Ubuntu 20.04 vs 32bit wine [-staging] - more detailed documentation?

[Sebastian M. Ernst]

Hi all,

just burned *a lot* of time making Wine (Staging) for 64 and **32 bit** 
work on Ubuntu 20.04 (Ubuntu 22.04 was a little less painful) as part of 
a Github action of mine.

The official documentation that is very commonly referred / pointed to 
("if it does not work, you did not follow the instructions there to the 
letter") ...

https://wiki.winehq.org/Ubuntu

... misses a few, apparently constantly shifting details on the 32 bit 
side of things. The "authoritative resource" on this topic appears to be 
this lovely long Github issue ...

https://github.com/actions/runner-images/issues/4589

... which thankfully also provides up-to-date workarounds (with rather 
significant side-effects), like the following as of July 26:

```bash
sudo rm -f /etc/apt/sources.list.d/microsoft-prod.list
sudo apt-get update -qq
sudo apt-get install -yqq --allow-downgrades libgd3/focal 
libpcre2-8-0/focal libpcre2-16-0/focal libpcre2-32-0/focal 
libpcre2-posix2/focal
sudo apt-get purge -yqq libmono* moby* mono* php* libgdiplus 
libpcre2-posix3 libzip4
```

See, in the following order:

- 
https://github.com/actions/runner-images/issues/4589#issuecomment-980506595
- 
https://github.com/actions/runner-images/issues/4589#issuecomment-1100899313
- 
https://github.com/actions/runner-images/issues/4589#issuecomment-1123074635
- 
https://github.com/actions/runner-images/issues/4589#issuecomment-1194891446

I am not sure if (or how) this belongs into your wiki (of if it can even 
be fixed / worked around partially within the dependencies of the 
packages from WineHQ's PPA). But since the above mentioned Github issue 
is not easy to find between a lot of other related but less helpful 
"noise" in online search results (and takes a while to comprehend), it 
might warrant creating a central, well known place that documents this 
behaviour in an up-to-date manner.

Either way, in all honesty, thx to everybody who keeps 32 bit support 
running. For better or for worse, it is still badly needed.

Best regards,
Sebastian

[Floris Renaud]

On woensdag 07 september 2022 19:18:19 (+02:00), Sebastian M. Ernst wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> just burned *a lot* of time making Wine (Staging) for 64 and **32 bit** 
> work on Ubuntu 20.04 (Ubuntu 22.04 was a little less painful) as part of a 
> Github action of mine.
>
> The official documentation that is very commonly referred / pointed to 
> ("if it does not work, you did not follow the instructions there to the 
> letter") ...
>
> https://wiki.winehq.org/Ubuntu
>
> ... misses a few, apparently constantly shifting details on the 32 bit 
> side of things. The "authoritative resource" on this topic appears to be 
> this lovely long Github issue ...
>
> https://github.com/actions/runner-images/issues/4589
>
> ... which thankfully also provides up-to-date workarounds (with rather 
> significant side-effects), like the following as of July 26:
>
> ```bash
> sudo rm -f /etc/apt/sources.list.d/microsoft-prod.list
> sudo apt-get update -qq
> sudo apt-get install -yqq --allow-downgrades libgd3/focal 
> libpcre2-8-0/focal libpcre2-16-0/focal libpcre2-32-0/focal 
> libpcre2-posix2/focal
> sudo apt-get purge -yqq libmono* moby* mono* php* libgdiplus 
> libpcre2-posix3 libzip4
> ```
>
> See, in the following order:
>
> - 
> https://github.com/actions/runner-images/issues/4589#issuecomment-980506595
> - 
> https://github.com/actions/runner-images/issues/4589#issuecomment-1100899313
> - 
> https://github.com/actions/runner-images/issues/4589#issuecomment-1123074635
> - 
> https://github.com/actions/runner-images/issues/4589#issuecomment-1194891446
> I am not sure if (or how) this belongs into your wiki (of if it can even

be fixed / worked around partially within the dependencies of the packages 
from WineHQ's PPA). But since the above mentioned Github issue is not easy 
to find between a lot of other related but less helpful "noise" in online 
search results (and takes a while to comprehend), it might warrant creating 
a central, well known place that documents this behaviour in an up-to-date 
manner.
> Either way, in all honesty, thx to everybody who keeps 32 bit support

running. For better or for worse, it is still badly needed.
> Best regards,
> Sebastian

The WineHQ packages are created for a standard Ubuntu installation. The 
fact that a user also uses third-party PPAs is not supported.
The deb.sury.org PPA is also often mentioned on the WineHQ forum as causing 
problems because it is not multiarch.

