wine + bottle trick = free crossover office

BASIC IDEA

people wish to go for crossover office only because wine lacks a proper graphical bottling interface.

DESCRIPTION

Wine has a lot of gui scripts but none of them by far support bottling.

if we can implement bottling in wine by gui a lot of possibilities will open up.

I am currently using two bottles

1) XP

2) 98

and these two bottles are sufficient to workĀ  with majority of softwares, some have problem’s running in XP runs fine in 98 and some vice-versa.

but one more important thing needs to be taken in mind and that is proper configuration of wine directory.

for this i suggest use of winetricks its a shell script and will not have much problem in converting it to GUI one.

NOTE’s For those who wish to work on this project.

Bottling trick

WINEPREFIX is mainly used to work with multiple root directories of wine or what we call bottles

So if you wish to run default wine i.e. (~/.wine) then you can directly run it

but if you wish to use other version the syntax will become

WINEPREFIX=ā€<actual directory>ā€ wine <executable name>

replace <actual directory> with the directory location, and <executable name> with the name of executable file.

WineTricks

But you also need to setup wine directories properly so that most common task’s can be performed easily.

so you should download wine tricks and check its code

the essential softwares for each bottle that i use are listed as

1) XP

cc580,corefonts,gdiplus,gecko,jet40, libration, mdac27, mfc40, msxml4, pdh, tahoma, vbvm50, vbrun60,Ā  vcrun6, volnum winver=XP

NOTE : instead of usign fake ie 6 registry hack i prefer use ies4linux and install ie6

2) 98

winver=98, wsh56, vcrun6,vbrun60,vbvm50,tahoma,msi,Ā  cc580, corefonts, dcom98, gecko, je50,libration, mdac27

Note : here also use ies4linux for this directory also.

HOPE THIS IDEA Work’s out some day.


Update @ 14 july 2009

we got a working shell scripting on this concept local copy here as well as at pastebin copy here curtsy Smegzor @ digg

note: if you want to suggest any change please do it on pastebin link.

I have created a local copy as a preventive measure against any mishap.

22 thoughts on “wine + bottle trick = free crossover office”

  1. I have been creating wine bottles with wineprefix for a couple of years. Every program has its own wine install, registry etc and I can mess with an individual bottle, clone it, whatever I want and not risk breaking other apps.I run my own script. It is primitive as hell, but here is a copy (for a while) for anyone who wants it.http://pastebin.org/1310If you improve it, share it.
    This comment was originally posted on Digg

  2. infinityanant

    Hi smegzor, thanks for sharing the script, and i fully agree if you improve it share it.that’s why i have also linked your script on my post..
    This comment was originally posted on Digg

  3. Hi,

    Your link to the script isn’t working yet. I posted it on pastebin and set it to never expire. The nice thing about pastebin is anyone can edit it and post their changes right there. I’m an ex Windows user with barely 2 years going Linux full time. My script is not my own work. I found a script via Google and adapted it to my own needs. I know it can be done better, but it works and that is all I required.

    http://pastebin.org/1310

  4. A little more info for you.

    There are a couple of simple steps I run through when creating a new bottle.

    First a little background info..

    I keep all my wine bottles in a folder in my home dir called winebottles. I also have a folder called scripts where I keep a script for each bottle that I create.

    I mostly install games and these steps usually result in a working game.

    1. Create the new wine bottle with a command like this;

    WINEPREFIX=~/winebottles/bf1942 wine Setup.exe

    I give each bottle a unique name (unless I intend to install multiple related stuff in the same bottle), and change Setup.exe to whatever installs the game/app.

    2. I make a copy of an existing script from my scripts folder, rename it the same as the new bottle and edit it to refer to that bottle, edit the path that it cd’s to, and the program name to launch the game/app.

    2a. I make the script executable if it isn’t already.

    3. I use Gnome on Ubuntu so I edit the menu (I have a folder called Windows Games) in my applications menu and add an entry for my new game.

    Set the type to Application in terminal
    Give it a name
    Enter the command to run the script (eg. /home/matthew/scripts/bf2.sh).

    4. Run the script (either from command line or the menu entry above), run winecfg and add the game/app in the applications tab, usually setting the Windows version to XP. Then I visit the audio and graphics tabs and at least set the audio to ALSA. Sometimes I set the graphics to run inside a window. I usually read about the game at appdb.winehq.org when messing around in winecfg.

    5. I run winetricks and install directx9. Other stuff depends on appdb, though I sometimes adopt a firehose approach and install lots of stuff šŸ™‚

    6. I run regedit and create a Direct3D entry
    In regedit, browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER / Software / Wine and create a new key Direct3D

    Create the following strings in Direct3D;

    OffscreenRenderingMode fbo
    UseGLSL enabled
    VideoMemorySize 512

    Memory size should be what your graphics card has.
    Actual settings to make the game work may vary, consult appdb if these don’t work.

    7. Start playing/using your new bottled Windows game/app.

    I hope this helps someone.

  5. heh.. he called me an expert šŸ™‚

    The real experts can be found in the official wine irc channel on freenode in #winehq

  6. Yeah I don’t care for profiles so always leave them bare.

    I am an IT consultant living in New Zealand. My work is split 50/50 between web development (Linux) and database/application development (Windows).

    Two years ago I made the switch to Linux, choosing to only run Windows as a guest in Virtualbox. Prior to that I dabbled with Linux as a file server and played with live cd’s.

    I have introduced Ubuntu to lots of people and several have either switched to it, or just include more free software in their lives. My family now share my enthusiasm for free software and my kids are equally at home in Windows and Linux.

    For myself, I always aimed to have a foot in both camps. One day I might go as far as contributing patches, or writing my own FOSS application. That is something for the future.

  7. well i consider anyone who has actually worked on any sort of automation. it might be as simple as this script or a complete OS work. <- if you have some real work to call out you are an expert in my eyes.

    and hey smegzor you seems to be an interesting person would like to know more about you. not enough info about you on digg…. do you have a web site of your own.

  8. Heh.. commenter number nine looks like a spammer.
    How can I tell? Their only comment was to repeat something I said without adding anything and their name links back to a commercial website.

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  10. wow, great, I was wondering the same thing. and found your site by yahoo, many userful stuff here, now i have got some idea. I’ve bookmark your site and also add rss. keep us updated.

  11. You have tested it and writing form your personal experience or you find some information online?

  12. Antonio Texidor

    I never see info like this on the Net anymore. I love your blog and wish others had your skills at writing, thanks for the great information.

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