So, now that we know that CrossOver can install RMS Express and VARA and play audio out of the Pi (I haven't tested over-the-air connections yet), I've been trying to get away from relying on CrossOver, which costs $40 after its trial expires and is proprietary.? I'm happy to report that I got RMS Express and VARA working through open-source Wine 5.0.1.
It's been tricky refining an installation procedure with Wine though, since there are a lot of moving parts.? I think I've gotten the process reverse-engineered though by peeking at what CrossOver was doing and comparing files and winecfg dll overrides between Wine and CrossOver.? Everything seems to work in RMS Express except that the RMS Express channel browser can't seem to download data (telnet winlink works though, I believe.? And my callsign/password pulls my info from the internet Winlink database, so overall internet works).
?
I'll summarize the above posts and make an abstract of the process below (still working on a step-by-step guide as I continue to refine the process):
?
Downloads:
?- Debain 9 OS install CD: https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/archive/9.12.0/i386/iso-cd/debian-9.12.0-i386-netinst.iso
?- Winlink Express (formerly RMS Express): https://downloads.winlink.org/User%20Programs/
?- VARA 4.0.3: https://rosmodem.wordpress.com/
?- pdh.dll (not the winetricks version): http://k6eta.com/linux/installing-rms-express-on-linux-with-wine (see VARA_Components.zip)
?
Note: I think my wine install steps above might be a little off.? You can find better wine install instructions on https://wiki.winehq.org/Debian .? I think I should have said:
? exagear
? wget -O - https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key | sudo apt-key add -
? sudo add-apt-repository 'deb https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/debian/ stretch main'
? sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https
? sudo apt-get update
? sudo apt-get install --install-recommends winehq-stable=5.0.1~stretch # This version worked for me
?
? wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Winetricks/winetricks/master/src/winetricks
? chmod +x winetricks
? sudo mv -v winetricks /usr/local/bin
? sudo apt-get install cabextract -y
?
To get VARA working on ExaGear with Wine (no CrossOver needed), I had to ...
1. Update ExaGear's guest system from Stretch to Jessie, reinstall gnutls "sudo apt-get install --reinstall libgnutls30" (I believe this gets around the previous kludge of copying libgnutls-deb0.so.28 to libgnutls-deb0.so.26.), install wine 5.0.1 for stretch, and install winetricks.
?
2. On a separate x86 computer running Debian 9 or 10 (in VMWare is fine), install Wine 5.0.1, make a new wineprefix and install .NET3.5SP1 into it (not sure if gecko or mono are needed, but they don't hurt to install), then tar that wineprefix (I believe tar is needed to preserve dynamic links), copy the tar file to your Pi, run ExaGear on your Pi, then untar the file inside your home directory.
? Tar commands: "tar -cvf winebottle.tar .wine" copies to tar. "tar -xvf winebottle.tar" untars the files to the current directory.
?
?
3. Run "winetricks -q corefonts vb6run vcrun2015 sound=alsa win7 pdh" on ExaGear Pi (I'm not sure if pdh is needed), use wine to install RMS Express and VARA, then run VARA's DLL installer(?) ("wine ~/.wine/drive_c/VARA/VARA\ Installer.exe"), then override these winecfg DLL's (just copy-paste the following into ~/.WINEPREFIXNAME/user.reg under [Software\\Wine\\DllOverrides] among all the other overrides already listed there. I think duplicate entries are ok):
"api-ms-win-core-console-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-datetime-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-debug-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-errorhandling-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-file-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-file-l1-2-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-file-l2-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-handle-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-heap-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-interlocked-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-libraryloader-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-localization-l1-2-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-memory-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-namedpipe-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-processenvironment-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-processthreads-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-processthreads-l1-1-1"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-profile-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-rtlsupport-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-string-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-synch-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-synch-l1-2-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-sysinfo-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-timezone-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-core-util-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-crt-conio-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-crt-convert-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-crt-environment-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-crt-filesystem-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-crt-heap-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-crt-locale-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-crt-math-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-crt-multibyte-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-crt-private-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-crt-process-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-crt-stdio-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-crt-string-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-crt-time-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
"api-ms-win-crt-utility-l1-1-0"="native, builtin"
?
You'll probably also need to get the specific version of pdh.dll included in a package on this Winlink wine tutorial for x86 Linux users: http://k6eta.com/linux/installing-rms-express-on-linux-with-wine . Put it in ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32 .? Microsoft says that pdh.dll is distributable, so that's pretty nice.
?
If you really want to get rid of the minor "api-ms-win-core-synch-l1-2-0" errors in the wine terminal, then you can also try downloading that DLL from sts-tutorial.com and setting "api-ms-win-core-synch-l1-2-0 (native)" in winecfg. I don't think this is critical though.? I'm also not sure if api-ms-win-core-synch is supposed to be distributable.
?
4. Setup ALSA audio and test:
Run wincfg and go to the Audio tab to set up your default in/out soundcards.
Then run VARA and set up your in/out soundcard.
Then run RMS Express, select VARA from the drop-down on the top-right, then click the "Open Session:" text next to the dropdown. Then pick a channel (this may take a while to load the channels), then click start.? Noise should play from the soundcard.
?
I haven't tested actual over-the-air connections yet at all.? This is totally experimental at this point.? I'll keep testing and refining though until I get a step-by-step guide put together that's 100% tested.? If anybody wants to use or modify any/all of this method to make tutorials or test connections, I'd be really happy if it helps out the community.? I'm really hoping to move away from ExaGear in the next month or so too if Novaspirit Tech gets more bugs worked out of his x86 environment.? We're stuck with ExaGear at the moment though, which makes this all not really open-source, which is a bummer.
