Affinity for Linux

[B-Interactive]

44 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

The Linux desktop (which of them, or all of them) lacks apps. The number is insignificant in comparison to Windows or Mac.

Do elaborate.

[m.vlad]

48 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

The Linux desktop (which of them, or all of them) lacks apps. The number is insignificant in comparison to Windows or Mac.

You're arguing that a desktop that has less than 5% overall usage has less apps like it's a revolutionary fact. "Linux desktop really lacks very little" was about niches solved by apps, not about how big a number is. What Linux lacks most (excluding professional graphic design software) is competition and variety within its niche apps, not thousands of proprietary apps. To get a functioning workstation going you're not gonna install all the apps available, you're gonna install one-two apps for whatever you need them for: browsers, archive managers, professional software, office software, etc.

Therefore I think your argument ignores this and makes it about how underdeveloped an overall underutilized OS is, which isn't relevant, graphic designers aren't a majority of the windows or mac os users, and the app portfolio of these two operating systems is not primarily filled with distinct design tools for the amount of them to matter.

[B-Interactive]

2 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Do you really suggest that there is anything like the number of Linux desktop apps compared to Windows and MacOS? Good luck living in your Linux on the desktop bubble.

Almost every application I frequent under Linux, I was using first under Windows.  A side effect of open-source it seems, is Linux support is often a given.  I'm using Linux as a development and creative platform for professional purposes and as I stated, it really lacks very little.  If one was using it for desktop purposes only, I'd go so far as to say it lacks nothing at all.






 

[m.vlad]

Just now, LondonSquirrel said:

Nonsense. What Linux lack is professional apps. Not another notepad app, of which there are hundreds. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Linux on the desktop is insignificant, which is precisely why there are so few professional apps available for it. It has been like this forever.

So you agree that what you're saying is linux lacks professional apps and that its userbase is insignificant because there's few professional apps on it, therefore adding more apps to its portfolio should, in theory, based on your argument, increase its userbase.

I will remind you that we're here arguing for a port or a version that works through WINE of a design app that would fill in the gap of graphic design work on linux. Sure making a point about how big the linux on desktop is could help the argument, but that can always be refuted with "but it's just 3% anyway", which is what I feel is happening here when you're moving the goalpost. There's tens of vocal people who say they'd switch to linux if affinity or adobe worked well on linux, that's just in this forum. There's probably hundreds of people who would do it but aren't vocal about it. This is definitely a viable market considering Serif just has to work with the people who work on WINE and make themselves available so that Affinity works on linux. This isn't a monumental task, and the benefit would outweight the cost (specifically in the case of making it work with WINE/CodeWeavers, I'm not talking about fully porting the app to linux).

[B-Interactive]

5 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Nonsense. What Linux lack is professional apps.

And that's why we're here, voicing a need within a community.

[B-Interactive]

2 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Hahahaha. Apart from applications. I mean a wide choice of useful application, not notepad apps. Sure, there is some good Linux desktop software. But that is a very short list. 

Just so happens to be the same good Windows / OSX software.

[Windows/OSX Option] - [Linux Option]
Davinci Resolve - Davinci Resolve
Visual Studio Code - Visual Studio Code
LibreOffice - LibreOffice
RawTherapee - RawTherapee
Audacity - Audacity
Brave - Brave
Firefox - Firefox
Thunderbird - Thunderbird
OBS - OBS
Steam - Steam
VLC - VLC
Handbrake - Handbrake
KeePassXC - KeePassXC
Signal - Signal
Telegram - Telegram

This is just the stuff I use and I could go on.

[Renzatic]

20 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Nonsense. What Linux lack is professional apps. Not another notepad app, of which there are hundreds. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Linux on the desktop is insignificant, which is precisely why there are so few professional apps available for it. It has been like this forever.

I had access to plenty of professional, closed source, paid for apps over on Linux, two of which are now owned and supported by Adobe.

[Renzatic]

3 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

It's not a very long list, is it?

How many apps do we all use on our computers? If I were to take a screenshot of my taskbar in Windows, you'd see most of the same icons there as you would were I running Linux. The Affinity apps are the only ones I'd be missing.

[B-Interactive]

Just now, LondonSquirrel said:

It's not a very long list, is it?

