Affinity products for Linux

[ipso]

1 hour ago, Patrick Connor said:

...only in that we promise not to make a Linux specific version.

Oh wow... not touching that. There's clearly some dark history here or on the forums that I don't know about. Past discussions must have really been not good.

Apologies for the enthusiasm and for getting involved. I thought we were here to celebrate and show support, but this thread must be long for other reasons. No more posts from me.

Thanks a bunch to 1stn00b and whoever else lead to this ending up on the Wines page with something functional. Thanks to anyone not here who helped from the Serif side. I'll be eagerly awaiting what the Wines contributors can do from the sidelines and looking forward to more updates there.

Edited August 2, 2022 by ipso

[Snapseed]

22 hours ago, 1stn00b said:

Well i would pay again for a native version - off course if it's available as a Flatpak package so it includes every dependency - practically eliminating the usual problems u get when not everybody is running same distro or have same libraries - and it also simplify their development and bug fixing 😆

The first thing I must do is thank you very much for all the work, effort and feedback that you have put in to make Affinity Photo work on Linux via Wine, etc.

I very much like your suggestion that the Affinity products could be bundled up with all the specific Wine fine-tuned elements in one of the container formats when all the bugs are sorted out. There is already a precedent for this.The free Windows-only photo editor Photoscape 3.7 software is bundled with Wine as a Snap. It works so well that you cannot tell that this is not native Linux software.

I would like to see the same thing happen with the three Affinity software products starting with the 30 day trial version of Affinity Photo. However, it ought to be pointed out that this might require the permission of, or at least tolerance of the situation by, Serif Europe. The trial version of commercial VueScan scanner software is currently available as a Flatpak so again there is a successful precedent there and no doubt Vuescan gets additional sales that way so it's a win-win situation for everyone.

I would welcome the comments from Serif Europe staff about the issues raised in the paragraph directly above.

[Renzatic]

3 hours ago, ipso said:

Oh wow... not touching that. There's clearly some dark history here or on the forums that I don't know about. Past discussions must have really been not good.

There were some incidents. Feelings were hurt. People cried. It was terrible.

Though on a high note, a new Gnome extension came out that rounds window corners, so Photo now looks more like a native app. Though it still crashes all the time, and the canvas still flickers a bunch, so it's most one giant tease at the moment. But still...

Rounded window corners!

[mb69]

well the brush lag isnt great, it flickers, but the pen pressure actually works without fussing around which makes it better than Adobe Photoshop(TM) Creative Cloud on Microsoft Windows(R)

I honor your efforts with this shitpost, please enjoy.

[chiddekel]

On 8/1/2022 at 6:19 PM, Mark Ingram said:

RE: canvas flickering. We use Direct3D11 for rendering the document to the screen, and Direct2D for rendering the tool. 

Thanks for this tip - equivalent on bottles is VKD3D and DXVK - for now app in bottles work with switch --no-hw-ui 
If Direct3D11 is for rendering document so on bottles (wine) is time to search which patch for VKD3D and or DXVK is use to run app without switch --no-hw-ui.
On winehq and proton site there is many solved issue with flickering on D3D (VKD3D) after apply certain patch.



 

[1stn00b]

DXVK is used to translate DirectX  9, 10, 11 API calls to Vulkan , VKD3D is used for DirectX 12. Even if u activate both in Bottles only DXVK will be used. Also both are heavily optimized for Windows games.

[Uncle Mez]

Bottles recently shared this, don't you think it is a beginning ? not the one expected but a just beginning

 

[Mark Ingram]

4 hours ago, chiddekel said:

Thanks for this tip - equivalent on bottles is VKD3D and DXVK - for now app in bottles work with switch --no-hw-ui 
If Direct3D11 is for rendering document so on bottles (wine) is time to search which patch for VKD3D and or DXVK is use to run app without switch --no-hw-ui.
On winehq and proton site there is many solved issue with flickering on D3D (VKD3D) after apply certain patch.



 

The WPF UI is rendered (by default) in Direct3D9. The --no-hw-ui flag disables WPF's hardware rendering and switches it into software mode. The document view is always drawn with Direct3D11 and Direct2D.

[Renzatic]

1 hour ago, Mark Ingram said:

The document view is always drawn with Direct3D11 and Direct2D.

If I had to take an uneducated stab at a guess, I'd say poor Direct2D implementation in WINE is the major culprit behind the flickering canvas. As far as I know, Direct2D doesn't see much use in games, being used primarily in desktop applications, which means that it's most likely to be ignored by the WINE devs.

