Help support. Please make Affinity possible on Linux!
I’d rather support FOSS software
Are you doing profesionnal art/design work for a living ?
This is a Linux community not a professional art/design community.
…and some Linux users do professional art/design for living.
Yes, but if I wait for Gimp & Co. to become an alternative, I will be long retired or - most likely - dead.
So having Affinity on Linux would be fantastic for gfx professionals.
Understandable.
Advertising for a change needs great effort. I’d rather spend the effort in improving gimp, writing down whats missing and how to get there. Adding suppor for affinity won’t improve gimp, does it?
It doesn’t. But I wait something around 20 years for Gimp, all of my hope is gone. Inkscape evolved a lot, also Krita. Gimp just made babysteps in case of UI and UX and this is basically because of the outdated underlying technology as far as I know.
I am an FOSS frontend dev myself, so I hate to say this. I would love to fully switch to FOSS gfx software, but especially with Gimp, its a pain in the ass, to work with it.
It’s owned by Canva, so I’d be willing to bet their next release will we some kind of web version - in that case there would be no need to port it.
And it’ll be subscription based.
Doesn’t matter cause I bought the lifetime license. Sure, maybe it won’t get updated any more, but the current state is pretty much sufficient.
I did as well, small comfort.
I mean… you know they sold out to Aussie-Adobe like 4 years ago right?
They are currently strip-mining the code so they can learn how to write an application that isn’t an instagram filter tacked onto MS paint… I just made that last part up, hopefully they do something good… but I assume they acquired Serif for the sake of IP protection and not because they were hoping to develop it further. I haven’t seen anything innovative happen for the last few years at least.
nope did not know rthat… welp there goes that ;)
At best they will repurpose certain features to add them to some “pro” (but still web-based) version of Canva at $50/mo. There’s no way in hell we’ll get Linux apps for Affinity. I really wish we would because they are literally the only reason I still have a Windows VM.
As long as you’re doing it in a VM might as well try the MacOS version. IIRC the OS screen scaling and apples requirements that everything have vector or MIB mapped icons makes for a much nicer experience.
I don’t know if it works on a VM… just fondly remember using the apps on my MacBook 😅
Never thought of that, I may give it a shot!
Why? Krita exists and it’s FOSS. I would sooner throw them a donation than pay a subscription or fee for something else.
Krita is not the same software than these… You don’t use Krita to design a book, you don’t use Krita to manipulate RAW pictures…
Affinity is a one-time fee at around 80€ for a Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator clone that sprang unto existence literally to combat Adobe subscriptions. Except since using Affinity exclusively for a year now, it feels better than Adobe ever did. Much more modern. Only missing a rare few of features that have work-arounds.
But, as OP says. Linux support is sorely missed. Because it’s much smaller than adobe there is a lack of community effort to get it to run on linux and if you manage to make it run, it craps out on you.
Since I work professionally with digital art and print, Krita, GIMP, etc. are sadly nowhere closer viable options (I have tried). Unfortunately I had to give up and install Windows last week solely to run Affinity properly, all other software that I use for work runs smoothly in linux, and like 95% of my preferred games (I too refuse to pay a subscription on principle).
Having Krita as basic image editing is doable. However, if you actually use them professionally, you’ll realize that Krita is definitely not alternative to those.
Krita is a first-class painting software, and even its current development is more closer to be Clip Studio Paint alternative, like having comic layer, webtoon layout, etc. The dev regularly observate Clip Studio Paint development.
Affinity Photo is actually easier to use than any alternative, including Photoshop and even GIMP. Its base system also much more faster than Photoshop, GIMP, and even Krita.
Honestly, affinity is just a company. They will make a Linux version if it makes business sense for them and it won’t. Adobe is far ahead in almost every way. Their software is competing in the market of amateurs. And for an amateur, it should make more sense to pick up Gimp, inkspace. Affinity publisher is ok, but pros will have adobe and for anything less inkspace or figma free tier is good enough. Affinity has no market.
