Affinity products for Linux

[Twolane]

The last time I took a look at Linux, I thought someone had booted me back to MS DOS. Arcane interface. Arcane instructions to run anything. Arcane instructions to shove anything to a printer.  Need I go on?

[Archangel]

What? No request for an OpenBSD version of Affinity? A very stable UNIX environment could do with the support.

To be honest, Serif have to go where the money is. Effort cannot be expended on projects for which there will not be suitable remuneration. Such is the neocapitalist environment of business and the limitation of free market economics.

So, I won't hold my breath for a version for the Amiga or Atari ST.

[Copy]

I'm following this thread because I want to get updates on running Affinity products on Linux.
I was happy to see Affinity engineers responding hoping one day we could have a fully function Affinity suite on Linux - even if it'll never be officially supported.

I really appreciate more people commenting, saying they'd love to have a Linux version.
But can you all please stop with the useless discussions on how (un)popular Linux is and whether an official port would be economical?

Sorry but nobody cares and important replys like the bottle example and the deprecated function call just go down in this whole mess.
Is there any other thread, maybe on a different forum or a discord server, which is not such a huge mess?
Otherwise I'd really appreciate a moderated thread where people who actually know what they're doing (i.e. not me) and maybe even occasionally Affinity engineers can exchange about their findings on how to get things running under Wine - then it also wouldn't take like 10 minutes to find the reply with the kinda working bottle config.

[jaizon]

2 hours ago, Copy said:

then it also wouldn't take like 10 minutes to find the reply with the kinda working bottle config.

Second that, the file should be pinned or something, if we can do that here, ofc.

Believe or not, until a few weeks ago this thread was fine, but all of a sudden all went to shit, and with just a few comments at that!

[jaizon]

Also, the only real issue we're having with Bottles right now is the flickering. As long as that's fixed, I'd consider it fully functional! A few hiccups, like window size and panels can't be dragged in (so if you drag out some of them, you're fu**ed)

[jaizon]

2 hours ago, Twolane said:

The last time I took a look at Linux, I thought someone had booted me back to MS DOS. Arcane interface. Arcane instructions to run anything. Arcane instructions to shove anything to a printer.  Need I go on?

Right now, I don't even know what you are talking about! When was that, 2000?

[Kajac]

40 minutes ago, jaizon said:

Also, the only real issue we're having with Bottles right now is the flickering. As long as that's fixed, I'd consider it fully functional! A few hiccups, like window size and panels can't be dragged in (so if you drag out some of them, you're fu**ed)

Can you save your edits?

I can only open them!

[Kajac]

44 minutes ago, jaizon said:

Second that, the file should be pinned or something, if we can do that here, ofc.

Believe or not, until a few weeks ago this thread was fine, but all of a sudden all went to shit, and with just a few comments at that!

I can't believe the thread went to shit!

I believe that if more people who understand Wine or are developers get here, they can help with something more!

As I posted on the last page, they made photoshop run on linux! Look that photoshop is full of shit and freshness to run on a normal pc!

[Renzatic]

1 hour ago, jaizon said:

Right now, I don't even know what you are talking about! When was that, 2000?

Maybe about 2010. I'd say it's only been in the last 6 years or so that Linux became actually easy to use.

[jaizon]

1 hour ago, Kajac said:

I can't believe the thread went to shit!

I believe that if more people who understand Wine or are developers get here, they can help with something more!

As I posted on the last page, they made photoshop run on linux! Look that photoshop is full of shit and freshness to run on a normal pc!

Yeah, but Photoshop kinda works for years now, I guess versions before CC were already working, not sure though.

Affinity is pretty new to Linux overall, so it might still take a while for wine people get to it.

And the thread is salvageable, people just need to stop trying to tell the company what to do! I understand that you are buying their products but that gives you no right to meddle in high-risk decisions like this one. Sure we can ask and hope, but not diss them.

