A question about the inclusion of PlayOnLinux

[d2KUpfGN]

A few days ago, I tried out Linux Mint, and got some games to work through PlayOnLinux. Soon after, I decided that LMDE's more up-to-date version of certain utilities better suited my needs, so I switched to that. However, I now find that PlayOnLinux isn't functioning properly with LMDE 2, so though my required utilities are fine, my games aren't.

Is this expected to be just a temporary problem? What sort of time-frame should I expect? I have no problem waiting, as long as I have some idea. Thanks.


P.S. Is there a way to copy/paste from the System Info window, instead of typing it by hand?

Operating System: LMDE 2 Cinnamon 64-bit
Cinnamon Version: 2.4.8
Linux Kernel: 3.16.0-4-amd64
Processor: Intel Pentium CPU G3220 @ 3.00GHz x 2
Memory: 7.7 GiB
Hard Drive: 230.6 GB
Graphics Card: Intel Corporation Xenon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (soon to be updated to a GTX 750 Ti card)

[Ark987]

I have more or less the same system as you and I was in exactly the same situation. I was using LM 17.1 then decided to try LMDE 2 because the pure Debian base was more appealing for me, until I found my self in that situation.

What did you experienced?

A common issue that I found is for full-screen games I couldn't change the resolution and after closing the game the cinnamon desktop did not properly return back to its previous resolution (1980x1080), usually I was thrown off to a 640x400 resolution. But this not only occurred in PlayOnLinux/Wine, it even happen with native linux games like UT2004.

Another issue on PlayOnLinux, if I remember correctly was some sort of conflict in missing windows libraries for example DirectX7 was missing or it could not be detected by the game in the Wine environment, where as in (again) in LM 17.1 is just matter of point&click and everything works without errors or glitches. The annoying part is that everything install properly without errors or missing dependencies, only the execution of games are messed up somehow.

But then I've just roll-back to LM 17.1 although I still want to switch.

Edit: Wile browsing a bit in the forums I found this topic that mention a couple of things that I've also experienced:http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 8&t=192282.

[d2KUpfGN]

What did you experienced?

Thus far, my attempts at using LMDE's implementation of PlayOnLinux to install games, be they from PlayOnLinux's own list or an outside installer, have resulted in error windows. For example, installing Path of Exile from the list gives several messages of "Error in POL_Wine // Wine seems to have crashed // If your program is running, just ignore this message", apparently continuing on as best it can, but ultimately failing with "Error in find_binary // drive_c folder does not exists". I've also tried setting up Path of Exile manually, but the errors begin with using PlayOnLinux's virtual drive creator, both in 32- and 64-bit virtual drives.

[Ark987]

What did you experienced?

Thus far, my attempts at using LMDE's implementation of PlayOnLinux to install games, be they from PlayOnLinux's own list or an outside installer, have resulted in error windows. For example, installing Path of Exile from the list gives several messages of "Error in POL_Wine // Wine seems to have crashed // If your program is running, just ignore this message", apparently continuing on as best it can, but ultimately failing with "Error in find_binary // drive_c folder does not exists". I've also tried setting up Path of Exile manually, but the errors begin with using PlayOnLinux's virtual drive creator, both in 32- and 64-bit virtual drives.

That reminds me, I also noticed that when you create a new virtual drive in POL it doesn't work automatically. What I remember that I did on LMDE2 was after getting that error that you mention:

- From the main POL window click "Configure"
- Select the virtual drive that you are working with
- Go to "Wine" tab
- Click "Configure Wine"

I don't recall that I've use any of the install wizard from POL because of that crash error, perhaps you could manually run the installer if you manage to get a working container.

[d2KUpfGN]

- From the main POL window click "Configure"
- Select the virtual drive that you are working with
- Go to "Wine" tab
- Click "Configure Wine"

After creating the virtual drive, albeit with the aforementioned error message, I clicked on the Wine tab and selected "Configure Wine" as you suggested. A PlayOnLinux loading window popped up, just as one might expect prior to seeing winecfg start, but then it closed with nothing else happening. I tried this with both 32- and 64-bit virtual drives, using their respective 1.7.27-PathOfExile-1.7.27 Wine versions.

Looking at the directory "PlayOnLinux's virtual drives/PoE", I see only playonlinux.cfg and playonlinux.log -- the last lines in the latter of which state this:

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[04/10/15 18:12:31] - Running wine-1.7.27-PathOfExile-1.7.27 winecfg (Working directory : /usr/share/playonlinux/python)
/usr/share/playonlinux/lib/wine.lib: line 527: /home/[my name]/.PlayOnLinux//wine/linux-x86/1.7.27-PathOfExile-1.7.27/bin/wine: No such file or directory

[Ark987]

I'm afraid that troubleshooting that will be very tedious. Today I had a bit of time to look into this matter and I found this particular bug report in Debian:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo ... bug=776784

As I noticed and some other users in this forums is, on a fresh install of LMDE2, installing wine from the default repositories does not work. I've managed to install some additional packages manually on LMDE2 and get a working wine and playonlinux, but still no menu entries are created for wine in Cinnamon menu (PlayOnLinux shortcut is created properly).

Here is what I did: DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK

The easy way:

Edit: After browsing the forums and gathering more information I've realized that if you don't mind adding an external repository to your system you can have PlayOnLinux up and running in less than 5-10 minutes.

