Linux Support

[who8mypnuts]

Due to many reasons (MS can't update their software without issues, threat of having to pay monthly license fee for Windows 10, and I just plain like linux, it's faster (even my internet download speed has improved 120% in speed tests) + much more) I have switched over my desktop to Linux 100% of the time. Every program that I "needed" from Windows runs fine in Wine or has a linux version to use. Every program accept Affinity photo and Designer. I have tried the installation .exe which kills over immediately with a repetitive error "Exception: ResourceSection::ResourceSection". Copying the files from a Windows installation also throws exceptions. 

Is there any hope of a linux version of Affinity sometime in the near future?

If the answer is no (and I hope it isn't), do you have any way of a workaround to get both Photo and Designer working in Linux?

[Gabe]

Hi @who8mypnuts ,

This has already been discussed. 

We have no plans to develop a version for Linux and do not have a workaround for this. Sorry

Thanks,

Gabe. 

[who8mypnuts]

8 minutes ago, GabrielM said:

Hi @who8mypnuts ,

This has already been discussed. 

We have no plans to develop a version for Linux and do not have a workaround for this. Sorry

Thanks,

Gabe. 

Thanks for the info Gabe. That's very disappointing but I appreciate the honesty.

As a programmer, I find the link you shared very disheartening, especially the quip of a $500,000 development cost. I don't know what technology you use to build Affinity programs, but I do know that good code design makes it easy to port to other systems. I've done quite a bit in the past of even translating native OS programs to run as web-only (even pure JS or PHP) or as a backend with front-end web code, and it never cost me that much time/energy when I had the source code available. Even reverse engineering a program didn't cause that much hassle. In any case, I hope the commenter was being facetious and not serious about the dev costs.

I guess I'll have to look for some alternatives now, and in doing so, so ends my advertising for how great Affinity products are.

[Pšenda]

9 hours ago, who8mypnuts said:

As a programmer, I find the link you shared very disheartening, especially the quip of a $500,000 development cost. I don't know what technology you use to build Affinity programs, but I do know that good code design makes it easy to port to other systems. I've done quite a bit in the past of even translating native OS programs to run as web-only (even pure JS or PHP) or as a backend with front-end web code, and it never cost me that much time/energy when I had the source code available. Even reverse engineering a program didn't cause that much hassle. In any case, I hope the commenter was being facetious and not serious about the dev costs.

So why do not develop your own APh / ADe / APub? It will surely be a easy for you.

[who8mypnuts]

8 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

So why do not develop your own APh / ADe / APub? It will surely be a easy for you.

Lack of time and lack of access to the source code. 

[Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, who8mypnuts said:

... lack of access to the source code. 

Thanks for my evening laughter.

[who8mypnuts]

7 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Thanks for my evening laughter.

Anytime!

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, Pšenda said:

So why do not develop your own APh / ADe / APub? It will surely be a easy for you.

A better question is, if it is really true that "good code design" is all it takes to make it easy to port a full-featured graphics app to other operating systems, then why hasn't Adobe done this to port its own products to Linux? 

[who8mypnuts]

8 minutes ago, R C-R said:

A better question is, if it is really true that "good code design" is all it takes to make it easy to port a full-featured graphics app to other operating systems, then why hasn't Adobe done this to port its own products to Linux? 

It certainly isn't all it takes, there's no doubt about that. 

However, another question is: have you seen how slow adobe products are? Do you think there's "good code design" there, or is it the usage of legacy code? I don't know how much optimization their developers do. I do know that I can barely use my wacom tablet with Photoshop and 32GB ram with 8 cores. The brushes drag all over the place. Affinity and Krita are far superior in speed and usefulness. 

In any case: the developers for Affinity have given me the answer I asked for, and now I have to accept it and find an alternative.

[Uncle Mez]

I've found that Canonical the company behind Ubuntu offers a possibility to Snap a software to make it work on any Linux distro.
Here a link i've found that may help https://docs.snapcraft.io/creating-a-snap/6799

Maybe one day Serif will think about and consider the move, Gravit and many apps that you can see on the Snap center are working very well so why not Affinity Product Line but as i said ... maybe one day. 

