How to run DH on Linux - Tutorial

alekseevic · Dec 21, 2011

Here I'll describe the steps I did to have a fully functional DH on my linux box. I assume you already have a working copy of DH, for instance downloaded from Steam (instructions to run the Steam client under wine) or from the Gamersgate installer.
Once you have the DH directory, you can copy it whenever you want, I'll consider that you copied it in your home dir.

Installing Wine
Just use your package manager to install the most fresh wine version. Here there's a list of the main distributions and their respective instructions to have the last wine version on you linux-box.
Configure wine
We will use winetricks. To install it, just install the package "winetricks" with your software manager. For debian/ubuntu users, just type in the terminal
Code:
```
sudo apt-get install winetricks
```
After that, type
Code:
```
winetricks vcrun6 dotnet20
```
With this command you are telling wine to install some microsoft stuff that DH requires to run. Indeed you will see some windows opening, these are microsoft installation processes, just follow the instructions and wait a couple of minutes.

Once these installations are done, there is one more step to properly configure wine. On a terminal, type:
Code:
```
winecfg
```
This command will pop up the wine configration window. Click on the "Library" tab, then choose the "msvcrt" entry and then "Modify". When the second window pops up, select "Built-in", it should be the first entry.
Running DH on wine
Let's take a test: in the terminal (this is the last time, promised), move to the directory where DH is placed, for instance
Code:
```
cd /home/USERNAME/DH
```
Then type:
Code:
```
wine Darkest\ Hour\ Launcher.exe
```
Those slashes tell the terminal that the spaces are not to be considered as files separators.
If everything went fine the darkest hour launcher is shown. Start the game and everything should be fine.
You can now create a desktop launcher. Create a link to Darkest Hour Launcher.exe and put it whereever you want.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Performance notes

The game runs greatly, but I anyway suggest to autosave every month. I experienced very few crashes in a lot of hours.
The launcher seems to crash when you launch the game, but it's not important since the game itself starts correctly.
You can use whichever mod you like, just select it in the launcher as usual.
Loading times are slower than windows, they may take almost double the time, in particular when loading saved games. Saving takes no time as in windows.
Alt-tabbing during loadings doesn't mess up the graphics!!

Useful trick
Since wine+DH take a lot of processor in linux you can easily pause the process to save your CPU. Just open a terminal and type:

Code:

pkill -STOP Darkest\ Hour*

To resume the process:

Code:

pkill -CONT Darkest\ Hour*

Stopping the process won't free up RAM, just unloads the CPU.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Final note
I'll keep it updated as far as I get a wine version that correctly handles DH with ease.

Previous version of this how-to with compiling instructions:

Compiling wine from source
Compiling from source is recommended for those guys who don't have an ubuntu based distribution or want to keep more than one wine version. Before starting you need a lot of packages and development libraries. If you are running and ubuntu based distro, just open a terminal and type:

Code:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa
sudo apt-ge build-dep wine1.3

First command adds the wine official repository to your system, second one installs all required packages to compile wine.
If you don't have an ubuntu-based distribution, you can find a list of the required packages here.

After that you have to download wine source code from here. Using the terminal, move to the directory where you downloaded the archive and extract it with:

Code:

tar -zxvf wine-1.3.32.tar.bz2

Then move to the extracted directory with:

Code:

cd wine-1.3.32

and start the configuration with:

Code:

./config

The configuration process checks if all libraries are installed and where they are. Depending on what you have installed on your system you may miss something. Usually it's nothing important, but if you get errors, I can help you in finding out what is missing.
After the configuration ends, start the actual compiling process:

Code:

make

This may take up to ten minutes, with your processor working hard on it. Just be patient, if everything did before went fine, compiling is just a matter of time.

Now there are two possibilities: install compiled wine system-wide or run it from the directory where it is. For mostly user I suggest to completely install it with:

Code:

sudo make install

If you need to run wine from current directory without installation, just ask and I'll go further this point.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Doctoxic · Dec 22, 2011

thanks very much for taking the time to post this - i'll give it a go

alekseevic · Dec 23, 2011

Let me know and don't hesitate to ask anything. I wrote this stuff only to show that DH can run greatly with wine. Supposing that the average linux user has some skills, he/she can achieve a better result than I did. So share your experience and help me to improve this tutorial.

Doctoxic · Dec 28, 2011

I had network errors just downloading from Gamersgate, however the info here http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=29170#c3 solved it for me.

Now on to try the actual install.

Doctoxic · Dec 28, 2011

I am getting errors running winetricks vcrun6 dotnet20

Executing w_do_call vcrun6
vcrun6 already installed, skipping
Executing w_do_call dotnet20
Executing load_dotnet20
Executing w_do_call fontfix
Executing load_fontfix
Setting Windows version to win2k
Executing winetricks_early_wine regedit C:\windows\Temp\_dotnet20\set-winver.reg
Executing mkdir -p /home/bane/.cache/winetricks/dotnet20
Executing unzip -o -q -d /home/bane/.wine/dosdevices/c:/windows/system32 l_intl.zip
Executing mkdir -p /home/bane/.cache/winetricks/dotnet20
Executing wine dotnetfx.exe
fixme:advapi

ecryptFileA "C:\\users\\bane\\Temp\\IXP000.TMP\\" 00000000
fixme:advapi:LsaOpenPolicy ((null),0x33f34c,0x00000001,0x33f364) stub
fixme:advapi:LsaClose (0xcafe) stub
fixme:storage:create_storagefile Storage share mode not implemented.
err:seh:raise_exception Unhandled exception code c0000005 flags 0 addr 0x451d7c
------------------------------------------------------
Note: command 'wine dotnetfx.exe' returned status 5. Aborting.