[1stn00b]

You've got it upside down :>

Wine is for applications DXVK,VK3D, Proton are extending it for games and have more developing power since are backed by Valve and now with Steam Deck they will get even more love :>

But don't worry we already have the programs fully running so we just have to wait for the missing pieces to be added :>

 

[Renzatic]

3 hours ago, 1stn00b said:

Wine is for applications DXVK,VK3D, Proton are extending it for games and have more developing power since are backed by Valve and now with Steam Deck they will get even more love 😆

That's how it started out way back in the day, but now it's primarily about playing World of Warcraft on Linux. The proof's kind of in the pudding here, in that most games run nigh natively through WINE or Proton (which is basically WINE with Valve money behind it) these days, but running a desktop app is still a turkey shoot.

[1stn00b]

This is useless discussion for hunting witches - the only one to blame for no Linux support is actually Serif not others. In the same note Codeweavers that brag themselves with running Windows apps for just $49 didn't even managed to make the Affinity products install : https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/crossover/affinity-photo

[Mark Ingram]

1 hour ago, 1stn00b said:

the only one to blame for no Linux support is actually Serif not others

Technically you could say "the one to blame for no Linux support is actually the lack of Linux desktop users, which would make the product commercially unviable"

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide

Windows: 75%

macOS: 15%

Linux: 2.75%

 

[1stn00b]

Wonder what that 6% Unknown is, but anyway i don't see Affinity products on Android either so guess that is also "commercially unviable" market for Serif.  

[Friksel]

47 minutes ago, Mark Ingram said:

Technically you could say "the one to blame for no Linux support is actually the lack of Linux desktop users, which would make the product commercially unviable"

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide

Windows: 75%

macOS: 15%

Linux: 2.75%

 

Cool! So with that reasoning in mind: 

Windows leading the way by far with 75%... Could we get the Designer and Photo Tablet version apps (now available on iOS only) ported to Windows so we can use it on pen tablets? That would be very nice! 😀

[PaulEC]

17 minutes ago, Friksel said:

Cool! So with that reasoning in mind: 

Windows leading the way by far with 75%... Could we get the Designer and Photo Tablet version apps (now available on iOS only) ported to Windows so we can use it on pen tablets? That would be very nice! 😀

These stats are for desktops, not tablets! (For tablets Windows has a much lower market share than iOS.)

[Snapseed]

2 hours ago, 1stn00b said:

This is useless discussion for hunting witches - the only one to blame for no Linux support is actually Serif not others. In the same note Codeweavers that brag themselves with running Windows apps for just $49 didn't even managed to make the Affinity products install : https://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/crossover/affinity-photo

When Adobe went for the p̶e̶r̶m̶a̶n̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶e̶x̶t̶o̶r̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ service as a subscription model, that did wonders for the sale of competitor products including all the Affinity products, ON1, Exposure and the rest. I might be wrong but, and as with Wine, I get the distinct impression that the Codeweavers developers have not put the effort that they could do in getting the Affinity products to work reasonably well on Crossover. I think it would be useful if we all made the same requests for the Affinity products over on Codeweavers' own forums here: https://www.codeweavers.com/support/forums/

I hope that at some stage we could get to a point where Serif Europe and Codeweavers staff can actually have some discreet discussions about this matter since everyone concerned would make more sales and money (would the staff who read this be willing to do this?).

In the meantime, we can get the Affinity products to work perfectly on Linux so long as we have 16GB and use a virtual machine:

 

[ShadeOn]

1 hour ago, Mark Ingram said:

Technically you could say "the one to blame for no Linux support is actually the lack of Linux desktop users, which would make the product commercially unviable"

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide

Windows: 75%

macOS: 15%

Linux: 2.75%

 

This is same thing in reality... people don't move inside small cities or villages cause there are no companies there, just small family market , a bar, and 1-2 agricultural companies, but nowadays even young IT people move there cause these small cities and villages have Internet and enough signal to have a connection.

And at the same time, if companies move away or close, all values there deprecates and people try to sell their houses and try to move to closer villages that have railway for trains , or closer to bigger cities in the region,  in which they can buy a house with what they have (can't afford in bigger cities if renting and others have not a good ROI) , in this example.. is Windows XP and 7, only AVG for example makes updates, and Mozilla Firefox same, other software companies have stopped supporting them (although outdated apps still work there, especially printer ones), and you can see in Steam OS Share monthly (for visual reference) how step by step 7 and 8 lose users and 10 and 11 grows.

But let's get this over with and hope we will get a simple template install for "simple on-click adding information in inputs" users for the Wine.

Cheers

Edited August 4, 2022 by ShadeOn

[Kastas]

Hello,

Could some one test save/save_as a project? I get "save failed because access to the file was lost" while 0 kb file is created.

