Reaper installer for Linux

[Cybolic]

Heya folks!

I thought I'd contribute to the Reaper Linux crowd by making our favourite software a little easier to install, so I would like to present to you, LinReaper.

LinReaper will do the following for you:

• Automatically downloads and installs the newest Reaper version available from the website, or installs from a previously downloaded Reaper installation exe.
• Installs Reaper in a bottled Wine directory (does not mess with the rest of your system)
• Sets up a local installation of WineAsio (again does not mess with the rest of your system)
• Registers file types of .rpp, rpp.bak and .reapeak files (with custom icons), so you can simply double click Reaper files
• Sets up a wrapper script around Reaper enabling it to accept normal UNIX command-line options and paths
• Sets up a wrapper script around Reaper to transform Reaper's configuration files to follow Unix/Freedesktop guidelines and allow automatic multi-user configurations
• Minimally configures the Reaper preferences for better Linux operation
• Optionally creates menu shortcuts
• Includes a tool (LinReaper Options) for installing and managing your Windows VSTs, JS effects, using Reapers more esoteric options and for advanced configuration of Wine
• Intelligently links the Wine folders "Desktop", "My Documents", "My Music", "My Pictures" and "My Videos" to their Linux counterparts

In many regards, LinReaper is like Google's Picassa Linux port.

LinReaper requires Wine, Python, PyGTK (most distributions have these) and likes to also have the full 7Zip.

If you are using Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu, Mint or Debian, the following should install everything you need:

sudo apt-get install python-glade2 p7zip-full
sudo apt-get install wine

If the Cockos team is up for it, it would be very easy for me to change this into an actual Linux installer for Reaper, but I believe I have to get a green light first to not get into legal trouble.

Latest version is here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/278272/Linux/LinReaper0.87.run

To use, double click the downloaded file and select "Run" if asked - you might also need to make the file executable by right clicking it and selecting Properties then the Permissions tab and checking "Allow executing file as a program".

Changes in the latest version:

• Works with latest Wine again (no more problems with the path to "Program Files")
• Downloading the latest version of Reaper automatically works again

[Tallisman]

he now that is really cool.
I am gonna download it and try it now.


.t

[Alex Stone]

Cybolic, nice work!

You've done this in python, yes?

Alex.

[space]

Nice work!
Can we have this on Reaper download page?

[StudioDave]

Cybolic, I will definitely check this out. I agree that it would be wonderful if potential Reaper-on-Linux folk could have a 1-click installer, I'm sure it would be a great assist for newbies (and maybe some of us not-so-newbies).

[DanKegel]

Originally Posted by Cybolic

LinReaper is a small tool that will download Reaper, create a "bottled" wine directory for the installation, setup WineAsio and gdiplus.dll and put a shortcut to Reaper in your programs menu

Sounds cool, you might want to incorporate this into PlayOnLinux.

But why do you need gdiplus.dll? With recent Wine, there's a
pretty good gdiplus. If some vst's don't work with Wine's builtin
gdiplus, we'd like to know about it.
Ideally you'd add a comment to the Wine AppDB page about Reaper,
http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManage...sion&iId=12008
but emailing them to dank at kegel.com would do, too.

[Cybolic]

Hey thanks for all the quick and friendly responses, be sure to let me know it did what it should, or if you ran into any problems.


Alex, yes I did it in python and bash scripts. Python for the GUI and bash scripts for the actual work.

DanKegel, I'm not sure about PlayOnLinux, it seems like a bit of a mess to me, plus there's also Wine-Doors, which frankly looks a bit better, so I'm not sure which to support.
In fact I'd rather have this standalone, preferably downloadable from these pages somewhere, so Linux newcomers won't have to go and find out if they like PlayOnLinux, Wine-Doors or if they should purchase CrossOver Wine, but instead they can just get the one from the Reaper forums that's build for the purpose. A better goal would of course be something akin to Google's Picassa, but this will do for now.

