Running HouseBot in Linux

[roussell]

I'm so happy I want to go wake up my wife to tell her the good news (but I won't).

Using the latest beta release of Ubuntu 10.04 and the latest beta of Wine (1.1.41) and copying a few dlls over I was able to install HouseBot, create sample tasks, devices, and even execute vbscript devices. I connected to the Linux HB server from a Windows-running Swremote just fine.

Here are the basics:
1. Install Ubuntu 10.04
2. Install Wine 1.1.41 (beta)
3. Download winetricks (wget http://www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks
4. Run wintricks (sh ./winetricks), select and install msjet from the list
5. Copy jscript.dll, vbscript.dll, msvbvm60.dll, and mfc42.dll from working XP install to /home/user/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32
6. From the system32 directory above run "wine regsvr32 jscript.dll vbscript.dll msvbvm60.dll"
7. Download and Install HouseBot (right-click on the .exe and choose "Open with Wine Windows Program Loader")
8. Play

Obviously there's a lot more to work out, and this is just the first steps. Next I'll try mono/.net and the .net plugin. If that works then the majority of stuff I need will be there. Here's a screen shot of HB running in a Wine session on Linux. :-)

HB on Linux in Wine session. Note VB script running.

Picture 1.png (91.66 KiB) Viewed 6049 times

[Steve Horn]

Terry,
Ok, explain to us that are not Linux users why running HB under Linux is so beneficial as to justify what you just described. Aside from Linux not being Windows, and I assume much more stable than Windows, is there any advantage, other than the pure challenge of it, to dedicating a box to Linux and doing all that stuff to make HB work under it. I'm not being negative about the idea of it and certainly not a fan of Windows, I just would like to know more.

[roussell]

Hey Steve, that's a great question actually. I suppose each person would need to find their own reasons for doing something like this, but for me in particular there are the major drivers:

1. The challenge - I've always enjoyed doing out-of-the-box stuff that normally couldn't (or shouldn't) be done.
2. Consolidation - Even though it's virtual, HB is one of only two Windows machines as most of my time is spent in Linux and Mac OS X.
3. XP is slowly going away. I like running on a minimal OS and typically strip XP down to just the necessities for HB. I've no interest in moving HB to 7 or a server OS. Windows Embedded should be around awhile but it's costly to get in that game unless I buy a machine with it already installed and then it's probably not outfitted then way I want (no IIS as an example).
4. Since losing my job of 9 years in January I've recently started an manufacturing/technology company that offers embedded solutions for educational, commercial and industrial customers. A custom Linux-based operating system is at the core of the devices and I'm exploring other opportunities for the platform.
5. Boredom - It was late, I'm plagued with insomnia and the Ambian hadn't kicked in yet.

I've actually found the XP/HB combo to be very stable if left alone and not used for other tasks. My record is well over a year of uptime and it was a power outage that ruined that one. HB on Linux is definitely more of a plaything at this point - but it does look promising for those that want to try. I installed it on a VirtualBox session on my MacBook - after downloading the Ubuntu iso the whole thing only took about 30 minutes so it really wasn't difficult. VMware should work equally well for those that already have it installed instead of VirtualBox and probably any newer distribution of Linux would work fine - I believe Ubuntu to be the most user-friendly however. If anyone wants to try I'd be happy to help walk them through it or provide more detailed steps.

Terry