V4 success with Ubuntu Linux and Wine

Myke · Post by **Myke** » 09 Oct 2010 23:26

I just wanted to share my success in case it is of interest. Apologies if it is common knowledge.

I have sucessfully installed Family Historian 4 with Ubuntu Linux using Wine.

Wine: development release 1.3.4 (plus hack described below)
Familiy Historian: version 4 (30 day trial) http://www.family-historian.co.uk/downl ... -day-trial
Ubuntu: MaverickMeerkat 10.10

To install Wine I followed the instructions here http://www.winehq.org/download/deb
I found this nearly worked but the display of the diagrams was corrupted. To fix this I had to apply the fix discussed in 6.10.6 of the Wine FAQ http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ

specifically the part that says to put the following in a text file named 'norender.txt'
[HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareWineX11 Driver]
'ClientSideWithRender'='N'

and to then type
regedit norender.txt

[EDIT]
Entering text under Occupation crashed FH. It seems to be related to msvcrt.dll

I copied Windows versions of the following into windows/system32
msvcrt.dll
msvcrt20.dll
msvcrt40.dll

and this has fixed the problem.

everything else was default settings.

I haven't tried everything of course

but what I have tried works fine.

Cheers

Mike

ID:4823

ireneblackburn · Post by **ireneblackburn** » 10 Oct 2010 11:03

I am pleased for you but also slightly disappointed. I thought you had found an excuse for consuming quantities of wine while working with FH.

Myke · Post by **Myke** » 12 Oct 2010 16:00

No luck with Ancestral Sources though due to it using .net framework.

If anybody knows how to get it going please post here.

Thanks

Mike

gbrowne · Post by **gbrowne** » 17 Nov 2010 12:38

Well done Myke,

I am also an Ubuntu user. I have installed FH4 and its fine up to the point where you have to enter the licence key whereupon it says the combination is not valid.

Anyone got any thoughts on this please ?

It might be quite interesting to see whats wrong using Wine, but I won't bother if anyone else has already sorted this.

I think FH is about the only thing stopping me dumping Windows completely now !

Cheers,
Geoff.

Johnyeates · Post by **Johnyeates** » 20 Nov 2010 17:45

Why do you want to dump windows? been using it forever, no problems.

IanSheppard · Post by **IanSheppard** » 21 Nov 2010 21:31

I too have tried FH on Ubuntu, running under Wine - probably about 6 months ago. The installation always failed at some point where a registration key (which I had) was required.

I gave up in the end. But I agree that if FH (plus its various usefull additions) was brought out in a Linux form I might well go over to Linux altogether.

I tried using 'Gramps' which is OK, but somwhow life just ain't the same with out FH.

Sobs quietly. [cry]

steelskin · Post by **steelskin** » 04 Jan 2011 00:58

I started a page on the WineHQ AppDB (application database) devoted to running Family Historian using Wine (windows application layer) on Linux. Here you will find what works, what doesn't and importantly how to work around any issues you might have with running Family Historian on Linux.

There is currently three know bugs, two have workarounds and the third i will be looking at shortly. There are workarounds for the license key problem on 4.1.3 the entry of text in occupation, D.O.B and D.O.D. The 3rd bug involves reversed characters (upside down and left to right) when printing charts/diagrams. Currently no fix that I'm aware of yet for the reversed text, but hope that will be solved soon.

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.p ... &iId=21687

Feel free to contribute to this page in either comments, questions, test results. solutions, workarounds or patches.

Regards
Nick
[smile]

gbrowne · Post by **gbrowne** » 04 Jan 2011 08:06

This is great news Steelskin - well done !! I will try this out later. When I last looked at this in any detail it seemed that FH was using various crypto functions that were not yet available in Wine.

On the third problem, the seed post of this thread by Myke refers to a registry hack that affects rendering of diagrams...

>[HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareWineX11 Driver] 'ClientSideWithRender'='N'

I wonder if that might fix the problem ?

Well, 2011 is off to a good start already

Cheers,
Geoff.[smile]

steelskin · Post by **steelskin** » 04 Jan 2011 11:59

Hi Geoff,

Thanks, I checked out the registry hack you mention. Unfortunately that only affects the screen rendering, when I applied that patch not only did it not fix the reversed characters on print output (preview ok) but it had a very detrimental effect on the screen rendering, ie the Save, Home, Focus and Media buttons had instead of the normal text and icon had just a white blob. Also chart/diagram output no longer rendered correctly. This was on a opensuse 10.3 system running wine 1.3.5 with an Nvidia graphics card, which is a bit dated now, so I thought I had better try it on the latest & greatest which was an opensuse 11.3 system (Nvidia graphics) with the latest wine 1.3.10 and although I did not have any screen rendering issues it also did not fix the mirrored upside/down text in the chart diagram printouts.

My first thought is that it's a problem in the wineps.drv (part of wine's postscript driver output). I ask Hue Davies who is one of the wine developers who has worked on this code if he can shed some light on this.

Nick
[smile]

gbrowne · Post by **gbrowne** » 04 Jan 2011 12:35

Good work Nick. Please let me know if you get any further.

