Yay! BG2 in Linux! (and instructions)

[shamrock_uk]

Anyone, on the offchance anyone else comes here looking for advice.

1) You'll have to use Cedega but at 9 pounds for a 3 month subscription to the site (and unlimited use of the versions you download) it's really not a hardship.

2) Installation of SoA proceeds as normal. If, for some reason it doesn't, there's an excellent advice thread here with step by step instructions on how to do it the 'hard way' [img]smile.gif[/img]

3) With ToB I got a message saying that SoA wasn't installed. What you need to do is select the 'Baldur's Gate 2' icon in the right hand panel of Point2Play and then press install. This way it will install ToB into the same group and will recognise your SoA installation.

4) Installations of non-Weidu mods should be done the same way (ie. the official patch, game text update, baldurdash fixpack).

5) Backup your important data files.

6) Weidu mods are a real real pain to do under Cedega, not least because the graphical file browser is a bit rubbish, especially at selecting hidden files. Far easier is to have another installation of 'plain' wine to do it for you.

Simply copy the Weidu executable to your BG2 folder, then switch to a console. Type (for example)

wine Weimer-Ease.exe

which should extract the usual files to your installation directory. Then simply do

wine Setup-Ease.exe

to install the mod - you'll be able to select the options in the console just like you would in the DOS prompt. If you copy the .exe files to your BG2 installation first (just drag&drop) then the long and complicated install paths will be already filled in [img]smile.gif[/img] You can safely ignore any errors.

7) Sit back and enjoy the game! No glitches so far...

Edits:

(i) Avoid installing the Banter Pack - its installer seems to just give you the installation screen without the dialogue and you can't tab away from it.

(ii) There's an issue with some NPC Weidu mods. Things like Tactics and EoU installed fine. Saerileth dies though; it appears to be something to do with the auto-updating she does of other Wiedu setups. I'll try to find my way round that in the next couple of days. Sola seems to pause on writing to dialogue.tlk, not sure why that is either.

[ 04-04-2005, 03:44 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

[Hivetyrant]

Shweeeet, I have been meaning to finish this game, and now I have a cool excuse to play it [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Dace De'Briago]

I've looked into Cedega before, and its poor value for money.

Why pay £36 a year for games when you can buy a OEM version of Windows XP Home for just £55 and play pretty much every game you've ever wanted for as long as you want?

[krunchyfrogg]

What's Linux?

[shamrock_uk]

Well, I'm seeing it as a one-off payment of £9 - its more so I can play my back catalogue of games without having to load up Windows. Plus if I can move the bulk of my games to Linux it will really help with diskspace at the mo. I'll still keep my copy of XP for the latest and greatest games, but Linux does everything I need now so I'm trying to migrate as much as I can over.

Tres amusant Krunchyfrogg Just on the outside chance that wasn't sarcasm though, info here. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 04-04-2005, 09:23 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

[Dace De'Briago]

Originally posted by krunchyfrogg: What's Linux?

To save you the hassle of checking out the link, its a Swedish genital disease named after a disgruntled software engineer who suffered with it.

Linux is common amongst nerds, its suggested that lack of natural daylight and anxiety caused by zero social activity may bring on an outbreak.

[shamrock_uk]

Well, hey, live and let live! As someone with a healthy social life, girlfriend and a love of sunshine I think it has shaken off the nerd label to some extent.

Certainly Mandrake 10.1 installs in a fraction of the time and far easier than WinXP and the graphical control panel is actually superior to that in Windows making administration a doddle.

I'll be installing it on my parents machine at home - now I'm not living with them I won't have to worry about them getting a virus or other malicious programme. Plus it's rock solid.

I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand - there are things that XP is better at and there are things that Linux is better at. I'd say that it's almost there with ease of use and £30 for CrossOver Office for my parents is all the money they'll ever have to pay for software. There's a lot to be said for it.

[Dace De'Briago]

Take a look at Xandros mate (version 3 just released). Very easy to adapt to for a first-time Linux user.

Personally, I think Windows offers better value for money if you want to play any sort of games. On other machines I own, Linux gets put on because they are only needed for Office/Networking applications.

[LennonCook]

I have seen instructions recently on how to do this with only WINE... I haven't tested these myself, though. Basically, you install it on Windows, and then copy the installation to Linux.

This seems a slightly easier way to do it if BG2 already happens to be installed on a Windows partition (since Linux can read both FAT and NTFS quite well).

What are the benifits of Cedega? I notice it seems to be an all-gui process, which may be good for people who want that (= not me - I can't stand excessive GUI work). I notice Gentoo lets me download both Cedega and Wine through portage, but that Wine is 4MB bigger (although both are tiny).
Cedega seems to be dedicated to games, and seems to be a compatiblity layer like Wine (hence, the download is tiny, and performance wouldn't be affected like full emulation)... does it fake things perculiar to gaming better than Wine? Does it support more games than Wine?
Or does the difference just come down to which is easier to use (that being a matter of perspective and taste)?

[shamrock_uk]

I have seen instructions recently on how to do this with only WINE... I haven't tested these myself, though. Basically, you install it on Windows, and then copy the installation to Linux. This seems a slightly easier way to do it if BG2 already happens to be installed on a Windows partition (since Linux can read both FAT and NTFS quite well).

Nice tip!

What are the benifits of Cedega? I notice it seems to be an all-gui process, which may be good for people who want that (= not me - I can't stand excessive GUI work). I notice Gentoo lets me download both Cedega and Wine through portage, but that Wine is 4MB bigger (although both are tiny).

It can be a command-line utility as well - you can download Cedega separately if you wish. I downloaded it from within Point2Play (sort of like a game launcher which keeps a catalogue of your games) so it appears I don't have the cedega option on the command line. They do recommend you use the GUI, and it's definitely not excessive: pretty minimalist tbh. You also have access to debugging output and can edit config files directly from the GUI.

Cedega seems to be dedicated to games, and seems to be a compatiblity layer like Wine (hence, the download is tiny, and performance wouldn't be affected like full emulation)...

Correct on all three counts. If you have decent 3d drivers (the latest ATI seem to be a big improvement for me) then performance will be no worse, and in some cases slightly better as Windows isn't being a resource hog.

does it fake things perculiar to gaming better than Wine? Does it support more games than Wine? Or does the difference just come down to which is easier to use (that being a matter of perspective and taste)?

Yes, it does games far far better than plain Wine. Just compare the games compatability list of Wine with that of Cedega. Also the unofficial Wiki has a different list. They also seem to be making an effort to support the latest and greatest games officially - KOTOR2 for example. Generally, if a game isn't listed as being supported, under Cedega it will likely work to some extent whereas under Wine in my experience you wouldn't have a prayer.

It's not going to replace my WinXP partition just yet, but its certainly a large step in the right direction.

[ 04-05-2005, 08:44 AM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]