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Affinity for Linux


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1 hour ago, Mark Ingram said:

It's more complicated that just "testing on WINE" during development. Do we train up all devs to learn how to use Linux? Do we purchase new machines to use? Do we train up the QA and tech support teams? What about marketing, or offering support when there are inevitable problems when customers run it on WINE? 

@Mark Ingram No support. No QA. No Marketing. Just try to get a bronze rating or more if possible. If at least it runs, WINE devs will try to iron out the kinks on the WINE side.

Don't move heaven and earth, but for example (I have to make up an example) if there are 10 installer frameworks out there, and two installers don't work in WINE at all, pick one of the 8 that do work.

It's definitely not free, as all testing takes time. It will require at least one developer to dual boot. I have seen one employee here - I forgot their name - mention they are a fan of Linux themselves. If it takes 5% of one developer's time to "manage and investigate WINE compatibility", maybe it will be worth it.

Currently, Photo and Designer do start, but crash on creating a new document. Is that a really complex crash related to deep functions, or is it a trivial system call that can be replaced without drawbacks on the Windows side?

Maybe you'll find out that it didn't even take that much effort to make Affinity run near perfect on WINE, like Photoshop CC or Exposure X5.

Or you'll find out that it's just near impossible for reasons. But maybe it's worth it to dedicate some small amount of resources.

  

1 hour ago, Mark Ingram said:

Also, I don't believe it's our responsibility to ensure that WINE works, that's the responsibility of the WINE developers (if the Affinity applications work on Windows, then they should work on WINE). 

That's true. It's not your responsibility to listen to 25 pages of testimonies. If you don't want to, the story ends. If however you are interested in finding a middle ground way to honor the wishes here described, you could say that WINE has 80% of Windows mapped (this is a made up number), and for the critical function calls, "all you need to do" is stay within that 80%.

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16 minutes ago, wonderings said:

If anyone would do it first I would think it would be Adobe. They have the money and the market right now. They are the standard and they are also greedy. If money could be made making a Linux port I am sure they would have done it or are working on it. Again, if these tools are necessary for you you are going to use the OS that supports it. 

Unfortunately, Adobe's official word (recently), was not "in the near future" : https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro/suggestions/36257581-yes-please-support-linux-this-would-be-a-huge-m

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4 minutes ago, Mark Ingram said:

What's the current setup look like in the VFX industry, out of interest? 

I can't speak for the entire industry, but I can tell you that Linux desktops are quite common in VFX.  We currently run CentOS 7.x with a Mate desktop.  This choice is somewhat made for us due to the fact that RHEL and CentOS are the distros that are officially supported by companies like Autodesk, The Foundry, etc..  Our artists spend most of their time in Maya, Mudbox, Mari, Nuke, etc.  Proper Linux versions of most apps we use have been available for quite some time.  For image editing, we're forced to use programs like Gimp and Krita, which don't make the artists very happy.  Render farm both on-prem and in the cloud is and probably always will be on Linux.  The additional cost of Windows licenses on potentially thousands of render nodes isn't something we'd ever consider.

Another thing to consider is that the current health crisis has expedited the need to push more virtual desktops into the cloud to accommodate more people working from home.  Running Mac virtual desktops in the cloud is not really a feasible option and running Windows desktops can be considerably more expensive and does not perform as well for the applications we use.  We've had success recently running Linux VM desktops in the cloud.  I foresee the need for this to grow substantially in the coming year or two.

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25 minutes ago, Mark Ingram said:

What's the current setup look like in the VFX industry, out of interest? 

Oh yeah, we use Blackmagic Davinci Resolve (licensed), Fusion, Houdini and Blender. On CentOS. Mostly colleagues though; I'm not doing the NLE stuff. I use Ubuntu (which doesn't play nice with Blackmagic) mostly for scripting (python) which plugs into Blender, which does play nice on Ubuntu.

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4 hours ago, Mark Ingram said:

The interesting question is - if the products were supplied, and market share grew, where would the market share grow from?

In Serrif's case: this would be a chance to steel Adobe customers.   As a Linux user yourself, I'm sure you've seen the oft repeated phrase: "The one thing holding me back from linux is Adobe."   As an imediate example, check out the thousands of replies on Adobe's feature request thread for linux here (the votes for this dwarfs all of the other feature request votes on their site - by a factor of 10https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro/suggestions/36257581-yes-please-support-linux-this-would-be-a-huge-m

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I gave up on Serif providing Linux versions some time ago, but always read the comments in this thread that get sent to me via email. It's an interesting discussion.

I have often wondered whether Serif are setting themselves up as a buyout target for Apple or Microsoft. Why else would they sell their excellent software so cheap, other than to build a critical mass of users?

If this was the case, one could see why a Linux version would be a long way off on the their roadmap. 