[jaizon]

47 minutes ago, Renzatic said:

Maybe about 2010. I'd say it's only been in the last 6 years or so that Linux became actually easy to use.

Idk, I've been using Linux for a few years now and I never got that bad of a experience with it.

[jaizon]

1 hour ago, Kajac said:

Can you save your edits?

I can only open them!

Never tried, and I can't verify right now because I'm out of Linux for some time

 

[gukosowa]

9 hours ago, Copy said:

I'm following this thread because I want to get updates on running Affinity products on Linux.
I was happy to see Affinity engineers responding hoping one day we could have a fully function Affinity suite on Linux - even if it'll never be officially supported.

I really appreciate more people commenting, saying they'd love to have a Linux version.
But can you all please stop with the useless discussions on how (un)popular Linux is and whether an official port would be economical?

Sorry but nobody cares and important replys like the bottle example and the deprecated function call just go down in this whole mess.
Is there any other thread, maybe on a different forum or a discord server, which is not such a huge mess?
Otherwise I'd really appreciate a moderated thread where people who actually know what they're doing (i.e. not me) and maybe even occasionally Affinity engineers can exchange about their findings on how to get things running under Wine - then it also wouldn't take like 10 minutes to find the reply with the kinda working bottle config.

My words, totally right! Priority in solving the flickering problem instead of OS fighting would help tremendously.

Sadly I'm also no help, but following this thread for valuable posts. However it does not help this countless chitchat about market share, why serif not, other companies,... you count it.

But as pointed before, this post also has no value in solving the problem, I just wanted to highlight your words

[pedroterrero]

Just my two cents:

-What you guys have achieved in this thread is AMAZING and I never imagined Affinity would bother to help make their suite usable in Linux. I’m proud that the price I paid for the Affinity suite also helps to bring us things like this. And also a big thanks to the community!

-To the Affinity team: don’t feed the trolls and Linux fundamentalists (they are often the same), they are usually solitary people with too much free time and they don’t know how to keep themselves distracted. Just keep doing the fantastic work you’ve done so far.

-In my opinion, Linux market share being “ridiculous” could be tricky. It doesn’t mean it’s not attractive, because “probably” most of that 3% market share consists of power users or at least users with sophisticated interests. Why does DaVinci Resolve have a Linux version? Or Blender, Houdini, Cinema 4D and other powerful creative and post production tools? Because they are aimed at a minority with very specific needs (and a lot of money to spend). Saying “making a professional graphics editor for Linux is pointless because Linux market share is ridiculous'' is like saying “making peripherals for streamers is pointless because the streaming market share is ridiculous” compared to the general market. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling Affinity what to do, it’s just a thought.

To me, being able to run Affinity Photo via Wine is a dream come true and literally means breaking the ONLY bond I had with Windows.

[1stn00b]

They can always chose a stable Wine release, make their Windows software run with that and bundle everything in a Flatpak package. Adobe products work with Wine because their software doesn't relay heavily or exclusively on the tooling Mac or Windows provides like for example DirectX Effects API that DXVK doesn't implement since is not benefiting games so we have to wait on Wine implementation that has a slower development cycle then other games related projects.

One of the problems i saw in this topic is the usage of clone accounts to troll Linux like this 2 :

 

It's a common practice i saw on other Linux discussions on other platforms , their final goal being actually to close the topics

@jaizon: U can always edit your original post instead of writing a river of consecutively comments, unless the purpose is to rapidly change the pages so the interesting topic parts gets buried away.

I've seen it all so i always presume the worst 😆

 

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, 1stn00b said:

They can always chose a stable Wine release, make their Windows software run with that and bundle everything in a Flatpak package.

"They" who?

If you're referring to Serif, that approach does not seem to be one they are interested in pursuing. It's also somewhat risky for them, because it implies they would support the applications running on Linux and would keep them working, which impacts their future development.

[Snapseed]

16 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

"They" who?