Also, you're absolutely right, I should file a bug report, but now that tried reproducing the error (Reaper crashing on scanning VSTs from Bootsy) it worked - without gdiplus.dll (newer Wine though), so I guess I can remove that option from the next version of LinReaper

[Cybolic]

Here we go, version 0.2 is out, with the following changes:

• Removed gdiplus.dll from options as Wine's internal version seems to be doing just fine these days
• Cleaned up code a bit and improved directory structure of the Reaper installation
• The installer now adds a symbolic link to Reapers configuration directory at INSTALLDIR/config
• Added notice to remember to disable native event synchronisation in Reaper

https://stash.reaper.fm/oldsb/242662/...%200.2.tar.bz2

Cockos, if you're reading this, in my opinion, all that is needed to produce a proper Reaper for Linux beta would be for Reaper to autodetect that it's running in Wine and disable the native event synchronisation and also save it's configuration files in ~/.config/reaper instead of "Application Data/REAPER".
If you let me, I'd be more than happy to produce an installation package, either something like LinReaper, or an AutoPackage, deb or rpm.

--edit--

To Cockos: Checking to see if Reaper is running in Wine, should be as simple as checking if the "Software\\Wine" registry key exists.

[Cybolic]

This is going pretty fast, someone stop me :P

Version 0.3 is up, the changes are:

• Better widgets for selecting where to install Reaper
• Removed the option to install WineAsio, it is now installed by default
• Packed the whole shebang into a self-extracting script (like Loki's installers and the likes)

https://stash.reaper.fm/oldsb/242941/LinReaper0.3.run

[Alex Stone]

Cybolic, you evil chap, you got me interested in this to the point that i did some research.

There's a distro called puppy linux that i had a look at yesterday. It can be installed on a usb stick, and has instructions to do so by default. It's very light, and fast, as my brief test with qemu proved. (In linux on a ppc g4 no less.)

So i'll have a go at installing the pup on a usb stick, and see if i can get it to boot for any machine. (I'll find a win machine to try it out on.)

Interesting that puppy linux worked out of the box so to speak, with sound and network, even within a qemu machine.

Alex.

[Cybolic]

Say Alex, you aren't thinking about making a Reaper Linux distro bootable from a usb stick, now are you?
That would be evil and make the rest of the DAW pack look bad

Any success/failure stories from anyone trying out LinReaper by the way?

[daverich]

Originally Posted by Alex Stone

Cybolic, you evil chap, you got me interested in this to the point that i did some research.

There's a distro called puppy linux that i had a look at yesterday. It can be installed on a usb stick, and has instructions to do so by default. It's very light, and fast, as my brief test with qemu proved. (In linux on a ppc g4 no less.)

So i'll have a go at installing the pup on a usb stick, and see if i can get it to boot for any machine. (I'll find a win machine to try it out on.)

Interesting that puppy linux worked out of the box so to speak, with sound and network, even within a qemu machine.

Alex.

I use puppeee on the asus eee,- which is essentially a glorified USB stick- it works really well, although takes a long time to bootup,- but I think that's probably more to do with the eee than the os.

It also has a nice mounting tool (titter)

Kind regards

Dave Rich

[Alex Stone]

Originally Posted by Cybolic

Say Alex, you aren't thinking about making a Reaper Linux distro bootable from a usb stick, now are you?
That would be evil and make the rest of the DAW pack look bad

Any success/failure stories from anyone trying out LinReaper by the way?

Aha, i'm caught.

Given the army of JS plugins, and the apps like Jack, Linuxsampler, Ingen, as well as the army of ladspa, and growing number of LV2 plugins, i would think a reaper/wine/linuxos usb project, that plugged into either win or linux would be interesting. Sadly i've discovered that PPC architecture doesn't play well at all with win/intel/amd hardware outside of a dedicated build, so that one's out, without running an emulation layer like qemu.

but the idea of a RealinOS, with the addition of powerful linux tools and apps remains appealing.


Alex.

p.s. I haven't tried LinReaper yet for the simple reason that i installed most of my latest linux build from source, with some sizable tweaks, and specific dir installs outside of the norm, and it's running sweetly.

you know what i mean.

Tinfoil territory.......

[Alex Stone]

Originally Posted by daverich

I use puppeee on the asus eee,- which is essentially a glorified USB stick- it works really well, although takes a long time to bootup,- but I think that's probably more to do with the eee than the os.

