Install Affinity apps (Designer / Photo) on Debian Linux

This is a step-by-step guide to make you install Affinity apps on Linux, covers some issues you might run into when following the original guide. Also this guide do not use "rum" to run wine as the orgin post suggested, but it will work anyway.

Thanks to James McDonnell's work ElementalWarrior-wine, this custom build of wine can run Affinity apps in linux with basic functions (saving, editing) working properly. Which becomes the best option to run Affinity on Linux for now, since other alternatives like Lutris still suffers to get the directory linking working, Bottles still glitches, Winapps is hard to setup if you need hardware acceleration.

Big shout out to James McDonnell, he's doing god's work.

Reference

Affinity Suite v2.0.4 on linux [ Wine ]

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Installation

Get WinMetadata/ from Windows System

You will need to get WinMetadata/ files from a windows virtual machine, partition or from a friend

💡 For convenience, the needed file is provided below:

WinMetadata.zip

This folder in Windows is located in:

C:/Windows/System32/WinMetadata

Install wine (custom build)

1. Install dependencies needed to build wine

   💡 For details or other distros, see: https://wiki.winehq.org/Building_Wine#Satisfying_Build_Dependencies

   # You need git.
   sudo apt install git
   
   # Common graphics library
   sudo apt install libvulkan1
   
   # Common build dependencies
   sudo apt install gcc flex bison
   
   # Wine
   sudo apt install wine winetricks
   
   # Wine build dependencies (x86 specific)
   sudo apt install libx11-dev:i386 libfreetype6-dev:i386
   
   # Wine build dependencies - necessary
   sudo apt install gcc-multilib gcc-mingw-w64 libasound2-dev libdbus-1-dev libfontconfig-dev libfreetype-dev libgnutls28-dev libgl-dev libunwind-dev libx11-dev libxcomposite-dev libxcursor-dev libxfixes-dev libxi-dev libxrandr-dev libxrender-dev libxext-dev
   
   # Wine build dependencies - needed often
   sudo apt install libgstreamer1.0-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev libosmesa6-dev libsdl2-dev libvulkan-dev
   
   # (Optional) reboot the system for drivers to work
   systemctl reboot
   

2. Get ElementalWarrior wine fork:

   cd ~/Documents
   git clone https://gitlab.winehq.org/ElementalWarrior/wine.git ElementalWarrior-wine

3. Create new folders for building wine

   cd ~/Documents/ElementalWarrior-wine/
   
   mkdir wine32-build/ wine64-build/ wine-install/

4. Build wine64, configure with your $USER

   cd ~/Documents/ElementalWarrior-wine/wine64-build/
   
   /home/$USER/Documents/ElementalWarrior-wine/configure --prefix=/home/$USER/Documents/ElementalWarrior-wine/wine-install --enable-win64
   
   # Run in threads to speed up, up this number if you have a powerful PC
   make -j 8 

5. Build wine32, configure path with your $USER

   cd ~/Documents/ElementalWarrior-wine/wine32-build/
   
   PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/lib32/pkgconfig /home/$USER/Documents/ElementalWarrior-wine/configure --with-wine64=/home/$USER/Documents/ElementalWarrior-wine/wine64-build --prefix=/home/$USER/Documents/ElementalWarrior-wine/wine-install
   
   # Run in threads to speed up, up this number if you have a powerful PC
   make -j 8

6. Wait for it to finish and install wine-32 build with:

   make install

   You now have a folder containing a build of ElementalWarrior's wine fork, the built binary is inside wine-install/ now

7. Copy the wine custom build to a folder you desired

   mkdir ~/.local/wine
   
   cp -r ~/Documents/ElementalWarrior-wine/wine-install ~/.local/wine/ElementalWarrior-wine

8. Create new wine prefix and install dotnet4.8, corefonts (may took a while)

   mkdir ~/wine
   
   WINEPREFIX=~/wine/affinity winetricks

   1. Choose “Select the default wineprefix”
   2. In “Install a Windows DLL or component”, choose and install dotnet48
   3. In “Install a font”, choose and install corefonts

   Or you can just do it in command line:

   WINEPREFIX=~/wine/affinity winetricks dotnet48 corefonts

9. Set the wines Windows version to win10:

   WINEPREFIX=~/wine/affinity winecfg -v win10

10. Copy the WinMetadata/ folder into the drive_c in this config, where ever $PATH_TO is:

    cp -r /$PATH_TO/WinMetadata/ ~/wine/affinity/drive_c/windows/system32/

    As mentioned above, just rip it from any Windows machine (C:/Windows/System32/WinMetadata)

Install Affinity apps

1. Execute the Affinity installer with the custom Wine build, with your $PATH_TO_INSTALLER, installer version may also vary (use the latest version of installer if possible):

   cd /PATH_TO_INSTALLER/
   
   # Install Affinity Designer
   WINEPREFIX=~/wine/affinity/ ~/.local/wine/ElementalWarrior-wine/bin/wine affinity-designer-1.10.6.exe
   
   # Install Affinity Photo
   WINEPREFIX=~/wine/affinity/ ~/.local/wine/ElementalWarrior-wine/bin/wine affinity-photo-1.10.6.exe

   Install Affinity apps like you will do in Windows.

