Affinity products for Linux

[Mark Ingram]

9 hours ago, Renzatic said:

So we're 3/4ths of the way there. Underneath it all, there's a working program. We just need to wait until a fix comes by that stabilizes the UI.

The UI is rendered via WPF, which by default uses Direct3D9. You can try disabling this, and rendering the UI via software instead with the --no-hw-ui command line parameter... (noting the double hyphen at the start).

[Renzatic]

6 hours ago, Mark Ingram said:

The UI is rendered via WPF, which by default uses Direct3D9. You can try disabling this, and rendering the UI via software instead with the --no-hw-ui command line parameter... (noting the double hyphen at the start).

That helped out tremendously. The canvas is buggy, flickering when you drag, pan, and zoom, and occasionally it'll stop drawing portions of your image (which you can get back with a quick pan), but it's actually functional. I opened up an old image, threw a couple of quick adjustment layers on it, then opened a new canvas, dragged the tab over a slot, then ran a paintbrush over it. Didn't notice any lag or hiccups beyond the canvas issues. So you CAN edit in it, even if the experience is sorta janky at the moment.

 

Edit: Here's a quick little video showing off some real basic functionality.

 

[1stn00b]

@Renzatic : Can u attach the Affinity bottle exported configuration yml file ?

[Renzatic]

Here you go.

Just let me add that it's far from perfect. For some odd reason, I can't access the preferences from the instance that can open a canvas, but if I lead the Run Executable command directly to the .exe in the Program Files folder, it can open the preferences, but crashes when it open a new file.

Also, when you make your brush size overly large, it gets very, very flaky.

backup_Affinity-Photo.yml

[1stn00b]

Same results, flashing canvas, but not so bad as yours. Well it's a start - but then again is up to Affinity to make it compatible if they don't want to make a native version - like all the other companies that are releasing Steam Deck updates for their Windows only games.

For those who don't know Steam Deck has a immutable Arch based Linux OS (like Fedora Silverblue) supporting only Flatpak Apps and running Windows games thru Proton :

That's exactly how Wine works translating Windows API calls to Linux API calls and not emulating anything.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Renzatic]

31 minutes ago, 1stn00b said:

Same results, flashing canvas, but not so bad as yours.

Think this could be because you're using Wayland? Since I've got an Nvidia card, I tend to stick to X more often than not.

[1stn00b]

I have an AMD RX 580 like in screenshot so it just works out the box, next card will also be AMD when prices stabilize for 6800 XT, so no problems here running Apps or Games on Wayland, everything is butter smooth.

The canvas flashing is related only to Affinity products, i tried Sketchup that actually uses the GPU and didn't experience any of the flashing problems i see in Affinity.

P.S. Bought my Affinity Photo and Designer in 2016 , and Publisher when was available and also their books from Amazon, but since i switched fully to  Fedora  i'm not interested in running the Microsoft ADs OS just for Affinity. So yeah 1 lost customer, that before wanted to pay for version 2 but now doesn't care since it's not available on Linux.

Also i think it's lost opportunity for Affinity to gain free advertising and be the 1st "Adobe like" commercial software on Linux ;> the same way Valve is now synonyme with Linux gaming thru their work on Proton.

 

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, 1stn00b said:

but then again is up to Affinity to make it compatible if they don't want to make a native version

Sorry, but I'll disagree.

Serif has said they do not plan to support Linux. If it is going to work there, it is up to the Wine community or to CodeWeavers to get it working, in my opinion. Serif does not want to expend resources (a) getting it to work and then (very important) (b) keeping it working with future development.

[1stn00b]

Well it's their problem not mine or Wine community, i already moved on. This is a commercial closed-source software so i don't think spending community time to reverse engineering their software (which should be illegal if we look at all closed-source software EULAS) to see why it doesn't work.

It's the same way as with Windows games anti-cheat : Epic made Easy Anti-Cheat available on Linux thru Proton and Wine not Valve or the community.

Also since Serif business model is to sell a unique non-sharable license on every platform they support i'm 100% sure not only that they won't support the Wine community, but make sure in the future that their Windows Apps will never install on Wine again : >

 

 

 

 

[msdobrescu]

It's no reverse engineering, you just take Wine logs to detect missing APIs in order to implement them. If that would have been illegal, would have been taken care by MS long ago. Wine just bridges.

[Renzatic]

9 minutes ago, 1stn00b said:

(which should be illegal if we look at all closed-source software EULAS)

Most EULAs are filled to bursting with stipulations that sound scary on paper, but are unenforceable from a legal standpoint.

Did you all read the license agreement when you installed your Affinity apps? Do you REALLY think Serif has total ownership of our immortal souls?

[1stn00b]

Well they can't go after me or you, but if they wanted they could go after Wine , off course they need to be real stupid to do so but never say never : >

[Frozen Death Knight]

22 hours ago, 1stn00b said:

Well it's their problem not mine or Wine community, i already moved on. This is a commercial closed-source software so i don't think spending community time to reverse engineering their software (which should be illegal if we look at all closed-source software EULAS) to see why it doesn't work.

It's the same way as with Windows games anti-cheat : Epic made Easy Anti-Cheat available on Linux thru Proton and Wine not Valve or the community.

Also since Serif business model is to sell a unique non-sharable license on every platform they support i'm 100% sure not only that they won't support the Wine community, but make sure in the future that their Windows Apps will never install on Wine again : >

Well, it is up to the community to make Linux a viable platform for developing software. If you want it you have to work for it. That's just the nature of open source.