It also has a nice mounting tool (titter)

Kind regards

Dave Rich

Dave, i'm quite impressed with puppy linux. It's clean, installs well, i have network and sound out of the box (wireless included, on the laptop), and doesn't chew a lot of cpu or ram. It's early days, and with no rt kernel, more administrative than audio centric, but it's still worth smiling about for a more generic useage. For smaller, older, and handheld machines in particular, i can see it filling an important niche.

Alex.

[Cybolic]

Well, Alex if you're afraid of LinReaper, I can safely say that if you don't select to create menu shortcuts, then the only changed files on your disk will be new directory that LinReaper asks to create - it is a totally self-contained Reaper installation, not even WineAsio will interfere with your regular Wine (though regular Wine is of course still needed, I'm not going to package ~80mb of Wine files).

Furthermore, now you've got me curious: What tinfoil preparations have you done to your Reaper install on Linux?

Screenshot, for the lazy ones:

[Alex Stone]

Originally Posted by Cybolic

Well, Alex if you're afraid of LinReaper, I can safely say that if you don't select to create menu shortcuts, then the only changed files on your disk will be new directory that LinReaper asks to create - it is a totally self-contained Reaper installation, not even WineAsio will interfere with your regular Wine (though regular Wine is of course still needed, I'm not going to package ~80mb of Wine files).

Furthermore, now you've got me curious: What tinfoil preparations have you done to your Reaper install on Linux?

Screenshot, for the lazy ones:

Cybolic, as far as tweaking goes, i've manually compiled with a great deal more ports audio/midi etc.. (120 audio ports in/120 audio ports out, 64 midi ports in/64 midi ports out. I know Reaper will only handle 24 midi ports in/24 midi ports out, but i'm planning for a the future. I hope) I'm also running bleeding edge Jack/Alsa with updates to several dependencies, including Dave Drobilla's mighty Ingen/Patchage/Raul/Flowcanvas suite, and right up to date versions of rubberband, Redland, etc...


I've just tried LinReaper, and it went ok, except the brand new icon in the sounds menu doesn't do anything when clicked upon. The install process was successful with no error messages, and i used the defaults. (meaning .local) I'll have a rummage, and see what i can find.

Alex.

[Cybolic]

Ah, I see. Yes, this isn't bleeding edge, merely stable
The shortcut didn't work?
Does the reaper.sh script work?
Could you message me the contents of your ~/.local/share/applications/Reaper.desktop?

Thanks for helping

[Alex Stone]

Originally Posted by Cybolic

Ah, I see. Yes, this isn't bleeding edge, merely stable
The shortcut didn't work?
Does the reaper.sh script work?
Could you message me the contents of your ~/.local/share/applications/Reaper.desktop?

Thanks for helping

I would if i had one.

Just tried again. Same result, and Reaper.sh won't start. (Nor will the shortcut.)

Alex.

[Cybolic]

Could you message me your reaper.sh then?

This bug is pretty much a show-stopper, so your help is much appreciated.

--edit--

Never mind about the reaper.sh, it's useless for debugging.
Are you sure you don't have a Reaper.desktop file somewhere in .local?
I'm having trouble figuring out how Reaper ended up in your menu if you haven't.

[Alex Stone]

Originally Posted by Cybolic

Could you message me your reaper.sh then?

This bug is pretty much a show-stopper, so your help is much appreciated.

http://rafb.net/p/HhufEz63.html

I've just tried again, using ~/Desktop., as the install location.
Same result.

Alex.

p.s. This is with the latest version. LinReaper 3.0

NOTE: The .run file needs manually enabling as an executable before it'll run.

[Cybolic]

Okay, new version, this time with info when something fails and a fix of a rather serious bug that caused checkmark settings to be ignored.

Alex, think you could test again? Installing on top of the old install shouldn't matter, but could you delete your .local/reaper dir, just to be sure?

https://stash.reaper.fm/oldsb/243523/LinReaper0.4.run

--edit--
About having to make the file executable, then I don't think there's any way to avoid doing that - if anyone has any ideas to how we can avoid it, please do write.