If you're referring to Serif, that approach does not seem to be one they are interested in pursuing. It's also somewhat risky for them, because it implies they would support the applications running on Linux and would keep them working, which impacts their future development.

That is a very valid point.

What they might possibly do though is tolerate an unofficial pre-packaged Affinity Photo + Wine prepared by a third party developer (such things do already exist although I won't explicitly name any of them). A situation like that would mean that there would be no legal or commercial liability for Serif Europe.

[1stn00b]

Anyone can package it as a Flatpak even now so i don't see what's the problem. Their software still runs in trial mode if no key is provided so i don't see what's the big fuss.  So unless they specifically introduce supplementary blocks to stop us from using the software under Wine it doesn't really matter.

[Snapseed]

1 hour ago, 1stn00b said:

Anyone can package it as a Flatpak even now so i don't see what's the problem. Their software still runs in trial mode if no key is provided so i don't see what's the big fuss.  So unless they specifically introduce supplementary blocks to stop us from using the software under Wine it doesn't really matter.

I agree with this.

Indeed, Serif Europe would stand to gain from any unofficial Flatpak because they would get extra revenue and income from doing absolutely nothing and they would have no obligations or liabilities either. A situation like that would be a win-win for everyone.

[Renzatic]

15 hours ago, jaizon said:

Idk, I've been using Linux for a few years now and I never got that bad of a experience with it.

Though it had improved by a considerable amount, Linux was a lot more fiddly back in the mid '10's compared to now. These days, I'd say that it's no more difficult to use than Windows, once you get used to the differences in how you install and manage apps.

[1stn00b]

You don't need to get used to anything : Open the Software Manager of your distribution and install the software you want : 1 click to install - 1 click to uninstall - everything gets updated system wide no need for you to individually update the software.  It's like Microsoft Landfill aka Store in  W10 & eWaste 11 but ten folds better : >

And as with everything in Linux the same thing can be done from terminal : like installing or not Microsoft GarbEdge : >

[ShadeOn]

On 8/26/2022 at 11:18 AM, 1stn00b said:

They can always chose a stable Wine release, make their Windows software run with that and bundle everything in a Flatpak package. Adobe products work with Wine because their software doesn't relay heavily or exclusively on the tooling Mac or Windows provides like for example DirectX Effects API that DXVK doesn't implement since is not benefiting games so we have to wait on Wine implementation that has a slower development cycle then other games related projects.

One of the problems i saw in this topic is the usage of clone accounts to troll Linux like this 2 :

 

It's a common practice i saw on other Linux discussions on other platforms , their final goal being actually to close the topics

@jaizon: U can always edit your original post instead of writing a river of consecutively comments, unless the purpose is to rapidly change the pages so the interesting topic parts gets buried away.

I've seen it all so i always presume the worst 😆

 

@1stn00b , I have to ask you to stop at this line, cause you already crossed the moral line by insulting me (very sharply in fact) with adding me as a "clone account" , when I am in fact active, main PC with Linux Ubuntu 20.04 since 2020 (and before this I was between 2015-2018 until I had to reinstall windows to do in Microsoft Office my University Diploma that year , and then get back on Linux after I bought a new PC). At this time I own 3 laptops (old as they are) with Win 7, 8.1 and 10 (but I share them with my mom cause she needs at least the 7 and 10 for work). Until now the newer one with Win10 with every "free" update, the performance decreases every year, so if drastic measures call, I will add a Debian or something on it later on.

The thing is.. you are incorrect, I am not against Linux or Windows or Mac (I could also say in my point of view that you go towards the extreme area of Linux users and that's not healthy) and still consider myself as a intermediate user myself, and use Win or Ubuntu depending on the job I need to do . And I agree that both OS have advantages and disadvantages, just like the new Android 11 on Nokia phones that don't have a stop slide button for updates, and it's practically a Win 10+ forced updates system. I myself still have a flip battery Samsung J5 2015 with Android 5 on it and am still happy to use it for my basic needs.

