Affinity products for Linux

[Snapseed]

21 minutes ago, Framelynx said:

Guys... you know what...

I just realized that the Affinity Suite doesn't have Non-Destructive Envelope Warp.... ENVELOPE WARP!!!! BASIC!!!!!! They've been asking for it since 2015, and they said it was on the road map, but they haven't implemented it... And many people have been asking and waiting for it.

This makes me realise... if they haven't even included this very basic essential feature... TO HELL with a "Linux" version.

I threw in the towel... I just had to install Affinity on a Windows.... It was a sad day... but in some ways... inevitable...

If they so happen to release a Linux Version... I'll be there... but I'm not holding my breathe for it anymore.... 

I agree that it would be nice to have a Linux version of the Affinity softwares, or at least versions that ran well with Wine.

That said, on Linux an equivalent professional range of products is still possible with, for example, Gravit, PhotoLine + Wine and VivaDesigner.

[chiddekel]

https://www.perforce.com/blog/vcs/using-open-source-code-in-proprietary-software

[toxiccrack]

Hi, after a lot of fiddling around, i -almost- got affinity photo 1.10 running. I'm on Linux Mint 20, used Lutris and the Affinity Designer 1.7.3 install script, but choosed the affinity photo setup file. It installs without any problems.

After starting the program, the window is black, except the elements the mouse cursor focuses. I added some screenshots to show the problem. So theoretically the program itself could work, it just has a rendering issue.

[Komatös]

Hi @toxiccrack

No real Windows, no support! As Affinity programmes are developed natively for Windows, MAC and iPad, there is no support for emulated environments.

[toxiccrack]

I just wanted to share my experience. Perhaps it is helpful to someone who is more experienced with wine.

[msdobrescu]

@toxiccrack, I have got the same results for a year at least. I've even tried it under Steam with Proton. Same result. It occasionally renders here and there, but remains black and, despite I've got to make a panorama, could not pass the initial preview. I suspect it is about this Wine bug: https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=45277.

 

[toxiccrack]

@msdobrescu ah ok. i tried it now with the special wine-lutris-vkchildwindow-4.12.1, but also no luck.. 

[Snapseed]

3 hours ago, Komatös said:

Hi @toxiccrack

No real Windows, no support! As Affinity programmes are developed natively for Windows, MAC and iPad, there is no support for emulated environments.

It is a complete contrast with the developers at PhotoLine who make the effort to ensure that their software works well with Wine so that Linux users are not left out.

[kamanderside]

Maybe we should get Affinity for Linux crowdfunded at this point, so Serif can hire the extra peeps they'd need to port it / make it compatible with WINE or Proton.

I mean, if we're serious about wanting it to happen, we could help invest in it, yeah?   //wishful thinking

[walt.farrell]

6 hours ago, kamanderside said:

Maybe we should get Affinity for Linux crowdfunded at this point, so Serif can hire the extra peeps they'd need to port it / make it compatible with WINE or Proton.

I mean, if we're serious about wanting it to happen, we could help invest in it, yeah?   //wishful thinking

Serif have said they are not interested in Linux at this time, and also that they are not interested in Crowd Funding.

[Snapseed]

7 hours ago, kamanderside said:

Maybe we should get Affinity for Linux crowdfunded at this point, so Serif can hire the extra peeps they'd need to port it / make it compatible with WINE or Proton.

I mean, if we're serious about wanting it to happen, we could help invest in it, yeah?   //wishful thinking

It is already technically possible to get Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher working well on Linux...but only by using virtual machine technology like VirtualBox, VMWare, etc. but that's best done with 16GB RAM upwards. Personally, I think that is a better solution than dual booting and other views are available.

 

[wonderings]

1 hour ago, Snapseed said:

It is already technically possible to get Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer and Affinity Publisher working well on Linux...but only by using virtual machine technology like VirtualBox, VMWare, etc. but that's best done with 16GB RAM upwards. Personally, I think that is a better solution than dual booting and other views are available.

 

I have brought that up in the past. I run Windows as a VM on my intel iMac as well as M1 Max MacBook Pro, they run great. I was under the impression that VM's in Linux were not as efficient and did not run as well as they do on the Mac side of things. 

[msdobrescu]

Running in an application in a Windows VM it's not running under Linux, regardless where that VM is hosted.

I don't care if an application runs under Linux natively or through Wine. Any option is fine.

If crowdfunding is an option, that makes sense to try support Wine development as long as it is not accepted by the software maker.

[Snapseed]

1 hour ago, wonderings said:

I have brought that up in the past. I run Windows as a VM on my intel iMac as well as M1 Max MacBook Pro, they run great. I was under the impression that VM's in Linux were not as efficient and did not run as well as they do on the Mac side of things. 