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4 hours ago, Mark Ingram said:

The facts is, Linux isn't a user friendly desktop. (...) I know from experience.

One last thing about this. Is your experience (be honest) from before two LTS releases ago (2016)? I just stumbled upon this testimony:

 

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15 minutes ago, Dradis said:

In Serrif's case: this would be a chance to steel Adobe customers.   As a Linux user yourself, I'm sure you've seen the oft repeated phrase: "The one thing holding me back from linux is Adobe."   As an imediate example, check out the 10's of thousands of replies on Adobe's feature request thread for linux here (this tread got over 11,000 votes in about  2 years - it dwarfs all of the other feature request votes on their site - by a factor of 10 - in most cases 50-100 : https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911233-premiere-pro/suggestions/36257581-yes-please-support-linux-this-would-be-a-huge-m

Not sure how much they will steal from Adobe as it is right now. For many people Affinity is just not ready yet as a viable pro replacement to Adobe. These forums themselves are an example showing what is missing and is needed for people to truly get away from Adobe. It is a great product, and even better price, but it is not a viable replacement... yet. 

As for that link, I checked it out and just skimmed a bit of the first page and most of it sounds childish. One reply was saying if Adobe came to Linux they would have 20 licenses right there.... what are they using instead of Adobe? If it was that critical that they would buy 20 licenses I am sure they would be using something other then Linux. Or another guy complaining that Adobe CS3 no longer worked and CS6 runs bad.... both ancient software now and support for anything will not last forever.

The numbers do not lie, Linux is a small user base in the computing world and would be even smaller in the graphics end of things. If the demand is strong enough and the potential user base is shown I am sure many people will jump at the platform. Even if everyone who posted on this thread were to buy Linux versions that still is nothing in terms of users. 

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5 hours ago, Mark Ingram said:

The facts is, Linux isn't a user friendly desktop. You can't expect new users fresh out of school or university to get a brand new computer running Linux and be happy with it. It's not a "low maintenance" experience, I know from experience.

I don't want to start an argument here, but that's not really a fact.  That is an opinion.

Also, It's an old argument that hasn't been true for a long time.  As I mentioned in another post, I put newbies on Linux desktops all the time and they've never had a problem.  A file browser is a file browser.  A web browser is a web browser.  Doesn't matter what OS you're using, the differences are pretty negligible nowadays.  Imagine that you drive a Honda for most of your life, then one day you get in the driver's seat of a Toyota.  You're not going to freak out because the dashboard looks different and all the buttons, dials and levers are in the wrong place.  You still know how to drive a car.  This car is different, but you'll get used to it very quickly.

I do consider Linux be relatively low maintenance.  I'd have no problem whatsoever managing 100's of Linux desktops, but the thought of having to manage and support even just 10-20 Windows desktops sounds unpleasant to me.  I spend very little time managing our Linux desktops and they keep on running anyway.  I'm sure there are some good solutions for managing large Windows deployments that could make my life easier.  I don't need any such things for Linux distros, though.  They already come with everything I need.

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55 minutes ago, Redsandro said:

Currently, Photo and Designer do start, but crash on creating a new document. Is that a really complex crash related to deep functions, or is it a trivial system call that can be replaced without drawbacks on the Windows side?

That's the time that we make the renderer for the document (which uses Direct3D11). There is a log file that's normally written to %APPDATA%\Affinity\Photo\1.0\Log.txt that may contain information about the reasons for the crash.

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23 minutes ago, wonderings said:

As for that link, I checked it out and just skimmed a bit of the first page and most of it sounds childish.

The most recent page of posts are mostly in anger because Adobe finally hit the "feature declined" button for the feature request (only a couple of weeks ago).  Hopes had been raised when, in late 2018, Adobe was forced to reply and say that they would seriously consider it.  They had to respond because they received 1000s of votes for the request in one day - this surge of interest happened after Jason Evangelhoa from Forbes posted this article.  If you go back a little, you'll start seeing much more reasonable posts and an endless repetition of that phrase "the only thing holding me back is Adobe.

Numbers lie all the time.  I think there is a lot more demand for an alternative to Windows OS and Mac hardware than the Linux market share currently can show.  None the less, I don't fault Serrif or Adobe for their rationale - but I do think there is an argument to be made here.

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2 minutes ago, Dradis said:

It's a long thread that I've been following for the past year.  The most recent page of posts are mostly in anger because Adobe finally hit the "feature declined" button for the feature request  (Hopes had been raised when, in late 2018, Adobe was forced to reply and say that they would seriously consider it.  They had to respond because they received 1000s of votes for the request in one day - this surge of interest happened after Jason Evangelhoa from Forbes posted this article).  If you go back a little, you'll start seeing much more reasonable posts and an endless repetition of that phrase "the only thing holding me back is Adobe).

