. Looks a bit different, but everything's there...

Nothing else other than Affinity comes to mind when I gotta ask myself of what I'm missing.

[LondonSquirrel]

17 minutes ago, Pufty said:

The Libre thing works fine.

Unfortunately this is where you do the 'year of the Linux desktop' a disservice by making this misleading comment. LibreOffice mostly works with MS Office docs, but not always and not accurately. I had to fill in a form made in MS Word. I tried LibreOffice and the results were unusable - LibreOffice could not render the form properly. So when you write comments like 'works fine', that is not the whole story. When Joe User is sent a form as I was and sees the results, he is not going to write back to the sender 'your form is broken in LibreOffice', he is going to use MS Word instead.

[Pufty]

4 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Unfortunately this is where you do the[...]

 

25 minutes ago, Pufty said:

The Libre thing works fine. Worked from home handling excel sheets and had no trouble on day 1 of using the alternatives. Looks a bit different, but everything's there...

I don't think I'm being misleading. Sure, take the 1 thing and apply it everywhere, but 'works fine' is pretty accurate. I didn't run into any issues. Your doom and gloom is what I would call misleading when I had considered switching to linux years back and I would constantly read how it's unstable, hardcore etc.

[msdobrescu]

8 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

I had to fill in a form made in MS Word. I tried LibreOffice and the results were unusable - LibreOffice could not render the form properly.

I dare you to write a bug report!

[LondonSquirrel]

9 minutes ago, msdobrescu said:

I dare you to write a bug report!

Or I could stop wasting my time and use MS Office instead. 

[OS1]

11 minutes ago, msdobrescu said:

I dare you to write a bug report!

It's not a question of daring. I've filed, and had fixed, issues with LibreOffice and other open source projects. I've not seen a bug reporting site for Microsoft products, maybe I've not looked hard enough or maybe they're just not interested in that bothersome lot the general public.

[msdobrescu]

13 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Or I could stop wasting my time and use MS Office instead.

9 minutes ago, OS1 said:

It's not a question of daring.

For the guy it is.

[anto]

28 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Or I could stop wasting my time and use MS Office instead. 

The same thing can be said about Adobe and Affinity. Don't compare things incomparable at the moment.

[maor26]

Looks like this thread went somewhere else entirely.
If you aren't interested in using linux/affinity software on linux, just ignore this thread and stop looking for people to argue with.
As for affinity products on linux, A LOT of users(including me) would love to see them on linux and PAY for them just like every other
commercial platform doesn't matter the OS being used.
There are more than enough web developers, graphic designers and regular users that are using linux and need a better solution
that the currently available design software.
If someone from the affinity team is here, I would suggest making a survey to see some real numbers and post about it on twitter where a lot
of potential users are.
After that, maybe they can consider doing a linux version.

[LondonSquirrel]

10 minutes ago, maor26 said:

I would suggest making a survey to see some real numbers

As soon as the real number is revealed, the Linux people would say it's wrong and the mythical 'true number' is more than that.

Linux is about 1% of the desktop market share. That's the real number.

[Bez Bezson]

1 minute ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Linux is about 1% of the desktop market share. That's the real number.

Just because it's 1% of the desktop market doesn't mean it isn't more of the designers/publishers/artists/etc.

There's a much bigger proportion of Windows users that just surf the web and play games on their PC than there is of Linux users.

What proportion of people with a PC have Linux is pretty meaningless to this discussion. What matters is the proportion of Affiniy's target demographics that use Linux.

[anto]

8 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Linux is about 1% of the desktop market share. That's the real number.

Do you know real number of Affinity users compared to Adobe? Or how many users use Affinity software?  If you like Windows or Mac, please. What do you want to prove here?

[maor26]

17 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

As soon as the real number is revealed, the Linux people would say it's wrong and the mythical 'true number' is more than that.

Linux is about 1% of the desktop market share. That's the real number.

Dude just stop being a troll on the internet...there are enough trolls on other sites.
Whether it'll make them want to make a linux version or not, at least that way they'll know the numbers.
After all, it's their decision and their decision only.
And if they do decide ti make a linux version, there is a plus...adobe isn't there to take any part of that market share.

[D’T4ils]

Don’t you have anything better to do with your time other than trolling around this forum, LondonRascal? The other thread related to this same topic got closed solely because of you. Does this give you some kind of mental reward, you freaking sociopath?

Since he will probably continue on his idiotic quest, I ask you guys to stop enabling him. Just ignore his wannabe comments. As easy as that.

Thank you 😘