Affinity for Linux

[justajeffy]

We're going a little off-topic.  We should try to keep this discussion about Affinity products on Linux.  Talking about Gimp or others seems ok as it relates to the main topic of discussion, but lets try to remember that this isn't a Gimp forum.

[Bog]

8 minutes ago, Michael Tunnell said:

I think it makes sense to accept them and also to not accept them. I mean what professional wants the client to decide how much something costs? The bounty system puts the power in the person offering the bounty and I've seen people want stuff that would take weeks and only offer $20 USD. That's not worth even having the conversation yet the developer becomes the bad guy for not considering it. There are many issues with software bounties.

side note: Linux Mint doesnt accept bounties last I checked either. Maybe you are thinking about elementary OS, I am fairly certain that they do accept them.

Oh I'm probably confusing Mint with something else. Wait, although: https://www.bountysource.com/teams/linuxmint
But obviously that looks third party.... anyway moving on:

Yea, I don't understand your assertion about lowball bounty offers.  If someone offers me $20 for something and I say no, how the hell am I obligated for anything?   If you're a hot girl and you get asked out by some ugly guys should you disable your ability to be asked out at all?  There's a bunch of fun metaphors here, the imagination runs wild. 

For that matter- lowball bounties can get supported much like a kickstarter project gets funding; "yea I want that feature too".  I don't see a problem with that.  I think you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. 

 

 

[Michael Tunnell]

3 minutes ago, Bog said:

Yea, I don't understand your assertion about lowball bounty offers . . . for that matter- lowball bounties can get supported much like a kickstarter project gets funding; "yea I want that feature too".  I don't see a problem with that.  I think you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. 

Let me clarify, this was a reason I had a developer tell me why they don't accept bounties. I am not throwing out anything, you said you don't know why they wouldn't and I gave you a reason. I think there can be value to them but there can also be downsides, just like everything really. There's also a legal grey area of whether or not these bounties are considered contracts depending on the country. This is another reason a developer said he'd rather not bother with the concept.

14 minutes ago, justajeffy said:

We're going a little off-topic.  We should try to keep this discussion about Affinity products on Linux.  Talking about Gimp or others seems ok as it relates to the main topic of discussion, but lets try to remember that this isn't a Gimp forum.

I agree. Back on topic of Affinity for Linux. I think there are more benefits to Affinity in doing so than downsides and I expressed why in this post but it's admittedly a bit long so no idea if they even read this thread anymore.

[Bog]

18 minutes ago, justajeffy said:

We're going a little off-topic.  We should try to keep this discussion about Affinity products on Linux.  Talking about Gimp or others seems ok as it relates to the main topic of discussion, but lets try to remember that this isn't a Gimp forum.

Ok yea but that's kind of hollow. The discussion of the viability of gimp as an alternate to photoshop is essential to the issue of porting affinity to linux.  This may not be a gimp *forum* but when it comes to photoshop alternatives on linux this practically is (rightfully) a gimp *thread*.  The decision to move to a new platform is based on market and competition there, no?  If we're talking about getting them to port to linux, that's the central issue. 

[justajeffy]

3 minutes ago, Bog said:

Ok yea but that's kind of hollow. The discussion of the viability of gimp as an alternate to photoshop is essential to the issue of porting affinity to linux.  This may not be a gimp *forum* but when it comes to photoshop alternatives on linux this practically is (rightfully) a gimp *thread*.  The decision to move to a new platform is based on market and competition there, no?  If we're talking about getting them to port to linux, that's the central issue. 

No matter how hard I've tried for a very long time now, I cannot convince artists to use Gimp.  They don't like it.  They don't want it.  I'm tired of acting like an ambassador for a product that does not satisfy our  users and is also not showing any signs of eventually evolving into the product that they want.  Gimp is no competition for Affinity Photo and, in my opinion, would pose no threat to sales of good quality commercial software alternatives.  This is coming from a long-time Linux user and proponent of free open-source software.  Affinity Photo's biggest threat would be a Linux version of Photoshop.  If Adobe releases Photoshop for Linux before Affinity, then it's pretty much game over.  If,  however, Affinity takes hold in the Linux market before that happens, then they'd be in a good position to profit in that space.

[My1]

40 minutes ago, Michael Tunnell said:

That's great you haven't had people say it to you, but that doesn't change how often it happens to others. It has been an insult to people with disabilities for decades. It is also used as a term to casually refer to something being limited on purpose such as "they made a new laptop but gimped the processor so why even buy it". I actually heard a YouTuber yesterday say that about a new Intel laptop with 4 core CPU.