Numbers lie all the time.  I think there is a lot more demand for an alternative to Windows OS and Mac hardware than the Linux market share currently can show.  None the less, I don't fault Serrif or Adobe for their rationale - but I do think there is an argument to be made here.

Sure numbers can lie, but if you are making a business decision what are you going to base it on? Online forums? Those can be padded with free accounts and multi votes by the same person. So if you are not trusting the numbers it could be even less in favour of Linux. No way you are going with a gut feeling when developing software and putting money and resources into it, so they have to look at the numbers hope they are as accurate as they can be. You have looked into it more then I so I will take your word on it. Could it be Adobe did seriously look at it, did their research and found the numbers just did not look good in their favour? No idea if that is true, but could be. End of the day I think capitalism will push things forward, if there is money to be made someone is going to make it. Maybe it just needs some more time or an upstart making their own software for Linux in this realm. 

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1 minute ago, wonderings said:

Sure numbers can lie, but if you are making a business decision what are you going to base it on? Online forums? Those can be padded with free accounts and multi votes by the same person. So if you are not trusting the numbers it could be even less in favour of Linux. No way you are going with a gut feeling when developing software and putting money and resources into it, so they have to look at the numbers hope they are as accurate as they can be. You have looked into it more then I so I will take your word on it. Could it be Adobe did seriously look at it, did their research and found the numbers just did not look good in their favour? No idea if that is true, but could be. End of the day I think capitalism will push things forward, if there is money to be made someone is going to make it. Maybe it just needs some more time or an upstart making their own software for Linux in this realm. 

This is all true - and part of the major uphill battle we face.

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2 minutes ago, Dradis said:

This is all true - and part of the major uphill battle we face.

I would maybe say a more natural evolution. Linux has come a long way. Apple went through the same thing... well sort of. Used to be a real pain to try and find software that was readily available and free on Windows. As Apple has grown so has that. I no longer feel limited or that there is anything I can't do on Mac that I can do on Windows. Not sure how the growth numbers are for Linux, but if they are moving up and forward eventually it will reach a place where the big companies feel it is worth developing for. 

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10 minutes ago, wonderings said:

Could it be Adobe did seriously look at it, did their research and found the numbers just did not look good in their favour?

Yes, that's very likely true.  It's also probably true that for Adobe to accomplish something like a Linux port is considerably more expensive than it is for most developers.  More planning, more developers, more training, IT infrastructure to support, more legacy code to deal with, potential legal issues to address with regards to licensing of 3rd party technologies, more bureaucracy all around.  Not to mention having to answer to a board of directors, and ultimately shareholders.   To them, the whole endeavor could seem like a logistical nightmare.

In short, I'm betting that most large publicly-traded corporations like Adobe generally have much more to deal with which therefore makes the entire prospect more costly and time-consuming for them.  I would think that this should give smaller private companies an advantage to compete.

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14 hours ago, Mark Ingram said:

Compare that to now, where they know that Steam works perfectly fine on Windows 10, and that it's no risk to them - what are they doing for Linux now?

If you take a look to /r/linux_gaming you will see there they are still investing a lot into Linux. As someone else said. 

 

14 hours ago, Mark Ingram said:

if the products were supplied, and market share grew, where would the market share grow from? From brand new customers who had never used a computer before? That's good for us, as we can get the money back. But if the larger share came from people transitioning from Windows or macOS, well, they could have bought it on those platforms already, and it wouldn't have cost us millions of dollars and years of work to get to that point.

Well, I am talking from my personal experience here, but it does make the case, I had installed Affinity a bunch of times in my old windows machine, it looks great, it's the closest to true a PRO adobe replacement that I had tried so far, but the problem is that Adobe is still there. I can't farthon to sit and fully learn a new program when there is another application that I already know how to use and it does the job. This is a mentality that most users have. When I asked a collegue why they use Affinity on their Mac over Adobe, they said it was the price, cool, they are not doing very well financially so it makes sense for them. But being a "cheaper photoshop" or a "cheaper illustrator" is not a great bussiness model. And for many freelancers and companies it likely does't worth the savings, as it shows in this LLT video of why they use Adobe.  

Now, going back to Linux, Adobe is not there.  If Affinity products ever get to exist in Linux, they would not have to compete with Adobe, for someone who wants to switch plataforms or that it's already partially on linux and wants to fully switch, they have a compelling reason to try it now, aside of being "cheaper". When on windows/mac they can just keep using Adobe.

And this is all hipotetical, but If Linux kicks off, you would have a lead advantages before Adobe catches up on porting.

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Quote

Could it be Adobe did seriously look at it, did their research and found the numbers just did not look good in their favour?

