NEW HOW-TO: Install ADE 2.0.1 in Wine

[patdavid]

Originally Posted by ottdmk

Hey Pat,

I'm one of the maintainers of ADE 2.0.1 on the AppDB. Thanks for this; your test results are queued right now and I'm looking into how to get them as the current results. (Right now, the current results are my results on FreeBSD 11 from a year ago.)

I'm very interested in trying your .NET solution on FreeBSD, as it's currently borked in wine on that platform.

Awesome! I hope this might yield some good results for you then!

It seems that there's two main places where things trip up:

1. windowscodecs.dll and windowscodecsext.dll are not getting moved to the correct location during install of windowscodecs with winetricks.
2. Installing dotnet3.5SP1 with winetricks should probably link to the full installer executable, and someone block access to the network during the install (I think?).

Hope this can be helpful in some way! (I'm currently writing this up on my website also for posterity.)

[haertig]

Thanks for these updated suggestions. I had given up on ADE 2 under wine on LinuxMint. I'll give it another shot.

[patdavid]

Originally Posted by haertig

Thanks for these updated suggestions. I had given up on ADE 2 under wine on LinuxMint. I'll give it another shot.

I finally got around to writing up my steps on my site, if it helps:

https://patdavid.net/2018/05/install...nux-with-wine/

[Difflugia]

I just got a new laptop and installed kubuntu 18.04 after using Slackware for years.

I successfully installed ADE 2.0.1 using the Wiki instructions with wine 3.0 from the Ubuntu repository and winetricks 20180603-next. I was able to authorize to my Adobe ID and download a book from Overdrive.

The only note I'll make is that I first tried installing it into a Win64 bottle, which failed. Switching to a Win32 bottle (as in the instructions) worked fine.

[darryl]

I changed the Wiki last night to reflect a problem I came across with ADE 2.0.1 in a new installation of Manjaro. Everything installed fine but I kept getting the annoying cannot connect to fulfilment server error message when trying to download a borrowed library book. After a too lengthy process of troubleshooting I found that lib32-gnutls was required and was not a dependency of wine, at least not on Manjaro and therefore probably not on Arch either. Once installed all works well.

This morning I decided to post in this thread as well as the Wiki, and on reviewing the posts was reminded of Pat David's blog, which I visited. I could have saved myself some time and aggravation had I visited yesterday, as Pat had posted a recent update detailing the lib32-gnutls problem. Pat was the first to report success on Ubuntu 18.04 and posted the steps on his blog. The main differences to the steps in the Wiki were resolving a problem with windows codecs not being installed correctly in Ubuntu and using the full dotnet installer rather than the net installer. I never got around to posting this in the Wiki itself, which I will endeavour to do soon as some other modifications are necessary. Thanks to Pat for his contribution, and also for his acknowledgement of and link to the Mobileread Wiki in his blog.

[darryl]

I've now updated the wiki to reflect a number of changes. Pat David's successful install on Ubuntu as reflected here and in his blog posts lead to an additional troubleshooting section incorporating a solution to the problem he experienced on Ubuntu with winecodecs failing to properly install the dll's. Other changes:

I substituted the link to the full dotnet 3.5 sp1 installer rather than the net installer, which was very slow and problematic for some. I also mentioned that some people have reported success installing dotnet with the wineprefix verb, which I myself had found problematic when developing the original procedures.

I updated the download link to ADE 2.0.1 itself, as the previous link seems to have vanished from the Adobe website. It now downloads from a previous version of the page on archive.org. I would strongly suggest keeping a downloaded copy, as this may become much harder to obtain in the future.

I included a troubleshooting section on installing lib32-gnutls, and removed the original Caution, as it seems to be clear that this procedure is working on most distributions for most people.

On a broader note we seem to be very fortunate at the moment that most of the relevant Windows software seems to be working. I'm currently successfully running on Linux by way of Wine ADE 2.0.1, Cloud Library, Kobo Desktop (working well with OBok on my Linux calibre install), Overdrive for Windows (using for library Audiobooks) and of course Kindle For PC. Most install easily. Some do required a little work, most notably ADE and Kobo Desktop. We can only hope this continues for as long as possible as none of these programs seem to have a Linux version on the horizon, and continual updates to both Windows and the programs occur.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by patdavid

I finally got around to writing up my steps on my site, if it helps:

https://patdavid.net/2018/05/install...nux-with-wine/

Originally Posted by darryl

On a broader note we seem to be very fortunate at the moment that most of the relevant Windows software seems to be working. I'm currently successfully running on Linux by way of Wine ADE 2.0.1, Cloud Library, Kobo Desktop (working well with OBok on my Linux calibre install), Overdrive for Windows (using for library Audiobooks) and of course Kindle For PC. Most install easily. Some do required a little work, most notably ADE and Kobo Desktop. We can only hope this continues for as long as possible as none of these programs seem to have a Linux version on the horizon, and continual updates to both Windows and the programs occur.

Even though I don't currently have Wine installed on any of my Linux machines, I appreciate all the work you've both done on this. I think I'll go ahead and install Wine on Linux Mint 18.x laptop and follow the Wiki for installing ADE (and the other software).

Thank you.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Even though I don't currently have Wine installed on any of my Linux machines, I appreciate all the work you've both done on this. I think I'll go ahead and install Wine on Linux Mint 18.x laptop and follow the Wiki for installing ADE (and the other software).

Thank you.

