Posted September 08, 2022
Beamdog initially released only 32-bit native GNU/Linux versions of their EE games, which meant one would need to install multilib in 64-bit systems just to play a game. However they later fixed this by releasing 64-bit versions of the games. On Window$ this "problem" never existed because Window$ installs 32-bit libraries in a 64-bt installation without even asking you - and that's nothing compared to other things they do, actually.
Concerning WINE, you can certainly use it to play the EE games, but I would never do that. First of all the native GNU/Linux versions of the games work flawlessly, so I see no reason to use a simulation while I can play the games natively. In addition, WINE is 32-bit (the 64-bit version of WINE is only experimental), so going the WINE way also means you have to install (otherwise useless) 32-bit libraries in a 64-bit system.
Also, openssl 1.0 was not old when the EE games were released. It was certainly a thing back then. The fact newer version of openssl existed doesn't mean GNU/Linux distributions adopted it immediately. Add to this openssl is a security library, and you have a perfect reason to avoid switching to a new version right away. This is only done in bleeding-edge distributions, eager to adopt anything new, assuming "new" automatically means "better" - which is far from being true. Such distributions are prone to instabilities by definition, and if you use them you accept the fact problems can and will occur. sooner or later. So Beamdog did well to use openssl 1.0 back when the games were released. They did not, however, did well to keep doing that 10 years later, when even the most conservative distributions use openssl 1.1. Their 2.6.6.0 version of the games is simply unplayable as it is, except for very old systems which never upgraded their GNU/Linux.
At any rate, solving the incompatibility issue is easy. Just do as I said in my previous post and the games will run without any issue. If you have all their EE games, it's probably better to just store the old_libraries_needed in one folder, accessed by all the EE games. This only means in each game the line you have to add in start.sh script should be slightly modified to:
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:<add full path of old_libraries_needed here>
Concerning WINE, you can certainly use it to play the EE games, but I would never do that. First of all the native GNU/Linux versions of the games work flawlessly, so I see no reason to use a simulation while I can play the games natively. In addition, WINE is 32-bit (the 64-bit version of WINE is only experimental), so going the WINE way also means you have to install (otherwise useless) 32-bit libraries in a 64-bit system.
Also, openssl 1.0 was not old when the EE games were released. It was certainly a thing back then. The fact newer version of openssl existed doesn't mean GNU/Linux distributions adopted it immediately. Add to this openssl is a security library, and you have a perfect reason to avoid switching to a new version right away. This is only done in bleeding-edge distributions, eager to adopt anything new, assuming "new" automatically means "better" - which is far from being true. Such distributions are prone to instabilities by definition, and if you use them you accept the fact problems can and will occur. sooner or later. So Beamdog did well to use openssl 1.0 back when the games were released. They did not, however, did well to keep doing that 10 years later, when even the most conservative distributions use openssl 1.1. Their 2.6.6.0 version of the games is simply unplayable as it is, except for very old systems which never upgraded their GNU/Linux.
At any rate, solving the incompatibility issue is easy. Just do as I said in my previous post and the games will run without any issue. If you have all their EE games, it's probably better to just store the old_libraries_needed in one folder, accessed by all the EE games. This only means in each game the line you have to add in start.sh script should be slightly modified to:
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:<add full path of old_libraries_needed here>
Post edited September 08, 2022 by Archimidis