[Alex Stone]

OK, same result. Install works fine, and says so in the terminal while it's running. But the shortcuts don't work, again including the one in the sounds and vid directory.

I've got a feeling i'll need to look at any symlinks, to see if there's something pointing to nowhere.

Perhaps rather importantly here, it would be useful to hear if others are having the same challenge, or if their install works fine.

Alex.

[Cybolic]

Can you locate the Reaper.desktop file?
(again, should be in $HOME/.local/share/applications/Reaper.desktop)

It should have a line that reads:
Exec=/some/path/to/reaper.sh

Can you confirm that the path it points to is right and exists?

Also, the reaper.sh should now at least try to print something if it doesn't work, can you check if it does this by running it from a terminal?

And yes, feedback from other users would indeed be very helpful

[Alex Stone]

Originally Posted by Cybolic

Can you locate the Reaper.desktop file?
(again, should be in $HOME/.local/share/applications/Reaper.desktop)

It should have a line that reads:
Exec=/some/path/to/reaper.sh

Can you confirm that the path it points to is right and exists?

Also, the reaper.sh should now at least try to print something if it doesn't work, can you check if it does this by running it from a terminal?

And yes, feedback from other users would indeed be very helpful

http://www.filesavr.com/reaper

Cybolic, got one this time.

Alex.

[Cybolic]

First off, thanks a lot for your time so far

Okay, so the desktop file looks fine to me, does your .local/reaper/reaper.sh work?

[Alex Stone]

Originally Posted by Cybolic

First off, thanks a lot for your time so far

Okay, so the desktop file looks fine to me, does your .local/reaper/reaper.sh work?

OK, from terminal.

Running Reaper with arguments is not yet supported, running without.
wine: invalid directory ./.wine in WINEPREFIX: not an absolute path.

Alex.

I'm happy to test this, Cybolic, as the end result will be, potentially, a smoother ride for those too frightened to don the Tinfoil hat.

[eric71]

I've already got a good reaper install on my Ubuntu at home, but I decided to test your script at work. Reaper is launching fine from the menu, but it seems wineasio is not working. There was an error in the terminal regarding not being able to create this or that regarding wineasio during the install. Manually entering regsvr32 wineasio.dll in a terminal after install returns "Failed to load DLL wineasio.dll". I do see wineasio.dll.so in in the /home/eric71/.local/reaper/.winelib directery, though.

edit: same result for version 0.3 and 0.4

[Alex Stone]

Originally Posted by eric71

I've already got a good reaper install on my Ubuntu at home, but I decided to test your script at work. Reaper is launching fine from the menu, but it seems wineasio is not working. There was an error in the terminal regarding not being able to create this or that regarding wineasio during the install. Manually entering regsvr32 wineasio.dll in a terminal after install returns "Failed to load DLL wineasio.dll". I do see wineasio.dll.so in in the /home/eric71/.local/reaper/.winelib directery, though.

Hehe Eric, and my wineasio install was good, on Ubuntu. (In the install terminal.)

Aaah, the joys of installing software, yes?


Alex.

[Cybolic]

Oh my... well, at least Alex's report shows that there's a problem with symbolic links - that a start.

I had a lot of trouble with getting WineAsio to work in a bottled environment, but ended up removing a lot of code, since I though I had found a simple way of doing it - guess I'll have to reconsider that.

Eric, could you post your wine version? And thanks for testing

[eric71]

1.0.0-1ubuntu4~hardy1 (hardy-updates)

[Cybolic]

Okay, new version:

https://stash.reaper.fm/oldsb/243660/LinReaper0.41.run

I've changed all file paths to be absolute, so let's see if that helps.
I've also fixed the bug where you couldn't pass arguments to reaper.sh, now you can, and I've also added a --help argument, that prints Reapers possible arguments (please correct me if I've misunderstood what an argument does) in a standard UNIX way.

Eric, you're running the same version as I am, so I'm just hoping that using absolute paths will fix the problem, otherwise I'll have to go back to my previous elaborate WineAsio comforting.

[eric71]

I'm home from work now. I will check out the new version at work tomorrow morning. I suppose I can remove my home installation and try again with your script. I'm running the same version at home. I'll get back to you.

[Cybolic]

There should be no need to remove your home installation in order to test this.

The only two things necessary to "clean the environment" are:

1) Either don't install the shortcut, or remove (rename) any custom you have made yourself
2) Remove (or rename) /usr/lib/wine/wineasio.dll.so so LinReaper doesn't register that one instead of the one included

Thanks again for testing

P.S. I really hope we can get this working properly. If we can, and Cockos allows me to repackage Reaper for the installer, we can actually produce a one-click-installer for Reaper on Linux! That to me is exciting

[eric71]

It was time to upgrade to 2.51 anyway. I completely removed my wineasio (I had installed a deb made with alien from JAD's repository) and unistalled my current Reaper with Wine. I used your latest script and everything worked smashingly. Great (and fast) work!

[eric71]

Originally Posted by Cybolic

P.S. I really hope we can get this working properly. If we can, and Cockos allows me to repackage Reaper for the installer, we can actually produce a one-click-installer for Reaper on Linux! That to me is exciting

The trick will be providing instructions for prerequisite requirements for people to already have jack, an rt-kernel, audio group with proper limits.conf, etc. I suppose just recommending starting with an audio distribution like Ubuntustudio or JAD would only require installing wine before using your script.

[Alex Stone]

hehe, plus 1. Last build worked fine, and opened from the directory icon in Sounds and Video. Ubuntu.)


Notes: The 2.51 build didn't download automatically, but 2.5 did, then promptly told me about the 2.51 update.

I renamed my normal wineasio, and made linreaper use the new one. It works fine. Users will still have to modify their .wineasiocfg file manually if they want to increase the number of inputs and outputs, so maybe that's worth a quick note in the linreaper encyclopedia to help new users further.


Nice work Cybolic, and a hearty well done for your efforts, and this new tool.

Alex.

[GermanFafian]

Duuuude!
Got it working in my ultra-flashy Ubuntu/compiz set up :O
One more point for Reaper.
Will have to look up some more stuff to have it working perfectly and maybe install a real time kernel. Looks like it is going to be a fun GNU/Linux weekend!

[Libero Mureddu]

Originally Posted by Alex Stone

Dave, i'm quite impressed with puppy linux. It's clean, installs well, i have network and sound out of the box (wireless included, on the laptop), and doesn't chew a lot of cpu or ram. It's early days, and with no rt kernel,
Alex.

But hopefully next version (4.2) will have at least multi core support. I'm using puppy linux since one month and it's really great. It's also quite easy to make a puppy linux derivative, with a custom selection of software.
ciao
libero

[fladd]

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "./main.py", line 213, in <module>
main = Main()
File "./main.py", line 24, in __init__
self.versions = get_version_urls()
File "./main.py", line 177, in get_version_urls
dateint = int( ''.join(map(lambda i: "%02d" % i, time.strptime(date, "%d-%b-%Y %H:%M")[:3])) )
File "/usr/lib/python2.5/_strptime.py", line 330, in strptime
(data_string, format))
ValueError: time data did not match format: data=09-Dec-2007 18:37 fmt=%d-%b-%Y %H:%M

[Cybolic]

Great! I'm glad to hear this is working for someone!
Odd thing about the 2.51 Alex, but I'm guessing it was just a temporary glitch.

Eric, I will probably look into making LinReaper test to see if jack and wine are installed, so that's at least something.

fladd, I think the problem should be fixed now, could you test it again?

I've put out at new version:
https://stash.reaper.fm/oldsb/244792/LinReaper0.6.run

The changes are:

• If 7z is installed Reaper will be installed without launching the Windows installer
• A default configuration file with native synchronisation disabled is automatically created on first-run for each user
• Removed "config" from installation dir - Reaper will now use $HOME/.config/reaper (yes, this works for multiple users)
• Reaper now uses UNIX type command arguments (e.g. -h and --help)
• Command line arguments are now parsed and converted, so normal shell tricks and Linux file-paths are supported
• Icons and mime-types are added for Reaper project files and .reapeak files
• Reaper is automatically set as the handler for Reaper project files (create shortcuts has to be on)

All in all Reaper feels very much like a proper Linux program now