As the saying is... "saying without showing is half a lie" , for this matter I have added a image.

While posting, and being on the topic of packages you mentioned, I want to add my own search on this matter (some ideas in nutshell, at least how I see these) :

Snap, Flatpak are just some packages that are on a Linux distribution of choice, and adds the distribution's library dependencies out-of-box (something like that)

I for one.. rather make them in other formats that are neutral to all, and let communities do in those above packages for their distributions if it is.

Or there is .appimage (application) that is friendly to all distributions, it can save and plugins, profiles, makes updates on versions, and all dependency libraries are there, it's like a equivalent windows install app folder with everything in it (at least with Brackets Editor while I used it (they are still active))

And while we're here.. I joined the CodeWeavers team to translate from English to Romanian for their CrossOver application, since I use it too for Guild Wars 2 and other apps. Unfortunately, GW2 has URL ingame pasting bug and freezes in DX11, so I must use sometimes Playonlinux with dx9 so I could paste url links (or texts from a app) to a teammate with Back-End Java knowledge and to another teammate with knowledge on Back-End PHP for better quality translation (I am Web Designer & Front-End Web Dev (sometimes use graphics apps (mostly on Figma online for WD work),photography and collaborate also with other Web Designer colleague in Bucharest). I am also working with excel databases and doing including business intelligence/analytics (as you know.. many write in excel (and have databases as excel sheets) , and to trim down the size, they save them in pdf, and try to think doing this for all, then you receive them and have to remake them in excel format (and then add edited images and other information over the original information)(that's why I said PDF Databases and either I wasn't clear or most didn't understand what I was writing about)... and yeah.. for there are companies that do this for reasons, if you wonder)

I also sent a mail to a member of CodeWeavers (who offered me this opportunity) to send it to other more appropriate departments to analyze the 2 scripts on this forum and the url links to "the best part" of this forum. Can't guarantee anything, I just wanted to help out like @Snapseed said, at least with what I can, even if I can't add much value to this.

I am for a affinity suite variant on linux, but as I analyzed the situation, currently it's safer to do with Wine compatibility. And with your recent finding on a deprecating function that affects their highest income gain (from Windows), it's safer and better to focus on updating those on calm waters (and have a good compatibility function existing in Wine for it cause we're affected by it also) than update the function in a stormy water and starts to appear other problems in Wine transition with that.

Hope this clears out the wrong ideas and don't shoot someone before you see if it's a man or deer (many mortal accidents while doing hunting sport with guns) reference.

Cheers

 

 

[Snapseed]

3 hours ago, ShadeOn said:

@1stn00b , I have to ask you to stop at this line, cause you already crossed the moral line by insulting me (very sharply in fact) with adding me as a "clone account" , when I am in fact active, main PC with Linux Ubuntu 20.04 since 2020 (and before this I was between 2015-2018 until I had to reinstall windows to do in Microsoft Office my University Diploma that year , and then get back on Linux after I bought a new PC). At this time I own 3 laptops (old as they are) with Win 7, 8.1 and 10 (but I share them with my mom cause she needs at least the 7 and 10 for work). Until now the newer one with Win10 with every "free" update, the performance decreases every year, so if drastic measures call, I will add a Debian or something on it later on.

The thing is.. you are incorrect, I am not against Linux or Windows or Mac (I could also say in my point of view that you go towards the extreme area of Linux users and that's not healthy) and still consider myself as a intermediate user myself, and use Win or Ubuntu depending on the job I need to do . And I agree that both OS have advantages and disadvantages, just like the new Android 11 on Nokia phones that don't have a stop slide button for updates, and it's practically a Win 10+ forced updates system. I myself still have a flip battery Samsung J5 2015 with Android 5 on it and am still happy to use it for my basic needs.

As the saying is... "saying without showing is half a lie" , for this matter I have added a image.