That is a waste of time. I emailed the company a few months ago and they replied that they won’t port to Linux. Not that they don’t have plans to currently do it, but that they won’t. Clear as day.
1 email is not the same as 3819376 signatures
Do you mean 200?
Yeah, I’m sure they’ll hire a division dedicated to Linux development, with all the costs that brings, just because of that.
It’s also likely that most of these signatures aren’t even from graphic designers, just some people from Linux related forums.
Indeed, I don’t get the post. Does OP genuinely think they could influence Affinity to support linux? Via freaking change.org?? Really, why is the post so well-received by community? Got so many questions.
I’m a professional graphic designer and I will never EVER support any initiative trying to get privative support into Linux and this kind of shitty mindset from colleagues actually irks me. I will support any initiative trying to improve what we already have. You don’t even need to be a developer nor donate money to help - bug reports and translations are also a thing. That’s how we got to get high quality software like Krita, Inkscape or Blender.
Can I ask your perspective on the comments here saying that Krita and Inkscape just aren’t comparable to their commercial alternatives?
The reason is… I’m not a professional graphic designer, I have a small consultancy with several staff and work with documents and spreadsheets all day.
Occasionally I encounter similar threads discussing the difference between LibreOffice and Microsoft Office, and the comments are all the same. So many people saying LibreOffice just “isn’t there yet”, or that it might be ok for casual use but not for power users.
But as someone who uses LibreOffice extensively with a broad feature set I’ve just never encountered something we couldn’t do. Sure we might work around some rough edges occasionally, but the feature set is clearly comparable.
My strongly held suspicion is that it’s a form of the dunning-kruger effect. People have a lot of experience using software-A so much so that they tend to overlook just how much skill and knowledge they have accumulated with that specific software. Then when they try software-B they misconstrue their lack of knowledge with that specific software as complexity.
Yeah it took me like a year to finally start editing photos on my Linux machine. I was so used to lightroom that I kept bouncing between digikam, darktable, and rawtherapee. I wanted something that just did everything that lightroom did in a way that made senses to what I had learned until I finally just sat through a few youtube videos and decided to use digikam for managing my library and darktable for all my editing. Then seeing posts here on lemmy on people’s workshops helped me a lot
My strongly held suspicion is that it’s a form of the dunning-kruger effect. People have a lot of experience using software-A so much so that they tend to overlook just how much skill and knowledge they have accumulated with that specific software. Then when they try software-B they misconstrue their lack of knowledge with that specific software as complexity.
You just answered yourself. They’re just tools.
I’ve written a few articles in LibreOffice and the things I need to be able to do just can’t be done in order to follow the structure of the zine I was writing for. It’s a hobby zine and the work is free by everyone so they just reformatted it for me; but it still inconveniences others when things aren’t within a certain expected standard. I do blame microsoft for it though; all office apps uses the same standard except microsoft, unfortunately all the users uses microsoft office…
and no, krita, inkscape, gimp, etc. can’t replace Affinity. Affinity itself could barely replace Adobe in their first place. but it still has, for many. so it’s not a learning issue. Affinity is more intuitive than Adobe, so in this case Adobe is just outdated.
but as for the open source, the issue is more than just a lack of features. The UI is at least 15 years out of date.
Professionally the software just isn’t there; and it’s a real shame too, because I feel very uncomfortable using ANY microsoft products (on principle). But as far as Photoshop goes, there is photopea which is a great free browser based clone. Sadly there is no illustrator or indesign browser based clones that can match the quality of photopea, and the only desktop apps up for the job of matching Adobe is currently the Affinity Suite.
Also what a lot of people don’t see ist, that as a company if you are looking for employees, there are a lot of potential workers with adobe experience, much less with affinity (although growing). Not sure how kany you find with professional FOSS tool experience.
So you do have major onboarding costs for each new employee who has to relearn their workflows
It sounds like you’re talking the ability of ms office products to open documents authored by libreoffice.
