Affinity products for Linux

[Renzatic]

4 hours ago, IanSG said:

I don't see Win 11 driving people away, and certainly not into the arms of Linux.  I know one person who's "upgraded", and he's monumentaly unimpressed - everyone else is ignoring it.  fwiw my guess is that MS will extend the support period for Win 10 and hope that the number of people who can't use 11 drops enough that they can be ignored.

The way I see things going, with Wine/Proton growing in support and compatibility, and Windows Subsystem for Linux being a thing, I see the future being fairly platform agnostic.

There's no reason to fret when Windows can run Linux apps, and Linux can run Windows apps. Just pick whichever you like best.

EXPERIENCE THE POWER OF LINUX!

Edited March 10, 2022 by Renzatic
To show the power of Linux.

[Renzatic]

Just now, LondonSquirrel said:

Let's not pretend that there are any Linux apps worth having on Windows or Mac which don't have better native versions or equivalents. And please, no more gedit videos.

I can play Crystal Caves though.

 

[B-Interactive]

8 hours ago, Renzatic said:

I see the future being fairly platform agnostic.

I agree.

One argument that has been held against Linux support for the Affinity Suite, is that it's already being built for 3 platforms and supporting Linux would only hinder support, or progress on those existing platforms.

Agnostic cross-platform development has come a long way in 10 years and many modern development methodologies embrace developing once, for support under multiple platforms.

Perhaps the stronger argument is not to develop a 4th target platform for the Affinity Suite, rather re-approach the development process so there's one body of source that is platform agnostic.  Windows, OSX, Linux, even tablet, largely same source code.  The tools handle cross-compiling natively for target platforms.  I don't suggest it's a trivial task to migrate a code-base, but such a consideration could expand platform support with potentially much lower development overhead going forward.  I'm sure the dev team and such are best positioned to weigh that up though.

[chiddekel]

Pure Js app for graphics, work bouth in Browser and desktop 🖥️ cross platform

https://www.designer.io/en/

[chiddekel]

How to detect system in C

https://iq.opengenus.org/detect-operating-system-in-c/

[chiddekel]

How to write cross platform code for Windows/Linux use Visual Studio:

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/using-visual-studio-for-cross-platform-c-development-targeting-windows-and-linux/

[chiddekel]

Multiplatform c++

[chiddekel]

Another one guide for what is important when write C++ codebase for multiplatform:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33238345/are-c-applications-cross-platform

[chiddekel]

How run function, methods in code using python3 from Windows *.DLL or Linux *.SO by ctypes.

https://docs.python.org/3/library/ctypes.html

[chiddekel]

Another one guide.

https://gamedevunboxed.com/getting-setup-for-cross-platform-c-development/?amp

[chiddekel]

Book about multiple platforms in c++:

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1407390

[Renzatic]

2 hours ago, LondonSquirrel said:

... is that the Linux desktop market share is not worth time/money developing for.

It's popular enough to get Crystal Caves.

[IanSG]

1 hour ago, Renzatic said:

It's popular enough to get Crystal Caves.

And it only took 30 years!

[Renzatic]

7 minutes ago, IanSG said:

And it only took 30 years!

Hey, better late than never.

[MikeW]

40 minutes ago, Renzatic said:

Hey, better late than never.

Does that apply to ever seeing Affinity applications on Linux? 😉

[Renzatic]

2 hours ago, MikeW said:

Does that apply to ever seeing Affinity applications on Linux? 😉

Yup.

[MikeW]

22 minutes ago, Renzatic said:

Yup.

Were you told as a youngster that patience was a virtue? I was.

I think I was 12 or so when I bought a poster of two vultures sitting on a dead tree limb overlooking the desert. One says to the other, Patience my ass, I'm going to go kill something. 

That's sort of how I approach OSs and applications. I'll gladly use the OS that supports the applications I need to use now.

In this day and age, I would gladly use an OS that doesn't collect all the metrics. But today, I need X number of applications that only two I use can run fine on Linux. Those two would be enough if I ever fully retire. 

[v_kyr]

8 minutes ago, MikeW said:

I think I was 12 or so when I bought a poster of two vultures sitting on a dead tree limb overlooking the desert. One says to the other, Patience my ass, I'm going to go kill something. 

• ... two vultures sitting on a dead tree limb

[MikeW]

Love it. My mother hated it. Which was a bonus for me. 

[Renzatic]

1 hour ago, MikeW said:

In this day and age, I would gladly use an OS that doesn't collect all the metrics. But today, I need X number of applications that only two I use can run fine on Linux. Those two would be enough if I ever fully retire. 

It's something of an opposite situation for me. Everything I use runs just fine in Linux, either natively, or under WINE. The only exception to this are the Affinity programs, which I dearly miss, but can work around their absence fairly easily.

I continue to support the push for Serif to publish on Linux, because hey, I'd like to have my cake, and eat it too.

[Snapseed]

On 3/11/2022 at 5:44 PM, MikeW said:

Does that apply to ever seeing Affinity applications on Linux? 😉

To be honest, I think the least unrealistic option is the Affinity range, starting with Affinity Photo, working well with Wine/Crossover just like the venerable Adobe Photoshop CS2 does. I would quite happily settle for a solution like that.

[v_kyr]

Well, even it would be technically possible to port/adapt the one or other Affinity app to the Linux platform, it would overall take and need some additional manpower, resources, time, support and finally money to do so. - Thus the question ultimately arises for Serif as to whether the effort is worth it in the long term at all.

And if I look at the current state of the Affinity products here, I'm pretty sure they have enough to do with bug fixing, enhancing and updating their actual software to those OS platforms they already do support. Further since Windows and MacOS/iPadOS themselves are lately always in permanent transition (updates, fixes, OS related system & lib changes, patches etc.) I doubt they will have enough time & left over free resources for any Linux ports.

[chiddekel]

On 3/11/2022 at 5:54 PM, IanSG said:

And it only took 30 years!

Technically Compile to web assamble will took minutes o houres and run in Browser with native speed 🚄. https://emscripten.org/

On Buissnes side - this can be the Sass Model payment, hosted on server with account for any user 👤 just like office 365 account and login can be with Google or Facebook oauth 2.

[Kamei Kojirou]

I like their products and wish I could use it on my preferred operating systems(Linux[Pop!_OS] & Android). So I'm showing my support for this, +1 for Linux. I don't really see a need for discouraging discussion about this. Either Affinity will decide to do it or they won't. 

[MattyWS]

On 3/11/2022 at 1:08 PM, LondonSquirrel said:

... is that the Linux desktop market share is not worth time/money developing for.

Well done for proving you can't read in full. 

Yes the future of development is to develop once to all platforms. Affinity may be too far down the line for this now which is a shame.

In fact I'd say the same thing about game developers who want to try to maintain a Linux Native build as well as windows, mac, consoles etc. Don't make native linux games, just make your games run via proton and you're golden. 

That said though I'd love for Affinity to start some kind of indiegogo/kickstarter/gofundme for getting affinity suite to linux. It'd do two things; prove whether or not there is a market there for Serif without spending money and gets them the money beforehand so they can happily develop for linux without worry that it'd be a waste of time.