- Oct 22, 2011
- 572
- 70
So I'm going to start off with a few things about gaming on linux. It's pretty easy now a days. THere are a few things though to take note of. What is best to do is run the games through steam. Add the games as a non-steam game. Then right click the game you added to your steam library and chose properties. In properies menu go to shortcuts and then chose Launch options. In the launch option box add this line. LANG=ja_JP.UTF-8 %command%. Next you'll want to go down to compatibility and chose proton 9.0.4. You'll be able to play the game in japanese.
Now there are a few things to note. If you have a separate hard drive that you previously installed games on a windows machine you may be able to get some games to run in linux by adding the .exe to the library. But that's only if the game was installed recently in the windows operating system to get it logged in the registry. Sometimes they will ask you reinstall or load the original disk. The issue with linux is that it will not mount mdf, mds or cue, bin image files. The format must be .iso so you'll need to use a tool like daemon tools or the the like to reconvert a .cue or .mdf file as as .iso file. Sometimes you'll be able to get the game to boot, other times you'll need to just reinstall. I should probably make it a point that for people ripping eroge going forward should avoid riping the install disk as a .mdf and .mds file as that's splitting the data into two. image disks as .bin and .cue should also be avoided. All eroge going forward that's being ripped should be in the .ISO format. as Linux reads these perfectly.
To reinstall the game, if you have an eroge with an image file as a .iso, mount the disk then open up the disk as a directory and add the launcher to steam. Once the launcher.exe or setup.exe is added to the steam library, right click on the launcher and chose properties>shortcuts>launch options and add LANG=ja_JP.UTF-8 %command%. Next, in the menu to the left chose compatibilty and chose proton 9.0.4. Now run the launcher or setup.exe of the game you want to install and follow the typical windows instructions to install steam.
By the way you'll want have the repository version of steam installed on linux. DO NOT use flatpak. You'll have tons of issues. Also there is a setting to standardize the virtualized windows drive letters in steam that runs under wine, but I'm not exactly sure how to access it in the GUI, so I had to access the file directories in the /home/[username]/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/ directory to edit linking files. In the compdata file there will be a folder for each non-steam game you added that acts acts a virtual My computer environment. It's really tedius going into it this way but sometime later in the week I'll record a video of what I did. Again there must be an easier way to get steam's wine drive settings to be uniform across every non-steam game you add and use the same settings in the wine app config settings. But so far as what I see is that WINE and steams WINE are completely differnet virtualations of drive letters. SO maybe someone smarter than me can figure it out.
By the way somepeople just tell me to run a virtual machine and run an older version of windows with Linux as the host. But I'd rather not do that. I haven't had good luck lately with getting drivers installed on a virtual machine for windows xp and have had major issues with sound and getting foreign languages installed via xp. The goal this little blurb here is to give people a bit of a hint of how to get Japanese EROGE meant for windows to run natively in linux without a virtual machine. It's mostly painless but there are a few games that are headaches to run. RUNE's games like Furufuru and Shishunki I've run into a few issues to get them to work using steam as a launcher. I've also had issues with Tanuki-soft games and Kaeru-soft games. If enough people want me to make videos of how I'm getting eroge to run natively on Linux please post below and I'll work on making a video.
Now there are a few things to note. If you have a separate hard drive that you previously installed games on a windows machine you may be able to get some games to run in linux by adding the .exe to the library. But that's only if the game was installed recently in the windows operating system to get it logged in the registry. Sometimes they will ask you reinstall or load the original disk. The issue with linux is that it will not mount mdf, mds or cue, bin image files. The format must be .iso so you'll need to use a tool like daemon tools or the the like to reconvert a .cue or .mdf file as as .iso file. Sometimes you'll be able to get the game to boot, other times you'll need to just reinstall. I should probably make it a point that for people ripping eroge going forward should avoid riping the install disk as a .mdf and .mds file as that's splitting the data into two. image disks as .bin and .cue should also be avoided. All eroge going forward that's being ripped should be in the .ISO format. as Linux reads these perfectly.
To reinstall the game, if you have an eroge with an image file as a .iso, mount the disk then open up the disk as a directory and add the launcher to steam. Once the launcher.exe or setup.exe is added to the steam library, right click on the launcher and chose properties>shortcuts>launch options and add LANG=ja_JP.UTF-8 %command%. Next, in the menu to the left chose compatibilty and chose proton 9.0.4. Now run the launcher or setup.exe of the game you want to install and follow the typical windows instructions to install steam.
By the way you'll want have the repository version of steam installed on linux. DO NOT use flatpak. You'll have tons of issues. Also there is a setting to standardize the virtualized windows drive letters in steam that runs under wine, but I'm not exactly sure how to access it in the GUI, so I had to access the file directories in the /home/[username]/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/ directory to edit linking files. In the compdata file there will be a folder for each non-steam game you added that acts acts a virtual My computer environment. It's really tedius going into it this way but sometime later in the week I'll record a video of what I did. Again there must be an easier way to get steam's wine drive settings to be uniform across every non-steam game you add and use the same settings in the wine app config settings. But so far as what I see is that WINE and steams WINE are completely differnet virtualations of drive letters. SO maybe someone smarter than me can figure it out.
By the way somepeople just tell me to run a virtual machine and run an older version of windows with Linux as the host. But I'd rather not do that. I haven't had good luck lately with getting drivers installed on a virtual machine for windows xp and have had major issues with sound and getting foreign languages installed via xp. The goal this little blurb here is to give people a bit of a hint of how to get Japanese EROGE meant for windows to run natively in linux without a virtual machine. It's mostly painless but there are a few games that are headaches to run. RUNE's games like Furufuru and Shishunki I've run into a few issues to get them to work using steam as a launcher. I've also had issues with Tanuki-soft games and Kaeru-soft games. If enough people want me to make videos of how I'm getting eroge to run natively on Linux please post below and I'll work on making a video.
