Tell me more ×
Ask Ubuntu is a question and answer site for Ubuntu users and developers. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 1 down vote favorite

The program (a windows- based seek and find game), will download into firefox, but will not run. They have something called a game manager stub that is to install, but is not compatible, apparently. When I questioned their tech support, they stated that there is no way to run it with ubuntu. I find that hard to believe with as many programs as you have developed to allow ubuntu to be so easy to use. I am running 12.04. I have installed wine. I hope someone may be able to help.

thanks, Joanne Carroll

share|improve this question
1  
If the devs themselves are telling you is not possible, well that's pretty much it... – Uri Herrera Aug 6 '12 at 19:45
You can check the Wine application database appdb.winehq.org for a list of tested and rated windows apps-games run via wine . If the game you are trying to play is not there, your hopes don't fade away. But if the developers of the game itself told you that it cannot run on ubuntu as Uri said, you can't do anything about it. – Nick Aug 6 '12 at 19:59
@Nick that is not quite true, I run several games purchased from big fish games(the standard answer with LInux is "not campatible")......It can be done with WINE but you have to use winetricks to install several other programs to add the needed support programs......I am using Codeweaver's Crossover as it was much easier and I was willing to pay for the support and extras and support WINE in the process. – TrailRider Aug 6 '12 at 23:37
Okay, I also had problems installing some games in the past but by installing some windows libraries from winetricks I got them working so I guess you are correct. – Nick Aug 7 '12 at 8:26
This question and its answer is useful, I disagree with the decision to close it. – Benjamin Aug 21 '12 at 17:17

closed as too localized by Uri Herrera, Eliah Kagan, RolandiXor♦, jokerdino♦, Marco Ceppi♦ Aug 14 '12 at 14:56

This question is unlikely to help any future visitors; it is only relevant to a small geographic area, a specific moment in time, or an extraordinarily narrow situation that is not generally applicable to the worldwide audience of the internet. For help making this question more broadly applicable, see the FAQ.

1 Answer

up vote 2 down vote

It is possible to run some of the Big Fish games but it must be done via WINE(can be found in the Ubuntu Software Center) -WINE-64bit or Codeweavers Crossover Linux

The particular game that you are talking about would need to be checked with the application database on either site.

WINE is free but is mostly unsupported; only blog like answers by users and the WINE team(the last is limited as they are constantly working on WINE itself and not available to give personal support). To run most windows programs you will need to install other supporting programs via winetricks(will be installed with WINE if installed via the Software Center) programs like Play-on-Linux are supposed to make it easier to install the needed programs.

Quite frankly I gave up trying to get WINE to work, the instructions needed to get them running were very hard for me to follow as the answers were in the middle of blog like posts that are a back and forth discussion between all the participants, I lost the information I needed in all the back and forth. This was just me, many people use WINE successfully so they must be able to follow it.

I found success with Crossover. It is not a free program but includes email support and will install alot of the needed extra programs automatically, so you are getting more than the free version of WINE. It is a annual subscription, $60 for the initial year and then it can be renewed for $30 a year. You can try is for 2 weeks for free to see if you like it, but it will sotp working after the trial if you don't but it. They often run specials so you can sometimes get it for cheaper than the $60 price but you would kind of have to get lucky, they don't run specials on any schedule that I know of. Note you can get crossover via the Ubuntu Software CEnter but I would recommend that you download the .deb file directly form the Codeweavers' website, it is usually more up to date and updating is easier

The short answer here is that there is no easy & free way to play Windows game or run Windows programs on Ubuntu but it can be done easy(relatively) or free. Even with WINE's free version or Codeweavers' value added version, not all programs or games will run on Linux and those that do may not run as well, though some run better.

As I said above you would need to check the application database to see if and how well you particular game will run at all and if so how well. Both databases use a medal system to rate the programs. WINE rates their programs Platunium-Garbage. Codeweavers uses Gold-Known not to work. I will refer you to the respective website for the exact rating system as this answer has almost become a novel and it is much easier for you to reading it yourself then trying to understand my paraphrasing.

I hope this long and rambling answer was helpful. Sorry it was so long.

share|improve this answer

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.