I don't need to use any VMs because I found Linux softwares that work well for me but it apparently runs fine:

https://itsfoss.com/install-windows-10-virtualbox-linux/

1 hour ago, msdobrescu said:

Running in an application in a Windows VM it's not running under Linux, regardless where that VM is hosted.

I don't care if an application runs under Linux natively or through Wine. Any option is fine.

If crowdfunding is an option, that makes sense to try support Wine development as long as it is not accepted by the software maker.

It is probably better to raise such matters directly with Wine and Codeweavers staff directly and see what they say because Serif Europe has so far not given any signal that they are remotely interested in such a course of action (I am willing to be corrected on this matter).

https://www.codeweavers.com

[chiddekel]

35 minutes ago, Snapseed said:

I don't need to use any VMs because I found Linux softwares that work well for me but it apparently runs fine:

https://itsfoss.com/install-windows-10-virtualbox-linux/

It is probably better to raise such matters directly with Wine and Codeweavers staff directly and see what they say because Serif Europe has so far not given any signal that they are remotely interested in such a course of action (I am willing to be corrected on this matter).

https://www.codeweavers.com

On other hand, support codewaevers can increase plugin for figma that is use in web development for develope sites and web apps UI on corporate Linux Front-end and web developers machines.

[MattyWS]

On 5/31/2022 at 8:45 PM, LondonSquirrel said:

I don't know and I'm not interested. I'm only replying because it might appear rude not to.

No, you appear rude in every single post you’ve made in this thread. The others are right, you are just being toxic and hateful toward a request that people want and you clearly don’t want. When large companies like Valve and Nvidia are supporting Linux as a desktop and gaming platform, you can pretty easily see there is in fact a market for it.

I don’t even know why you’re still posting here, the only thing I can think of is you’re a Linux user that likes using a niche OS and don’t want it to get popular like some kind of hipster… or maybe you’re just a troll who never even touched Linux in the last decade. Either one is toxic.

[LondonSquirrel]

6 hours ago, MattyWS said:

I don’t even know why you’re still posting here,

I don't know why you are still posting here. The request has been made for Linux support. Now you keep repeating yourself. This thread was started with a huge lie about the number of desktop Linux users.

6 hours ago, MattyWS said:

No, you appear rude in every single post you’ve made in this thread.

I think you are confusing the word rude with pointing out a few realities.

[Pšenda]

10 hours ago, MattyWS said:

you are just being toxic and hateful toward a request that people want and you clearly don’t want.

Why are you constantly posting here (on the Affinity forum)? A request has been made (repeatedly - Linux users seem to have trouble finding or understanding the rules set out here), to which you have been repeatedly told that the application is not being prepared for this platform yet. And yet here you keep writing more and more posts / threads that are completely irrelevant for Affinity applications and their users !!! So who is toxic?
Why don't you discuss your Linux issues and benefits in forums that are designed for this? There you will definitely have a lot of grateful readers. Just insert a link here so that potential candidates can easily find your discussion. Thank you.

[Snapseed]

On 6/3/2022 at 2:21 PM, Pšenda said:

Why are you constantly posting here (on the Affinity forum)? A request has been made (repeatedly - Linux users seem to have trouble finding or understanding the rules set out here), to which you have been repeatedly told that the application is not being prepared for this platform yet. And yet here you keep writing more and more posts / threads that are completely irrelevant for Affinity applications and their users !!! So who is toxic?
Why don't you discuss your Linux issues and benefits in forums that are designed for this? There you will definitely have a lot of grateful readers. Just insert a link here so that potential candidates can easily find your discussion. Thank you.

With respect, no one is being forced to read or to comment in this particular thread. Furthermore, it is perfectly legitimate to politely make requests for new features in the Affinity range of good products and to ask that more operating systems are covered such as Android or Linux.

This thread is also very useful because allows Linux users to share details of existing Linux software that can be used instead of the Affinity range of software. Personally, I would be quite content if the Affinity product range just ran well with Wine/CrossOver.

Anyway, one criterion of good image editors is how well they deal with astrophotography (Affinity Photo is increasingly popular in that respect, e.g. in Astronomy Now magazine and mentions online, because it does not come with an exorbitant cost or a forever rental contract) and three celestial objects are presented below that have been processed in Linux with Pixeluvo, Fotoxx and PixInsight respectively:

[Leigh]

Several of the more recent posts in this thread have been reported to the moderators. I know this is a sensitive subject for some but please avoid personal attacks and keep it on topic 👍

[Snapseed]

The potential option of using the Affinity softwares via a virtual machine on a Linux computer has already been mentioned above in this thread and it turns out that an existing forum member, Hartmut Doering, has been able to make this solution work very well. His helpful advice is reproduced below:

