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I have not tried SwordSearcher 10 with this guide, but I presume you should be able to make it work by creating a new prefix and then just doing all the same things.
Guide to Running SwordSearcher on Linux Operating Systems (Updated June 2024)
- Thread starter Brandon Staggs
- Start date
-
- Tags
- linux linux ubuntu wine
I have been tinkering with Linux for many years but recently decided to get serious about switching away from Windows because of all the hubub around 11. To me, SwordSearcher is a must, so I have been working on different methods of getting it running on different Linux distros. I have not yet landed on the one distro that is right for me so I am doing some heavy distro hopping right now. I use Fedora at work so that is where I am most comfortable right now, but I have experience with several Debian based distros like Ubuntu, Mint, Pop!_OS, etc. and Arch based including Manjaro and CachyOS.
I am really intrigued by the atomic/ostree distros like Fedora Silverblue and the Universal Blue projects like Aurora, etc. due to their stability. The challenge with them is that they are immutable systems and do not include Wine by default. Before anybody else says it, I know Bazzite has winetricks included, but it is a gaming focused distro and I am trying to switch both me and my wife over to Linux. She is not much of a gamer. Without going too deep into the ins and outs of immutable systems, there is a way to add Wine via "layering" but that is not the preferred way of adding software in an immutable Linux system. The preferred way is to use containers like Snap (Ubuntu), Flatpak (Fedora/RHEL) or Distrobox. I am most familiar with flatpaks since I have been in Fedoraland lately. Wine and winetricks cannot be installed as a flatpak. However, there are some flatpaks that look promising for setting up Wine prefixes without Wine installing and configuring them similar to winetricks.
There is the Lutris flatpak, but that is more gaming focused using mostly Proton (a specialized version of Wine developed by Valve to run Windows games). I think I could get it to work but the flatpak only includes an old Wine 8 version tweaked for games. There are other flatpaks that can download and provide Lutris with other pre-built versions of Proton and Wine but I want something that is less Proton focused and more Vanilla Wine focused.
I have successfully installed SwordSearcher 10 on Fedora 43 using the Bottles flatpak by adapting the original steps. The Bottles flatpak includes custom builds of Wine and Proton from the Bottles team along with a repository for downloadable vanilla Wine builds from various other sources. I used the kron4ek-wine-11.6-amd64 build. Bottles also has built in tools like winetricks to install dependencies. Corefonts is installed by default in new Bottles prefixes so that step was unnecessary. I also tried installing msedgewebview2 instead of ie8. I tried that because in my research I found out that msedgewebview2 is a modern replacement for the ie8 implementation of MSHTML. Bottles has its own verb to install msedgewebview2. I did not notice a difference when I ran SwordSearcher 10 under both conditions. Can anybody enlighten me on the differences? What should I look for in testing both of them? I was hoping to resolve some of the problems with ie8 mentioned by Brandon but I'm not yet sure if msedgewebview2 is the solution. Either way, Swordsearcher complains about the lack of support for MSHTML on startup:
...but clicking "Ignore" successfully starts the program.
I actually created a new Wine prefix and did not install ie8 or msedgewebview2 and Swordsearcher started just fine. Again I did not see any differences from the instances where I installed the other dependencies. I am not sure what to make of it.
Anyway, I am not done tinkering so I will report back with any other findings on my journey to Swordsearcher without Windows.
I am really intrigued by the atomic/ostree distros like Fedora Silverblue and the Universal Blue projects like Aurora, etc. due to their stability. The challenge with them is that they are immutable systems and do not include Wine by default. Before anybody else says it, I know Bazzite has winetricks included, but it is a gaming focused distro and I am trying to switch both me and my wife over to Linux. She is not much of a gamer. Without going too deep into the ins and outs of immutable systems, there is a way to add Wine via "layering" but that is not the preferred way of adding software in an immutable Linux system. The preferred way is to use containers like Snap (Ubuntu), Flatpak (Fedora/RHEL) or Distrobox. I am most familiar with flatpaks since I have been in Fedoraland lately. Wine and winetricks cannot be installed as a flatpak. However, there are some flatpaks that look promising for setting up Wine prefixes without Wine installing and configuring them similar to winetricks.
