Stud.io on Linux

[SylvainLS]

24 minutes ago, 5N00P1 said:

Still have issues with the instruction, any idea?

Which issues?  Two issues I know of:

• The fonts.  It seems Studio goes directly for the fonts files, without going through Windows (or at least Wine)’s API.  So it can’t find the fonts and changing their size doesn’t work and so on.  Solution: make a “Fonts” directory in drive_c/windows and link there (ln -s) the .ttf for the Windows fonts (especially Arial but all the ones you want).
• Too thin outlines.  In Page Design, the parts’s outlines are way too thin and almost invisible.  Exporting to PDF gives the same resluts. Solution: well, I don’t have one   I tested the Win10 VM MS distributes for testing Edge (works for 6 months I think) to export a few PDFs and it worked well but, guh, Windows is so awful , even for such a small use.

[Captainowie]

I never found a solution to the problems I had mentioned earlier in the thread, and ended up using a Win10 VM. It was a bit slow because all the graphical computations had to be done by the host's CPU (I don't have a motherboard that accepts two graphics cards, else I'd install a second one to pass through for the VM), but workable.

[5N00P1]

@SylvainLS I have issues with creating the instructions in that way, that it's all shown as step one and I don't get the box that shows me the items that I need to pick for that step although it's activated.

At least they are marked with a red color, to identify them.

[SylvainLS]

@5N00P1  Did you try the fonts trick?  The problem with the fonts causes seemingly unrelated problems: Studio doesn’t know the size the text will take so it thinks there’s no room or more room than there actually is and objects don’t appear or are moved.

I don’t remember it affecting the local part list but it’s worth a try.

Each time there’s a new release, there are new little bugs that should have been caught by an average QA (don’t even need to be a good one).  They are quickly solved but still, Studio has lots of such little bugs that come and go with the versions.  It’s trying.  And the devs are still adding new features (they announced the return of Mosaick!).

[5N00P1]

@SylvainLS I did not until now, because I was not aware that that was part of the issue. Tried it and it solves a lot of issues! Thank you for the help!

[Kai NRG]

I'm thinking about switching from Windows to a Chromebook - from what I understand I could run Stud.io (or any Windows program) on a Chromebook with the Linux program Wine.  Is there a certain hardware level so to speak that I will be needing in order to run Stud.io?  I don't know much about computer hardware but I mean in terms of processor, memory - is there a baseline that needs to be met for Stud.io through Wine to run smoothly?  Or should basically any new laptop be able to do that?

[Captainowie]

As long as your laptop meets or exceed the Stud.io recommended specs, you should be fine. The overhead in Wine translating Windows system calls to Linux ones is not great, though there may be some configuration changes you'll need to make to get peak performance.

[Kai NRG]

On 8/12/2020 at 3:11 AM, Captainowie said:

As long as your laptop meets or exceed the Stud.io recommended specs, you should be fine. The overhead in Wine translating Windows system calls to Linux ones is not great, though there may be some configuration changes you'll need to make to get peak performance.

Thanks!  Yeah, I may be coming back to this thread to try some of these hacks. 

[hsousa]

On 7/3/2020 at 1:08 PM, 5N00P1 said:

I'm running stud.io on Ubuntu 20.04 and it works out of the box so far.

I have just issues with it freezing after a while of not using it.

And my middle mouse wheel for zoom is not working, which is annoying.

Hello there. I just installed on Linux Mint 19.2 (which is based on Ubuntu 18.04) and everything works out of the box.

 

Unfortunately I'm also stumbled upon the same bug: as soon as I switch to another application, once I return to Stud.io I won't accept any input, either via mouse or keyboard.

Another than that, looks good. Thank you Wine team !

[SylvainLS]

2 hours ago, hsousa said:

Unfortunately I'm also stumbled upon the same bug: as soon as I switch to another application, once I return to Stud.io I won't accept any input, either via mouse or keyboard.

It’s a known problem: you need to run it in a virtual desktop or disable window management by the window manager (both options in wincfg).

[hsousa]

Disabling window management didn't work, however creating a virtual desktop more or less fixed the issue. Thank you, appreciated.

[5N00P1]

Whenever I start Stud.io I get asked if I want to upgrade it. I assume using Linux I should go another way.

What is the best way to upgrade Stud.io under Linux?

[SylvainLS]

Strange, updating works here.

[5N00P1]

so you are saying I can & should use the update functionality of stud.io?

[SylvainLS]

That’s what I do.

There have been problems with some of the early versions: then I just downloaded and reinstalled on top of the old version.  But it’s been a while now.

Depending on the machine (Wine can be tricky), it may or may not manage to restart itself.  But that’s a small problem.

 

Don’t forget to install msttcorefonts (or similar package) and link the .ttf into a drive_c/windows/fonts directory.  That solves many issues in Instruction mode.

[drimtajm]

Hi all,

Sorry for the dumb question: Which Windows version of Stud.io do you download? 32-bit or 64-bit?
It's been more than a decade since I used wine, so I guess it has improved a lot since then!