"Hi,

AP has currently no maintainer for Wine, that's why it does not work flawlessly like PS in Wine. But I found a way to make it work. Instead of Wine which "emulates" Windows and needs a Maintainer who asks Serif which Libraries AP needs and puts them in the AP-Wine-emulation, I use Virtualbox.
Virtualbox is a complete Virtual Machine, I had to install Windows in it.
I found out AP worked flawlessly in Virtualbox when I give the Virtual Machine (VM) 8 GB of RAM and a separate SSD from Mint. Also, 3D Acceleration needs to be turned on. 
- The downside for some people is, you need a Windows Licence Key for this approach.
+ The upside is you have for example a super sturdy Mint Workstation, and Windows runs controlled inside it, with drag and drop and all the good stuff.
+ Also, you can snapshot the VM, so when I start it, it does not boot Windows and such. It just opens a Window with the Windows 8.1 Desktop and AP already open and ready to use. I just have to drag my file over in AP, hit fullscreen and get stuff done.
+ All these, Windows-Registry stability problems or updates that interfere with my schedule are gone.
+ Also, I can use 8.1 far beyond its support cycle because I can manage what access to the Internet I allow the VM specifically."

[MattyWS]

On 6/3/2022 at 2:21 PM, Pšenda said:

Why are you constantly posting here (on the Affinity forum)? A request has been made (repeatedly - Linux users seem to have trouble finding or understanding the rules set out here), to which you have been repeatedly told that the application is not being prepared for this platform yet. And yet here you keep writing more and more posts / threads that are completely irrelevant for Affinity applications and their users !!! So who is toxic?
Why don't you discuss your Linux issues and benefits in forums that are designed for this? There you will definitely have a lot of grateful readers. Just insert a link here so that potential candidates can easily find your discussion. Thank you.

I disagree with a couple of your points. This is a topic about affinity photo potentially being for linux so of course people will talk about it the topic. It's not toxic to keep on-topic. It's far more toxic to go into someones request thread and say how they don't want the request because it's not relevant to them. I'd be like me going into a thread about mac support and saying "barely anyone uses mac, Serif shouldn't waste their money on supporting you, all their money should be used to develop their products on windows where I use affinity suite". Kinda silly to do this, right? If you aren't interested in a request the best thing to do is to just not comment and the literal worst thing you can do is trash the request *because* it's not relevant to you, which is exactly what a certain someone has been doing in here.

To your other point, why don't we discuss the linux/affinity topic on linux forums? What would that achieve really? We'd be having the same conversation but with more linux users and no affinity devs eyes on it. We *want* Serif to see this topic, we want a discussion on why this would be a good request. There's really no harm in anyone continuing this discussion. Though like I said I'm under no illusion Serif will act on any of this so even though I own the affinity suite on Windows and iPadOS, I can't use the windows version anymore. Sad times, as affinity designer would also be an amazing addition to linux (I use designer way more than I use photo).

Anyways if not Serif, I hope at least one company prevails and does the correct thing in supporting all three main desktop OS's. There maybe less stats on who uses linux since by it's very nature, linux distros tend not to collect data on it's users. I imagine there are a lot more than the stats are suggesting, especially when you consider entire cities and country governments are switching to linux and the largest games distributor is banking on linux so it's certainly becoming more the norm these days, even if its mostly governments switching en masse for the moment (I think governments being on linux will only help normalize it). I'll try not to get too political but countries like Russia being sanctioned and unable to acquire windowsOS or macs is also a sure reason for software devs to start supporting the OS people can actually use freely, which is why I happen to use Linux now even as a professional game developer. I've found it a positive experience so far, basically all the software I need is supported. Houdini, Unity, Unreal, Blender, World machine, Substance Suite.. I'm all good on linux apart from a decent photo/vector editor, which I *can* live without even if I don't want to.

If you disagree with my points here I'd love to engage in a constructive discussion as to why. Obviously not everyone uses linux but I feel like the "I don't use it so it's a waste of devs money to support it" is a non-argument and non-constructive to this discussion.

[MikeW]

@MattyWS, @Pšenda...

This thread is a Pinned Thread. This can only be done by Serif staff.

I think there is at least one good reason why it is a pinned thread--if for no other reason than to keep the discussion in single place. 

But MattyWS is correct, why not just avoid posting here? It is a legitimate topic.

[LondonSquirrel]

4 hours ago, MattyWS said:

all three main desktop OS's

There you go again. There are not three main desktop OSs. There are two.

[MattyWS]

1 hour ago, LondonSquirrel said:

There you go again. There are not three main desktop OSs. There are two.

there you go again, there is 1. Everyone uses windows why use anything else.

you're tiresome trolling is getting really old