Family Historian User Group

I have successfully installed a registered copy of V5.0.7 on Linux, Ubuntu 12.04 using Wine v 1.4. This gives a workable install. There are two obvious problems.
1) Clicking on the help files can't access the .chm (compiled HTML help files) and shuts down the programme. There is an easy workround to access these from outside Family Historian so this is not a major problem.
2) When reports are created the graphics part appears (the linking lines) but text can't be seen. The text does show in print preview however so it seems to be only a screen rendering problem.

My wish is that the developers would produce "Wine ready" versions for those of us who do not want to maintain a copy of Windows for one programme and indeed for all Linux users.

At the risk of being thought unhelpful - isn't this proposal the wrong way round? Shouldn't Wine do what Windows does? Isn't this a flaw in Wine that needs to be fixed there?

Having said that - if there were a simple fix, then rather than wait on Wine, a pragmatic alteration of FH might help. But I am unclear about the practicalities of testing that....

Peter

Can you share your Wine version of FH (my abilities with Wine I suspect rather than anything wrong with Wine on the Mac)? I haven't managed to get it working on my MAC the way you have. I have to run it using Virtual Box with a legit version of Windows XP.

If you enter Linux Wine in the Search box top right you will find several threads going back several years on related topics.

In particular the thread Using Family Historian on the Linux Operating Sys (9265) refers to a Wine appdb page for Family Historian at http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.p ... &iId=21687 and maybe it is there that your problems should be reported.

Thanks Mike, I will give it another go when I get back home.

Thank you Bruce, Colin and Mike,

In principal I agree that the problem would ideally be sorted by a 'perfect' version of Wine. However, it is inherent in the nature of Wine programs that the community developers are always trying to catch up with developments in Windows and Windows based programs. Over the years the range of programs that will run through it has increased considerably. I have both the Surname Atlas and Parish Locator (ParLoc) running as well as my workable Family Historian. Wine can be modified in various ways to 'fix' or work around particular problems with specific programs but the problem lies in being able to know sufficient of the internal workings of the problem program to come up with such a fix.

As I see it the developers of Family Historian (of which I am a great devotee) would be in a good position to produce a version that would run on Wine and certainly be in a better position than I am to talk with the Wine developers as they would have the knowledge of the processes within their program. It might be that between the two there could be an add-on to Wine specifically for Family Historian which avoided the need for a Wine version of FH. Either way this might increase the user-base for FH as well as deal with the frustrations of those of us with an aversion to Windows and or a preference for the Mac! I can't see any mileage for Family Historian wanting to remain uniquely available to the Windows platform.

I don't think I can help over the use of FH and Wine on the Mac. I am using Wine v1.4 and Ubuntu 12.04 with kernel 3.2.0-56-generic -pae in case that helps. I arrived at my present install simply by installing under wine and registering as normal. I read the complied help files using xCHM. I did have FH running on Windows within a vmWare virtual system before I upgraded my Linux system but the overheads of setting this up for one program are ridiculous.

Peter

Peter, you make a good argument.

Perhaps a dialogue between Calico Pie and the Wine developers offers a way for Family Historian to run on both Linux and iMac hosts, as well as Windows PC, without needing a special version.

That would expand the Family Historian market at presumably very little extra cost.

May be you should E-mail support@family-historian.co.uk with your suggestions rather than wait for a Wish List entry to gain acceptance.

On a small point - I do not remember any reports of a problem with .CHM FH help files in Wine before, unless users have simply tolerated it.

Thank you Mike for your positive response and appologies to Adrian for calling him Bruce.

Wine does deal with .chm files so far as I know, the problem seems to be with the call made from the help menu in FH which, when made, causes the program to crash in my V 5 install.

Will follow your sugestion and try emailing support.

Peter

See a continuation of this discussion on FH running on Wine (10907) for iMac and Unix.

[EDIT 2016: There have been significant improvements in both FH V6 and Crossover 15 (so also Wine) - see how_to:family_historian_v6_on_crossover_wine|> Family Historian V6 & Ancestral Sources V5 on Crossover & Wine.]

See Wish List item Ref 525 Family Historian version for Linux/Wine.