The 3rd Party repository used is http://liquorix.net/

First I recommend to remove wine and playonlinux packages from your system and then remove the folder .wine* and .PlayOnLinux from your home directory. The idea behind this is to start from scratch with a "clean" environment, you can use synaptics to remove the packages.

1. Open a terminal window and create the your new source list file :

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sudo touch /etc/apt/sources.list.d/liquorix.list

2. Temporarily change the file permission to append data with 'sudo'

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sudo chmod 646 /etc/apt/sources.list.d/liquorix.list

3. Insert the configuration parameter to liquorix.list file:
Refer to: http://liquorix.net/

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sudo echo "# /etc/apt/sources.list.d/liquorix.list" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/liquorix.list
sudo echo "deb http://liquorix.net/debian sid main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/liquorix.list
sudo echo "deb-src http://liquorix.net/debian sid main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/liquorix.list
sudo echo "" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/liquorix.list
sudo echo "# Mirrors:" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/liquorix.list
sudo echo "#" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/liquorix.list
sudo echo "# Unit193 - France" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/liquorix.list
sudo echo "# deb http://mirror.unit193.net/liquorix sid main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/liquorix.list
sudo echo "# deb-src http://mirror.unit193.net/liquorix sid main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/liquorix.list
sudo echo "#" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/liquorix.list
sudo echo "# Liquorix - Cloudfront Global CDN" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/liquorix.list
sudo echo "# deb http://cdn.liquorix.net/debian sid main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/liquorix.list
sudo echo "# deb-src http://cdn.liquorix.net/debian sid main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/liquorix.list

4. Change the file permission to its default values:

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sudo chmod 644 /etc/apt/sources.list.d/liquorix.list

5. Run:

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sudo apt-get update

6. Install Liquorix key:

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sudo apt-get install liquorix-keyring

7. Run:

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sudo apt-get update

8. Install Wine 1.7

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sudo apt-get install wine1.7

9. Install PlayOnLinux

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sudo apt-get install playonlinux

10. Enjoy a working wine/playonlinux environment.

Using this method does create the menu entries for Wine in the menu and updates the Nemo file manager, but you still have to do right-click on the *.exe file and choose Open With > Wine Windows Program Loader


The hard way:

Edit: This is how I did it the first time. It requires that you manually install some .deb packages and resolve any dependencies using the common utilities (apt-get, gdebi, etc)

- Cleanup your home folder from any old wine configuration. Remove '.wine*' and '.PlayOnLinux'. Be careful with .PlayOnLinux folder you may need to backup if you have any program.

- Remove playonlinux, wine and related packages. I'v used synaptics.

- Open a terminal window

- Download the packages

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wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/w/wine-gecko-1.4/libwine-gecko-1.4_1.4+dfsg1-3_all.deb
wget http://dev.carbon-project.org/debian/wine-unstable/libwine-unstable_1.7.15-0.1_i386.deb
wget http://dev.carbon-project.org/debian/wine-unstable/wine32-unstable_1.7.15-0.1_i386.deb
wget http://dev.carbon-project.org/debian/wine-unstable/wine-unstable_1.7.15-0.1_i386.deb 

- Install the downloaded packages

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sudo dpkg -i ./libwine-gecko-1.4_1.4+dfsg1-3_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i ./libwine-unstable_1.7.15-0.1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i ./wine32-unstable_1.7.15-0.1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i ./wine-unstable_1.7.15-0.1_i386.deb

NOTES:

If you get into dependencies problem, use the GDebi gui tool to install the packages. You have to install them in the given order:

1. libwine-gecko-1.4_1.4+dfsg1-3_all.deb
2. libwine-unstable_1.7.15-0.1_i386.deb --> At this point the installation will stop and it will ask you to run an additional command.
3. Run the command:

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sudo apt-get install -f

accept the installation of the extra packages
4. libwine-unstable_1.7.15-0.1_i386.deb (Use GDebi again to install the package that failed in the previous step, this time will be installed properly)
5. wine32-unstable_1.7.15-0.1_i386.deb
6. wine-unstable_1.7.15-0.1_i386.deb

- Install lib32ncurses5, it is needed for wincfg command so you won't get any error messages.

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sudo apt-get install lib32ncurses5

- Run winecfg for the first time and install any runtime if asked (e.g mono runtime, gecko, etc.)

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winecfg

- Install playonlinux and accept the changes

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sudo apt-get install playonlinux

- Done, you can close the terminal window
- Try to install the program that you want from PlayOnLinux GUI

After all this you should have a working version of wine 1.7.15, hopefully without errors.

Is there anything that LMDE2 maintainers could do to fix the broken wine version? It would be a pity to get stuck with this packages on a LTS release for a couple of years.

P.S.: The default package 'wine-development' does not have such issues. After installing it, 'winecfg-development' command runs without errors, but PlayOnLinux does not work with such development packages.

Edit:
1. Forgot to mention to remove previous wine/playonlinux packages.
2. Added some troubleshooting notes.
3. Added a missing library to remove the error when running winecfg command: https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=29543
4. Added an easier method to install a newer version of wine using http://liquorix.net/ repository

[wnarifin]

Thanks. The easy way worked well