There are instances where when someone is hurt they say that they "have a gimp leg". Many many variations. I am glad you hadn't had it said to you as an insult but it is very very common depending on your location and also depending on the level of physical issue. I have a friend born with muscular dystrophy and he said when he goes out in public (prior to covid) that he would hear it about once a week.

Likely helps that English isn't my native language (and insults are rarely taught at school). The only way i have heard gimp before was gimping an image as in "badly editing" it. But that it's an insult to disabled ppl actually hurts. 

Regarding the off topic issue, yes talking about gimp in the context of affinity photo and Linux is imo okay but let's not take it too far. 

 

[Renzatic]

2 hours ago, My1 said:

Likely helps that English isn't my native language (and insults are rarely taught at school). The only way i have heard gimp before was gimping an image as in "badly editing" it. But that it's an insult to disabled ppl actually hurts.

There is one other definition of the term, but, well, uh...just watch Pulp Fiction.

[Snapseed]

19 hours ago, justajeffy said:

No matter how hard I've tried for a very long time now, I cannot convince artists to use Gimp.  They don't like it.  They don't want it.  I'm tired of acting like an ambassador for a product that does not satisfy our  users and is also not showing any signs of eventually evolving into the product that they want.  Gimp is no competition for Affinity Photo and, in my opinion, would pose no threat to sales of good quality commercial software alternatives.  This is coming from a long-time Linux user and proponent of free open-source software.  Affinity Photo's biggest threat would be a Linux version of Photoshop.  If Adobe releases Photoshop for Linux before Affinity, then it's pretty much game over.  If,  however, Affinity takes hold in the Linux market before that happens, then they'd be in a good position to profit in that space.

It now turns out that it is possible to run Adobe Photoshop CC under Linux and there are some explanatory videos on Youtube on how to do this. A number of older non-subscription versions of Photoshop also play well with Wine including the venerable CS2 version.

[SrPx]

20 hours ago, justajeffy said:

If Adobe releases Photoshop for Linux before Affinity, then it's pretty much game over. 

Probably wouldn't be game over if Affinity released Photo on Linux after Photoshop. Would gain less people to its cause, yep, but....  It is what has happened on Windows and Mac. A large portion of users get rid of subscriptions when they find a permanent purchase product (that can be upgraded, and that upgrade get purchased when and if needed... me, am gonna buy each upgrade) that fit their needs. Yes, would be game over if solely aiming to get the Linux users that are fine paying monthly rent for a commercial software ;). And yes, there could be many of those. But that division and flow would happen as well if Affinity would arrive before PS. There is a type of user that needs Photoshop (compatibility with client files, a particular feature or mode, etc) and other than can't stand subscriptions (imo, this is a large group in all the platforms), is a freelancer/hobbyist... I believe the Windows/Mac situation would replicate on Linux, despite the order of appearance... It's a bunch of years (since '95 at least, tho I'm bad remembering dates) of Photoshop in Windows and Mac OS before Affinity appeared ... But it has been quite a meteor in the graphic apps world, anyway, achieving a lot of customers. And despite being already long years competitors there (Corel, Xara, PhotoLine, etc) , they are described as The alternative...

[Bog]

50 minutes ago, Snapseed said:

It now turns out that it is possible to run Adobe Photoshop CC under Linux and there are some explanatory videos on Youtube on how to do this. A number of older non-subscription versions of Photoshop also play well with Wine including the venerable CS2 version.

I had a copy of photoshop 5.1 (that's right- before the "CS" crap lol) somewhere, I remember it only took like 15 meg of memory to run and I bet it's much easier for wine to run it. I'd kill to find it now. 

[wonderings]

3 hours ago, Bog said:

I had a copy of photoshop 5.1 (that's right- before the "CS" crap lol) somewhere, I remember it only took like 15 meg of memory to run and I bet it's much easier for wine to run it. I'd kill to find it now. 

I wonder how much you would miss from modern software though. So much good stuff has come out since then, I think CS6 was when some great additions came like spot healing with content aware came about. I am a light user of Photoshop, most of my work is done in Indesign and Illustrator. 

[Snapseed]

On 1/29/2021 at 4:50 PM, Michael Tunnell said:

This is a nice ideal but that requires the GIMP team to be receptive to it and it also requires that team to be willing to take on that task of becoming a professional grade tool. Unfortunately, this has not been the case historically with this project. This is why professionals on Linux want something else to embrace Linux because there is an opportunity that is being squandered and after 20+ years, we don't expect GIMP to be the project to take advantage of this opportunity.

