How to get City of Heroes running on Linux

[Daggenthal]

4 minutes ago, Trick said:

GeForce GTX660 and an AMD Phenom II x2

 

Yeah, so you're going to have to install the NVIDIA drivers as Linux Mint doesn't have them installed by default, but Ubuntu does, and so does Pop!_OS if you select the NVIDIA version. I actually had this same problem that you're having now, when I went to Mint, as I didn't have the NVIDIA drivers installed and the game wasn't able to start,

 

It's a little bit complicated, and I messed up my first time a while ago when I tried manually installing them, but they include a guide for you that you can follow. You have to go to the NVIDIA website and get the drivers for Linux there, and then manually install them, unless you go to Ubuntu or Pop!_OS.

[Trick]

In the Welcome app, it offers to install the NVIDIA drivers. Can't I use that?

 

Also, something weird is going on.

 

Okay, so Mint is installed on Partition 1 of a 500GB HD. Partition 2 is exFAT and holds a lot of my games. When I first switched over to Windows to check where City was installed, Steam alerted me that the Steam install folder (on Part2) was not writable. When I ran Tequila, it also failed (also on Part2). I had to run chkdsk and repair it and then both those programs were fine.

 

When I went back to Mint and then back to Windows again, I got the same error. Any ideas what's going on there?

 

 

[Daggenthal]

1 minute ago, Trick said:

In the Welcome app, it offers to install the NVIDIA drivers. Can't I use that?

 

Also, something weird is going on.

 

Okay, so Mint is installed on Partition 1 of a 500GB HD. Partition 2 is exFAT and holds a lot of my games. When I first switched over to Windows to check where City was installed, Steam alerted me that the Steam install folder (on Part2) was not writable. When I ran Tequila, it also failed (also on Part2). I had to run chkdsk and repair it and then both those programs were fine.

 

When I went back to Mint and then back to Windows again, I got the same error. Any ideas what's going on there?

 

 

So, that's because Windows has "Fast boot" enabled, which messes up your hard drives if left enabled. What you need to is go back into Windows, go into the Power-Options in the Control Panel, then in the upper left, click on "Choose what the power buttons do". Once done, click on the shield icon that's above the "Change what the power button does", and go down to where it says "Enable Fastboot", and disable that. My stuff is in Spanish, but you need to disable this, and then restart.

 

If you can install the NVIDIA drivers that way, go ahead and do it, but I've never tried it; You want to de-select "Activar inicio rápido (recomendado)" in the Power Options for Windows to disable Fastboot. So if you follow what I said, that should fix it as I usually have those same problems, thanks to Windows.

 

 

[Trick]

12 minutes ago, ColdZero said:

So, that's because Windows has "Fast boot" enabled, which messes up your hard drives if left enabled. What you need to is go back into Windows, go into the Power-Options in the Control Panel, then in the upper left, click on "Choose what the power buttons do". Once done, click on the shield icon that's above the "Change what the power button does", and go down to where it says "Enable Fastboot", and disable that. My stuff is in Spanish, but you need to disable this, and then restart.

 

If you can install the NVIDIA drivers that way, go ahead and do it, but I've never tried it; You want to de-select "Activar inicio rápido (recomendado)" in the Power Options for Windows to disable Fastboot. So if you follow what I said, that should fix it as I usually have those same problems, thanks to Windows.

 

 

That's interesting, but I don't have a fast boot option.

 

 

[Daggenthal]

5 minutes ago, Trick said:

That's interesting, but I don't have a fast boot option.

 

 

 

Which version of Windows are you on? Windows 10 has fastboot / quickboot, and that's in the power-options and needs to be disabled. It's basically where Windows doesn't ACTUALLY poweroff / reboot, it stays in "hibernation" mode, and claims "ownership" of your drives while it's in hibernation mode, therefore your Linux installation can't read / write to your storage drive.

[Trick]

Windows 7, and the problem is in WIndows where I can't write to the drive until I repair it, not Linux.

Edited July 19, 2020 by Trick

[Trick]

I installed the NVIDIA drivers and re-ran Island Rum. Same problem.

 

A couple questions:

1. How does Island Rum or CoH know to use WINE?

2. I found it interesting that when I started Island Rum, it already had listed all my options from Windows 7 (Homecoming 64bit, 32bit, Paragon Chat, Titan Icon).

