I'll go over problems people have experienced one by one, as they come up. Hopefully, there won't be many.
(1) When trying to open SMILE.exe (or any other Visual Basic program), nothing happens. Absolutely nothing.
In Windows, if a required driver isn't found, the program crashes with an error telling you so. In Wine, if a required driver isn't found, the program apparently crashes (or simply fails to open?) with no error telling you anything. In the case of Visual Basic programs (such as SMILE), the missing drivers would be the VB6 runtime files. You can download vbrun60.exe directly from microsoft for free. Vbrun60.exe installs the runtime files for you and does work with Wine.
Once this is done, SMILE will finally do something. It takes you to the error message and crash we discuss next. As for other VB6 programs, you may have more luck. This was all you have to do to get most of my other projects to open (except, if I had to guess, HME).
(2) File Not Found.
Allow me to join in the Linux tradition of providing source code and show a tiny piece of stupid coding of my own:Open filepath For Binary As #78
TestFileSize = LOF(78)
Close #78
There's an API call that does the same thing, but this is how I wrote it. Anyway, all it does is open a file (located at filepath, then check that file's size. In Windows, if the file didn't exist, a blank file would be created with the size of 0 (because the Open command opens a file with that name, whether it's there or not). Just my way of figuring whether or not the file previously existed.
Wine treats the Open command somewhat different. If a file doesn't exist, it doesn't exist. End of story. "File Not Found."
By adding one extra line to the beginning of my code (If filepath = ".bin" Then Exit Sub), the crash is fixed in (I think) all cases where this code would be run (basically, whenever SMILE has to see if a file exists before using it).
Note: Don't be stupid. If you see any *.bin files lying around in your SMILE folders while SMILE is running, leave them alone. Deleting these files while SMILE is open will make the crash happen, regardless of the fix.
*Fix to be released in the next release of SMILE.
These are the only two fixes I had to do in order to get the screenshot above. I haven't done any thorough testing yet, but it appears as though most basic functioning should be stable at this point. I will gladly accept offers to look for Wine related SMILE bugs from any and all Wine users who wish to use SMILE. E-mail me at jathys@hotmail.com or PM me at one of the message boards.
As I haven't done any further testing, I'll just prepare a list below of anticipated issues and reported bugs:
(A) Quickmet/RoomTest.
As mentioned before, I'm new to Linux. I don't even have an emulator on this computer yet, so patience is a must. I'm going to guess everything should be fine here, but I wonder about minor changes emulator authors implement in versions of their emulators for different OS's. Do the Linux versions of the emulator expect the command prompt to be set up in a certain way? Because SMILE uses the Shell command to open the emulator, could it be restricted to using only a Windows version of the emulator? Not sure.
(B) SOLA. Come on, ET, phone your ass home already.
I clicked on it and nothing happened. From before, we know that this most likely means that you're missing a required driver and simply aren't getting an error message with the crash. "But I already have the VB runtime files," you say? True, but that's not what you're missing here.
SOLA uses the Winsock driver (winsock.dll, iirc) to do its internet stuff. If I had to guess, Wine doesn't include this file and you'd need to add it to your directories. Once I test this, I'll let you know.
(C) SMILE Help File
It's a very limited help file, so you're not missing much, but if you want to use it, you'll have to have a program that can open a CHM file. With the release after the upcoming release, the CHM file may (may) be integrated with the main SMILE interface, so this'll become more important. Again, we'll see.
(D) The Shadow Knows...
Something always comes up. That's why I need feedback from Linux users. I'm playing with Ubuntu and will most likely keep at least one computer dual-boot. In future releases, I will do what I can to keep compatibility with Wine as best as possible. Truthfully though, I'll be doing 90% of my computing in Windows. If I'm not using Wine, it'll be harder for me to keep track of when something is amiss, so keep me informed.