I was surprised to read in one of the sub-forums here that BMS runs on linux. I assumed that BMS would be hard to install on linux and that it wouldn’t really work very well.
I decided to give it a try just for fun, despite my low expectations. I tried installing BMS on the most popular current version of linux, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. It wasn’t that difficult (see detailed installation instructions below.) BMS runs on Ubuntu with no problem! The frame rate was a little lower than what I’m used to, but that’s probably because I have Ubuntu installed on an old PC.
So why would you care that BMS runs on ubuntu linux? Three reasons:
1. Cost. After a while, PC’s often become unusable because of an outdated or broken version of Microsoft Windows. Rather than buying a new PC or laptop to run BMS, you could retrofit an old PC with Ubuntu and run BMS on that. Ubuntu also runs lots of other Windows games, including big names like (gag) League of Legends and Overwatch.
2. Maintainability. In the 20 years since Falcon 4 was first released, our favorite sim has outlasted Microsoft Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista and Windows 8, and now runs primarily on Windows 7 and Windows 10. Will BMS run on whatever version of Windows is available 20 years from now? Even if it doesn’t, you will still be able to run BMS on linux. This gives BMS staying power.
3. Quality assurance. If you work in software engineering or software quality assurance, you may appreciate the benefits of having an entire windows installation of BMS, along with the corresponding Windows registry in text file format, in a regular directory tree under the .wine directory. Want to do a crude first test of whether a new alpha version of BMS works on Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 10? Switch from one to another with a single mouse click in the winecfg dialog.
–-- installation instructions ------
To run BMS on Ubuntu linux, follow these steps:
1. if you don’t have linux, download the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS ISO and load it on to a memory stick such that the ISO is bootable
2. find an old PC or laptop you don’t need anymore, then boot from the memory stick to install linux on it. (Ubuntu 18.04 is a modern operating system with a macOS look and feel.) All this takes about 20 minutes. There’s no need to reboot multiple times as with a Microsoft Windows install.
3. download BMS 4.33 U1,2,3,4,5 into your Downloads directory
4. make sure you have the right graphics card device drivers, e.g. open a terminal and type:
sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall
5. Install the windows emulation package:
sudo apt install wine-stable
6. put your Falcon 4 CD in the disk drive
7. cd to the CD directory and run
wine Setup.exe
click through the Falcon 4 setup screens just as you would with a Microsoft Windows installation
8. unzip BMS 4.33 U1 to your .wine directory
unzip Falcon_BMS_4.33_U1_Setup.zip -d ~/.wine/dosdevices/c:
9.
cd to ~/.wine/drive_c/Falcon BMS 4.33 U1 Setup, then run
wine Setup.exe
click through the install screens as with a Microsoft Windows install
10. Go back to your downloads folder and run each update, e.g.
wine Falcon_BMS_4.33_U2_Incremental.exe
and so forth. Click through the install screens just as you would in Microsoft Windows.
11. bring up the windows emulation configuration dialog via the command
winecfg
Then select the Graphics tab and check “Emulate a virtual desktop”. (I suggest setting the desktop size to the maximum resolution of your monitor and leaving it there, although it may be that the graphics setting within the BMS setup dialog overrides this.) Exit by selecting “OK”
12. right-click on the BMS launcher icon on your desktop; select “Properties” at the bottom of the menu that pops up. Locate the Command text box, scroll to the end of the string that begins with “env WINEPREFIX= …” and add “-window”. This is the BMS command line option that causes BMS to appear in a window rather than full screen. If you want to start ACMI automatically every time you enter the BMS 3D world, add the command line option “-acmi” as well.
13. set your monitor to its maximum resolution in the ubuntu settings/Devices/Displays screen.
14. Click on the BMS launcher icon on the desktop to run BMS
15. (optional) If you want to increase your frame rate, reduce your resolution in the BMS Setup screen Graphics view. Then exit BMS and set your monitor to the same low resolution in the ubuntu settings/Devices/Displays screen. (Set BMS resolution first, monitor resolution 2nd so the BMS setup graphics screen “Apply” and “OK” button remain visible.) When you set both BMS setup and ubuntu settings/Devices/Display to a low resolution, you can play BMS in full screen mode.
Steps 11 and 12 prevent a situation in which BMS runs, but fails to render on the screen when you get into the game. Also, taking these two steps causes BMS to run on one monitor in a multi-monitor system, rather than straddling the game display across two monitors.