2. You can test if Affinity apps works now:

   # Run Affinity Photo
   WINEPREFIX=~/wine/affinity ~/.local/wine/ElementalWarrior-wine/bin/wine ~/wine/affinity/drive_c/Program\ Files/Affinity/Photo/Photo.exe
   
   # Run Affinity Designer
   WINEPREFIX=~/wine/affinity ~/.local/wine/ElementalWarrior-wine/bin/wine ~/wine/affinity/drive_c/Program\ Files/Affinity/Designer/Designer.exe

3. (Optional) Adjust the dpi in winecfg to make eyes easier:

   WINEPREFIX=~/wine/affinity winecfg

   Then set the dpi like this(Higher = Larger on screen):

   

Create .desktop shortcuts

If Wine failed to auto create .desktop file shortcuts properly (Which mostly WILL), use the following guide to create it manually:

1. Copy the icon.png files into ~/wine/affinity for convenience:

   cd ~/wine/affinity
   
   # Find and copy AffinityDesigner icon
   find drive_c/Program\ Files/Affinity/Designer/ -name 'icon.png' -exec cp {} ./icon_designer.png \;
   
   # Find and copy AffinityPhoto icon
   find drive_c/Program\ Files/Affinity/Photo/ -name 'icon.png' -exec cp {} ./icon_photo.png \;

   Now you should have it like this in ~/wine/affinity:

   

2. Remove broken .desktop files in ~/.local/share/applications :

   cd ~/.local/share/applications/wine
   rm Affinity\ Designer.desktop
   rm Affinity\ Photo.desktop
   
   ## Do this for cleanup, but caution if running other wine apps
   # cd ~/.local/share/applications
   # rm wine*

3. Create a desktop files using this long command :

   Fast method:

   Copy the following commands as a whole and paste it into the terminal, enter your username when prompted:

   # Copy the whole paragraph, enter username when prompted
   
   ### START ###
   
   cd ~/.local/share/applications;read -p "Enter username:" "USER";
   echo "
   [Desktop Entry]
   Type=Application
   Name=Affinity Designer
   Icon=/home/$USER/wine/affinity/icon_designer.png
   Exec=sh -c 'WINEPREFIX=/home/$USER/wine/affinity /home/$USER/.local/wine/ElementalWarrior-wine/bin/wine /home/$USER/wine/affinity/drive_c/Program\ Files/Affinity/Designer/Designer.exe'
   Terminal=false
   " > affinity_designer.desktop;
   echo "
   [Desktop Entry]
   Type=Application
   Name=Affinity Photo
   Icon=/home/$USER/wine/affinity/icon_photo.png
   Exec=sh -c 'WINEPREFIX=/home/$USER/wine/affinity /home/$USER/.local/wine/ElementalWarrior-wine/bin/wine /home/$USER/wine/affinity/drive_c/Program\ Files/Affinity/Photo/Photo.exe'
   Terminal=false
   " > affinity_photo.desktop;
   
   ### END ###

   Manual method:

   Create these files manually using your favorite editor (nano ,vim…), replace $USER with your username:

   ~/.local/share/applications/affinity_designer.desktop:

   #~/.local/share/applications/affinity_designer.desktop
   
   [Desktop Entry]
   Type=Application
   Name=Affinity Designer
   Icon=/home/$USER/wine/affinity/icon_designer.png
   Exec=sh -c 'WINEPREFIX=/home/$USER/wine/affinity /home/$USER/.local/wine/ElementalWarrior-wine/bin/wine /home/$USER/wine/affinity/drive_c/Program\ Files/Affinity/Designer/Designer.exe'
   Terminal=false

   ~/.local/share/applications/affinity_photo.desktop:

   #~/.local/share/applications/affinity_photo.desktop
   
   [Desktop Entry]
   Type=Application
   Name=Affinity Photo
   Icon=/home/$USER/wine/affinity/icon_photo.png
   Exec=sh -c 'WINEPREFIX=/home/$USER/wine/affinity /home/$USER/.local/wine/ElementalWarrior-wine/bin/wine /home/$USER/wine/affinity/drive_c/Program\ Files/Affinity/Photo/Photo.exe'
   Terminal=false

4. Affinity apps should be good to go right now:

   

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TroubleShooting

Switch to Vulkan renderer

If experienced glitches when running Affinity apps, try switch to Vulkan renderer by doing:

WINEPREFIX=~/wine/affinity winetricks renderer=vulkan

Switch it back to OpenGL by doing (If it somehows breaks things):

WINEPREFIX=~/wine/affinity winetricks renderer=gl

Can’t even get Debian12 to run on my machine

If you’re using Nvidia’s graphics card as new as 30 series, chances are Debian12 will straight up glitch out if you boot into the desktop. You need to install Nvidia’s proprietary drivers beforehand:

1. Reboot your PC, when screen presenting in grub, navigate to Advanced boot options, and enter recovery mode (Choose the option with the (recovery) suffix)

2. Login as root, check if internet connection is present by $ping google.com

3. If internet is not connected and you’re sure cable is plugged in, connect to internet manually:

   dhclient
   
   # OR
   dhclient eth0

4. Edit /etc/apt/sources.list with your favorite editor, add contrib non-free non-free-firmware in all repos

   # /etc/apt/sources.list
   
   deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
   deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
   
   deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
   deb-src http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
   
   deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
   deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware

5. Install nvidia-driver package

   # Install driver
   apt update
   apt install nvidia-driver 
   
   # reboot after completion
   systemctl reboot

   Then you’re good to go.