Linux Flatpack Version

[ynneBBenny]

First off, I just LOVE Affinity and truly appreciate the affordable price and ongoing free updates. How good are you guys !!
Ive been a Linux user for many years now and really hate to have to reboot into Windows just so I can use Affinity Photo.

I see that some people have managed to shoehorn Affinity Photo into Linux doing various contortion tricks. This demonstrates that it can be done, but just isn't easily accessible to many users. Ie: Me

Linux is far more main stream today, its a pity that Affinity products are not ported to be run in this environment.
Is there a way to distribute a flatpack version that has all the support files that would enable Affinity to be run on Linux?

Is this the bit where I have to get on two knees and beg ?
Com'on fellas ! 

[emmrecs01]

@ynneBBenny

Welcome to the Affinity forums.

This thread is but one of several asking for Linux versions of the Affinity apps.  I see the "official" (Serif) answer there as "we have no plans" to port the apps.

Jeff

[ynneBBenny]

Thanks Jeff, I have 'plans' to try and convince them otherwise

[DavidMalcolm]

15 hours ago, ynneBBenny said:

Thanks Jeff, I have 'plans' to try and convince them otherwise

Good luck with that. I think you'd see an Android version of the iPad apps before you see a Linux version of the desktop apps... and I don't think you're ever going to see an Android version. The venn diagram of people on Linux who are willing to pay for software, people who are wanting to use graphics apps, and people who all have a similar enough system, is pretty small. I realize I don't know that much about Linux, especially these days but I know one of the reasons that other apps have often avoided doing linux ports is because of the various windowing systems and how you can't always rely on all the same resources being present. I know on Mac the Affinity Suite leverages tech like Metal, CoreImage and maybe even CoreML? (Is CoreImage still a thing? You know what I'm talking about, the GPU accelerated parts of macOS.) They're probably plugging into similar APIs on Windows, and I am not sure but I haven't heard about any fantastic graphics APIs on Linux. They'd probably have to fall back to using OpenGL or something.

Unfortunately consumer software on Linux is hard to make good money in and has a lot of the pitfalls of developing for Android (tons of different variations on the same base, tons of things that could cause bugs that aren't in anyone's control). I'm sure they did some sort of cost benefit analysis and figured out that they'd have to pay X number of extra developers to ensure the Linux version would work, and that there probably aren't enough potential Linux users to cover the costs. Frankly as somebody who owns both the Mac and iPad versions of their apps, I'd rather they invest in the platforms where the bulk of their potential users are. (Mac, iOS and Windows.)

[fde101]

On 8/27/2019 at 10:25 PM, DavidMalcolm said:

I am not sure but I haven't heard about any fantastic graphics APIs on Linux.

That would be Vulkan, which also happens to be available on Android (at least on the higher-end devices).

 

On 8/27/2019 at 10:25 PM, DavidMalcolm said:

tons of different variations on the same base

For whatever it probably isn't worth, this is true of Windoze too (MUCH more so than of MacOS), yet Serif did a version for that.

 

From a technical perspective, Linux has a lot more to offer to a project like this than Windoze does...  everything except *maybe* the user base.  While I do think that has the potential to change, and I for one would love to see that change, I don't think it actually has yet.