I've put together a Wine wrapper for The Witcher, allowing it to be played on Linux almost like a native game & with no Wine knowledge required.

Simply run the build script to create the wrapper. If the installer files are not alongside the wrapper build files then the path to them will need to be specified either by passing it as an argument to the build script with -respath="<path>" or by setting an environment variable named WINEWRAP_RESPATH containing it. You can change the path to build the wrapper in and the name of the wrapper directory with the -buildpath= and -dirname= arguments. The build path can also be set with the WINEWRAP_BUILDPATH environment variable.

The output will be a directory containing the game set up within a preconfigured Wine prefix, along with its own copy of Wine, extracted game icons, documentation, and start script(s). From there simply run the start script to play. The start script also includes options for creating a shortcut, configuring the wrapper etc.

(to uninstall simply delete the game directory and any shortcuts you created, and the game's user data directory in ~/.local/share if you don't want to keep your saves & settings)

User data is stored under ~/.local/share/the_witcher

Full details are in the readme.txt and release notes. Here is the download link:

witcher_wine.tar.xz
(39 kB, SHA256: 6d55ba6e1e3f118d930de9e2a2cc653323f6d745112a2991e0d223f3f738320d)

Last updated 2021/07/11

The wrapper uses Wine 6.0. Wine and Winetricks will be downloaded automatically if not present; to avoid redownloading for other scripts the downloaded Wine package will be stored in ~/.cache/winewrap
The DirectX Jun2010 installer will also be downloaded & will be stored in ~/.cache/winetricks/directx9

For now this should be considered a beta release, but I don't think there are likely to be any issues (or at least nothing major). If anyone does run into problems with this let me know by posting in this thread, Adamhm's Linux Wine Wrappers - News, FAQ &amp; Discussion and/or The "Judas&trade; does this run in Wine" thread v1.173.

For more of my Linux Wine wrappers check out post 3 in this thread: Adamhm's Linux Wine Wrappers - News, FAQ &amp; Discussion

I've installed the game with the script and - it's amazing (both game and script) ;) No issues so far, after 2-3h into the game. It's even nice performance considering my budget laptop with no dedicated graphic card.

Wrapper fully supports my own Linux philosophy which is "I can everything I want, but I must nothing" ;) I had just started the script and was reading a book when it made everything for me (that was "must nothing" part). The only interaction was asking "where to put the shortcut, sir?" (and some additional parameters, which regards to "can everything" part, I suppose) :P

Really, thanks a lot. No effort and works like a charm. It should be distributed officially by GOG.

I tried out this script, but unfortunately ran into some issues. One is that the script looks for the 1.5 files, while I have 2.0.0.12. But something else isn't quite right too.

All files are extracted into the same folder, including the installation files, on a harddisk with ext4 format. So it's not where Linux is installed, or /home. Is that the reason for the hickups? I can't install games to / (root) or /home, as there isn't really room for it, and I'm trying to keep some kind of order :)

This was attempted on Linux Mint 18.2 Cinnamon, 4.8.0.53 kernel.


Files:

pangaea@thunderstruck /mnt/SmallGun/ISO GOG Linux/the_witcher $ ls
adamhm - witcher_wine.tar.xz
readme.txt
setup_the_witcher_enhanced_edition_2.0.0.12-1.bin
setup_the_witcher_enhanced_edition_2.0.0.12-2.bin
setup_the_witcher_enhanced_edition_2.0.0.12-3.bin
setup_the_witcher_enhanced_edition_2.0.0.12-4.bin
setup_the_witcher_enhanced_edition_2.0.0.12-5.bin
setup_the_witcher_enhanced_edition_2.0.0.12-6.bin
setup_the_witcher_enhanced_edition_2.0.0.12.exe
witcher_res.tar.xz
witcher_wine.sh
pangaea@thunderstruck /mnt/SmallGun/ISO GOG Linux/the_witcher $


Installation attempt:

pangaea@thunderstruck /mnt/SmallGun/ISO GOG Linux/the_witcher $ sh witcher_wine.sh
witcher_wine.sh: 3: [: unexpected operator
witcher_wine.sh: 5: [: unexpected operator
witcher_wine.sh: 15: [: -v: unexpected operator
witcher_wine.sh: 15: [: unexpected operator
Using Wine version:
Checking for innoextract...
witcher_wine.sh: 28: witcher_wine.sh: 1: not found
Using system provided innoextract
witcher_wine.sh: 38: [: innoextract: unexpected operator
Checking for icoutils...
witcher_wine.sh: 66: [: unexpected operator
Checking for installer and resource files...
Missing file: setup_the_witcher_enhanced_edition_1.5_(a)_(10712)-1.bin
Missing file: setup_the_witcher_enhanced_edition_1.5_(a)_(10712)-2.bin
Missing file: setup_the_witcher_enhanced_edition_1.5_(a)_(10712)-3.bin
Missing file: setup_the_witcher_enhanced_edition_1.5_(a)_(10712).exe
witcher_wine.sh: 98: [: 1: unexpected operator
All files found. Testing SHA256 hashes...
sha256sum: 'setup_the_witcher_enhanced_edition_1.5_(a)_(10712)-1.bin': No such file or directory
setup_the_witcher_enhanced_edition_1.5_(a)_(10712)-1.bin: FAILED open or read
sha256sum: WARNING: 1 listed file could not be read
sha256sum: 'setup_the_witcher_enhanced_edition_1.5_(a)_(10712)-2.bin': No such file or directory
setup_the_witcher_enhanced_edition_1.5_(a)_(10712)-2.bin: FAILED open or read
sha256sum: WARNING: 1 listed file could not be read
sha256sum: 'setup_the_witcher_enhanced_edition_1.5_(a)_(10712)-3.bin': No such file or directory
setup_the_witcher_enhanced_edition_1.5_(a)_(10712)-3.bin: FAILED open or read
sha256sum: WARNING: 1 listed file could not be read
sha256sum: 'setup_the_witcher_enhanced_edition_1.5_(a)_(10712).exe': No such file or directory
setup_the_witcher_enhanced_edition_1.5_(a)_(10712).exe: FAILED open or read
sha256sum: WARNING: 1 listed file could not be read
witcher_res.tar.xz: OK
witcher_wine.sh: 125: [: 1: unexpected operator
Wine package not found, attempting to download...
--2017-07-21 03:05:11-- http://wine.playonlinux.com/binaries/linux-x86/PlayOnLinux-wine--linux-x86.pol
Resolving wine.playonlinux.com (wine.playonlinux.com)... 51.254.83.230, 2001:41d0:2:37ca::1e
Connecting to wine.playonlinux.com (wine.playonlinux.com)|51.254.83.230|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 404 Not Found
2017-07-21 03:05:12 ERROR 404: Not Found.

