Linux Corner

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Installed.  However I'll be dashed if I ever turn on the dash.  Running GNOME fallback.

 

Noted that some things went away, and the software centre crashed almost immediately on the reboot, but seems to be OK now.  Much checking around, but with this desktop I think I can just sit tight and put things back as I find they have been dropped.

 

The UNITY desktop still sucks.

 

Later:  Downloaded and installed the hot CD image on my test partition.  Even the official release (the other install was an upgrade) is no great hell.  Seem to be fewer configuration choices than ever.  Couldn't find the way to set a desktop theme as yet.

  Edited April 25, 2013 by A Nonny Moose  

[Alejandro24 575]

Linux Mint 15, Olivia, has been realeased.

 

 

 

I have downloaded it, but I didn't tested yet, I have a lot of things to do since is the final of the semester. But I have new plans for SC4 in Linux, so it will take some weeks to do it.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

If it is based on Ubuntu 13.04 watch out.  The Ubuntu release of Cinnamon is totally lame and seemed to come off the Mint site.  I put it up for a day then backed off to GNOME fallback.  Whoever makes decisions about what's in the release isn't very good.  They keep rewriting stuff that shouldn't be touched, and things keep changing in the interfaces.  Most annoying.  The very long winded change logs are mostly an inside story.  I think every new undergrad they hire to work on this stuff gets a bee in his bonnet and tries to reinvent the wheel.

 

It is getting to be a real pain in the lower regions.  Screw with this, screw with that.  The file system interface never seems to be quite the same from release to release.  I suppose a lot of this stems from debian, but nevertheless some more testing would help them.  I wonder if they've ever considered using the ISO 9000 series of standards and stop playing this six-monthly release nonsense.  I don't think management is an applicable word at Canonical.

 

I've lived with 13.04 since it was officially released, and the number of updates continues to surprise me.  This time they've broken some of the default keyboard functions.

[Alejandro24 575]

Is time to say it Nonny, but despite Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, it doesn't looks or feel like Ubuntu.

 

I have only tested the RC of Cinnamon and MATE, both in LM15RC. Cinnamon 1.8 is more better, that project is reaching a good quality in the traditional desktop, my netbook can handle it with perfection, as I'm using KDE because it were to fluid compared to Cinnamon 1.4 and 1.6.

By the other side, MATE. The traditional Gnome2 desk, it looks retro now, but my old desktop computer can run better with MATE than the Gnome Fallback Sesion, or the confusing XFCE. This is talking about the RC, I didn't test yet the official release, this because I have not too much time now.

 

But the tastes are broken into genres. I like Cinnamon as KDE and Gnome Shell, ....my brother loves Unity.

 

But in the group of Linux Mint in G+ I've readed good reviews and comments about LM15, without counting the common issues like a failed install and looking for the correct driver. Two ways to view it:

http://betanews.com/2013/05/30/linux-mint-15-the-best-linux-distro-gets-better/
http://betanews.com/2013/05/28/dear-linux-im-leaving-you-for-windows-8/

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Desktops are like religions.  There is no arguing about them.  I like the GNOME fallback I am using.  I am not a fan of neither Unity nor GNOME.  My fall back position might be XFCE if the worst came to the worst.  I am an old stick in the mud.  I want what I want when I want it.  No changes.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

I am still running Linux Mint 12 and I think it is about time for me to upgrade. I was wondering what would be a good, stable, up-to-date Linux OS/version/desktop to use and how would I go about upgrading? Also which one looks or behaves similar to Windows 7?

 

 

Thanks for the help,

 

 

--Ocram

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, I am on Ubuntu 13.04 with the GNOME Fallback desktop.  If you like working with menus, it is probably your best bet.  Mint is an Ubuntu derivative.  If you want to be more Linux-like you could try Debian.  I tried the Cinnamon desktop and it is not what I want.

 

As far as upgrading is concerned, save all your personal files and any specific temps you need.  I always save the .mozilla and .thunderbird directories to port all my shortcuts, mail archives and calendar.  Beyond that, you need a list of extra applications you use that are not on default.