Can I ask your perspective on the comments here saying that Krita and Inkscape just aren’t comparable to their commercial alternatives?
I am a professional and have been doing this since… Well, I started with Mac OS 7, let’s put it that way. Krita and Inkscape are like using craft scissors to cut sheetmetal. They’re simply the wrong tool for the job. They are maybe 10% comparable to Adobe apps. Affinity apps are probably 60% or 70% comparable. Anybody who says Inkscape is a replacement for Illustrator simply does not use it in any serious professional capacity. It doesn’t even have any means of adding paragraph spacing!
Have you tried collaborating to the project in some way or other? I think we in this capitalist world are frequently used of being given a solution, usually paid, sometimes for free (at least apparently). IMHO the change of paradigm has to do with first aligning with the ethics we wish for our world and humanity (I doubt anybody besides Adobe shareholders could cherish the idea of a world that using its products contributes to), and then putting all of our will and efforts in supporting the initiatives that make sense to our deep inner wishes for this world. How much are we willing to open ourselves to something like a different workflow if it makes sense with our ethics? The thing is that the paradigm perpetuates itself by us having being familiarized with it since we were kids. (Think Windows or Adobe in schools or Universities, although you could certainly bring this example to other spheres of human endeavours). Kids won’t break it… We need adults that, although have been indoctrinated with the old ways, have enough will power to open these new doors and create new realities for the children of the future.
I would if I knew anything about programming or UI design, but unfortunately I don’t.
Yeah, I used to think the same… I dont know much programming (at least not enough to collaborate), but I usually help translating, documenting or answering some forums… Maybe it’s not much but it helps a littlw
I fully support this comment. Have been a Graphic Designer since Quark Express truly was the better option to Indesign.
I have no way to evaluate whether these claims are true. Pretty much verbatim what people say about libreoffice.
Again, you’re operating off your own limited experience. Ask someone who does Excel programming (yes it’s a thing) if LibreOffice compares. It does not.
Guy, everyone operates off their own limited experience.
LibreOffice has user defined functions that work just fine. You’re just illustrating my point really.
Anybody who says Inkscape is a replacement for Illustrator simply does not use it in any serious professional capacity. It doesn’t even have any means of adding paragraph spacing!
That’s sort of where I see the issue as well. What proprietary software does is takes the features of a bunch of different pieces of kit and puts them together into one package.
There isn’t one particular thing that Propietary software does the FOSS software can’t. The problem is that you need multiple different software solutions to do it.
So while Illustrator offers Paragraph Spacing (for example) Inkscape doesn’t, you get that in Scribus. But Scribus lacks the more advanced pathing vector tools, which Inkscape offers. Meanwhile neither of them have strong photo editing abilities, which GIMP brings to the table, but GIMP can’t really do painting well, which KRITA brings to the table…and so on and so on.
Every open source alternative does something as good as their proprietary alternaties. But not everything. You have to use a combination in order to match the capability of one adobe product, and that’s just not feasible in a professional environment.
Even that isn’t really true. GIMP for example is nowhere near feature parity with Photoshop, not even close. it only just got non-desctructive editing a few months ago, something that Photoshop has had for at least 20 years if not more! The disparity gets much, much worse when you look at filters or tools like content-aware fill.
GIMP for example is nowhere near feature parity with Photoshop
Yeah. That’s exactly my point…maybe I wasn’t clear.
The problem is that no one specific FOSS tool has feature parity. To get the same abilities as Photoshop, you have to use a workflow that is a combination of GIMP, Inkscape, Krita and Scribus instead of having it in the one package, which is why Adobe is the industry standard.
No, what I’m saying is that PS has features that simply do not exist in any of the current FOSS apps. How do you replicate smart objects or content-aware fill? How about sky replacement or the camera RAW filter?
This is such a looooong shot, a more realistic plan would be to play the Powerball to win and use your winnings to fund open source programs into matching feature set.