Epic is also a massive company with billions in their pockets. They have a long history of providing easily accessible tools and funding for game development through their Unreal Engine, Quixel, and donations to projects like Blender. They are charitable because they can afford it and because it is in their best interest to strengthen their own brand that encourages working within their ecosystem.

Also, if Serif was so against people using Wine, why did the lead developer for Windows just post how to fix the GUI on Linux? Being against using Wine and not putting resources into supporting Wine and Linux are not the same thing.

[Renzatic]

8 minutes ago, 1stn00b said:

Well they can't go after me or you, but if they wanted they could go after Wine , off course they need to be real stupid to do so but never say never : >

If you really want the best example for how that'd turn out, look to the Google v Oracle lawsuit that popped up in the courts here a few years back. The way Android translates Java calls isn't entirely dissimilar to how WINE works with Windows APIs.

[Snapseed]

2 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Sorry, but I'll disagree.

Serif has said they do not plan to support Linux. If it is going to work there, it is up to the Wine community or to CodeWeavers to get it working, in my opinion. Serif does not want to expend resources (a) getting it to work and then (very important) (b) keeping it working with future development.

It is a no-brainer for CodeWeavers to try to get the three Affinity softwares to work well on CrossOver because of the increased sales they would get.

I think it would be useful if everyone went over to CodeWeavers' website, downloaded Crossover ( https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover/download ), tried it out with Photo, Publisher and Designer, reported the bugs and faults back to CodeWeavers and started a thread discussion about the Affinity products on Crossover ( https://www.codeweavers.com/support/forums ).

They are perhaps the best potential option to try to solve the problem of running Affinity software on Linux (aside from the VM route, that is).

 

[1stn00b]

@Frozen Death Knight

From my point of view Linux on Desktop is already a great platform for developing and distributing software with the introduction of Flatpak (i know i'm biased here since i use Fedora Workstation and want to go full immutable on Silverblue) that is actually decades away into the future from Microsoft UWP crapware  : >  

Even with those billions in their pockets they chose to make their anti-cheat run thru a translation layer and not native the same way they didn't make their Game Store Launcher available on Linux like Valve does with Steam that is also offered as a flatpak

Disabling hardware acceleration sounds more like putting salt on wound then fixing something. The canvas still flashes and flickers when u open menus so not really a fix.

 

 

 

 

[Mark Ingram]

It's not up to us to get it working on Linux - as far as we're concerned, it's an unsupported platform, regardless of whether that's native, or via WINE or anything else. 

With regards to the canvas flickering, it uses Direct3D11 to present the document to the screen (separate to the UI rendering in hardware, which is done by WPF/Microsoft). You may have more luck by changing the renderer to WARP in the Preferences, if that is detected (WARP is a software rasteriser for Direct3D).

[1stn00b]

Still flickers on menu appearing over canvas even with WARP on :

 

and also : >

[Renzatic]

18 minutes ago, 1stn00b said:

Still flickers on menu appearing over canvas even with WARP on :

Out of curiosity, what changes have you made to my base configuration? I still can't access the Preferences panel.

Also, switching to a Wayland session does lead to a slightly less flicker filled experience.

[1stn00b]

I didn't change anything to your configuration, in fact i couldn't even install it before - it was complaining NET 3.5 was not enabled, the Bottles Runtime option enabled in configuration did the trick - i never use it ; >

My GPU uses the included open-source Mesa drivers - changelogs here : https://docs.mesa3d.org/relnotes.html and feature matrix here : https://mesamatrix.net/ , in your case u should check Nvidia forums they post Linux problems from time to time : https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/wayland-information-for-r515-beta-release/214275 - from what i see there Wayland is no go for Nvidia GPUs

L.E. Also you might wanna check this blog post : https://blog.froggi.es/bringing-vulkan-raytracing-to-older-amd-hardware/ by Joshua Ashton from Valve that works with Bas Nieuwenhuizen from Google on Mesa drivers

[Renzatic]

7 minutes ago, 1stn00b said:

I didn't change anything to your configuration, in fact i couldn't even install it before - it was complaining NET 3.5 was not enabled, the Bottles Runtime option enabled in configuration did the trick - i never use it ; >

The only way I've managed to get past that is to create a bottle tailored to applications. It installs Mono automatically, which seems to fix the .Net 3.5 issue. Of course, that limits you to only using Caffe 7.5.

When I try creating a custom bottle with another runner, it always fails to grab its own version of Mono. Installing it from the dependencies does nothing. Installing dotnet35 fails to complete, and, well, it seems my options are limited. Changing the runner manually in the yml file doesn't seem to do much of anything at all.

Shame this isn't a big game everyone wants to play. We'd have a fully running version by now if it were.

[Kamei Kojirou]

Please post your findings on the WineHQ website as well. https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=18332 it will help narrow down where the work needs to be done. If the Vulkan Child dll issue isn't required this could be a viable path to a working setup.

[1stn00b]

Made a video of running Affinity Photo on my Fedora Workstation 36 thru Bottles

Sorry for lower quality just installed OBS Studio Flatpak and run the auto-configuration wizard at start.

 

 

[chiddekel]

https://usebottles.com/

[1stn00b]

@chiddekel

They just need to setup flatpak on the distro used (ChromeOS included) using quick guide here : https://flatpak.org/setup/ and then use software manager to get it :

They need to update description since the app have already been ported to GTK4 and libawaita so no more legacy windowing : >