 

Download the live CD image, make a disk, and install it on another partition, so you can move your stuff over as needed.  GRUB will look after you.

[Shimmer 0]

Greetings all !!!

 

While I am not really a stranger to Linux or SimCity 4 Deluxe, I am new to using the Steam gaming platform to run SimCity 4 Deluxe and I have not yet been able to get Steam going under my Fedora 18 linux distribution.

 

Since this thread in Simtropolis is quite active and current, I was hoping that some of you might have some experience and helpful hints that might be able to point me in the right direction to get my SC4D playing going again!

 

BTW, I am still on a 32-bit machine so if I ever decide to change my hardware setup, it would probably be to 64-bit in the near future.

 

Regards,

Shimmer

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Welcome to the Linux Corner.

 

You've already solicited my opinion by PM, so I won't repeat that here.

 

Steam for Linux I have not seen, nor do I intend to.  I do wonder how it is intended to work, however, with or without wine?  If with wine, do they now intend to support wine as well as their DRM crap?

[Duke87 1,070]

Sooo... my OS experiment begins. This is my first post made using Linux. Can I join the club now?

 

(Ubuntu 13.04, to answer the next question)

[Alejandro24 575]

Sooo... my OS experiment begins. This is my first post made using Linux. Can I join the club now?

 

(Ubuntu 13.04, to answer the next question)

Welcome Duke, also for Shimmer. Any question don't doubt to ask, not only in this thread, outside there is a universe of people using Linux that can help you.

[Duke87 1,070]

Right, so, first of what is hopefully not too many stupid questions:

 

I installed Wine. Install was successful according to Ubuntu's Software Center, but now I'm running into a dead end actually attempting to use it. As a test case I copied over the exe file for MS Paint onto my new computer. I right click on it, select "run with Wine Windows Program Loader" and... nothing happens. Zilch. Nada. No action, no error message, nothing.

 

What am I doing wrong?

[Alejandro24 575]

Right, so, first of what is hopefully not too many stupid questions:

 

I installed Wine. Install was successful according to Ubuntu's Software Center, but now I'm running into a dead end actually attempting to use it. As a test case I copied over the exe file for MS Paint onto my new computer. I right click on it, select "run with Wine Windows Program Loader" and... nothing happens. Zilch. Nada. No action, no error message, nothing.

 

What am I doing wrong?

 

That's a classic one. Actually you need to do right click in the .exe file and go to properties, in the properties window look for an option that should say something as "Run this file as program". Then it should work because you're giving the permission to run a .exe file, which permission is disabled by default because security reasons. Also try to run another small software, as a portable program.

Before to do this I recommend first to run Wine (look for it at the list of programs), this for generate first an Wine prefix before runing any program and will open the configuration of Wine.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Welcome both.  I am running Ubuntu 13.04 (GNU/Linux 3.8.0-19-generic x86_64).  To get this and more info about your system open a console and type

 

cat /etc/motd

 

 wine --version will get you wine-1.5.31  (in my case).

 

If you don't know, having a directory named bin in your home directory will cause it to be included in the search rules next time you boot.  This allows you to set up scripts as console commands.  For example I start the wine configurator using the command conf which is really bin/conf containing:

 

#!/bin/bash
wine winecfg &>~/wineconf.log

 

The reason for the log file is in case it fails, you get to see the wine console there.

 

There is one more thing you need to do to make a script into a command:  chmod +x bin/<script name>

 

where the <script name> is the script you are making executable.  You do not need extensions on any file name unless the application in which it will be used requires them.