 

10 minutes ago, B-Interactive said:

This is just the stuff I use and I could go on.

And putting that point aside, it's not the size of the list that matters.  It's whether or not it's lacking.  As I've said now a couple of times, it really lacks very little.

[aronkvh]

I don't think the number of apps really matter from a user perspective.

It only matters when a specific app doesn't support your OS. For me these are o365 and Affinity Photo; and I don't think 2-3(and many more for some of you) programs missing Linux compatibility is a reason not to develop Affinity to support it either.

(also by the logic that Windows has all the market share anyway so why develop for Linux, why would they  develop Affinity if Adobe has the market share and is much more widely adopted anyways?)

[aronkvh]

personally I'm doing fine without Adobe (but I would much better if there was Affinity for Linux :I)

[Renzatic]

7 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Adobe.

Substance Painter and Designer.

It's understandable why Adobe would choose to support Linux on this front. It has a big footprint in the 3D movie/game design industries, but doesn't draw much attention from the graphics design crowd. Hence why the aforementioned apps are available, but Photoshop and Illustrator aren't.

Linux's biggest weakness isn't that it's some also-ran OS only used by FOSS zealots, rather, it's that it's use case doesn't cover all demographics. 

[Vex]

@LondonSquirrel so this thread is clearly just going in circles between you...and everyone else.

Why are you so aggressively opposed to Linux? Have you done extensive market research that has led you to the conclusion that there is no legitimate reason for Affinity (or any other software publisher, for that matter) to ever even discuss Linux support?

Are you a software developer? Do you understand how software is written, and what technologies, platforms, and products exist to assist publishers with creating cross-platform software? Do you have insider knowledge on the specific technological reasons why Affinity has decided it's not worth the engineering effort to work on Linux compatibility?

Can you provide *any* credible data to back up your claims?

There are billions of people in the world, and even more computers. As I mentioned earlier, I did have access to market research data when I worked at Microsoft because of the nature of my job, and I can tell you conclusively that Linux is growing in popularity, not the other way around. Lots of professionals use Linux for a wide variety of tasks. Something else I think maybe you're missing here is how businesses use desktop computers in 2021.

Thanks to cloud services, even small businesses and sole proprietorships can do everything (or almost everything) in a web browser. Everything is in the cloud, and everything has a web-based frontend. That makes it even easier for businesses to move away from Windows or MacOS. That doesn't mean there are no desktop applications (if that were true this conversation would be moot), but it does mean that your insistence that Linux's app catalog is all the evidence you need that professionals don't use Linux is likely based more in anecdotal evidence than anything concrete.

I mean, if you hate Linux, more power to you, but maybe don't poo in our sandbox over it?

[aronkvh]

4 minutes ago, ClairelyClaire said:

technological reasons why Affinity developers have decided it's not worth the engineering effort to work on Linux compatibility?

That's basically the thing that matters here. not if Linux users do or don't live in an alternate universe and how many cross-platforms does one use ect.

[B-Interactive]

28 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

In the graphics world, one word: Adobe.

 

On 5/29/2021 at 9:26 PM, B-Interactive said:

I'm hard pressed to think of an industry level application that doesn't have an answer on Linux.  Where that becomes unstuck, is an answer to some of the Adobe Suite, namely Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign.

I agree @LondonSquirrel.

[Vex]

5 minutes ago, aronkvh said:

That's basically the thing that matters here. not if Linux users do or don't live in an alternate universe and how many cross-platforms does one use ect.

The Affinity suite appears to use Qt, which is already a huge plus for portability. Hubs poked around a bit at trying to get one of the apps to run on his main desktop, but there's something in one of the core Affinity libraries that's a problem, and that's as far as we can get.

[aronkvh]

5 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Linux's biggest weakness isn't that it's some also-ran OS only used by FOSS zealots

 

pretty sure that was irony there

[aronkvh]

honestly I can't imagine myself going on a Windows forum post just to tell everyone how bad Windows is and the deficiencies and how it's market share is sinking and doesn't do something I want to and why do they even want a Mac app to be ported to Windows

[Renzatic]

16 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Oh indeed. Including Linus Torvalds and his attitude towards Nvidia. The fact that Nvidia make well performing drivers really annoys him. Too bad.