ERROR: Failed to download PlayOnLinux-wine--linux-x86.pol
rm: cannot remove 'PlayOnLinux-wine--linux-x86.pol': No such file or directory
pangaea@thunderstruck /mnt/SmallGun/ISO GOG Linux/the_witcher $

Oh dear. Having installed Adalia Fundamentals a few days ago and checking the game in my library, I'm now getting these 1.5 files for download. But the files I had for The Witcher were downloaded over 3 years ago. Does that mean these vile tits have been including Galaxy with their installers since early 2014????!??!?!?!?

Really, *really* hope I'm overreacting here, and that not all 2.0 installers have been infected with this bloatware. I surely have piles of those types of files around.

:mad:

Don't start with "sh". Just run the script normally, e.g.:

pangaea@thunderstruck /mnt/SmallGun/ISO GOG Linux/the_witcher $ ./witcher_wine.sh

Or alternatively:

pangaea@thunderstruck /mnt/SmallGun/ISO GOG Linux/the_witcher $ bash witcher_wine.sh No, I just update the build scripts for the newest installers as they update them, and when GOG added the Galaxy installers they added new Galaxy-free installers as well so the scripts were updated to use those instead.

How stupid of me. I tried without sh first, but that didn't work - because I was missing the ./ bit. Got an error message so thought I needed sh to run such scripts. Don't have a very fast line so it's a little frustrating to have to download the whole game again, but am in the process of it, and hope the script will run properly after that. With the command you wrote, I just get error messages about missing files (and it uses a newer version of innoextract apparently).

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. As you can tell I'm not very good with Linux despite using it for several years. Very easy to make mistakes in terminal.

edit: Yes, it works perfectly now :) Thanks a lot, this was a really painless process, once I had the correct command and correct files :P

script is set up for an *old* version of the witcher gog install files

The script should be using the newest installer, unless GOG have silently updated it yet again and I haven't noticed. It was last updated when GOG added the Galaxy installers as they added new versions of the Galaxy-free installers as well.

EDIT: Just redownloaded the first & last parts of the current installer to compare just in case, and the filenames and hashes in the script appear to still be correct for the latest Galaxy-free installer. These are the expected installer files:

setup_the_witcher_enhanced_edition_1.5_(a)_(10712)-1.bin
setup_the_witcher_enhanced_edition_1.5_(a)_(10712)-2.bin
setup_the_witcher_enhanced_edition_1.5_(a)_(10712)-3.bin
setup_the_witcher_enhanced_edition_1.5_(a)_(10712).exe

In case you've downloaded the Galaxy-bloated version (which is named similarly, but with (g) at the end) by mistake without realising, you have to select the Galaxy-free version manually by doing "More --> Classic Installers" from the download page.

I've finished the game installed with the script. I'm just here to say thanks to adamhm :) I doubt it'll work for me with any other method.

I've got one issue at the very beginning (first Outskirts of Vizima loading failed, but it was quite common issue and the solution is just loading any non-auto save from before that moment) and some issue at the very end, when some advanced graphical effects appears and my budget laptop with Intel HD Graphics has some performance problems. These issues are not related with the script/installation and performance of the game was really good (even impressive, considering my poor hardware).

I suppose the script is the easiest available way to run the game on Linux.

Hi,

thanks for your good work.
I installed Witcher with your script and it runs great on my linux machine.

Normally I don`t buy "Windows only" games, but it was 1,29€ ;-)


Perhaps you should consider bringing your scripts to "Playonlinux". More people will find it there and your work will make mor Linuxers happy :-)

Greetz from Germany

_einherjar

Hmm, sure?
I can't find something there. The directory exists, but it is empty.
My savegames appear in the game, so they must be somewhere.... But where to find them?

I wait for big discounts before considering any Windows games too, in order to encourage more native Linux releases :)

The intention with these is to make them standalone & provide an experience that's more like playing a native game. This also allows me to do a lot more with them than would be possible with POL :)

Check inside the prefix, in drive_c/users/$USER/My Documents - there should be a symlink named The Witcher there pointing to the userdata directory

Yes, I got it. Can I change that symlink to another folder without problems?

If you change the symlink to point at another directory it will be recreated by the start script. Or if you mean having it link another directory to the userdata directory then the only way would be to change the start script - the saves should be there though; if not then could you let me know where so I can investigate please?

Ok, Thanks a lot!