I now use PhotoPea since it is a webapp and it doesnt matter what OS I use which is a good option for now but I'd certainly love it for Affinity Photo to be on Linux. Snap team will even directly help them find out how to do it, or Affinity could make a Flatpak as well. WINE, Proton, etc so many methods to work on Linux if they chose to attempt it. There is a market for Linux both in the high side of the Big Spenders like VFX companies as @justajeffy mentions and on the low side where people are more likely to switch to Linux due to having that graphics software piece available to them. Linux already has good video editor options but graphics tools are limited. The Linux market is thirsty for an option and it is ripe to take advantage of but companies don't see that and sadly that is not surprising.

It turns out that there is an Electron version of Photopea now available but I haven't had the opportunity to try it out yet: https://github(dot)com/landsman/photopea-desktop

[SrPx]

19 hours ago, wonderings said:

I wonder how much you would miss from modern software though. So much good stuff has come out since then, I think CS6 was when some great additions came like spot healing with content aware came about. I am a light user of Photoshop, most of my work is done in Indesign and Illustrator. 

PS have been used since always as a painting tool as well (by game studios, film related studios, illustrators, the comics industry, etc) It is since CC 2018 that it has a line stabilizer. This is great for line work, and wasn't there for 21 years (now let's complain about Affinity taking time to add features.... ), actually, they added it AFTER (funnily, only months after, haha...if I remember well) Affinity Photo had implemented its line stabilizer. Also, at some point in the CC (don't remember when) they started accelerating the brushes by the GPU. In theory should allow bigger brushes, and smoother performance (indeed, deactivating GPU in preferences makes impossible to paint well) , but in reality, PS CS 5.1 (CS as well as all the non-CS) allowed very fast brushes, no lag, also with PS 7.x (Adobe 6 (all this now pre CS) was kindda buggy compared to 4.x and 5.x) one would paint greatly. It is in terms of stuff for photo editing (well, many features like non destructive editing are HUGE for any field) where, IMO, more improvements have happened. For painting, one could use a PS CS 5.1, CS 2, 7.1 (TGA transparency bug was fixed in 7.1), or even 5.x. The 4.0 did not have historic UNDO!!!. And ... if I remember well, neither the evolved text tool it got in 5.x. But a CS 6 is IMO yet today very usable in most fields (the CS versions IMO will get finally made unusable by making it incompatible with some OS update, not because those would stop being useful... like happens with many things) . The content aware stuff, I got used since 95 to make it "by hand", and like all, that's time that piles up on your workflow. 

[Michael Tunnell]

1 hour ago, Snapseed said:

It turns out that there is an Electron version of Photopea now available but I haven't had the opportunity to try it out yet: https://github(dot)com/landsman/photopea-desktop

well thats not really an option in my opinion since it is a 3rd party version and it doesnt offer any kind of builds. You have to build it yourself with npm and to me that's not worth the hassle compared to using it in a Firefox tab. I would like a standalone but meh it doesnt need to be.

[wonderings]

On 2/2/2021 at 2:42 PM, My1 said:

Likely helps that English isn't my native language (and insults are rarely taught at school). The only way i have heard gimp before was gimping an image as in "badly editing" it. But that it's an insult to disabled ppl actually hurts. 

Regarding the off topic issue, yes talking about gimp in the context of affinity photo and Linux is imo okay but let's not take it too far. 

 

English is my native language, I live in Canada and don't think I have ever heard anyone use the word "gimp" as an insult, it is certainly not part of the language with anyone I know, nor in the media. Maybe it was years ago but really is not now. 

[justajeffy]

18 minutes ago, wonderings said:

English is my native language, I live in Canada and don't think I have ever heard anyone use the word "gimp" as an insult, it is certainly not part of the language with anyone I know, nor in the media. Maybe it was years ago but really is not now. 

I'm Canadian, and I'm very well aware of how offensive the word can be.  That said, I would still think it's horrible name even if people weren't offended by it.  There's nothing offensive about the name Affinity.  😉

[Renzatic]

52 minutes ago, justajeffy said:

I'm Canadian, and I'm very well aware of how offensive the word can be.  That said, I would still think it's horrible name even if people weren't offended by it.  There's nothing offensive about the name Affinity.  😉

GIMP isn't exactly the most marketable name, no. That's why someone got the bright idea to fork the editor, and rebrand it as Glimpse!

It would've been nicer if they took the codebase, and made some actual improvements to it. But no. It's the same GIMP we all know and slightly tolerate, with a slightly less embarrassing name.

[Bog]

3 minutes ago, Renzatic said:

GIMP isn't exactly the most marketable name, no. That's why someone got the bright idea to fork the editor, and rebrand it as Glimpse!

It would've been nicer if they took the codebase, and made some actual improvements to it. But no. It's the same GIMP we all know and slightly tolerate, with a slightly less embarrassing name.