I am running Ubuntu 11.10 and already had wine installed (and maybe some other winetricks stuff).

alekseevic · Dec 28, 2011

wintricks crashing is something I never heard of. Which wine version are you running?

BTW, dotnet20 is required only for the launcher, not for the game itself.

Doctoxic · Dec 28, 2011

alekseevic said:
wintricks crashing is something I never heard of. Which wine version are you running?

BTW, dotnet20 is required only for the launcher, not for the game itself.

1.3.28

alekseevic · Dec 28, 2011

Delete winetricks cache (rm -r your_home/.cache/winetricks/dotnet20), maybe the installer corrupted during downloading. Then, you can also update wine, current development version is 1.3-35.

Then, if you're interested, I can tell you how to run wine without installing it.

Doctoxic · Dec 28, 2011

alekseevic said:
Delete winetricks cache (rm -r your_home/.cache/winetricks/dotnet20), maybe the installer corrupted during downloading. Then, you can also update wine, current development version is 1.3-35.

Then, if you're interested, I can tell you how to run wine without installing it.

clearing the .cache didn't help

Executing wine dotnetfx.exe
fixme:advapi

ecryptFileA "C:\\users\\bane\\Temp\\IXP000.TMP\\" 00000000
fixme:advapi:LsaOpenPolicy ((null),0x33f34c,0x00000001,0x33f364) stub
fixme:advapi:LsaClose (0xcafe) stub
fixme:storage:create_storagefile Storage share mode not implemented.
err:seh:raise_exception Unhandled exception code c0000005 flags 0 addr 0x451d7c
------------------------------------------------------
Note: command 'wine dotnetfx.exe' returned status 5. Aborting.
------------------------------------------------------

How do i update wine to the development version - i have already run update but that didn't change it

alekseevic · Dec 28, 2011

If you don't bother, I'll use the terminal.
Add the official wine repository:

Code:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa

Update the index:

Code:

sudo apt-get update

Update wine:

Code:

sudo apt-get upgrade

If it doesn't update anything, try:

Code:

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

This last command is much less conservative regarding upgrades.

If you still have problems, completely remove wine and install it again.

Code:

sudo apt-get purge wine1.2
sudo apt-get purge wine1.3
sudo apt-get install wine1.3

Finally, check the version with:

Code:

wine --version

Doctoxic · Dec 28, 2011

thanks - it looks like that fixed it - am running the game installer now

Doctoxic · Dec 28, 2011

All installed

Game seems to run fine - just a couple of small things:-

1) The installer sets up a wrong shortcut on the desktop - i deleted it
2) The Launcher crashes when you launch the game - but the game launches OK so no biggie

Many thanks for all your help

alekseevic · Dec 28, 2011

About point 2, yes, I know, but who the hell cares..

Are you running DH with the latest development version?

T.j. Arnold · Dec 28, 2011

alekseevic said:
About point 2, yes, I know, but who the hell cares..

Reminds me of the annoying tendency on Windows 7 to announce that a program "crashed" every time you close it manually...

shimgray · Jan 3, 2012

Regarding the launcher crashing - when I run DH in wine at the moment, the launcher crashing means you have to go straight to the "Darkest Hour.exe" executable to launch the game. If you want to select a mod, you can do this by editing settings.cfg and replacing "Darkest Hour Full" with the name of the mod directory; it'll then launch into this version with the normal executable.

I'm posting this here since it took me a while to figure it out

(and it's really good to see other wine users! Thanks for posting this, alekseevic...)

alekseevic · Jan 3, 2012

shimgray said:
Regarding the launcher crashing - when I run DH in wine at the moment, the launcher crashing means you have to go straight to the "Darkest Hour.exe" executable to launch the game. If you want to select a mod, you can do this by editing settings.cfg and replacing "Darkest Hour Full" with the name of the mod directory; it'll then launch into this version with the normal executable.

I'm posting this here since it took me a while to figure it out

Yes, I've noticed it, too. But since I figured out that letting the launcher to crash isn't a big deal, I'm still using it.

shimgray said:
(and it's really good to see other wine users! Thanks for posting this, alekseevic...)

You're welcome, and if you have any further suggestion (like newer working wine version) drop a message. I will keep the first post updated.

alekseevic · Jan 31, 2012

Updated first post. No longer need to compile wine, DH runs with very minor work to do, just a few clicks.

Stormkanonvagn · Jun 2, 2012

How is multiplayer when running DH with Wine?

alekseevic · Jun 30, 2012

Sorry for my late reply. Multiplayer runs fine, you just need to install "directplay.dll" with winetricks. I actually never tried it with DH but always worked for HoI2.

General Italia · Aug 17, 2012

There might be a problems with protocols and different packets sent by host who uses Windows. It's not common but happens.

How to run DH on Linux - Tutorial

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