Far and away

I have spent the last couple of weeks adding and getting some frustrations to adding new applications to my Ubuntu 9.10 desktop system. The following have been installed and met with varying degrees of success.

• Online games 
• GuildWars
• Dungeons and Dragons
• Eve Online
• Secondlife
• facebook browser flash games
• seamonkey
• gpodder
• Kodak digital camera 

Needless to say, these have revealed to me that, even though I am a proponent of linux systems, and I find many of the tools and server level applications critical to my use within a business environment.  These end user, recreational applications on relatively modern equipment and newer released distribution have proved to be less than glowing.

To start in this posting, I'll hit one of my high points.  Installing GuildWars MMORPG.  Ok, I knew this was a Windows released game, had some higher level graphics requirements, some networking needs, and did periodic system updates while ingame.  I expected some pain.   I also knew this would require either a vmware solution to run under a copy of Windows (not a viable solution in my list), or purchasing the Cedega or Codeweavers solution that's been tuned for gaming on linux, or the repo included Wine solution.  Since I didn't want to mess with virtual machines, and the inherent problems there, and I didn't want to begin this endeavor by paying for a subscription service, I decided to try Wine.

So, Wine, install simply and easily via the Ubuntu repository using the Synaptic manager.  I have to say, that everything I've found so far is extremely simple to install and update if its in a subscribed repo.  Basically startup Synaptic, do a quick search for what I want, hit one checkbox marking for install, then apply.

Once the base Wine updates were completed, I went out to the winehq site and did a quick check on the status of GuildWars.  According to the DB there, this application is listed at a "platinum" level for all major linux distro's. Which according to Winehq Platinum is "...Applications which install and run flawlessly on an out-of-the-box Wine installation..."

Now on to the real fun, seeing if this commercial Windows game would really install.  Inserting the install CDrom media, and using gnome gui browser to locate the setup.exe application.  Once found, a right click on the program opened a menu option allowing to run under wine.  This initiated what appeared to be a typical installation session.  At the end, I have a new desktop entry, and a shortcut in the wine/applications menu.

Launching this proved to hold no surprises, an initial installation of this game requires patience as it first will download all patches since the install media was released.  Plus any world updates.  This alone took over an hour, but would be the same whether this were Windows or not.

But, once completed, I was able to load and play the game without any problems.  I had full sound effects, and was able to adjust the various display options without any snags.  And, running at a high level for graphics appears to have no slowdowns of FPS loss that was noticeable. 

I just wish my other forays into setting up commercial games was as successfully easy to do.  I will hit on the highpoints and lowpoints to the installation of those in a later posting.

winehq - Run Windows applications in Linux, BSD, Solaris, and Mac OS.
Quick link to the GuildWars installation instructions within winedb.
Ubuntu Linux
Cedega Transgaming application
Codeweavers cross over games application