3. I'm not sure how to verify that I'm actually pointed to the right directory, other than the fact that IR is obviously able to find all the files to check them, because the text field under Options showing the file path is too short.

[Daggenthal]

4 minutes ago, Trick said:

Windows 7, and the problem is in WIndows where I can't write to the drive until I repair it, not Linux.

 

Huh, I'm not sure then, because whenever I have that issue, it's related to Windows 10 and its "Fastboot / Quick boot" feature.

 

I'm sorry, I've actually never really ran into that specific problem before, so I'm unsure as to how to permanently fix it.

 

It sounds like to me, that your game drive isn't somehow being connected upon restart, or it doesn't have the proper rights / write-path to the storage drive. That's a good starting point to look up from.

[Trick]

Just now, ColdZero said:

 

Huh, I'm not sure then, because whenever I have that issue, it's related to Windows 10 and its "Fastboot / Quick boot" feature.

 

I'm sorry, I've actually never really ran into that specific problem before, so I'm unsure as to how to permanently fix it.

 

It sounds like to me, that your game drive isn't somehow being connected upon restart, or it doesn't have the proper rights / write-path to the storage drive. That's a good starting point to look up from.

At this point, it's not a major concern. I'm only really accessing that partition to copy over City. I'm hoping that when I stop mounting it, the problem will go away. I'm mostly concerned with getting City running at this point.

[Daggenthal]

2 minutes ago, Trick said:

I installed the NVIDIA drivers and re-ran Island Rum. Same problem.

 

A couple questions:

1. How does Island Rum or CoH know to use WINE?

2. I found it interesting that when I started Island Rum, it already had listed all my options from Windows 7 (Homecoming 64bit, 32bit, Paragon Chat, Titan Icon).

3. I'm not sure how to verify that I'm actually pointed to the right directory, other than the fact that IR is obviously able to find all the files to check them, because the text field under Options showing the file path is too short.

 

Island Rum requires WINE to run the game, so it just KNOWS to use that, as it's built specifically for it. CoH doesn't know it's being ran on WINE, just that it's running. Lutris can change its "Runner Options", which allows your programs to be ran on different execution layers, if I am correct.

 

#2 is normal, as Island Rum already lists those either way whenever it launches, as those are hard coded into it, if I'm not mistaken, but I am sure that you can change them.

 

Do you want to see if I can somehow message you on Discord and see if we can figure this out instantaneously?

[Trick]

Sure. Let me get Discord installed.

[Daggenthal]

1 minute ago, Trick said:

Sure. Let me get Discord installed.

 

Alrighty, whenever you create an account, send me a DM with your username, and I'll send you a friends request.

[Trick]

DM sent

[etrigan63]

My Island Rum just updated and CoH stopped launching. I was working fine before this update. I am running ArcoLinux-i3 with a Radeon VII on a ThreadRipper. I have `wine-staging` installed. What do i do?

[Daggenthal]

1 hour ago, etrigan63 said:

My Island Rum just updated and CoH stopped launching. I was working fine before this update. I am running ArcoLinux-i3 with a Radeon VII on a ThreadRipper. I have `wine-staging` installed. What do i do?

 

Whenever that happens, Island Rum just makes a newer folder with the newer version. Just switch to the new folder and re-set where the game is located, and it should work right away. I have to re-do my entire guide tomorrow, again, as Island Rum works 50% of the time for people, while my old version with Lutris worked about 95% of the time.

[etrigan63]

9 hours ago, ColdZero said:

 

Whenever that happens, Island Rum just makes a newer folder with the newer version. Just switch to the new folder and re-set where the game is located, and it should work right away. I have to re-do my entire guide tomorrow, again, as Island Rum works 50% of the time for people, while my old version with Lutris worked about 95% of the time.

Did that. No joy. Click on the arrow button. Green check appears. Nothing happens. Green check goes away.

[Daggenthal]

3 minutes ago, etrigan63 said:

Did that. No joy. Click on the arrow button. Green check appears. Nothing happens. Green check goes away.

 

Yeah, so I'll be redoing my guide, as the "newer" way that I was recommended to use has been nothing but trouble so far. I'm extremely tired at the moment, but I'll be doing a rewrite of the guide a little while after I wake up

 

Apologies as you'll have to wait a little while longer.

[Trick]

I'm trying a little bit of base editing, and some of the built-in keyboard shortcuts aren't working in Linux like they do in Windows. For example, ALT+CTRL turns objects in one direction and ALT+SHIFT turns them in another on Windows. In Linux, ALT+SHIFT does nothing.

