Miranda under Wine

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Linux is not a natively supported operating system, but Miranda is known to run on Linux under Wine (staging branch only).

The following article was tested in Ubuntu 20.10.

OS Settings

BSD

To get CrashDumper plugin working you need to allow debugging for non-privileged users. This could be done by adding the following to sysctl:

security.bsd.unprivileged_proc_debug=1

Linux

Currently Miranda can only work under Wine staging branch so remove installed Wine and install winehq-staging.

Creating a separate Wine profile for Miranda

Create a separate directory for Wine to store its profile for work with Miranda:

mkdir -p $HOME/.wines/miranda/

If $HOME variable isn't defined, replace it with path to your profile:

mkdir -p /home/USER/.wines/miranda/

Initializing Wine profile

env WINEPREFIX=$HOME/.wines/miranda/ wine winecfg

• Decline installing the stuff (It's not needed to run Miranda).
• Click OK to close.

Installing Miranda NG

• Download archive containing Miranda NG 64-bit portable.
• Extract Miranda NG files to directory $HOME/.wines/miranda/drive_c/Miranda_NG/.

Starting Miranda NG

Sample script to start Miranda (you can save it as $HOME/.wines/miranda/drive_c/Miranda_NG/Miranda32.sh):

#!/bin/sh

export WINEPATH='c:\Miranda_NG\Libs'

cd $HOME/.wines/miranda/drive_c/Miranda_NG/

env WINEPREFIX=$HOME/.wines/miranda/ LANG=en_US.UTF-8 wine $HOME/.wines/miranda/drive_c/Miranda_NG/Miranda64.exe

You can also run Miranda NG with wine Miranda64.exe.

Differences under Wine

Miranda NG was tested under Wine with the following plugins: Template:PluginsUnderWine

What doesn't work

• Sometimes input language switches to English when TabSRMM window is inactive.
• Some settings cannot be viewed/changed, namely lists with icons next to checkboxes, e. g. Contact list → Extra icons.
• Keyboard LEDs won't flash on message received event (KeyboardNotify)
• Drag-n-Drop for file transfers. Files for sending should be placed to the directory to which Wine has access granted.
• Received files folders are opened in ugly Wine explorer.
• Menus don't work occasionally: they close if a tooltip pops up.
• Themes from Windows 7, only classic Windows XP look is available.
• Lots of animated smileys cause high CPU usage.
• Many smileys have got white background (was transparent in Windows).
• Probably something else :)

What works

Everything else.

Additional Wine settings

The following settings are not necessary, but may improve usability.

Opening folders in the system file manager

By default Wine opens received files folder in its own explorer. You may find it more comfortable to view files that you receive from your contacts in your system file manager, e.g. when using MenuEx plugin.

• Create file $HOME/.wines/miranda/drive_c/windows/open_on_host_sys.sh with contents:

#!/bin/sh

/usr/local/bin/xdg-open "`/usr/local/bin/winepath -u \"$1\"`"

• Mark it as executable: chmod +x $HOME/.wines/miranda/drive_c/windows/open_on_host_sys.sh
• Run registry editor: /usr/bin/env WINEPREFIX=$HOME/.wines/miranda/ LANG=en_US.UTF-8 /usr/local/bin/wine regedit
• Create key (subsection) command in section HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\folder\shell\open
• In a created command key set default value: cmd /c start /b /min c:\windows\open_on_host_sys.sh "%1"

Pay attention to "cmd /c start" – the scripts won't run without it during testing.

If you have no xdg-open in your system, you can specify the name of you favourite file manager and necessary run keys, e.g. thunar. If you do use xdg-open you can also associate any file type with its default system application.

Further reading

• Wine FAQ 7.4
• winepath
• askubuntu: how to associate all file types within wine with its corresponding native application
• stackoverflow: execute shell commands from program running in wine
• ShellExecute does not integrate well with external handlers

More about Wine

• Advanced Wine User Information
• WINEDLLPATH
• Using Microsoft Windows 7 SDK on Linux
• Winetricks – a helper script to download and install various redistributable runtime libraries
• Wine HQ - Miranda NG - official bug tracker for Miranda NG on Wine