 

Maybe. But also Adobe is the industry standard in most of the industries they work on. And as it has been repearting multiple times, people who need their software will be on whatever OS they are. Plus they are known to be late adopters, as it took them years of Sketch leading the UI design market,  multiples other tools coming out and Photoshop stopping to be relevant as a web design tool for them to release XD three years ago in a very BETA state.

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9 hours ago, justajeffy said:

Yes, that's very likely true.  It's also probably true that for Adobe to accomplish something like a Linux port is considerably more expensive than it is for most developers.  More planning, more developers, more training, IT infrastructure to support, more legacy code to deal with, potential legal issues to address with regards to licensing of 3rd party technologies, more bureaucracy all around.  Not to mention having to answer to a board of directors, and ultimately shareholders.   To them, the whole endeavor could seem like a logistical nightmare.

In short, I'm betting that most large publicly-traded corporations like Adobe generally have much more to deal with which therefore makes the entire prospect more costly and time-consuming for them.  I would think that this should give smaller private companies an advantage to compete.

I would quite think is the opposite case. Even if  they have more bureaucracy, the humongous quantity of resources and money of that company is crazy. 11,7 billion $ revenue in 2019 (and well, MS's was 125,8 billion, but...BTW, 14% up respect to prev year, for those who say MS goes down... ;) ) . And legions of developers. IMO they just go to the full highest earning business... While in the other side, a small company can't count on a ton of "safety belts", FU money, resources and etc. Even if at certain grade might have some maneuverability, it's extremely far from what the giant counts on, IMO. My take is that Adobe can do literally whatever it wants to, at this point. But is not being particularly fast to take bets. It only has introduced its Fresco and PS for the iPad when the iOS land is already firmly taken by Procreate, Art Studio Pro, and the actual Affinity suite. It sounds to me they're just really comfy, a bit too much, like intel was back in the day...

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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5 hours ago, Mark Ingram said:

You've just switched argument there - originally poster claimed iOS was based on Linux - I said it's not. Now you're saying that it's based on the "Linux model". There is no "Linux Model". They support package managers as a method of installation, if that's what you're referring to - as do many other operating systems and development frameworks.

That was my point. So you're saying that the feature that linux is known for "the package managers", what I call the linux model, did not influence Jobs in any way when he was working on the iPhone?! That's new knowledge to me. You're right about the fact that there are many system that to uses this idea today, but does that change the fact that the linux comunity came up with it.

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What I like about those people here that are against porting Serifs products to linux is that none off them knows what would happen! At this pace it would never happen. Why you may ask. Becauce only OS numbers count to them.. Its just funny that one off, if not the biggest company in the world uses the kernel for there systems and products lineup! The OS cost is ZERO! Just hire some people that knows their way around linux and go from there. Its really that simple people! And here is an idea.. Just start with DESIGNER as a test and work your way up.

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2 minutes ago, MeatRadiator said:

Just start with DESIGNER as a test and work your way up.

Definitely. Affinity Designer on linux would be probably the biggest event for the linux users. There are several raster graphics editors but there is a big gap in vector graphics. Yeah, there is Inkscape but unfortunately is has issues and suffering lags even on powerful PCs... 

And just to add when people here compare Affinity with Adobe - one of the big advantages at least for small companies and home users in that you still have "normal" license and not subscription. It is often not problem to get money to buy software but just as one-time payment and subscription is not possible for formal reasons.

I know several (Windows) users dropping Adobe and replacing it with Affinity because Adobe being too expensive with the subscription. I think there would be much more new users with Linux version available.

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1 hour ago, Juhele said:

And just to add when people here compare Affinity with Adobe - one of the big advantages at least for small companies and home users in that you still have "normal" license and not subscription. It is often not problem to get money to buy software but just as one-time payment and subscription is not possible for formal reasons.

I know several (Windows) users dropping Adobe and replacing it with Affinity because Adobe being too expensive with the subscription. I think there would be much more new users with Linux version available.

This is one of many reasons why me and my co-workers moved to Affinity! It, just better software. Its missing some features, but that is just for the time being. #Linux 😏

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WindowsLatest.com: Windows 10 market share drops as Ubuntu record growth

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The market share of Ubuntu increased from 0.27% to 1.89%, while the market share of Linux (including Ubuntu) increased to 2.86%

Could that be due to many people working at home because of the Corona crisis? Perhaps computers at the office have Windows on them, while some private home computers run Linux.

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On 5/7/2020 at 11:34 PM, Redsandro said:

WindowsLatest.com: Windows 10 market share drops as Ubuntu record growth

Could that be due to many people working at home because of the Corona crisis? Perhaps computers at the office have Windows on them, while some private home computers run Linux.

Or could it be because maybe private people just wanna be private at home and avoid spyware OS's.

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