[myclay]

6 hours ago, R C-R said:

why hasn't Adobe done this to port its own products to Linux? 

because Photoshop already works with Linux distros quite well.

https://github.com/corbindavenport/creative-cloud-linux
 

 

[R C-R]

58 minutes ago, myclay said:

because Photoshop already works with Linux distros quite well.

But that isn't a Linux port of Photoshop at all. It relies on Wine to run supported Windows applications in user space by translating Windows API calls into POSIX calls on-the-fly. 

[myclay]

while thats true, compared to Affinity Photo, Photoshop runs splendid on Linux + Adobe is a supporter of the Linux Foundation.
https://www.linuxfoundation.org/membership/members/

[R C-R]

20 minutes ago, myclay said:

while thats true, compared to Affinity Photo, Photoshop runs splendid on Linux

What exactly does that mean? Which version(s) of Photoshop run "splendid" without any significant issues with printers, drivers, plugins, GPU's, 64 bit support, etc.?

25 minutes ago, myclay said:

+ Adobe is a supporter of the Linux Foundation.

But do they offer customer support for their apps running on the various Linux distributions through Wine, or even claim that they will work without issues?

I mean no disrespect to anybody, but it seems to me that a great many Linux enthusiasts do a lot of "hand waving," ignoring or minimizing the very real, non-trivial problems involved in porting (& supporting!) commercial apps to Linux.

[toltec]

31 minutes ago, R C-R said:

ignoring or minimizing the very real, non-trivial problems involved in porting (& supporting!) commercial apps to Linux.

Yes, it amazes me that Linux users moan about the problems with Windows or Mac OS yet overlook problems 100 times worse getting Linux to do anything useful.

The last Windows PCs I bought involved simply plugging them in and entering my name etc. Been working (and running Affinity apps) ever since. Windows even detected my ancient printer and downloaded and installed the printer drivers. Completely trouble free.

The printer drivers aren't even available for Linux, let alone the hours it took to get Linux up and running in the first place.

Linux = Pain 

Linux = Frustration

Still, some people like that sort of thing ... 

[firstdefence]

I don't think the Linux fraternity quite understand serif's logistical restrictions compared to the likes of Adobe. 

[firstdefence]

7 minutes ago, toltec said:

Linux = Pain 

Linux = Frustration

Still, some people like that sort of thing ... 

Au Contraire, I've just installed Linux Mint on a HP DV9500 Laptop only niggle was the wireless but an Edimax Thumbnail dongle sorted that and it now runs much better than windows ever did. It originally had Windows V**ta, I upgraded it to Windows 7 prior to putting Linux Mint on and to say it was slow was an understatement, it also had the Wireless dropping out issue but it worked fine in V**ta. 

Customer is now a happy bunny because they have a usable laptop.

[myclay]

21 minutes ago, toltec said:

The printer drivers aren't even available for Linux, let alone the hours it took to get Linux up and running in the first place.

https://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Printing-HOWTO/printers.html
http://www.openprinting.org/drivers

 The "support" topic, when you have OEM licences, Microsoft gives limited to 0 support.

Even thou it would be nice to see a Linux support of the Affinity Prodcut line, there are clearly more pressing issues like missing TGA support among other features which need optimization or are straight out missing.

[toltec]

3 minutes ago, myclay said:

https://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Printing-HOWTO/printers.html

 

Canon i9950 A3 + 8 colour printer

Mitsubishi CP3800 dye sublimation photo printer.

I first tried getting Linux  drivers for them 10 years ago. 10 years later, still no drivers. Both printers worked perfectly on Windows XP and 7 and now on Windows 10 (from Affinity apps ).

