Minibloq + Wine

NOTE: The information in this page is no longer needed nor maintained since the release of the first native version for Linux (Minibloq.v0.81.Beta.UP2). So we keep it here mainly because this documentation may still be useful for some users, and for historical reasons.

1. Standard PCs

Minibloq also runs under Linux using Wine. It's being tested on different Linux flavors, but mainly in Ubuntu and Fedora (specifically, the version of Fedora deployed with the OLPC XO). Since Minibloq is a native application, and since Wine doesn't do any CPU emulation (hence the name "Wine Is Not an Emulator.") the performance under Linux using Wine is in general, good (more on this here).

Here are the steps (thanks Marco André Ferreira Dias!) to run Minibloq under Ubuntu (the OLPC XO has it's own subsection below):

1) Download Minibloq (use the ZIP Windows version, NOT the Windows installer) from here.

2) If you downloaded Minibloq's zip in your ~ dir, run the following commands (if you downloaded it elsewhere, just include the path in the "unzip" command):

sudo apt-get install wine
winecfg
sudo usermod -aG dialout <myuser>
sudo ln -sf /dev/ttyUSB0 ~/.wine/dosdevices/com1 
sudo ln -sf /dev/ttyACM0 ~/.wine/dosdevices/com2 
unzip Minibloq.v0.81.Beta.zip
cd Minibloq.v0.81.Beta
wine MinibloqRun.exe

NOTES:

• <myuser> is not literal, it's your own user name. 
• In the example, "Minibloq.v0.81.Beta" must be replaced with the name of the current version (or the version you have downloaded). 
• Please take into account that the first command (sudo apt-get install wine) may take some time to finish.
• The winecfg command will open a window. To start with, it's not necessary to configure anything in that window, but you have to run the winecfg command anyway.
• With the previous commands, COM1 represents an Arduino Duemilanove and COM2 an Arduino™ Uno. Other boards may be listed with another name in the /dev directory.
• On openSuse, the command to install Wine will be yast2 --install wine (the other commands were not tested yet).
• There are some known issues, as you can read here (recommended).

2. OLPC XO

Minibloq runs only in the GNOME interface on the OLPC XO:

Here are the steps to install Minibloq in the OLPC XO:

1) Switch to the GNOME interface (NOTE: Not all the OLPC XO computers come with this software installed from factory).
2) Ensure the laptop has Internet connection (more information about this here).
3) Install Wine:

sudo su
yum install wine
winecfg

sudo usermod -aG dialout <myuser>
sudo ln -sf /dev/ttyUSB0 ~/.wine/dosdevices/com1 
sudo ln -sf /dev/ttyACM0 ~/.wine/dosdevices/com2 

4) Copy your Minibloq zip file to a flash drive.
5) Plug the flash driver, and copy Minibloq zip file to some place in your OLPC laptop.
6) Unzip the file (you can do that with the "Archive Manager" -that appears with a right-click on the zip file-).
7) Right click on the MinibloqRun.exe file and click "Open With Wine Windows Program Loader" from the context menu.

Please read the notes in the Linux section above (they are also valid for the Linux deployed OLPC XO). There are some known issues, as you can read here (recommended).