 

Here is a list of my scripts:

 

john@john-12-10:~$ ls bin
bugger  cit   eugor  ForceInstall  landscape  mail        music      newicon  plugtree  psa     psst      sc4   sc4.hdwe  tsct
card    conf  ffox   gmax          maake      mediabuntu  mytest.pl  pingsc4  ps4       pscard  resetang  sc4~  tracsc4   update

As a matter of interest, to start SC4 on my machine I simply type

 

sc4 in a console.  This calls the script:

 

john@john-12-10:~$ cat bin/sc4
#!/bin/bash
date
env WINEPREFIX="/home/john/.wine" \
wine "C:/Program Files (x86)/Maxis/SimCity 4 Deluxe/Apps/SimCity 4.exe" \
 -intro:off -CustomResolution:enabled -r1920x1080x32 -d:software\
 -f -CPUcount:1 -eh:off &>~/sc4.log
date

 

Some notes on this script:

 

The first line starting with #! is a call for the bourne again shell (the default shell of Ubuntu) to execute the script.

 

The date command simply displays the date and time on the console.  I want to know how long I've played.

 

The next four lines are the command to start SC4.  Note it is really only one line because the escape (\) suppresses the newline.  In pathnames for wine it doesn't matter whether you use the slash (/) or the backslash (\) except that you have to remember to escape the escape so to speak.  This means that to get a \ you have to say \\ which is a nuisance when you can do it the Linux way.

 

And of course the final date command gives me the termination time (including CTDs).

 

There is another handy script in that list called newicon.  If you don't want to open a console, you can make a desktop icon by using this script:

 

#!/bin/bash
gnome-desktop-item-edit ~/Desktop/ --create-new

I give you this for free.  It took me quite a bit of digging to get this.  You can change the icon generated by clicking on it.

 

Don't forget to make scripts executable (chmod).

 

Good luck.

 

 

 

[Alejandro24 575]

The efficiency of the script to run SC4 is nice, but for the new users would something confusing, don't you think Nonny?

I've been testing the runs very well under Wine and the system respects the parametters and configurations that you assigned.

[Duke87 1,070]

So, once more unto the Wine problem: it wasn't that the file wasn't set as executable, that was already done. I figured out how to run it from the Terminal and according to the error I got it couldn't find a DLL file. The missing DLL was present in .wine/drive_c/windows/system32 (equivalent to where the paint.exe file is normally located in Windows), so I moved the exe there. 

 

No DLL error anymore but now I have a different problem. When I try to run the program by right click I get an error that just says "File not found" (whuh? I just right clicked on the file!). Attempting it from the Terminal I get the following:

 

wine: cannot find L"C:\\windows\\system32\\paint.exe"

which seems to say basically the same thing.

 

When I run winemine.exe it works just fine, so Wine itself seems to work - it's just behaving weirdly with this particular program.

 

Any more ideas, anyone?

[Alejandro24 575]

So, once more unto the Wine problem: it wasn't that the file wasn't set as executable, that was already done. I figured out how to run it from the Terminal and according to the error I got it couldn't find a DLL file. The missing DLL was present in .wine/drive_c/windows/system32 (equivalent to where the paint.exe file is normally located in Windows), so I moved the exe there. 

 

No DLL error anymore but now I have a different problem. When I try to run the program by right click I get an error that just says "File not found" (whuh? I just right clicked on the file!). Attempting it from the Terminal I get the following:

 

wine: cannot find L"C:\\windows\\system32\\paint.exe"

which seems to say basically the same thing.

 

When I run winemine.exe it works just fine, so Wine itself seems to work - it's just behaving weirdly with this particular program.

 

Any more ideas, anyone?

Looking around to the net, I found this: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=660408&page=4

 

Hope so will help you to run Paint.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Actually, I don't bother with Paint.  If you want similar functionality, try mtPaint, which runs in native mode.

 

My script was created long before the launcher.  It works, so I won't change.  I don't think a three line script is very complex.

[Duke87 1,070]

Actually, I don't bother with Paint.  If you want similar functionality, try mtPaint, which runs in native mode.

 

I did. Guess what I also can't get to work?

 

I installed it, it stuck itself on my launcher, but when I click to open it nothing happens. Running it from the terminal yields:

 

error while loading shared libraries: libjasper.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

 

Downloaded and installed the "jasper" package through apt-get. That did not help.