I tried glimpse recently, actually- two months ago.  It runs in one of those "snap" installs. I *hate* those. Anyway- you can't edit files that are outside of  your /home dir.  Which means you can't edit files on you local dev webserver, because the standard directory for is /var/www/.  So if you work on web sites and you have a local copy to test stuff before publishing live, you'd have to, like, edit a copy of the image, and every time you save, overwrite the one in your web directory.  I'm like AYFKM??!!

 

 

[wonderings]

1 hour ago, justajeffy said:

I'm Canadian, and I'm very well aware of how offensive the word can be.  That said, I would still think it's horrible name even if people weren't offended by it.  There's nothing offensive about the name Affinity.  😉

Must run run in different circles, never heard anyone use it and probably my introduction to the word was from Pulp Fiction. 

I am not saying it is a great name, just saying I don't think it is really part of the lexicon for most people.

Glimpse is a great name, not sure why, but I like it!

[Renzatic]

3 minutes ago, wonderings said:

Glimpse is a great name, not sure why, but I like it!

It's not a bad name, but I wish the developers did more than a simple rebrand. It seems like a lot of effort made for the most minimal of returns

[wonderings]

7 minutes ago, Renzatic said:

It's not a bad name, but I wish the developers did more than a simple rebrand. It seems like a lot of effort made for the most minimal of returns

I think I had Gimp installed some years ago as a customer brought in a native gimp file. Never had a need for it and don't remember it being all that enjoyable to use. 

[Michael Tunnell]

4 minutes ago, wonderings said:

Must run run in different circles, never heard anyone use it and probably my introduction to the word was from Pulp Fiction. 

I am not saying it is a great name, just saying I don't think it is really part of the lexicon for most people.

Glimpse is a great name, not sure why, but I like it!

It never surprises me when people haven't heard this term, it's usually because they don't have a direct connection with someone who has received the insult. I didn't know it was bad until I started hanging out with someone who was on the receiving end of it and he told me about it. Then I realized it was very widespread after researching it. I mean rarely would I ever use urban dictionary as a source but oddly, this time it is relevant. GIMP as a project has known about this issue for decades and the reason it was originally chosen was also incredibly stupid. The team at the time thought it would be funny to name it after the Pulp Fiction version which sealed the fate of the project because no educational institution or corporation will even consider to use such an app due to association with those things.

anyway, you may have not heard of the insult version or even the pulp fiction version but you probably have heard the term "gimp leg" as in referring to an injured leg. That is just a very tame version of the usage.

[justajeffy]

14 minutes ago, Bog said:

I tried glimpse recently, actually- two months ago.  It runs in one of those "snap" installs. I *hate* those. Anyway- you can't edit files that are outside of  your /home dir.  Which means you can't edit files on you local dev webserver, because the standard directory for is /var/www/.  So if you work on web sites and you have a local copy to test stuff before publishing live, you'd have to, like, edit a copy of the image, and every time you save, overwrite the one in your web directory.  I'm like AYFKM??!!

 

 

I'm not a huge snap fan either, but I understand that snapd runs applications in a sandbox to prevent access to outside resources.  This is by design for security reasons, and it is somewhat configurable.  It should be super-simple to bind mount any path into your home in order to make it accessible to the application.  Looks like they also provide binary releases in the form of flatpak or appimage.  Perhaps the appimage would be more your style.

[Michael Tunnell]

2 minutes ago, justajeffy said:

I'm not a huge snap fan either, but I understand that snapd runs applications in a sandbox to prevent access to outside resources.  This is by design for security reasons, and it is somewhat configurable.  It should be super-simple to bind mount any path into your home in order to make it accessible to the application.  Looks like they also provide binary releases in the form of flatpak or appimage.  Perhaps the appimage would be more your style.

I like Snaps but it depends on the application whether Snaps are an issue or not. Some of the apps I use work fantastic as Snaps and some don't. I also think Flatpaks are a great option too and honestly I would prefer it if Affinity were to make a Flatpak version because it would pretty much cover all bases in regards to support and ease of use.

I don't recommend AppImages because they have no security mechanism and most don't even have a mechanism for updates. I'd rather use Flatpak or Snaps and then maybe an AppImage if there necessary but AppImages have a lot of issues unfortunately.

[Renzatic]

5 minutes ago, wonderings said:

I think I had Gimp installed some years ago as a customer brought in a native gimp file. Never had a need for it and don't remember it being all that enjoyable to use. 

It's not the smoothest program in the world to use. To it's credit, it is a fairly capable little program, but it seems like it wants to fight you every step of the way.