What annoys Torvalds is how Nvidia does its own thing, and ignores everything else the Linux community tries to do. Like their refusal to do anything with Wayland until here recently being one of the bigger sticking points.

[Renzatic]

3 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

As though Nvidia owes Linux anything. Remember the desktop share: Linux is nowhere. It's unimportant to Nvidia. 

Yet they spend the time and effort to release and support their hardware drivers right alongside Windows.

4 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

But you highlight, probably unintentionally, an important point: the Linux 'community' thinks the world revolves around them. I haven't seen anything that is actually 'new' in Linux that I have not seen in older versions of (real) UNIX, or on Windows or Mac. So Linux is hardly at the forefront of anything.

It's not just the Linux community. Nvidia's kinda known to be a bit rude to everyone else. They did quite a bit to piss off Apple too, to the point that they now refuse to support any Nvidia hardware on their machines.

[Vex]

30 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

I am not. I have stated several times that Linux has its place. And on the desktop Linux is nowhere. 

But your entire role in this thread has been to derail it, insisting that there's no legitimate reason to even entertain a discussion about Affinity on Linux. That's dumb. Unless you have special insider information from Affinity on the subject, you're not actually contributing anything to the discussion; you're just posting so people have to pay attention to you.

30 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

It's the market for desktop Linux which is the most important.

Yes, and your understanding of that market, I'm guessing, is based on news articles and public data that doesn't actually deep-dive into industry research.

I've done that second part. And I'm telling you your entire premise is flawed.

30 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Even given the deficiencies of Linux it is possible to write software for Linux, that is clear.

This alone shows how little you actually know or understand about Linux, and I'm betting you've also never actually written desktop software. You don't actually know what you're talking about on this one.

30 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Those are not desktop apps.

That wasn't my point though, was it? Why don't you re-read what I wrote and use context clues to understand why I mentioned this.

30 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Linux is not your sandbox.

Is that what I said? You've come to a thread where people are discussing the merits and potential of Affinity on Linux, and your only contribution to this thread can be summed up as "shut up, nobody cares."

Rude.

7 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

As though Nvidia owes Linux anything. Remember the desktop share: Linux is nowhere. It's unimportant to Nvidia. 

But you highlight, probably unintentionally, an important point: the Linux 'community' thinks the world revolves around them. I haven't seen anything that is actually 'new' in Linux that I have not seen in older versions of (real) UNIX, or on Windows or Mac. So Linux is hardly at the forefront of anything.

Hahahahahahahahahahaha you are totally full of it, and this is enough evidence for me.

Linux is a VERY popular operating system for crypto miners, and Nvidia's GPUs have been held captive by the crypto market for several years now. Nvidia also continues to release - and support - a solid Linux driver, and they have contributed to Valve's efforts to make Steam cross-platform.

I know you really want to be the expert here, but you're not.

[Vex]

15 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

So Linux is hardly at the forefront of anything.

A LOT of things YOU take for granted on Mac and PC started in Linux, many moons ago.

Not everyone chooses an OS based on whether or not it has the latest greatest gimmick.

[B-Interactive]

6 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Linux is nowhere. It's unimportant to Nvidia. 

More than 1 million Steam users are using Linux.  Steam users (generally) use predominantly Nvidia GPU's.
Crypto mining under Linux is popular.  Can't put my finger on figures though.
Machine Learning is also big under Linux.
Nvidia have their own Linux distro

 

17 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

I haven't seen anything that is actually 'new' in Linux that I have not seen in older versions of (real) UNIX, or on Windows or Mac. So Linux is hardly at the forefront of anything.

Same could be said for Windows and OSX.
 

[B-Interactive]

Just now, LondonSquirrel said:

Except that practically all the 'features' you see on Linux desktops are copied from Windows and Mac, not the other way round.

The entire industry has been copying the other guy since the beginning.

[Renzatic]

2 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Er, the news? Nvidia is buying Arm... If the deal goes through.

That shouldn't effect any of the other high end ARM manufacturers like Apple, Qualcomm, et al. They're all grandfathered into ARM's highest tiered license agreement, practically giving them carte blanche to do what they want with the architecture.