Any idea why City would not accept ALT+SHIFT?

[Ankhammon]

Guys, anyone seen this on PopOS?

 

 

 

Can't seem to figure out how to make Tequila like the pathing.

 

I'm on

uname -a
Linux pop-os 5.4.0-7634-generic #38~1596560323~20.04~7719dbd-Ubuntu SMP Tue Aug 4 19:12:34 UTC 2 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

with

dotnet --version
3.1.302

 

Running through Lutris.

 

I've seen windows ppl with the same issue but I'm trying to figure it out on linux so I don't have to get win 10 and get my life data mined. 🙂

 

I started this process with the guide on page 1. Led me to an issue with wine-mono not running. I seem to be past that and got to this and I'm stumped (not hard to do I admit).

 

Any thoughts?

 

 

 

Edited August 10, 2020 by Ankhammon

[Daggenthal]

12 minutes ago, Ankhammon said:

Guys, anyone seen this on PopOS?

 

 

 

Can't seem to figure out how to make Tequila like the pathing.

 

I'm on

uname -a
Linux pop-os 5.4.0-7634-generic #38~1596560323~20.04~7719dbd-Ubuntu SMP Tue Aug 4 19:12:34 UTC 2 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

with

dotnet --version
3.1.302

 

I've seen windows ppl with the same issue but I'm trying to figure it out on linux so I don't have to get win 10 and get my life datamined. 🙂

 

I started this process with the guide on page 1. Led me to an issue with wine-mono not running. I seem to be past that and got to this and I'm stumped (not hard to do I admit).

 

Any thoughts?

 

 

 

 

It's says you're missing the .NET Framework, basically, which should've been a pop-up when you were originally setting up CoH in Lutris with WINE. It asks you to install 3 things, and you seem to have missed them somehow.

 

Here are some leads for you to try.

 

Try the answer with 161 upvotes first. If that doesn't work, try following this Reddit post.

 

If none of those work, you can purge WINE and reinstall it. That should hopefully work.

Edited August 10, 2020 by ColdZero
Purge

[Ankhammon]

Just wanted to thank you all for the help. I solved my issues and am in game in Linux.

 

I did do it a different way though. I solved my issues by dropping Pop os for Fedora, then I had to do battle with the nvidia driver issues with fedora (2-3 hrs to understand and fix), then installed the game and got into my chars and... crash.

 

Looked into the crash dump and it was fonts causing it. So did a winetricks add fonts (probably added too many but meh) and made it to Paragon City.

 

Good to be home after that trip. 🙂

[Daggenthal]

1 minute ago, Ankhammon said:

Just wanted to thank you all for the help. I solved my issues and am in game in Linux.

 

I did do it a different way though. I solved my issues by dropping Pop os for Fedora, then I had to do battle with the nvidia driver issues with fedora (2-3 hrs to understand and fix), then installed the game and got into my chars and... crash.

 

Looked into the crash dump and it was fonts causing it. So did a winetricks add fonts (probably added too many but meh) and made it to Paragon City.

 

Good to be home after that trip. 🙂

I'm glad you got it working!

 

Yeah, installing GPU drivers on Fedora can be a pain if you're new to it hahaha.

 

Let me know if there's anything else that happens! Enjoy the game!

[Ankhammon]

Mids is the next project. It installs just fine but IOs are not changing values.

[Ankhammon]

Wanted to throw this out in case anyone else got this.

 

When I was trying to get mids up and running I did something with winetricks and it caused this when bringing up the game:

0024:err:mscoree:CLRRuntimeInfo_GetRuntimeHost Wine Mono is not installed

 

to fix it, just run wineboot --update from terminal and you can get the game back up. or it worked for me anyway.

 

[Daggenthal]

14 minutes ago, Ankhammon said:

Wanted to throw this out in case anyone else got this.

 

When I was trying to get mids up and running I did something with winetricks and it caused this when bringing up the game:

0024:err:mscoree:CLRRuntimeInfo_GetRuntimeHost Wine Mono is not installed

 

to fix it, just run wineboot --update from terminal and you can get the game back up. or it worked for me anyway.

 

 

Glad you were able to get it running, and thank you for posting this here as well! Apparently they're working on a native client launcher for Windows, macOS, and Linux, so we shouldn't have these issues anymore anytime soon!