OK thanks for confirming. I’ll stick with Affinity for now. I didn’t know abit kdenlive, something to check out. I’m still getting use to davinci resolve as it is.

You have a good point in needing to try other things, but there’s also a reasonable need to stick with the workflow that works for you.

One of their pledges when they were bought was to always have a standalone product to buy so people don’t have to do subscriptions.

That’s what I do. There’s few programs I still need windows for so I just spin up a VM for them.

How’s the gimp/krita/inkscape transition going? I’ve used Gimp and Inkscape, and they are fine tools, but I don’t think they are Affinity level yet. Though admittedly it’s been a few years since I last touched them.

Question, are you running it? I got really hopeful about it but feedback I read said it wasn’t very good. It worked, technically, but was buggy making it less than ideal. I forget all the details but it was enough to make me not want to even try it.

Well, considering all the tobacco companies entrenched themselves in food companies you’re basically right.

It’s why foods are addictive, and have very little nutritional value. It’s beyond “oh no its full of sugar” it the fact that everything is processed and is full of fake sugar (as an example).

There’s something about simplicity that is underated.

Technically my first ditro was SuSE a loooong time ago but I didn’t stick with it. Then back when Ubuntu became he new hit thing I tried that, but again didn’t stick with it.

I have now loaded up Mint and that’s the one I’m running with. Mind you, all distros have come a long way since my prior Linux dealings but Mint is the one to make me permanently switch.

I agree with you, but there’s two sides of the coin.

I would rather pay for a finished product that is good. Sure I can download Linux for free, but I’d rather pay for it. I’d rather support teams that are putting out a product to ensure it is the best it can be and be continually maintained.

FOSS doesn’t have to be free. Nor should it be.

However when projects get organized like that they become organizations. Organizations become businesses. And that’s fine. Let’s support them so they can eat and feed their kids.

So it begs the question, if I feel that way about them is it fine to support non open source orgs and software? Of course it is.

So it basically comes down to the complaining that the software is not good enough.

Of course “good enough” isn’t binary, so if its on the threshold of usability I use it and if its severely lacking then I don’t. No big deal.

If its free, then there is no reason to complain regardless. If you’re paying for it, I think your opinion has a bit more weight. Of course there’s still a scale. If it’s so far removed from usability then I just don’t buy it. Windows is a good example of that. But if its close, voicing your opinion that you want certain features is more than fine. It doesn’t remove your support. Wanting Affinity on Linux is a fine desire. If they haven’t said they aren’t going to then asking isn’t a complaint. It’s a want.

I use Affinity because its the best solution I can find. I would love to have it on Linux. Maybe one day it will happen, but I’m not holding my breath. Supporting Affinity in hopes that they make it better for me (for my preferred platform) is OK, because I’m finding a way to use the product that suits me today. If that way becomes too much hassle tomorrow, I’ll move on. But if they make it easy for me to stay with them then I won’t. But either way, supporting Gimp won’t make it Affinity. It’ll just make Gimp a better Gimp.

I guess it boils down to, do you support something that isn’t what you want in hopes it becomes what you want it to be or do you support something that is exactly what you want, hoping it will go to where you want it?

Sorry I rambled on there (I’m tired). I do agree with you but there’s a counter point I also agree with. I don’t think they are exclusive.

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.

What iffy dealings are you referring to? Because they were acquired? They’ve been established, and restablished after being acquired, as being completely privacy focused.

My only criticism is that they don’t always play nice with VPNs.

But yes, SearXNG is a great way to go too.

I haven’t used DDG in years. I’ve been using Start Page and its fit all my needs (its basically old google before enshitification).

I’ve played with searxng which seems promising but I haven’t given it enough time. But it seems like I might eventually move there.

Just as an observation, the design on those phone screens look like spiders. Colorful spiders. Like if spiders became power rangers.
Now your day is complete. Carry on.

Lol. Well, that’s most people’s take on privacy. OMG they are taking our data and showing us ads that we hate. But I guess we can’t do anything about it. Oh well.

Correct. While there are many (good) programs available for no money, that is charity based on desire and passion.

Free in FOSS isn’t about price, it’s about freedom.

Well no, the intent is not to inconvenience others, but to not inconvenience yourself.

I love animals. Dogs, cats, rabbits, whatever. Love them all. I’m highly allergic to most of them though.

As a customer of an establishment, why do I need to deal with the animal that belongs to another customer of the establishment? And I’m not being a jerk. I’m not complaining or making a fuss, but if I’m trying to buy toilet paper I shouldn’t need to worry about hair, dander, or if somebody’s dog is well behaved or not. I am the one being inconvenienced, and there doesn’t seem to be a good reason for it.

That goes to the point of the comment you replied to. And to your point, if nobody else is being bothered… Are they checking if others are being bothered? Usually not. That’s a generalization but I can say in my experience it’s true more often than not (and I notice when it is). I’m not saying to ban pets in stores, but it should not be the norm and expect others to just deal with it.

I take the stance that I’m privacy minded and while I think everybody should be I don’t force my opinion on them. I do express myself and usually my “odd” behavior makes people I know question me, which I then give an answer for.

Most people don’t understand why they should strive for privacy. I usually start soft with ads because it’s a universal that nobody likes ads and they’ve experienced all the listening and tracking stuff but not connected the dots.

If they are responsive then in later conversations I can go more into deeper thoughts regarding it all. If I rake them down the rabbit hole right away their head will explode and run away.

I recently swapped to Mint and have been enjoying it. I still have Windows as my daily driver and I have a handful of things that I still need windows for, but I have a media center and a gaming PC set up both on mint. There was an odd quirk with Steam where it didn’t launch after some update, and it was a bit asinine to be honest. But after a few hours of research online I found the issue and modified a file so it loaded properly. Stuff like that sucks, but it gives me experience navigating the OS and understanding how it works.

To your point though, it overall just works. My wife uses it no problem and is getting use to where things are. I maintain the system though, ensuring updates are applied and searching for solutions when needed (for instance, we use caffeine to stop the monitor from going to sleep when playing games with a controller)

Have you checked out Affinity? They support Mac and iPad, and are comparable with the core Adobe suite. Its a buy once scenario (per major version release). My only problem is they don’t support Linux.

Of note, they were purchased last year by Canva, but it has been stated they will keep the Affinity products separate for purchase.

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Don’t kid. I did that with a folder in my testing just to eliminate the variables. Of course I put it back.

My issue was that my initial setup was accessing it from a different machine, and windows at that. I had to simplify in order to make it all mentally make sense.