Spectacle8011

As long as the windows are being maximised into a workspace you can jump to with SUPER+[0-9], this seems interesting, if overly reliant on the mouse.

I'll keep that in mind. The main thing is changing keyboard shortcuts—I like most of the defaults in GNOME. In theory, this should actually be easier to port over to new computers than Sway, because I only need to import one configuration dump.

I mean, I probably could have written a Makefile or something for my dotfiles repository but I'm lazy...

Oh! Super handy, thank you! I was just considering how I might use dconf to get this setup.

I haven't tried it out yet but it seems like it would work well!

What I like:

• I like GNOME 40 more than GNOME 3 because it's prettier.
• I like GNOME in general because it's stable with pretty, high quality bundled programs.
• I like the UX. It takes all the good things about the macOS UX and makes them better, while taking all the bad things and making them less stupid.
• I like that they completely separate the dock from normal window management, so I never hit it when my cursor reaches the edge of the screen.
• I like that you can set Nautilus to use one-click to open folders, even though that is cribbed from Dolphin. (Even if I use lf most of the time)
• I like the simple IBus integration that lets me setup my Japanese IME easily.

What I dislike:

• I dislike that I need a system tray extension for some software.
• I dislike how in-your-face the notifications are and that they can't be stacked.
• I dislike that I need to use Dconf to set shortcuts for workspaces 5-10.
• I dislike needing GNOME Tweaks to set autostart software/daemons—this is a basic feature, not a "tweak".
• I dislike not having an easy way to port my settings for GNOME to a new computer. It's annoying to have to set all this stuff up again compared to Sway, where I clone a repository and copy some config files over.
• I dislike the new screenshot tool in GNOME 40+. It automatically saves photos to a directory, rather than letting me copy it. Come to think of it, I also dislike that it doesn't support the same screenshot protocols Sway does for grim and slurp, which is my favorite screenshot workflow.

Raivo was never free software anyway: https://github.com/raivo-otp/ios-application/blob/master/LICENSE.md

Modification, duplication, and (re)distribution of the Services in binary or published format ("Processed Format") for any purposes and/or reasons is strictly prohibited without the explicit permission from Raivo OTP. Permission for modification, duplication, and (re)distribution of the "Service" in Processed Format can be requested via GitHub.

I added a new section for a basic Bottles setup: https://wiki.comfysnug.space/doku.php?id=visualnovel:winedistros#using_bottles_as_a_wine_manager

There's still a lot I don't know, but there's definitely some cool stuff in Bottles and I'm glad I can finally use it, haha. Thanks for your help!

Most of these games are installed in my ~/games/VNs folder, but Higurashi is in a Wineprefix. These games were installed long ago, and some of them don't even have methods of installation. Since you gave me the idea, I installed Flatseal and gave Bottles free reign on "All user files (filesystem=home)", which it didn't have, but that didn't help. I'm very much not an expert on Flatpak, so it's possible I missed something basic. Lutris on Linux Mint worked perfectly fine with Sono Hana 1, so I don't know what's different about Bottles.

Edit: I copied Sono Hana 1 to ~/.var/app/com.usebottles.bottles/data/bottles/bottles/runner-dir/drive_c/Program Files/その花びら1 and it worked! In the end, it was something basic. I think I'm going to break the sandbox though because I don't want to move all my games there: https://docs.usebottles.com/flatpak/expose-directories/use-system-home

Ren'Py is a fantastic engine and it would be great to have more games developed in it. Unfortunately, a lot of visual novels don't use Ren'Py, so they are only released for Windows and need to be run through Wine. This includes the vast majority of Japanese visual novels before 2010. The good news is that most of the time, this works pretty well—assuming you do it right. The setup isn't complicated and hopefully this guide makes it easy to follow.

There's a neat trick for running NScripter games natively on Linux, even if they were only developed for Windows: https://wiki.comfysnug.space/doku.php?id=visualnovel:vnsonlinux#playing_nscripter_games_with_onscripter

ONScripter is a drop-in replacement for the NScripter engine that works on Linux, and it can interpret NScripter game files just by running it in the same folder. This worked for me with TRianThology.

Steam games tend to work out of the box thanks to Valve, but this guide is for the visual novels that aren't released on Steam (which there are a lot of).

Here are some other VNs:

• I tried Dracu-Riot and don't even get a window:

002c:err:wineboot:process_run_key Error running cmd L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winemenubuilder.exe -r" (126).

• I tried Hatsuyuki Sakura and got an odd one complaining about not being able to find Startmenu.exe:

StartMenu.exeが見つかりませんでした。

• I tried Suteki na Kanojo no Tsukurikata, which gives me this:

00c4:err:module:import_dll Library UnityPlayer.dll (which is needed by L"Z:\\run\\user\\1000\\doc\\2bcd2b83\\Sutekina_kanojo_no_tsukurikata.exe") not found
00c4:err:module:LdrInitializeThunk Importing dlls for L"Z:\\run\\user\\1000\\doc\\2bcd2b83\\Sutekina_kanojo_no_tsukurikata.exe" failed, status c0000135

• I tried Amrilato, which tells me it can't find the game executable and gives me this:

002c:err:wineboot:process_run_key Error running cmd L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winemenubuilder.exe -r" (126).
Failed to launch. Arguments are:
0 "Z:\\run\\user\\1000\\doc\\4b6a94df\\lib\\windows-i686\\TheExpressionAmrilato
.exe"
1 NULL
2 NULL
3 NULL

• I tried Higurashi Meakashi, which gives me this even though there is a data folder named this:

002c:err:wineboot:process_run_key Error running cmd L"C:\\windows\\system32\\winemenubuilder.exe -r" (126).
There should be 'HigurashiEp05_Data'
folder next to the executable

And it continues on in this fashion. I'm using sys-wine-8.0, but switching to soda-7.0-7 gives me identical results. It seems something is fundamentally broken in the install, but I don't see how that could be given I installed it via Flatpak.

Unfortunately not! Admittedly, I only tried the Flatpak on Arch while I tested Lutris on all the distributions we provide instructions for. I got a bunch of different errors when trying to launch Sono Hanabira 1. I'm reinstalling Bottles with Flatpak now so I can test it again.

First, I create a Gaming bottle. I change the Runner to system Wine, which is Wine Staging 8.12 for me. Then I get the classic File Join error:

So, it seems like the filenames are garbled. I install cjkfonts as a dependency—I wish it gave me feedback as to what it's doing like Lutris does in the installer while it does this because it takes a while, but that's a small usability thing. I also set the LANG=ja_JP.UTF-8 environment variable in settings for the bottle. I try to launch it again and the text isn't garbled anymore, but I still get the filejoin error:

This is weird, because I'm pretty sure this is a result of a bug that existed from 2008-2022 fixed in Wine 7.10, and I'm using Wine 8.12.

At this point, I wonder if the locale is taking and run the commands listed in this comment: https://github.com/bottlesdevs/Bottles/issues/2129#issuecomment-1354415425

I try again, but I get the same error. At this point, I figure Sono Hana is probably a tricky game so I try H2O now, which I know works in normal Wine, Lutris, and even CrossOver, but I get this:

And I get a lot of similar issues for other VNs, too.

GNOME Boxes is actually simpler than Virtualbox, in my opinion, with all the options you'll need. It even lets you install a variety of ISOs straight from the interface, without needing to go out to the web. Of course, if you're installing Windows, you need to supply your own ISO file.

Virt-Manager can be unintuitive but it's plenty capable.

I used ranger previously, but I'm an lf convert. It was a bit difficult to set some things up, but it's blazing fast and there are things about it I prefer.