There is the Lutris flatpak, but that is more gaming focused using mostly Proton (a specialized version of Wine developed by Valve to run Windows games). I think I could get it to work but the flatpak only includes an old Wine 8 version tweaked for games. There are other flatpaks that can download and provide Lutris with other pre-built versions of Proton and Wine but I want something that is less Proton focused and more Vanilla Wine focused.
I have successfully installed SwordSearcher 10 on Fedora 43 using the Bottles flatpak by adapting the original steps. The Bottles flatpak includes custom builds of Wine and Proton from the Bottles team along with a repository for downloadable vanilla Wine builds from various other sources. I used the kron4ek-wine-11.6-amd64 build. Bottles also has built in tools like winetricks to install dependencies. Corefonts is installed by default in new Bottles prefixes so that step was unnecessary. I also tried installing msedgewebview2 instead of ie8. I tried that because in my research I found out that msedgewebview2 is a modern replacement for the ie8 implementation of MSHTML. Bottles has its own verb to install msedgewebview2. I did not notice a difference when I ran SwordSearcher 10 under both conditions. Can anybody enlighten me on the differences? What should I look for in testing both of them? I was hoping to resolve some of the problems with ie8 mentioned by Brandon but I'm not yet sure if msedgewebview2 is the solution. Either way, Swordsearcher complains about the lack of support for MSHTML on startup:
...but clicking "Ignore" successfully starts the program.
I actually created a new Wine prefix and did not install ie8 or msedgewebview2 and Swordsearcher started just fine. Again I did not see any differences from the instances where I installed the other dependencies. I am not sure what to make of it.
Anyway, I am not done tinkering so I will report back with any other findings on my journey to Swordsearcher without Windows.
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SwordSearcher 10 does not use Edge WebView2, so adding it to your WINE instance won't have any effect on SwordSearcher whatsoever.
Brandon,
Thanks for the reply. Good to know. I will leave that out of my further testing.
It turns out that my adventure with Bottles actually confused things by a lot. Since winetricks isn't available to flatpacks, the built in prefix templates install things like mono, gecko, and corefonts by default in some scenarios. It was also installing DXVK and VKD3D which I think are irrelevant to SwordSearcher. I am not even sure the wine version I was downloading is really all that "vanilla". I think gecko in particular was giving me some unexpected indicators. Without installing ie8, SwordSearcher would run, but as I started poking around with it I would get some freezes and other odd behavior. Even when I installed ie8, SwordSearcher would behave the same. The built in dependency verbs are a little different from winetricks in some ways. For example, the only option to install ie8 in Bottles is actually installing IE8-WindowsXP-KB2936068-x86-ENU.exe. Winetricks currently uses the IE8-WindowsServer2003-x64-ENU.exe file. I will have to try to make a new prefix and try to install the winetricks file manually.
This morning it tried installing SwordSearcher 10 with a standard Fedora 43 system installed Wine 11 and winetricks corefonts and ie8. It worked much better than the Bottles flatpack method. No freezes or odd behavior but it is still not an ideal solution for an atomic distro.
The adventure continues!
Thanks for the reply. Good to know. I will leave that out of my further testing.
It turns out that my adventure with Bottles actually confused things by a lot. Since winetricks isn't available to flatpacks, the built in prefix templates install things like mono, gecko, and corefonts by default in some scenarios. It was also installing DXVK and VKD3D which I think are irrelevant to SwordSearcher. I am not even sure the wine version I was downloading is really all that "vanilla". I think gecko in particular was giving me some unexpected indicators. Without installing ie8, SwordSearcher would run, but as I started poking around with it I would get some freezes and other odd behavior. Even when I installed ie8, SwordSearcher would behave the same. The built in dependency verbs are a little different from winetricks in some ways. For example, the only option to install ie8 in Bottles is actually installing IE8-WindowsXP-KB2936068-x86-ENU.exe. Winetricks currently uses the IE8-WindowsServer2003-x64-ENU.exe file. I will have to try to make a new prefix and try to install the winetricks file manually.
This morning it tried installing SwordSearcher 10 with a standard Fedora 43 system installed Wine 11 and winetricks corefonts and ie8. It worked much better than the Bottles flatpack method. No freezes or odd behavior but it is still not an ideal solution for an atomic distro.
The adventure continues!
The best, easy solution (not a simple one) on any OS will be Steam OS. Writing Windows version for Steam OS - first, you can sell it on Steam OS, second, you can run it on steam os on Linux, Mac, Windows. For linux steam os - will just install compatibility tools like Proton, etc.
How to develop on/for Steam OS - here are useful guides:
How to develop on/for Steam OS - here are useful guides:
- https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/application/platforms/linux
- https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/application/platforms
- https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/sdk
- https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/sdk/uploading
- https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/steamdeck/loadgames
- https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-runtime
- https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/application/depots
- https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/sdk/api
- https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/steamdeck
- https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/steamdeck/devkits
Sword Searcher Steam Release Guide (Windows + Linux/SteamOS via Proton)
- SetupRegister on Steam Direct ($100 fee). Get your AppID and download Steamworks SDK.
- Prepare BuildPut SwordSearcher.exe + all files in a clean folder. Do not include user data folders.
- DepotSteamworks → Depots → Create Windows depot (“Sword Searcher Windows Content”).
- UploadUse this simple app_build.vdf:
- "AppBuild"
{
"AppID" "YOUR_APPID"
"Desc" "Sword Searcher Windows build"
"ContentRoot" "C:\\Build\\SwordSearcher"
"Depots"
{
"YOUR_DEPOT_ID"
{
"FileMapping" { "LocalPath" "*" "DepotPath" "." }
}
}
}
Run with SteamCMD: steamcmd +run_app_build app_build.vdf +quit
- Launch OptionsExecutable: SwordSearcher.exeOS: WindowsWorking Dir: .
- Linux / Steam Deck SupportNo Linux depot needed. Users enable Proton Experimental in Properties → Compatibility.Test and mark as Playable on Steam Deck.
- Steam CloudEnable Cloud.Root Overrides:
- Windows: WinMyDocuments or WinAppDataRoaming
- Linux: LinuxHomeSync: user modules folder and *.dat / *.ss* files.
- Optional SDKAdd SteamAPI_Init() and SteamAPI_RunCallbacks() in code.Copy steam_api64.dll next to exe.
- Testing
- Windows: launch via Steam.
- Linux/Deck: add as Non-Steam Game + force Proton. Use PROTON_LOG=1 %command% for logs.
- PublishSet Supported OS: Windows + Linux.Fill store page and Publish Changes.
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As of SwordSearcher 10 you will need the x64 version for sure -- the x86 is 32-bit and SwordSearcher 10 dropped support for 32-bit Windows since nobody has been selling it for a very long time.
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Did you actually do this? Can you confirm it works?
I noticed that about those two files. Winetricks installs the x64 version of ie8 and works well on my non-atomic system. The atomic distros that I have tried so far do not include Wine in the base system. Bazzite, which is based on atomic Fedora, includes winetricks but not Wine. I am not sure of that rationale because the system-installed winetricks, by default, cannot access the containerized flatpaks that provide Wine. I think there must be a way to give winetricks permission to access the containers, I just have not figured it out yet.
I did find a flatpak for Wine 11 that actually packages winetricks in the container. I didn't see it before because the built in software stores (GNOME Software, KDE Discover, and Bazzite Bazzar) that support FlatHub for flatpaks did not include it in the results when I searched for it. When you search for it at flathub.org, though, it does come up but is marked as "Unverified" meaning it is probably community maintained rather than official. Use at your own risk. I am going to do some tinkering with that flatpack next.
When trying to install the IE8-WindowsServer2003-x64-ENU.exe file manually in a Bottles created prefix, without winetricks, I get an error saying there is a more recent version already installed. I haven't figured out the workaround, yet, but I will report back when I do.
The SteamOS idea is intriguing, to me at least, because SteamOS is an atomic Arch-based Linux distro. I have a Seam Deck which runs SteamOS. When I have time I will try to set up SwordSearcher as a non-Steam game using Proton to see what happens. This might give a good idea of how much work it might take to adapt SS to the Steam Store and if that is even a practical undertaking.
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I also have a Steam Deck, though it's primary purpose is to play Balatro.
while it would be interesting to put SwordSearcher on it, actual official support for a Linux distro of any kind is not really on the table for SwordSearcher. The primary issue is that their MSHTML implementation is inadequate and doesn't properly handle everything SwordSearcher throws at it. While it may be usable for most, it's not 100%, and it's unlikely they will ever get there.Balatro is pretty fun!I also have a Steam Deck, though it's primary purpose is to play Balatro.
I can understand why official Linux support is not on the table. I imagine that would be quite an undertaking. I am glad you've made SwordSearcher what it is. I hope that Wine/Proton continues to develop to the point that Windows software just runs on Linux with minimal tweaking. I know there is a long way to go, but I intend to keep trying as the tech continues to improve. Valve has pushed Wine capabilities in the realm of Windows gaming in some exciting ways. Maybe more general Windows support will eventually develop like the gaming side has. I can dream!
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Yup, Steam using Linux on their devices is probably why so much advancement in WINE has been made in recent years. It's definitely gotten way better than it used to be, because the gamers want to be able to play their old Windows PC games on Linux. I know that they do have a Gecko-based html rendering engine that drops in as a replacement for MSHTML/Trident; it's just not quite good enough yet. Hopefully they continue to improve it and eventually the dependency on MSHTML won't be an issue.
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A virtual machine installation should not have been difficult to get working, but of course you're still running Windows if you do that. It's not really a solution if your goal is to eschew Windows entirely.
I understand your frustration and I am sorry to see you go. There is no simple solution to this, because SwordSearcher is the development work of one person (me) over the last 32 years. Throwing most of that out so that I can rewrite it so that it natively works on Linux is just not feasible. I can't start over, and there are over a billion people using Windows, so I am already where I can serve the most people possible.
For what it's worth, I receive emails from customers reporting success running SwordSearcher on WINE using these instructions frequently, so we know it works. However, one reason Linux has made no significant inroads on consumer computers is because it just isn't that easy to use, especially once you want to do something that doesn't come "ready to go" in your distribution.
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Ruthlyn
Beta Tester
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Indeed, sorry to see you go... but before you do give it one more try using the instructions that Brandon has given... the enemy of our soul knows what a great and helpful program this is in furthering our growth in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ... give it another try
Johnny NL
Beta Tester
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Please....
You do not have to go.....
Like I tell my friends, (with Apple machine), buy a very low price, deal, even RE-furbished, laptop "JUST" for SwordSearcher.
That you can carry "WITH" you Bible paper copy.
And also, I can physically assist you to set it up, on ZooM.... anytime_________Up to you.
ONCE you will experience the FULL Power of SS10, it will become like a second nature, helping you with your paper copy of THE BIBLE.
Be Blessed, praying for "that" thorn, to turn into your best Scripture Experience EVER !!!!
SwordSearcher 10
2 Timothy 2:15 
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I would not give up. I followed the instructions given by Brandon in the first post onwards exactly, except for the last step of editing the shortcut. It is working well on my Linux Mint 22. 3 as well as Linux Mint Debian Edition 7. The only thing not correctly is some icons. Which Linux distro are you using?
Johnny NL
Beta Tester
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Good testimony.... Amen!