While posting, and being on the topic of packages you mentioned, I want to add my own search on this matter (some ideas in nutshell, at least how I see these) :

Snap, Flatpak are just some packages that are on a Linux distribution of choice, and adds the distribution's library dependencies out-of-box (something like that)

I for one.. rather make them in other formats that are neutral to all, and let communities do in those above packages for their distributions if it is.

Or there is .appimage (application) that is friendly to all distributions, it can save and plugins, profiles, makes updates on versions, and all dependency libraries are there, it's like a equivalent windows install app folder with everything in it (at least with Brackets Editor while I used it (they are still active))

And while we're here.. I joined the CodeWeavers team to translate from English to Romanian for their CrossOver application, since I use it too for Guild Wars 2 and other apps. Unfortunately, GW2 has URL ingame pasting bug and freezes in DX11, so I must use sometimes Playonlinux with dx9 so I could paste url links (or texts from a app) to a teammate with Back-End Java knowledge and to another teammate with knowledge on Back-End PHP for better quality translation (I am Web Designer & Front-End Web Dev (sometimes use graphics apps (mostly on Figma online for WD work),photography and collaborate also with other Web Designer colleague in Bucharest). I am also working with excel databases and doing including business intelligence/analytics (as you know.. many write in excel (and have databases as excel sheets) , and to trim down the size, they save them in pdf, and try to think doing this for all, then you receive them and have to remake them in excel format (and then add edited images and other information over the original information)(that's why I said PDF Databases and either I wasn't clear or most didn't understand what I was writing about)... and yeah.. for there are companies that do this for reasons, if you wonder)

I also sent a mail to a member of CodeWeavers (who offered me this opportunity) to send it to other more appropriate departments to analyze the 2 scripts on this forum and the url links to "the best part" of this forum. Can't guarantee anything, I just wanted to help out like @Snapseed said, at least with what I can, even if I can't add much value to this.

I am for a affinity suite variant on linux, but as I analyzed the situation, currently it's safer to do with Wine compatibility. And with your recent finding on a deprecating function that affects their highest income gain (from Windows), it's safer and better to focus on updating those on calm waters (and have a good compatibility function existing in Wine for it cause we're affected by it also) than update the function in a stormy water and starts to appear other problems in Wine transition with that.

Hope this clears out the wrong ideas and don't shoot someone before you see if it's a man or deer (many mortal accidents while doing hunting sport with guns) reference.

Cheers

 

 

In particular, thank you very much for doing this and it is very much appreciated. Now, at least the developers at CodeWeavers know about the most recent promising developments and hopefully they can build on the work that has already been done.

I think it is the interest of CodeWeavers to put some effort in trying to get Affinity Photo (and then Designer and Publisher) to work with CrossOver/Wine because that will ultimately boost CrossOver sales if Photo, Designer and Publisher work well with CrossOver.

[Renzatic]

9 hours ago, 1stn00b said:

You don't need to get used to anything : Open the Software Manager of your distribution and install the software you want : 1 click to install - 1 click to uninstall - everything gets updated system wide no need for you to individually update the software.  It's like Microsoft Landfill aka Store in  W10 & eWaste 11 but ten folds better :

That's assuming what you're looking for is either in your package manager, or there's a handy .flatpakref/.rpm to download. God forbid someone's mean enough to send you a program in a tar.gz file.

Basically speaking, I just tell people that flatpaks are in /.var/app, and everything else is in /.local/share in your home folder. If you have raw app files without an installer, just pop them in one of those folders, and if want it to integrate with your desktop so that you can discover it through a search, or pin it's icon to the taskbar, you have to write a .desktop file, and drop it in /.local/share/application. Having to do this is getting more and more rare by the day, but there are still occasions where you have to do it.

...wish someone told me this years ago.

[1stn00b]

I don't understand why you try to complicate things. Do you have all software available in  Microsoft Landfill ? Nope : >