This guide is written especially for very new Linux users, i.e. people who've just installed it in a dual-boot alongside Vista so they can play Horizons reliably. So hopefully it will be sufficient for a wide range of people.

This procedure is much easier than the length of this post may make it seem at first glance. I've simply tried to cover every detail.

"home folder" = /home/yourname

Replace all instances of "yourname" with your Linux username.

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Obtaining and setting up Wine

1. Download Wine. I recommend skipping binaries and downloading the source. Don't worry, source compilation is very easy, as you will see. For the sake of clarity in future instructions, please save the file to your desktop ( /home/yourname/Desktop ).

2. Unpack the file you've just downloaded.

3. Go to winehq.org's Recommended Packages list and use your package management software to search for and download+install the packages that are recommended for your particular distribution (version) of Linux. If automatic scripts to do so are available for your distro, I encourage you to use them, thus saving time.

4. Open the terminal and navigate to the Wine folder that you unpacked earlier. The command looks something like this:
Code:
cd /home/yourname/Desktop/wine-0.9.49
5. Use this command:
Code:
./configure
If it stops and displays an error about something not found, search for and download+install the missing package via your package manager. Then run the command again. Wash, rinse, and repeat for any further errors.

6. Once ./configure has completed successfully, use this command:
Code:
make depend && make
This will take a while, as Wine is now being compiled from source in preparation for installation. Browse websites, read a book, go get lunch, whatever.

7. Once that is complete, use this if you are logged in as root:
Code:
make install
Use this if you are using a distro that uses "sudo" instead of allowing access to the root user account, i.e. Ubuntu, Linux Mint, etc.:
Code:
sudo make install
Use this otherwise:
Code:
su root
make install
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Configuring Wine for Horizons

8. When "make install" has completed, Wine has been installed. Now for the tiniest bit of configuration. Once again in the terminal:
Code:
winecfg
Go to the Applications tab of the window that has come up and select Windows 98. Close the window. From here on you won't need the terminal, so you can close that too if you want to.
You may want to return to winecfg later to tweak the settings available therein.

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Configuring Horizons for Wine

9. On Windows, log into and out of the character you'll want to play on Linux.

10. Copy your full installation of Horizons from wherever it was when you were running it on Windows, to /home/yourname/.wine/drive_c/Program Files (tip: when typing filepaths in the terminal, spaces must be "escaped" with a preceding backslash, i.e. "Program Files" needs to be typed as "Program\ Files"). I hope you kept it, because Horizons' installer supposedly doesn't work in Wine and I don't know anything about attempting to make it work. You could try running the installer in a Windows virtualisation.

11. In the resulting Horizons folder, go into the prefs folder, open ClientPrefs_Launch.def, and change these lines:
Code:
bool requireCommandLineParams = true >> bool requireCommandLineParams = false
string userName = "********" >> string userName = "[email protected]"
string password = "********" >> string password = "yourpassword"
bool performSystemCheck = true >> bool performSystemCheck = false
I'm not entirely sure which lines need to be altered to change the character logged into, hence step nine. If anyone can supply this information, I welcome them to post here.

12. Save the modified ClientPrefs_Launch.def, and make an extra copy of it somewhere (for the sake of clarity in future instructions, save it to your home folder).

13. Create a file somewhere (doesn't matter where, but you should put it where you'd want a shortcut to launch Horizons) and name it launch-horizons.sh (or anything really, as long as it ends in .sh).

14. Open the newly-created file and put this in it, approximately:
Code:
cp /home/yourname/ClientPrefs_Launch.def /home/yourname/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Horizons/prefs/ClientPrefs_Launch.def

cd /home/yourname/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Horizons

wine horizons.exe
15. Alter the file's permissions so that it is executable. The procedure to do this may vary from distro to distro, desktop environment to desktop environment, but in any case it'll probably be fairly simple and bear a similarity to the familiar Windows act of right-clicking a file, selecting Properties, and exploring tabs.

16. Double-clicking on the file should now start Horizons.

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Horizons' page in the Wine AppDB