Let us know how you go. I'm planning to Install Linux Mint to run through the Wiki instructions to test them as soon as I get the chance. Any feedback would be appreciated.

So far as the other programs go you may need some assistance with Kobo as there were some difficulties when I last installed it. The Winetricks verb may be working now but I had to start with an old version to get it to install. Then it offered a series of upgrades and is still working with the current version. Also, Obok needs a little tweaking to get it to work. In particular the Linux part of the code was commented out, and the database and books directories are installed by Wine in the fonts directory of the Wine Prefix. I actually modified the Obok code and also inserted directly the new paths on my system. However, much of this is more easily achievable by symlinks. I haven't bothered to write it up since there seems to be little demand as Kobo books can be downloaded to ADE in any event. I only bothered because I like downloading the kepubs and wanted a further broken encryption alternative for when Adobe eventually does flick the switch. Let me know if you need Kobo desktop and I'll help you to sort it out.

[patdavid]

I'm wondering if it wouldn't make sense to simply find a way to get a docker image (or some sort of VM image) set up to freeze all the weirdness for those looking to simply use ADE.

[darryl]

@Pat,

Earlier in this process I considered distributing the wineprefix which I decided was not feasible for licensing reasons. It would be great to be able to make this all easy for everyone with a Docker image. However, latepaul went down this track and decided it was a dead end.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...5&postcount=27

But even if he is wrong on this there licensing would prevent it. Since most problems reported involved the installation into the wineprefix things would be a lot easier for many if we could just make a complete .adewine prefix available for download. Unfortunately, ADE is proprietary software, as are the Microsoft programs we install with this procedure. Even though they are freely downloadable and free to use we simply don't have permission to distribute them. I suspect such permission would not be forthcoming even if we requested it, particularly as we would be distributing not the binaries but fully installed packages with the end user not having been required to accept the license agreements.

Forgive me for quoting myself but I discussed this issue in #32 in this thread.

I'll still have a look at installation on Ubuntu based systems when I get the chance. I would like to see this working easily for everyone. One thing your experience shows is that it seems technically not only feasible but easy to simply distribute a working .adewine prefix directory with ADE installed but not authorised. In theory this should work on any distro with a suitable version of wine. Unfortunately, I suspect this would violate all sorts of licence agreements. Though perhaps it would be okay to help someone having particular trouble by creating such a wineprefix directory for them at their request and as their "agent". Of course, it would need to actually be created anew on their behalf rather than simply distributing a pre-prepared one. Not a feasible mass solution, but possibly okay for someone having real trouble.

Another possible solution is to use a live cd of a distribution known to work to produce the working wineprefix. A lot of work to achieve a simple result.

Unfortunately licensing is a problem which I think precludes us distributing either a wineprefix or a docker container.

[j.p.s]

If anyone ever got it working in docker, and captured the steps in a Dockerfile, wouldn't it be possible to distribute the Dockerfile without violating any licenses? that would have some disadvantages compared to distributing a container, but advantages as well. (I've done a bit with docker (linux containers on linux boxes, but never got around to using Dockerfiles.)

[ottdmk]

ADE is not free software, although Adobe does not charge for it. I can't say I've bothered read through the terms of service for it, but I guarantee you there is a clause (or clauses) prohibiting unauthorized redistribution. Which is what you're proposing.

[darryl]

Unfortunately Docker is something I simply haven't got around to playing with, though it is on my list. But assuming the dockerfile and anything else distributed does not contain the software and the user is required to accept the licence agreement it may be worth looking into. Right now Late Paul's comments are the last word on Docker. That is, he thinks the whole approach of installation in Docker is fundamentally flawed because the DRM requires direct access to libGL's hardware capabilities which it presumably does not have. If anyone wants to pursue this approach they are welcome. My knowledge of Docker at this stage is not up to the task.

I see probably the best approach along these lines and probably not too dissimilar to a dockerfile is a script suitable for inclusion in winetricks. The installation procedure now seems to work for all distributions as far as we know, with the copying of the dll's from windowscodecs necessary for Ubuntu, Mint and similar. The existing ADE 1.7 winetricks script may well be suitable for modification.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by ottdmk

ADE is not free software, although Adobe does not charge for it. I can't say I've bothered read through the terms of service for it, but I guarantee you there is a clause (or clauses) prohibiting unauthorized redistribution. Which is what you're proposing.

Who were you replying to?

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by darryl

Unfortunately Docker is something I simply haven't got around to playing with, though it is on my list. But assuming the dockerfile and anything else distributed does not contain the software and the user is required to accept the licence agreement it may be worth looking into. Right now Late Paul's comments are the last word on Docker. That is, he thinks the whole approach of installation in Docker is fundamentally flawed because the DRM requires direct access to libGL's hardware capabilities which it presumably does not have. If anyone wants to pursue this approach they are welcome. My knowledge of Docker at this stage is not up to the task.

I see probably the best approach along these lines and probably not too dissimilar to a dockerfile is a script suitable for inclusion in winetricks. The installation procedure now seems to work for all distributions as far as we know, with the copying of the dll's from windowscodecs necessary for Ubuntu, Mint and similar. The existing ADE 1.7 winetricks script may well be suitable for modification.

I certainly defer to Late Paul on Docker and agree that direct hardware access requirements complicates and maybe prevents getting it to work. My limited understanding of dockerfiles is that they define an installation and can probably be considered similar to a script. They are relatively small and do not contain any OS or application components.