No pain, no frustration 

[myclay]

http://de.mitsubishielectric-printing.com/hilfe/treiber

there is a section of Linux drivers for Mitsubishi printers? Like for this one here;

http://de.mitsubishielectric-printing.com/fotodrucker/cp-d70dw

 

Edited November 10, 2018 by myclay
added link to Linux supported Printer from Mitsubishi

[toltec]

12 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

Au Contraire, I've just installed Linux Mint on a HP DV9500 Laptop only niggle was the wireless but an Edimax Thumbnail dongle sorted that and it now runs much better than windows ever did. It originally had Windows V**ta, I upgraded it to Windows 7 prior to putting Linux Mint on and to say it was slow was an understatement, it also had the Wireless dropping out issue but it worked fine in V**ta. 

I spent hours and failed miserably on a recent attempt. Mint simply would not work with the installed Nvidia card. 

After a few hours of pain and frustration I managed to get Ubuntu to work. The third distro I tried !!!

Almost a whole day wasted and I needed a Windows PC to research the problem and download Ubuntu.

However, I admit that these days, I don't bother with old PCs. 

[toltec]

1 minute ago, myclay said:

http://de.mitsubishielectric-printing.com/hilfe/treiber

there is a section of Linux drivers for Mitsubishi printers?

They don't work with my printer. I also tried a generic Canon driver and that was awful. Everything came out the wrong size, the CD print feature was not supported and there was no control over advanced colour stuff. Pretty useless for photographic use.

I get everything  working 100% on any version of Windows. Didn't even need to install drivers, Mr Gates did all that for me.

 

[myclay]

I dont get it, just because your 10 year old hardware has no Linux support for this special printer (other similar printers from the same manufacturer have Linux support)
no one should be able to use Linux?

[Uncle Mez]

.... Guys, can we simply not fight or camp on our own arguments

I Mean, as a Linux trainer I do understand quite a lot of things including the célébrissime frustration that people's encounter with Linux.

Personally, I own a Mac and a PC but use each one for it's strength only. My Mac is where I do all design, videos etc it's production machine and my PC (laptop actually) is where I do all my admin stuffs (invoicing, YouTube contents uploading, task management, client support over IM and so much more) ... Believe it or not, all that productivity work is done under Linux (kde neon 5.14.3) and I'm really happy with it.

I've tried to get the best from Windows but it's simply not working in my case but i will never ever say Windows sucks.

The point here is,we should try to understand what kind of benefit users can get from having Affinity products officially ported on that system and if they are willing to pay and not claim the Free and Freedom thing that many don't even understand in its real sense.

IBM is buying Redhat for billions and maybe it's a sign that the time have come when Linux will be financially profitable for all.

On the other hand,around 80% of the internet is powered by Linux,so, can we drop our own frustrative or happily experience and try help Serif to understand better?

We are for that I believe, if Serif the jump then a new category of people may become as creative as we are not trying to suck us into their sphere claiming it's the best places to be.

The really Best place to be is where we produce and are creative with happiness added to it.

Blessings y'all

[toltec]

44 minutes ago, myclay said:

I dont get it, just because your 10 year old hardware has no Linux support for this special printer (other similar printers from the same manufacturer have Linux support)
no one should be able to use Linux?

I use Linux.

But to paraphrase Mr Eastwood (aka Dirty Harry) "an OS has to know its limitations"

If you are willing to research carefully what Linux can and cannot do, and are willing to through the aggro of downloading it,  installing it and sorting it out, it is a good way of getting old, cheap hardware working for basic computing stuff.

Personally, I want to run the latest top-of-the-range sophisticated software (like Affinity Photo, Designer and Publisher), and connect to my various printers and scanners without all that hassle. A lot of Linux users seem to want to run the good software too, although obviously they can't.

For me, it is much easier and cheaper to buy a new, ultra fast Core i7 PC with loads of RAM and an SSD drive than change two expensive printers  (which still work perfectly) and I get to run all the good software . It runs really quickly too !  I used the money I saved from my Photoshop and Illustrator subscription and put it towards by new PC.

Each to his own. If you don't mind the hassle and understand the limitations, go Linux.