Exports works fine.

I tested Photo-1.10.4 and affinity Photo-1.10.5 - same result; tried different bottles; gave all permissions to Bottles; different save locations.

It is known bug for different Affinity applications and versions, so it might be bad luck on my side. It has something to do with ".NET Framework 3.5 and 4.8" or "controlled folder access".

Thank you.

[1stn00b]

Check if u have Dedicated Sandbox enabled in Preferences aka sandbox in sandbox ; > - from my experience it disable completely access to your Home folder even if that is accessible to the main Bottles Flatpak Sandbox

[Kastas]

27 minutes ago, 1stn00b said:

Check if u have Dedicated Sandbox enabled in Preferences aka sandbox in sandbox ; > - from my experience it disable completely access to your Home folder even if that is accessible to the main Bottles Flatpak Sandbox

No, I have it off.

When/if the flickering is solved, I'll reinstall my whole system.

Thank you for your contribution so far.

[1stn00b]

Running with terminal shows they use MoveFileTransactedW that Microsoft say will be deprecated and advises to not be used :

Quote

[Microsoft strongly recommends developers utilize alternative means to achieve your application’s needs. Many scenarios that TxF was developed for can be achieved through simpler and more readily available techniques. Furthermore, TxF may not be available in future versions of Microsoft Windows. For more information, and alternatives to TxF, please see Alternatives to using Transactional NTFS.]

Quote

04dc:fixme:file:MoveFileTransactedW (L"C:\\users\\noname\\AppData\\Roaming\\Affinity\\Photo\\1.0\\temp\\62ebeb1c", L"Z:\\home\\noname\\test.afphoto", 0000000000000000, 0000000000000000, 11, 0000000000000001)

 

[Kajac]

Today I tried to do exactly what @Snapseedcomments a few pages ago.

I tried to run affinity designer through virtual box.

And the performance is good. I thought I would have crashes and I wouldn't even be able to open the heavy files correctly, but everything worked as expected by the few tests I did.

The only downside to all of this is having to boot into a Windows system and having to install it.

As before becoming a linux user I was always building the PC and testing older builds of windows, I ended up installing an old and customized version. On the plus side, it only took up 9GB after installation. Of course many features, drivers and internal services have been removed!

---

Just in case, I decided to use qemu/KVM because it has a degree of hardware approximation.

quemu/kvm - Using Virt Manager

Virtual box!

And the final performance was pretty much the same.

 I had a little delay at times but that's all.
---

My conclusion, if you really need affinity and want to stop having a dual boot this is the best solution at the moment!

[jaizon]

14 minutes ago, Kajac said:

Today I tried to do exactly what @Snapseedcomments a few pages ago.

I tried to run affinity designer through virtual box.

And the performance is good. I thought I would have crashes and I wouldn't even be able to open the heavy files correctly, but everything worked as expected by the few tests I did.

The only downside to all of this is having to boot into a Windows system and having to install it.

As before becoming a linux user I was always building the PC and testing older builds of windows, I ended up installing an old and customized version. On the plus side, it only took up 9GB after installation. Of course many features, drivers and internal services have been removed!

---

Just in case, I decided to use qemu/KVM because it has a degree of hardware approximation.

quemu/kvm - Using Virt Manager

Virtual box!

And the final performance was pretty much the same.

 I had a little delay at times but that's all.
---

My conclusion, if you really need affinity and want to stop having a dual boot this is the best solution at the moment!

There's a talk of a way to run windows software with KVMs in a headless way but I'm to newb to mess with that. Also, that involves using a second graphics card for hardware passthrough

 

 

[Snapseed]

On 8/9/2022 at 10:57 PM, Kajac said:

Today I tried to do exactly what @Snapseedcomments a few pages ago.

I tried to run affinity designer through virtual box.

And the performance is good. I thought I would have crashes and I wouldn't even be able to open the heavy files correctly, but everything worked as expected by the few tests I did.

The only downside to all of this is having to boot into a Windows system and having to install it.

As before becoming a linux user I was always building the PC and testing older builds of windows, I ended up installing an old and customized version. On the plus side, it only took up 9GB after installation. Of course many features, drivers and internal services have been removed!

---

Just in case, I decided to use qemu/KVM because it has a degree of hardware approximation.

quemu/kvm - Using Virt Manager

Virtual box!

And the final performance was pretty much the same.

 I had a little delay at times but that's all.
---

My conclusion, if you really need affinity and want to stop having a dual boot this is the best solution at the moment!

To be entirely fair, it was Affinity forum member Hartmut Doering's original idea to get Affinity Photo running on Linux via the virtual machine route. His innovatory post can be found here: