Gnome-inform7 6L38/6M62 IDE now running on modern Ubuntu & Fedora OS

Ok sounds great and thank you! Let me dig up the system I had that build on and I will update with a link to the deb once it is posted.

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Cool. I was nearly to the point of downgrading to 18.04 just to be able to use your other workaround lol (though I donā€™t mind doing so, my OS install is fairly fresh still, so no pressure about your new test build).

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Ok I found the build and it does run on 19.10 but it is a bit of a hack at the moment. I am going to try to get the install process to be hands off so you dont need to mess around setting up custom library paths and stuff. My current deb does not pull dependencies and in order to make it run you need to export a custom LD_LIBRARY_PATH to get things working. Will update you once I get something a little more polished.

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Good stuff. I hope this isnā€™t putting you out too much.

Nah, I had hoped to get the 19.10 build out at some point but there were no requests for it at the time I got the initial proof of concept working several months ago. Now that there is some interest (and 19.10 is more mature) it is a good time to try to finish the effort. I have a similar build for Fedora 31 that is also sitting on one of my build systems somewhere that is about as half-baked too :grin:

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Ok I managed to get a build up and running that appears to install without needing any additional steps. No promises at this point! Am looking forward to hearing back if it works for you :grin:

Installation: The approach I used was to double-click the deb package so that the ubuntu software app store performs the installation.

Running: After installing you should be able to go look inside of ā€˜show applicationsā€™ (looks like a grid of small squares in the lower left corner of the desktop) and find the gnome-inform7 icon to start the application.

Disclaimer: Some heavy handed workarounds were needed for 19.10 to get things working and this build has not been tested. It is possible the workarounds could have unexpected behavior as the gnome-inform7 build for ubuntu 19.10 includes gtk2.0 based rebuilds of webkit-1.0, icu55, and javascript-1.0 as part of the install.

Where to Get It: You can download it from my git repo.

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It works! Installed it just as you said, it showed up in my apps, I created a 1-room game and ran it and everything seemed okay. It did crash after the first time it compiled the game and I had to reload it, but smooth sailing on the second compile. Thanks so much.

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@EarleyGrave Those ā€˜crashesā€™ are a known issue affecting gnome-inform7 overall. They wont be fixed in the current code base but the re-work will address it. I am considering back porting the fixes to the old code base that would avoid those spurious crashes but it will take some effort. Here are a few things that seem to affect the frequency of the crashes:

  1. Size of the inform7 project, very small projects crash more often than large ones. Soā€¦ think BIG!
  2. Running gnome-inform7 from the command line instead of using the app launcher seems to let gnome-inform7 run with less crashes too.

Neither of those is a ā€˜fixā€™ but it might make life slightly less annoying :grin:

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Nice. :slight_smile: Cheers!

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@Eleas Hi Bjorn, it appears that the 19.10 build also works on 20.04. I have performed an installation on the 03/15/20 build of Ubuntu 20.04. If you attempt an install, I would appreciate your feedback of how it works (good or bad). My approach to get it working followed the instructions I posted here:

Hey @interactivefiction, I successfully installed the new build. So far, other than a folder-clicking issue in the Create New Project dialog (which still works better than it used to, and in any case can be bypassed via the file path), I have no issues.

Much gratitude for the fix. This is great.

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Hi Everyone, I believe the latest build for 19.10/20.04 could have some issues because of the included libicu package in the deb. A cleaner way of dealing with the dependency is very much needed. Using it will likely have some unexpected side effects on the system.

@Eleas @EarleyGrave since you both installed the untested deb to help with initial checking, this post is for you!

For now I recommend that people uninstall it from ubuntu 19.10 / 20.04 gnome-inform7 package using:

sudo dpkg --remove gnome-inform7
sudo dpkg --purge gnome-inform7
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Thanks for the heads-up.

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No problem, I just had some issues crop up attempting a build for gargoyle on ubuntu 20.04 that were caused by the gnome-inform7 test build including its own libicu (one of the reasons testing help is always needed for this stuff). Will let you know when I get a new build up and running that addresses the issue.

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I was having some video issues with Ubuntu 19.10 and switched to Linux Mint 19.03ā€¦ which I know is a derivative, but it fixed my problem somehow and also is easier to use. Thought Iā€™d let you know so that you didnā€™t do work that I couldnā€™t test out for you on this OS (though for all I know, since itā€™s a derivative, I might be able to).

That should still work! @Dizzydonut is a Mint user too :grin, believe Linux Mint 19.2 ā€œTinaā€ was tested if you look up earlier in the thread. I believe @Dizzydonut used the older deb package for 16.04 / 18.04. One caveat, if I remember correctly the 6L38 build worked better than the 6M62 build on Mint.

Iā€™m so discombobulated by Linux. I searched for Inform7 in Mintā€™s Software Manager and it actually came up, through ā€œFlatpakā€ distribution, and itā€™s downloading the framework to be able to run it now. If that works, Iā€™ll never backpedal to standard Ubuntu. If not, then Iā€™ll try the other options. Why are things so complicated? lol

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I think the flatpak will work, but it does have some issues. @Dizzydonut actually was using the flatpak on Mint too so you might give a ping and ask for any tips :slightly_smiling_face:

As far as the complications, most of the issues for gnome-inform7 right now are caused by deprecation of APIs (in all Linux OSes) that the program had previously been using. Upgrading the program from those old APIs to the replacements takes a ton of effort.

It did install and run with the Flatpak. Iā€™m surprised Ubuntu didnā€™t have Flatpak enabled by defaultā€¦ thereā€™s no way Iā€™d have even known about it. Mint is kicking Ubuntuā€™s ass so far. Anyway if I run into trouble, Iā€™ll check with Dizzy about that or try one of your workaround builds. Thanks again for the help!

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Hi everyone, an interesting post that may be useful to others:

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