Which is also wildly unlikely, but just a little more likely to happen.
We have Affinity at home:
Affinity at home > Gimp
Gave it a shot so many times just couldn’t get onboard with it…Even with the lastest release. The icons alone annoy me…
GIMP with the PhotoGIMP overhaul and Resynthasizer plugin (content aware fill) is pretty darn solid. Not perfect, but a massive upgrade from stock gimp.
Actually, I never witnessed change-org ever changed something.
Well it makes people feel like they’ve done something.
Exactly. If the effort is low the result likely will be as well.
Which is worse than useless since it renovated the impetus to do anything else.
It’s like when you tell everyone your new years resolution and they all go “wow you’re really courageous, well done on turning the new leaf”. Your brain goes “ok, got my recompense for that, no need to put more effort in there” and bye bye resolution.
True!
Let’s change that. Please sing this change-org petition. /s
This ain’t it, Chief.
I would, but I can’t get through their captcha (even w/ adblockers, tracking, etc all disabled)
I mean, signing a change.org petition has resulted in absolutely nothing, ever, so it’s not like your vote is exactly vital here
Why not just use and support fully open source alternatives like Krita, Inkscape, Kdenlive, etc instead of giving money to Adobe?
This isn’t Adobe.
And as much as I want to like Krita, GIMP and such, their workflows just can’t compare with proprietary software in many cases. Also, especially for photo editing, their feature sets can’t compare with Adobe’s or Affinity’s either.
I use Krita, GIMP and Affinity Photo pretty regularly, and while there have been great improvements to the open source alternatives recently, I just get stuff done with Affinity, while still having to constantly search the web for things Krita and GIMP hide somewhere deep within their menus.
All open source image editors I’ve used are in dire need of a complete UX rework (like Blender and Musescore successfully did) before being more than niche alternatives to proprietary software.
So, as of yet, I can definitely understand the wish for a feature-rich and easily usable image editing suite on Linux.
@nyankas @HiddenLayer555 Unfortunately I have to agree, I find Photoshop hands down much easier and more intuitive to use than Gimp even though I’ve been using Gimp ever since Adobe went to a subscription only model because I absolutely refuse the Klaus Schwab notion of you will own nothing and be happy, bullshit. I was more than willing to pay for Adobe software when I could buy it but fuck if I will rent it.
Blender did an amazing job with their overhaul. I really don’t know why anyone would use anything else for 3d modeling. I’m hoping they pump up their CAD features, but I understand if they don’t.
What’s crazy is that while I used to know countless Maya / 3DSMax people, everyone seems to have switched to Blender. It’s crazy how fast the industry switched to Blender after that UI revamp.
The UI was pretty bad before, it took forever to get people to understand what was going on. Now it’s just a few tips and tricks and people are off and running. They did a great job.
Idk, you lost me when you said Krita’s UI is too challenging… wtf
And that arrogant “I understand it, why don’t you?!”-attitude is exactly what’s so often the main issue in the design process of open source software.
I’d recommend watching this recent talk by Tantacrul, the design lead for MuseScore and Audacity. In it, he shows some videos of first-time user tests he conducted for Inkscape recently. It’s really fascinating to see, how users fail to do what they want because of confusing UX choices. And often it isn’t even that hard to fix. But open source image editors are just full of these little annoyances by now, which really smell like the result of inadequate user testing. And no professional would prefer to work all day with software full of little annoyances when there are alternatives.
I mean, just try adding text in Krita, for example. There’s a giant pop-up where you have to format your text without actually seeing it on your image. That’s just klunky and far more time consuming than a WYSIWYG approach would be.
I can’t speak for Krita - I’ve not used it. But as someone who has designed a lot of software I agree with you fully here. Making software intuitive is the hardest and also most important part of my job. When I test with users the first time it soon becomes clear how stuff that me and my team thought made sense is totally opaque to the end users or just doesn’t fit into the real world workflow. It’s all well and good expecting users to learn the software - there has to be an element of that - but if you force thought, cause confusion or waste time every time you do that you add friction to the product. That friction ruins the users experience of the product and can ruin productivity.