[drimtajm]

On 8/8/2020 at 11:31 PM, Kai NRG said:

I'm thinking about switching from Windows to a Chromebook - from what I understand I could run Stud.io (or any Windows program) on a Chromebook with the Linux program Wine.  Is there a certain hardware level so to speak that I will be needing in order to run Stud.io?  I don't know much about computer hardware but I mean in terms of processor, memory - is there a baseline that needs to be met for Stud.io through Wine to run smoothly?  Or should basically any new laptop be able to do that?

Have you tried it yet? The thing with Chromebooks is that they come in two "versions": One with an ARM processor and one with an Intel processor.
On the Intel version, you can run Windows, since it's like any "standard laptop". And then you would not need Wine at all.
But on the ARM version, you can only run Android/Linux. The downside of that version is that the processor is pretty "weak" so to speak, so it hardly qualifies as a laptop. It's more like a "large tablet".
So I would imagine that it would be lagging and hard to use on that. But that is just a guess from my side, I haven't tried it myself.
If you are thinking about buying a Chromebook, I would recommend the more powerful Intel version. The "recommended specs" are not really applicable when you are talking about an ARM-based Chromebook.

[SylvainLS]

@drimtajm There are two versions of Wine: 32bits and 64bits.  If you use the 32bits Wine, you should download the 32bits Studio.  If you use the 64bits Wine, you can download 32bits or 64bits Studio.  The only visible difference is that on a 64bits Wine, the 32bits program will be in “Program Files (x86)” instead of “Program Files”.

And yes, “Chromebook” has a pretty wide meaning so “Will it run on the Chromebook I haven’t bought yet?” is a pretty hard question to answer (beyond “it depends” that is ).

[drimtajm]

@SylvainLS Thanks. But I was wondering more: What _should_ I download? Or: What did the people download who wrote "It works out of the box"?
Maybe some of the problems people have are related to 32 vs 64 bit. On the Wine wiki it says that the 64-bit version still has many bugs, but since the time of 32-bit OSs and 32-bit applications is long gone, I'm a bit hesitant to go down that road.
It tends to get messy when installing a lot of 32-bit libraries on 64-bit Linux. But I wasn't sure 64-bit Wine plus 64-bit stud.io was a viable combination.

So I'll just try to go all-in on 64 bits and see what happens! 

[SylvainLS]

I used both (LDD being 32bits, I had older installations with Wine 32bits).  I haven’t seen one being more problematic than the other.

I also never had any problem with mixing 32bits and 64bits on Linux, even ten years ago, thank you Debian 

[Kai NRG]

4 hours ago, SylvainLS said:

And yes, “Chromebook” has a pretty wide meaning so “Will it run on the Chromebook I haven’t bought yet?” is a pretty hard question to answer (beyond “it depends” that is ).

I know, it's kind of important to me that it does run, which is part of why I was asking before I bought the Chromebook and got stuck with one it wouldn't work with. 

6 hours ago, drimtajm said:

On the Intel version, you can run Windows, since it's like any "standard laptop". And then you would not need Wine at all.
But on the ARM version, you can only run Android/Linux. The downside of that version is that the processor is pretty "weak" so to speak, so it hardly qualifies as a laptop. It's more like a "large tablet".

Okay, I didn't realize that about the Intel version.  Thanks, I'll keep that in mind as I shop.

[drimtajm]

3 hours ago, Kai NRG said:

I know, it's kind of important to me that it does run, which is part of why I was asking before I bought the Chromebook and got stuck with one it wouldn't work with. 

Okay, I didn't realize that about the Intel version.  Thanks, I'll keep that in mind as I shop.

You might want to read this if you buy an ARM-based Chromebook (since they are generally cheaper):

https://wiki.winehq.org/ARM

Since ARM is a different processor architecture (Intel processors are of the "x86"-type), it's not as easy as "Run Wine and you're fine."
You will need an emulator as well:

https://wiki.winehq.org/Emulation

Just to clarify: If you buy a Chromebook with an Intel processor, you can still run Linux and Wine. 

[5N00P1]

7 hours ago, drimtajm said:

@SylvainLS Thanks. But I was wondering more: What _should_ I download? Or: What did the people download who wrote "It works out of the box"?
Maybe some of the problems people have are related to 32 vs 64 bit. On the Wine wiki it says that the 64-bit version still has many bugs, but since the time of 32-bit OSs and 32-bit applications is long gone, I'm a bit hesitant to go down that road.
It tends to get messy when installing a lot of 32-bit libraries on 64-bit Linux. But I wasn't sure 64-bit Wine plus 64-bit stud.io was a viable combination.

I think I have not thought about it, meaning 64bit, but I can check later.

Edited September 11, 2020 by 5N00P1

[Kai NRG]

10 hours ago, drimtajm said:

Just to clarify: If you buy a Chromebook with an Intel processor, you can still run Linux and Wine. 

Thanks for the links!  I was leaning towards an Intel processor anyways and those made it sound even more complicated with ARM than I had thought, so... 

[legOtaku_official]

On 9/8/2020 at 1:00 AM, SylvainLS said:

It’s a known problem: you need to run it in a virtual desktop or disable window management by the window manager (both options in wincfg).

You've saved my instruction making scheme! Everything runs normally now. Thank you!