 

 

But hey, I got GIMP to work. Success with something! *fist-pump*

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Jasper has to do with the file system using ext2/ext3 images.  I do have libjasper1 loaded however.

 

You get a clearer picture by using the Synaptic Package Manager which I recommend.  This is a GUI equivalent of apt with some features you don't otherwise see.

 

If you don't have any need for ext2 or ext3 file systems, you don't need Jasper.  Synaptic will make things clearer.

 

Oh, and I just got wine 1.6 (installing now).

[Shimmer 0]

Hi everyone,

 

I had SimCity 4 Deluxe v1.1.638 going reasonably well under Fedora 17 Linux distribution using PlayOnLInux on a 32-bit PC, but when I mucked up my installation with an attempt to upgrade to v1.1.640... I just decided to trash everything and upgrade to Fedora 18 and retry again.

 

Not having any luck... I even tried Steam and that is a whole baliwack of heartache.  Just wanted to know if there is any other Fedora linux SimCity players out there and wanted to know if they had any luck.  I am using the original SimCity 4 Deluxe CDs which for some reason WINE version 1.5.29 is hiccuping on the installation.

 

Even with a little bit of encouraging help from Nonny Moose, I just cannot make it past the installation.  It takes the liscence key and then does a segmentation fault.  It worked in Fedora 17 under PlayOnLinux fine, so I am supposing it must be the WINE version  *sigh*

 

Has anyone else tried it with WINE v1.5.29 and found that it doesn't work?  Oh, another thing I was wondering is if anybody found that SELinux, WINE and SC4D play well together?

 

Shimmer!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, did you check to see whether the segmentation fault was in wine or your O/S?  What was on the console record from wine?  It was probably lost because you asked to have the installer run under wine, but did not initiate it from there.

 

Let's see:  I run Ubuntu, Alejandro runs Linux Mint (an Ubuntu derivative).  I don't know any Fedora users.  Is it a debian derivative or from some other stock?  Anyway, wine is now up to 6.0-rc2, but I ran all the betas preceding that.

 

The only trick with the CDs (when I had them) is that to change from disk 1 to disk 2 you have to use the dismount logic in the O/S to switch disks.  There is no auto swap in Linux because you changed the disk.

 

I am currently using the download version from GamersGate.  Runs install in under five minutes, no fooling around.  I recommend you lose the CDs, and Steam.  Get a copy of the Deluxe download from GamersGate and save the installation directory.  You can then install SC4D to your heart's delight as often as you want.  If you still get segv faults, then you might want to update wine as well.

[Alejandro24 575]

If you're installing directly from the CD's it will be really hard to install, for some reason Wine cuts the installation at the middle, at least that happened to me.

I reccommend to do this: copy the CD's into an .iso image and then mount them in a virtual unit.

 

This is what I do:

1 sudo mkdir /media/unidadvirtual
2 sudo mount /home/{tu carpeta personal}/SC4D_Disc1.iso /media/unidadvirtual
3 sudo umount /media/unidadvirtual && sudo mount /home/{tu carpeta personal}/SC4D_Disc2.iso /media/unidadvirtual
4 sudo umount /media/unidadvirtual

 

I don't know how it should be for Fedora.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Just got an update (again) to wine-1.6-rc3.  That's one a day multiple vitamin updates.  wine is getting to be a very large, intricate package.
 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Update of the day: wine-1.6-rc4
 

[Alejandro24 575]

A sad news: the creator of the system of packets Yum died the last monday: http://www.muylinux.com/2013/07/10/muere-seth-vidal-yum/

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Requiescat in pacem.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

wine 1.6 final release received today from my distributor.

[Alejandro24 575]

wine 1.6 final release received today from my distributor.

I've installed it yesterday in LM15 KDE. A neat development, but I'm having problems with DirectX.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I am not having any DX problems.  Did you get it using winetricks?