Getting latest WinAGI studio to work on linux mint

[Paladinlover]

Wow! My account is actually active! 23 years and still kicking! Hopefully I will finally get around to making some games to satisfy that intermittent itch I have been having for those same number of years.

Anyway, I wanted to restart and retry my journey in making my AGI game. I still am using the older AGIstudio that came out in the very early 2000s, since I found WinAGIstudio to be unsatisfactory for a few reasons. But I did see the latest one and I wanted to try it.

Only problem? I ditched Windows a long time ago. I am on Linux Mint and while some of the stuff does work (I can make the original AGIstudio run and use it as is using wine), but I cannot get WinAGI to work with Wine or bottles (or maybe I need the correct settings?) I have virtualbox and can use a VM, but clearly Windows 98 or XP cannot handle the latest version of WinAGI. Any help I can get? It is funny, but I was trying to get things done and research using the original Peter Kelly version 1.37.

Thanks for any help.

[Collector]

The new version of WinAGI is written in C#. I am not sure what all is involved with getting C# apps to run on Linux if the .NET runtimes have been installed.  https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/install/linux

[Kawa]

I'm sure I've mentioned it before but a .Net WinForms application that does not use any custom DLL files (except if they too are .Net) should run fine on Mono, according to my own experiences as a recovering C# dev.

[Paladinlover]

OK, maybe I made a mistake in what I meant by 'latest' since I didn't see the thread on WinAGI 3.0.0 before I made this, but the one I downloaded and am trying to make work is the WinAGI 2.3.7 which I downloaded and unpacked (using an online .msi unpacker) that I got from the AGIwiki. It was the one released in 2024 and not the one recently released.

My apologies. That one was written in VB if I am not mistaken.

[AGKorson]

There was a person who got v2.3.7 to work on wine; if you search through the old posts here, you might find the discussion.

I haven't tried running v3 on Linux - I don't have a system to run it on, and never really got into the Linux thing anyway. There are a few API calls using windows dlls, so I'm not sure if everything will work. Honestly, I need someone with Linux experience to do that testing- it's just not something I can do.

[AGKorson]

Found the link to the Linux/Wine discussion- it's here:

https://sciprogramming.com/community/index.php?topic=1832.msg12863#msg12863

User obscurenforeign was able to get it running in Linux using Wine. Don't know if he's still active here, but if so, he could probably offer some advice on getting v2 to work for you.

[AGKorson]

I asked Microsoft CoPilot about running WinAGI v3.0 on Linux, and here's what it had to say:

If I were betting based solely on the project file:

Component            Chance of working under Wine
Basic WinForms UI    High
Dialogs/Menus        High
FastColoredTextBox   Probably
HTML Agility Pack    High
File I/O             High
NAudio               Depends on features used

Wine Testing Checklist for WinAGI

1. Publish build
Configuration: Release
Deployment Mode: Self-contained
Runtime: win-x86
Single File: Enabled

You already have all of these configured.

2. Linux User Setup
Install Wine:
Ubuntu/Debian
    sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
    sudo apt update
    sudo apt install wine64 wine32

3. Verify installation:
    wine --version

4. Run the Application
Copy the contents of your published publish folder to Linux.
Launch:
    wine WinAGI.exe

If prompted to install Wine Mono or Gecko, allow it.

5. Test Core Features
  Verify that the following work correctly:
   - Application startup
   - Opening and saving AGI game files
   - Syntax editor (FastColoredTextBox)
   - Menus and dialogs
   - Drag-and-drop (if used)
   - Clipboard copy/paste
   - Search/replace
   - Resource editing
   - Import/export functions

  Pay Special Attention To
   Since you're using NAudio, test:
   - Sound playback
   - WAV playback
   - MIDI playback
  Audio is the most likely area to exhibit Wine-specific issues.

6. Collect Useful Diagnostic Information
  If the app fails to start:
    wine WinAGI.exe > winagi.log 2>&1
  Have the user send you winagi.log.

Normally I would never suggest listening to AI for help, but FWIW, it's been very helpful with regard to coding WinAGI.

[lskovlun]

I would say, as a long-term Linux user, that those OCX's were the most scary things for me. Since I'm more of an SCI guy, I tend to use SCI Compsnion more, and it has a weird effect in Wine, where Companion has this tendency to open panes when any useful action would result. In my case, the code seems to enter into a resize-animate-resize loop, which continues indefinitely.