Before springing for these games, have anyone had luck running them in WINE under Linux?

Cheers!

I have tested them all in Wine using PlayOnLinux. I didn't play much of the gameplay for them, but they'll all start up at least.

These games all have native Mac versions too. I don't know if that helps in running them on Linux; I've heard the newer Mac OSes are based on Linux so maybe that helps?

My understanding (potentially faulty) is that OS X is a fork of FreeBSD. While FreeBSD and Linux are both "UNIX-like" operating systems, they have a different core. They're similar enough that many things for Linux can be recompiled for OS X (maybe after some fiddling). Thus, the popular MacPorts and Homebrew apps that are basically Linux repositories for OS X.

However, I've never heard of ports going the other direction from OS X to Linux. That's likely because many OS X specific apps pull in Apple-only software (e.g., GUI stuff like Cocoa) that would be a much bigger headache to port over.

So Windows version in Wine is probably the best route here.

Sounds good, thanks for the clarification!

I thought the OS X kernel was based on Mach or something. A number of the userland utilities were taken from FreeBSD. IIRC there is some OpenBSD code in there too. OS X is a UNIX as they paid for the certification. FreeBSD is also a UNIX, but they can't state that as they never paid for the certification & likely never will.

Linux is not UNIX, but certainly UNIX-like.

Your understanding of things sounds a lot more informed than mine. :^) So, I humbly defer to you.

As an aside, they all pretty much work. Played Avernum 1 for a bit tonight,and test the other games at least to make sure they start and you can move around.

OS X is not a direct fork of FreeBSD (Or whichever BSD it uses). Yes, it uses BSD code, but it also has Mach code. The truth is that OS X's kernel is called XNU, or X is Not Unix. It was probably named such when OS X was a UNIX-like but not officially certified to be called UNIX (It has since passed verification). Here is a YouTube link to an old talk about the Mac OS X kernel (pre-10.6, which did introduce a true 64-bit kernel).

What will stop you from running Avernum 1 on modern x86-based Linux distros are threefold: 1): Different
binary formats (OS X/Darwin uses mach-o, although Avernum 1 would be a Carbon CFM application, so double whammy there), 2) different APIs (Carbon/QuickDraw aren't available), and 3) different CPU architecture (Avernum 1 was written for the PowerPC as opposed to Intel's x86. There are quite a few differences between them, not least of all is endianness *shudder* Just porting Big Endian code to Little Endian is a pain!).

Yeah, Wine is the way to go. Linux may not be UNIX-certified, but it's probably the most well-known derivative.

TL;DR This YouTube link describes the Mac OS X kernel is great detail.

Alternatively, you could try running the demo versions in WINE. If they work, then the full game, which I believe uses exactly the same code, should work as well. (The only difference I'm aware of is that, once you reach a certain point in the demo, a Demo Demon or something will appear and not let you proceed further.)

I have not played the Avernum series in Wine but I have played Avadon, Avadon 2, and now playing Avadon 3. Since it's the same engine I assume Avernum series works just the same.

They work pretty well, only issue is that the combat animations are very slow. Curiously it speeds up when you move the mouse cursor during the animation. It's really annoying but the games are playable.

If anyone finds a fix for the slow animations, please post.

Currently I play Avernum 1 (original) in wine 3.16-staging (64bit prefix with .NET 46 and all DirectX, vc++ etc). game works like native, no issues at all. The only thing I altered for Avernum executable is compatibility with win XP in winecfg.also, if you wonder how to read manual in .HLP format you can open it with wine

wine winhlp32.exe AVERNUM.HLP