There is a balance to be made, complexity where it allows for power is fine, if you have dedicated frequent users. E.g. my favourite editor is Vim - very complicated and (initially) opaque but also extremely powerful and logical once you know it. But complexity that adds no power or complexity in software where you don’t expect users to be using the software frequently enough to be expert in it is not ok.
Just want to chime in that a Krita developer has been working on a complete text tool overhaul from the ground up for the past 5 years or so, and it is just about ready to be pushed into the beta versions, so that pain point should be resolved soon, thankfully.
It may take longer to learn how to do a task with a less polished interface, but if you’re using software “pretty regularly”, then most of your time will be spent doing rather than learning the basic functionality.
Yeah man. I don’t get it these days. Back when all we had was GIMP, I fully understood it. But switching to Krita has been pretty easy. The Photoshop binds are still a bit off, but nothing that you can’t go in and fix up the rest of the way
Yeah, why help build the next “Adobe”? Use and donate to FOSS.
I use Inkscape and Affinity designer interchangeably. Designer is a bit more powerful and for some reason inkscape has issues sometimes but its more straightforward in ways that designer is not.
The Affinity suite is not an Adobe product.
Affinity is not affiliated with Adobe. And presumably because Affinity is higher quality than it’s open source alternatives.
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That makes absolutely no sense
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Windows is fucking miserable and Affinity is not.
It’s not just about quality, there’s a lot missing or honestly plain worse in gimp for example, compared to affinity photo. I’m as big a proponent of OSS as any, it’s just that software isn’t there yet.
What’s more, the target audience for that product are usually people who’ve had their chance encounter with programming and have decided against doing it. My anecdotal experience obviously. Edit: I mean it’s unlikely they will contribute to features
it’s just that software isn’t there yet.
I put about 2000 hours of work into $open_source_project. After a huge release 10xing the quality, we had about 1000x as many users.
The existing user base was ecstatic- for many of them, it was all they ever wanted and more. But we had 1000x new people saying “it just isn’t there yet”
Yes, because everyone has different needs. Even blender, which has gone far and beyond most graphical software, would be a no-go for someone because of one or two specifics.
Again, I firmly believe in OSS, but I don’t see how porting more professional software hurts the community or freedom effort, when our biggest hurdle is adoption. Missing things people need is a barriers of entry. Missing things a workplace needs is an automatic loss.
That happens to the commercial folks too. It is just the nature of the adoption curve.
It is the same with price. A few will say that your product is already worth 10x the price. Most will say it’s too expensive. If you drop the price, a few more will see the value. Lots won’t.
More users is more users though. It is not something to get discouraged about. The advantage with Open Source is that, as long as it is useful to some, we have almost an infinite amount of time to expand it to new audiences. Baby steps pay off for Open Source.
By the time they get feature parity I’ll be dead. Affinity is just plain better right now, and it’s not Adobe.
FYI, Affinity was bought by Canva,
this is probably an advertising.Affinity will probably enshitify in the next release. Hopefully not, but who knows.i did not know that…
No problem. they are great currently.
I expect an affinity subscription plan.
Yep, and then everyone will go start looking for another option again. I hope they don’t, but those CEOs got get their more millions paychecks so they can stand up straight at the country club, somehow.
When the acquisition happened they made a pledge to keep affinity as a separate product and to have perpetual licenses.
Technically they can always introduced a subscription in addition to perpetual licenses but the implication is that they wouldn’t do that.
For what it’s worth, they understand their user base and were vocal about their plans. Maybe they’ll disappoint, but they haven’t really given reason to doubt so far.
I’m almost sure it works with wine
It requires a custom version of wine
Why?
Because for it to run it needs a patched version of wine with dxcore support(or smth like this)
Ok, makes sense
