Sabayon 3.4e, Windows games & Direct X

[darkcyber]

Ok, my test Sabayon computer is one for my children. As far as playing things on the internet, it is working pretty good. Now I have tried to install a new Thomas the Train game, called "Thomas & Freinds, Trouble on the Tracks". It says it is for Windows 95/98. When I put the disc into the cd drive nothing happens. So, I navigate to the files on the cd and then double click on 'Setup'. Then I get a pop-up asking what program to use to open this file. Nothing in the list will work, so I type in 'wine' in the textbox and it starts running the installation of the game.

Question one, since in Windows usually everything defaults to 'Program Files' directory, where in Sabayon is it or will it try to install the program?

Question two, when the installation is almost finished is says it requires at least Direct X 7.0 or higher to run. Of course I tried installing Direct X 7 and it will not, says it needs Windows So, is there an alternative to Direct X in Linux?

Thanks!
Again, I am just learning as I go here

[xlnagla]

Ah, the wonders of wine. your "program files" are in drive_c in .wine under your home directory (~/.wine/drive_c/) - that's where you can run programs using command-line. After you've installed a program, a "shortcut" generally appears on the desktop, and the program should show up under wine in the "start menu" (to use windows terms), so you'll have no problem with your kids accessing it. As far as downloading and installing directX, I've never personally had any problems with this (I have some fullscreen 3-d windows games installed and they've never asked me for it), but a handy trick for downloading and installing things like directx is to just download the installer on a windows computer, and then use wine to install it on your Sabayon machine. If you don't have a windows machine, then you can just use wine to install a windows-based browser, like the windows version of firefox - this generally tricks browsers when they're checking your OS type for downloads and such. http://www.brothersoft.com/d.php?soft_i ... Aeng9X.exe
is where you can find directx 7 (which is a very old version of directx), which is thankfully freeware made before the times of windows validation and such.

**edit** you may want to run "winecfg" and set the version of windows to 98 for this version of DirectX (the file itself), I don't know if this installer has any blocks in it for newer/older versions of windows.

[darkcyber]

Thanks for the suggestion. The Thomas cd disc has Direct X 7 on it and prompts you to install it if you do not have Direct X 7 or higher. I clicked ok and that is where I got the error, saying it was not a Windows OS or something like that. I will try downloading Direct X like you suggested and see how that goes.

thanks again.

[xlnagla]

try running the Thomas cd in compatibility mode with 95/98 under winecfg - might resolve the error, otherwise (if this directx 7 doesn't work) try navigating to the installer on the cd specifically for directx 7 and using wine in 95/98 compatibility mode for it. Hope this works out for you.