[UNOFFICIAL] Running BMS on Linux/WINE with opentrack HOWTO
-
@Ferde
TBF I didn’t try, but imho there’s high probability of success, assuming you’re going to use another monitor connected to the gpu or stream to other devices like tablets.
I guess most difficult setup would be MFDs connected via USB, which might be something Linux graphics stack may not handle that well. -
Hey guys.
I’d really like to get BMS running on my
Steamdeck, I know it sounds nuts but I’m away from home a lot at the moment and it would be fun to have a sim I can fly on it.The steamdeck runs SteamOS and has Proton. I’ve installed Protontricks, but I’ll be honest I don’t reaaaallly know what I’m doing with it.
Anybody got any advice?
-
@SOBO-87 Hi Sorry for late reply, I think running BMS on SteamDeck should be doable, but it’d be a bit PITA without physical keyboard and may be a challenge for someone with no previous experience with Wine/Proton.
On the news not really related to VR under Linux, I’ve got some good news. Recent Wine/Wine-mono should be able to run BMS ALternative Launcher without installing .Net. Pro of this solution is, we trade yellow background on checkboxes for visible tickmarks. Still it’s unable to detect SteamVR, but otherwise works fine. It’s quite handy to use it to map axis/buttons. Once mapping is done, I reenable VR in Falcon BMS user.cfg using text editor , launch direclty Falcon BMS binary and set it to use BMS-auto.key generated via AL.
Also With Wine 9.4 work on running FoxVox can be restarted. Now at least it shouldn’t crash on startup. I haven’t tested it personally but I’ve seen it fixed in Wine bugreports.
I’m gonna try it once 9.4 lands in Fedora repos. If it’s true then maybe installing MS TTS engine and language would be enough for FoxVox to run. That would be tremendous step forward as voice commands are last vital piece of BMS experience known to be troublesome on Linux. -
More good news today. I’ve tried ALVR build from latest master with fixes for desync in playerspace fix merged. I can clearly say, VR in BMS under Linux is absolutely playable. Framerate is at least as good as under Windows, head movement tracking feels smooth and I couldn’t notice any floatiness or lags.
One downside is, current master is a bit unstable and it takes few restarts of steamvr to get it connected with alvr without crash. -
@Ferde hey, I know this was asked a long time ago, but maybe it is still useful to someone: I run falcon-bms-control server https://kungfoo.github.io/falcon-bms-control/ with no problems under wine, and get MFDs/ICP+DED on my Android tablet.
-
@wsy Oooh… good to know, thanks!
I tried it and got connection but no images on the MFDs and the buttons didn’t work either. If it works for you then it means it’s something I miss in my install.
What method did you use to install BMS?
-
@Ferde weird, are you saying that the server launched and on your android you saw the bezels but no images inside? Did you set g_bExportRTTTextures 1 in falcon config? Also make sure you launch the server and BMS in the same prefix.
I installed BMS using Proton, don’t remember exactly, but I think I used something along the lines of this guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/falconbms/comments/u4olpm/installing_on_linux_via_steam/ and additionally installed dotnet to get AL to work. So far I don’t have any luck with AL with wine-mono.
For buttons, I had trouble only with ICP. Experimentally I found that if I rebind ICP buttons to something like Ctrl-Alt-letter instead of NumPad they work, so if you get an image but buttons don’t work it may be because of a keybind bms-control-server doesn’t like under Wine.
-
@wsy Thanks. Curiosly I have it running without dotnet I thought it might be that.
Last question (I hope): Do you remember which version/s of dotnet you installed? 4.8?
-
@Ferde yep, 4.8. I don’t think dotnet would have anything to do with falcon-bms-control, though, I was just mentioning it to describe my setup.
-
@wsy Thanks. Will make some tries.
-
OK, I spent too many hours trying a new install and several ways of installing dependencies with no joy. If I have dotnet 4.8 neither the alternative launcher or the bms control server work.
Out of hope I’ve tried again my working install and run bms control in another way and this time it worked!!! It happened the same to me that some buttons work and others don’t. I guess this has to do with conflicting shortcuts with Linux? I will try rebinding those controls as you suggested to be sure.
Edit: yes, that was it. After rebinding the buttons that weren’t working I have fully working MFDs
-
@Ferde
BTW Next release of wine-mono should make AL work OOB. it already work on Proton-experimental.
The only remaining issue is, it’s unable to detect SteamVR and so there’s no option shown to enable VR.
Aside from that, it’s perfectly functional. -
@Xeno Good to know. My install works already with mono, although not the launcher boxes.
But that improvement will probably help with weapon delivery planner and helios and, as you mentioned earlier, even voice commands! -
@Ferde OK… this is weird… I now have working checkboxes!
My hypothesis is that I briefly tried wine 9.5 and that maybe installed some mono newer version? Because I’m now back to 7.22
-
I still have no joy (Proton 9 from Gentoo repo, latest wine-mono), get this error when launching AL ootb.
-
@wsy
I suppose Gentoo provides wine-mono 9.0, which predates fixes for few non-implemented functions AL needs.
I’m using proton-experimental provided by Valve and AL works just fine as said abovr. I haven’t really had a chance to try Fedora packages, here wine is stuck at 9.1 and wine-mono at 8.1.
See bugreport: https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56324 -
@Xeno nice, thank you! Checkboxes now work, but BMS does not launch, tough choice Will experiment more.
-
@wsy
Both Wine and Proton still need external d3dx11_43 lib installed. Assuming DXVK is installed that’s last issue for having BMS working OOB under Linux. -
@Xeno you are completely right; just for the record (all this info is already in your posts), here are my steps:
- Install clean wineprefix with Gentoo wine-proton 9;
- Install Falcon 4;
- Install BMS;
At this point AL does not launch. - Update wine-mono with .msi file from the above github link;
AL launches with checkboxes visible; Falcon crashes after the initial splash screen. - Install d3dx11_43;
Falcon launches but the main menu is flickering. - Install dxvk;
Now everything seems to work, including opentrack and falcon-bms-control. Everything needs to be launched with WINEESYNC=1.
I will test more, but currently it seems to me that it runs faster than on my old setup through Steam Proton with an older Proton version and dotnet.
-
Hmm I wonder if that guide could help me get it working on my steamdeck…