How to install PC Study Bible V5.x using wine in Linux

Unfortunately this broke PC Study Bible

WINEARCH

If you have a 64-bit system, Wine will start an 64-bit 
environment by default. You can change this behavior using 
the WINEARCH  environment variable. Rename your ~/.wine 
directory and create a new Wine environment by running

WINEARCH=win32 winecfg

This will get you a 32-bit Wine environment. Not setting
WINEARCH will get you a 64-bit one. 

🙁

There are somethings that Linux does better then Windows. PC Study Bible, although a 32 bit Microsoft Windows application, can be successfully installed in Linux. However, there are some tricks to doing this.

These directions are overly simplified to allow novice Linux users, the best opportunity for success. As always I break it down step by step.

1. If you do not have wine installed, that is the very first step. Wine stands for: Wine is NOT an Emulator (which is recursive). What wine does, is allows you to run most windows applications (that do NOT require USB support) under Linux.

Let’s install wine!


sudo apt-get install wine


NOTE THAT I AM RUNNING THE 64 BIT FLAVOUR OF Linux (Debian) so that requires some extra steps (detailed below)

The fist cd you want to install is the New Reference Library CD.

I choose NOT to autorun anything. So it is necessary to navigate to the CD.

2. As mentioned in the winehq article: we will need to change settings in /etc/security/limits.conf

The # on the line is comment, and does NOT need to be coded.


cd /etc/security # go to the directory
sudo cp limits.conf limits.org # backup the current file
sudo nano limits.conf # edit the file


You want to add a line to the file:

user hard nofile 32000

Where user is your user name. Apparently PC Study Bible likes to open a gazillion files, this sets the upper limit to 32000 files.

ctrl + o to write, ctrl + x to end.

3. To mount the cd, (using system mount points): — mount requires root privileges —


sudo mount /dev/sr0 /mnt


You will get back:

mount: block device /dev/sr0 is write-protected, mounting read-only

which is absolutely NORMAL.

4. Now navigate to the directory:


cd /mnt


5. Install the programme with wine:


wine setup.exe


IF you are installing PC Study Bible in a 64 bit environment, YOU MUST tell it to use a 32 bit architecture (works fine with 64 bit Debian/Wheezy (V7)):

Linux Homer 3.2.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.2.46-1+deb7u1 x86_64 GNU/Linux


wine setup.exe winearch=32


the winearch=32 tells it to use a 32 bit environment. If you do NOT do this, the installshield WILL FAIL.

6. To unmount the cd: (note # is a comment and does not need to be coded)


cd ~ # back to the user home directory
sudo umount /dev/sr0


Repeat steps 3-6 for EACH cd/dvd you want to install.

7. To run PcStudy Bible, it will be necessary to create a shortcut with the following properties: (If a shortcut is NOT automagically added)

env WINEPREFIX=”/home/USERID/.wine” wine C:\\windows\\command\\start.exe /Unix /home/USERID/.wine/dosdevices/c:/windows/profiles/All\ Users/Desktop/PC\ Study\ Bible\ 5.lnk

where USERID is your userid.

The actual executable is located at:

cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Biblesoft/PC Study Bible/Program
wine joshua.exe

The file launcher looks like this:

Command: env WINEPREFIX=”/home/USER/.wine” wine C:\\\\windows\\\\command\\\\start.exe /Unix /home/USER/.wine/dosdevices/c:/users/Public/Desktop/PC\\ Study\\ Bible\\ 5.lnk

Working Directory: /home/USER/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/Biblesoft/PC Study Bible

Where USER is your login username.

8. Et voilà

For me, PC Study Bible runs faster using wine in Linux, than using native Windows.