Linux Support

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Revision as of 05:25, 8 September 2019 by Nosamu (talk | contribs) (Looks like I forgot to finish a sentence on July 30 and didn't notice until now. Finally fixed! Also, updated SPR info and task)
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Linux support in Flashpoint is currently experimental due to a lack of maintainers. This page describes the current state of our Linux support.

Latest Build

Download: https://unstable.life/owncloud/s/IAjjlASCMNRjXRz

  • This is the latest experimental build of Flashpoint Infinity for Linux, created on July 21, 2019.

Installation instructions:

  1. Download and extract the .tar.gz file.
  2. Install PHP and Wine if you do not have them. You'll need to follow distro-specific instructions if you have Ubuntu or Debian.
  3. Run the Flashpoint shortcut.
  4. Click the Config tab and check the "Use Wine" box if unchecked.

Major changes:

  • Configure Flash games to run using the Windows player, flashplayer_32_sa.exe
    • The Linux flash player suffers from too many graphical glitches
    • Requires Wine to be installed and enabled to play
  • Updated JDK to version 8u212
    • startJava.sh instructions and script updated
    • Made startJava.sh executable
  • Added support for Authorware Platform
  • Adds Linux versions of the Save Manager scripts
  • Adds a "Flashpoint" shortcut (replacing the Windows version)
  • Adds Flashpoint 6.2 games
  • Removed the game logos, as in Flashpoint Infinity 6.2 for Windows
  • Removed the Wineprefix because it was not used

To-Do List

Technologies

Currently, only Flashpoint Infinity is available for Linux. Like its Windows counterpart, it uses router.php as a proxy server. But unlike Windows, Linux provides native ways to set per-application proxy settings, so no equivalent to the Flashpoint Redirector is used. On Windows, the HTTP *system proxy* is set to localhost:8888, and the *Redirector* forwards traffic to port 22500 if it originates from one of Flashpoint's applications. On Linux, each application is simply told to use localhost:22500 as a proxy server. For example, before Flashpoint Launcher opens the Flash projector, it sets the http_proxy environment variable to http://localhost:22500/.

When Flashpoint is updated, each Platform XML must be updated. The XMLs are located in Flashpoint's Data/Platforms folder. The initial download of Flashpoint Infinity for Windows only supports Flash games, but Flashpoint Infinity for Linux includes all of its supported web game technologies in the initial download. Thus the "Other Technologies" upgrade is not used. The Logos & Screenshots upgrade works the same way on Linux as on Windows, though.

The Flashpoint FAQ contains a list of all web game technologies ("Platforms") supported in the Windows version of Flashpoint. The Linux version currently supports a subset of these platforms. This is explained in detail below.

  • Flash: Supported through Wine by default. Although a Linux Flash Projector exists, it suffers from graphical glitches on many systems. If you'd like to try your luck with the native projector, open Flash.xml in a text editor, then replace each instance of FPSoftware/flashplayer_32_sa.exe with FPSoftware/Flash/linux/flashplayer32SA (the path to the Linux projector). Finally, click the Config tab and uncheck "Use Wine" if it is checked.
  • Shockwave: supported through Wine, but only locally. Any games that use Shockwave Projector Redirector (SPR) will not work. This is because SPR is hardcoded to use proxy port 8888. However, a new version of SPR with a user-configurable port number has been released. It needs to be added to the Linux build along with the updated Shockwave.xml and Theatre-Shockwave.xml, then tested thoroughly.
  • HTML5: Supported natively through the Basilisk browser. Be sure to switch off Wine from the Config tab. To update Basilisk, download it from here and extract it such that the executable is located at FPSoftware/Basilisk-Portable/linux/basilisk. By default, Basilisk will store its configuration in the location defined by XDG_CONFIG_DIR, so Flashpoint uses a shell script to set the configuration location. A pre-configured copy of Basilisk, along with the shell script, is available here. This text file describes Basilisk's configuration.
  • Java Applets: Supported natively using the JDK.
  • Unity Web Player: Supported through Wine. Unity 2.x and 3.x games may not work; this needs further testing.
  • PopCap Plugin: Supported through Wine.
  • Authorware Web Player: Supported through Wine.
  • Silverlight: Not supported. In the past, Pipelight allowed Linux users to use Silverlight, but the repository is no longer available for most Linux distros. Moonlight was another option, but is also no longer available. Attempts to use Silverlight in K-Meleon using Wine have failed.
  • 3DVIA Player: Not supported. A previous tester received this error, which crashed K-Meleon: Error: Access was denied while trying to open files in your profile directory. We need another tester to help us narrow this down.
  • 3D Groove GX: Not supported. When the http_proxy variable is set, Groove Player downloads but fails to load the file. Maybe the registry method described here would work better, but this needs to be tested. Two of our testers received the following set of errors: 1 2 3
  • ActiveX: Not supported. The most promising method so far was to install Internet Explorer 8 and each ActiveX plugin into the Wine prefix, but this needs considerable work.
  • GoBit Plugin: Not tested yet. To get started, simply download the GoBit Games Plugin support pack and follow the instructions in the included Readme.

Launcher Issues

A lot of work has been done to allow Flashpoint Launcher to support Linux, but there's a lot of room for improvement. This Trello post outlines some potential improvements.

Additional startup checks in the launcher could also benefit Linux (and Windows) users. For example, the launcher could check whether PHP and Wine are installed. This Trello post makes this suggestion.

The launcher also has issues escaping special characters on Linux. This is detailed here.

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