lodgey

Hi,

Having unsuccessfully searched the net for any sign that someone had managed to install BGT under linux, I decided have another go at doing it myself.

This time, I think that I have succeeded, although testing currently only consists of taking my PC through the quests at Candlekeep and then out into the great unknown. I haven't yet left the first area outside Candlekeep, but everything seems to be working so far.

For those who are interested, here's how I did it. Hopefully I haven't forgotten anything.

I think that it is worth noting that I have done this by myself for my own satisfaction. Don't complain to Ascension64 et al for linux-related issues.

Thanks go to Yacomo (mospack), Westley Weimer & The Bigg (WeiDU), Ascension64 (BGT), King Diamond and anyone else who wrote/worked on any of the utilities that I have mentioned here. Only the bgt-linux package attached is mine and I haven't consolted with any of these people, but I am a firm believer in credit where credit is due.

Required Programs:
dos2unix: some file conversion seemed to have issues with the dos/windows style end-of-line marker

mmv: useful command to handle renames more like the dos rename command. (I don't know how common this command is, I use Gentoo, so I just installed with 'emerge mmv')

mospack: I recompiled this for Linux. Fortunately, the mospack package available on the net includes a unix makefile to build the programs. link

weidu for linux: Available from weidu.org - Note that the default installation uses mixed case in the file names, but my scripts assume the commands are all in lower case. I suppose I should look at updating my programs to work with the correct file names, but in the meantime, either rename WeiDU to weidu or use a simlink.

sed: This is probably standard for every distribution, but I'm listing it here just in case.

sh: I'm only assuming that the bourne shell exists. If it doesn't, I recommend setting up /bin/sh as a simlink to something like /bin/bash.

wine: I've never used Cedega, so I can't comment on how this will work with that.

bgt-linux: This is my contribution to the process. It contains a few shell scripts and sed command files used to alter the installation to work under linux. Please feel free to take anything in this file to use as you wish.

 bgt_linux.rar   3.99K   1795 downloads

All these files (except those in bgt-linux) should be available in the path.

Process:
Install Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II normally, and patch them as required. If you have problems at this step, I would go to www.winehq.org and check for help there, but I didn't have any problems.

Download and extract BGT into the Baldur's Gate II directory.

Run tolower (part of the weidu for linux package) in both the Baldur's Gate and the Baldur's Gate II directories.

extract bgt-linux into the Baldur's Gate II directory.

run bgt-linux/bgt-linux. With no parameters, this shell script assumes the current directory is the BG2 directory. If it isn't then supply the BG2 directory as the parameter.

The script should create altered copies of a few files and start the installation. When prompted for the BG1 directory, you need the full path name. Using '../<dir>' or '~<userid>/<dir>' doesn't seem to work, although simlinks don't cause any issues.

The final readme will display using less rather than a web browser, because it was easier for me to code.

Put in the Baldur's Gate II CD then run 'wine baldur' - enjoy.

Bits of the process I don't like:
tis2bg2 runs through wine. This shouldn't bother me, because you obviously need wine anyway, but I would prefer to be able to run it natively. It does seem to work without issues, however.

I had major issues when trying to biff the files using weidu for linux. The created .bif files all seemed to be far too small, and didn't seem to have all of the resources in them. I don't know if this was because something that I forgot, or a bug in WeiDU, but I worked around the issue by biffing using the supplied windows weidu executable through wine.

If there are any problems with this process, I can't guarantee that I will have much time to look at them, but post anyway and we'll take it from there.