G.

steelskin · Post by **steelskin** » 14 Jan 2011 22:38

The upside down characters in printed reports has now been resolved. (bug #25685). I tested the patch below (supplied by Alexander Kochetkov) against wine V1.3.11 and using Family Historian 4.1.3 and it fixes the problem.

The patch has been committed and should be in wine V1.3.12 released shortly.

In the meantime if you are ok compiling from source, then you can grab the patch http://source.winehq.org/git/wine.git/? ... fd13ea2701

See bug 25685 http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25685

Cheers
Nick [cool]

Myke · Post by **Myke** » 18 Apr 2011 21:00

Just thought I'd give you an update on where I am with using FH on Ubuntu with Wine.

I have since moved on to Natty from Meerkat. I did a clean install of Natty rather than an upgrade and I am now using a registered version of Family Historian rather than the trial.

Ubuntu Version: Natty 11.04 Beta 2 plus updates via Synaptic up to today (18 Apr)
Wine Version: 1.3.18
Family Historian: 4.1.3 Registered

Patches:
As described in my original post
- Copied msvcrt.dll, msvcrt20.dll and msvcrt40.dll from Windows to Wine drive_c:/Windows/System32
- In Wine Config on the Libraries Tab I changed msvcrt, msvcrt20 and msvcrt40 to (native, builtin)
- Applied the norender.txt patch

I had no problems entering the license key.

But I had to do the msvcrt and norender patches as before.

Printing works fine. No upside down or reversed images.

Seems good so far but I've only done limited testing.

Thanks to all who are working on making this possible.

Mike

gbrowne · Post by **gbrowne** » 18 Apr 2011 21:25

Great news Myke, thanks for letting us know. This is great news.

Hopefully I will be able to say goodbye to greedy Microsoft very soon now (FH4 is now the only application I still need Windoze for).

I may just wait until the public release of Natty in a week or so before I upgrade, but great to hear that the Wine chaps have overcome the licence code entry problem now.

GB.

MichaelHolmes · Post by **MichaelHolmes** » 02 May 2011 17:30

Let me add my thanks to Myke for this work (and Nick for his .wine page).

I only recently thought to Google for a solution to using FH4 in Linux, and was surprised to find some answers.

My system is an Acer netbook AOA110, modded with a Toshiba hard drive instead of the original 8GB SSD, and updated RAM to 1.5Gb I'm running Ubuntu 10.04 UNR LTS, Wine 1.3.17, and FH 4.1.3.

When I followed Myke's method, installation crashed with an error message regarding mfc.dll missing or wrong version. I copied the Windows XP (running FH4 registered) mfc42.dll into the wine system32 directory, and renamed the existing version already there to mfc42.bak. Reinstallation gave the error missing or corrupt msvp60.dll... so I copied the Windows version of that into wine -success!

Since there's no printer connected to my netbook, I don't know whether the character rendering is good, but everything else I've looked at seems to work.

Now I have to clean up my use of FH4, my projects and sources...

Thanks

Michael

gbrowne · Post by **gbrowne** » 03 May 2011 15:27

Hi Myke,

I am wondering if the key to success is to use the 'registered version' not the 30 day trial.

I have upgraded to Ubuntu Natty 11.04 now and installed the file install_fh4.1.3_dl.exe from the family-historian.co.uk site. Applied the usual patches etc as described, but now stuck behind the old 'Entered licence name and key combination are not valid. Please check them carefully and try again' message, despite the name and key being a paid for valid combination that works fine under windoze.

Where did you get the non trial version of the installer please Myke ?

Cheers,
G.

Myke said:
Just thought I'd give you an update on where I am with using FH on Ubuntu with Wine.

Post by **tatewise** » 03 May 2011 20:53

I believe this problem is not a Linux issue, but a licensing issue.
You cannot use the licence name & key obtained for a FH Full Version 4 CD or Download with the FH Version 4.1.3 Trial version.
See the Family Historian page http://www.family-historian.co.uk/downl ... -use-trial for full details.

Any FREE trial version should not need a licence name & key - it is a free trial!

To use your purchased licence name & key you must install the same software on Unix (or any PC for that matter) as you installed on your original Windows PC.

MichaelHolmes · Post by **MichaelHolmes** » 08 May 2011 16:01

An update: while the program FH 4.3.1 installs and displays on my Acer AOA110 running Ubuntu 10.04, the Property Box is rendered improperly, and it's still a challenge to enter new data.

v3 would allow some facts to be entered, dates and names, for example, but not marriage or birth places.

I'm back to using the ruse of emailing new data to myself and entering it when I get home!

Michael

MichaelHolmes · Post by **MichaelHolmes** » 08 May 2011 22:44

A further update:

'while the program FH 4.3.1 installs and displays on my Acer AOA110 running Ubuntu 10.04, the Property Box is rendered improperly, and it's still a challenge to enter new data....'

Using Linux Mint 10 (Julia), a usable property box is displayed. This version of Mint is derived from Ubuntu 10.10, Maverick, and .wine comes pre-packaged: I don't know the version.

Michael

Family Historian User Group