While this is noted on the WineHQ Wiki [1], if I understand you correctly, 
this explanation could be more specific/ detailed.
If you have any ideas on how to improve this text please post them on the 
forum [2].

Cheers,
Floris

[1] 
https://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#How_do_I_solve_dependency_errors_when_trying_to_...

[2] https://forum.winehq.org/viewforum.php?f=11

[Sveinar Søpler]

On 07.09.2022 23:59, Floris Renaud wrote:
> On woensdag 07 september 2022 19:18:19 (+02:00), Sebastian M. Ernst 
> wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > just burned *a lot* of time making Wine (Staging) for 64 and **32 
> > bit** work on Ubuntu 20.04 (Ubuntu 22.04 was a little less painful) as 
> > part of a Github action of mine.
> >
> > The official documentation that is very commonly referred / pointed 
> > to ("if it does not work, you did not follow the instructions there to 
> > the letter") ...
> >
> > https://wiki.winehq.org/Ubuntu
> >
> > ... misses a few, apparently constantly shifting details on the 32 
> > bit side of things. The "authoritative resource" on this topic appears 
> > to be this lovely long Github issue ...
> >
> > https://github.com/actions/runner-images/issues/4589
> >
> > ... which thankfully also provides up-to-date workarounds (with 
> > rather significant side-effects), like the following as of July 26:
> >
> > ```bash
> > sudo rm -f /etc/apt/sources.list.d/microsoft-prod.list
> > sudo apt-get update -qq
> > sudo apt-get install -yqq --allow-downgrades libgd3/focal 
> > libpcre2-8-0/focal libpcre2-16-0/focal libpcre2-32-0/focal 
> > libpcre2-posix2/focal
> > sudo apt-get purge -yqq libmono* moby* mono* php* libgdiplus 
> > libpcre2-posix3 libzip4
> > ```
> >
> > See, in the following order:
> >
> > - 
> > https://github.com/actions/runner-images/issues/4589#issuecomment-980506595
> > - 
> > https://github.com/actions/runner-images/issues/4589#issuecomment-1100899313
> > - 
> > https://github.com/actions/runner-images/issues/4589#issuecomment-1123074635
> > - 
> > https://github.com/actions/runner-images/issues/4589#issuecomment-1194891446
> > I am not sure if (or how) this belongs into your wiki (of if it can
>
> even be fixed / worked around partially within the dependencies of the 
> packages from WineHQ's PPA). But since the above mentioned Github 
> issue is not easy to find between a lot of other related but less 
> helpful "noise" in online search results (and takes a while to 
> comprehend), it might warrant creating a central, well known place 
> that documents this behaviour in an up-to-date manner.
> > Either way, in all honesty, thx to everybody who keeps 32 bit
>
> support running. For better or for worse, it is still badly needed.
> > Best regards,
> > Sebastian
>
> The WineHQ packages are created for a standard Ubuntu installation. 
> The fact that a user also uses third-party PPAs is not supported.
> The deb.sury.org PPA is also often mentioned on the WineHQ forum as 
> causing problems because it is not multiarch.
>
> While this is noted on the WineHQ Wiki [1], if I understand you 
> correctly, this explanation could be more specific/ detailed.
> If you have any ideas on how to improve this text please post them on 
> the forum [2].
>
> Cheers,
> Floris
>
> [1] 
> https://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#How_do_I_solve_dependency_errors_when_trying_to_...
>
> [2] https://forum.winehq.org/viewforum.php?f=11

It is probably not too easy to install 32-bit version of wine(-staging) 
in any reasonable way for 32-bit version of Ubuntu using distro provided 
packages. Afaik there is a few lib's and packages not really being built 
as "pure" 32-bit for Ubuntu, so if the wiki page starts to mention 
various "hacks" for forcing/downgrade of packages you always end up with 
the risk of people in some sort of desperation stumbling onto the wiki 
page, not reading or understanding everything, then starts to run 
various apt commands and completely break their system. Personally i 
kind of feel this is not a "safe" approach.
Not saying you recommend this, but "apt -yqq" kind of sais "answer yes - 
and do it quietly" to whatever apt package you install. Absolutely NOT 
safe, as you might end up with "this will remove 83747 packages from 
your system" without you seeing a message, and automagically answer 
"Yes, please do!" to it.

Sad state of affairs for Ubuntu/Debian?.. yes... WineHQ's problem? Not 
really, as they provide a working distro installable package(s), and it 
is not "their" issue to fix distro quirks. Debian experimental has just 
recently been building wine-7.0 package, and this may or may not trickle 
down to Ubuntu 22.04 (certainly not 20.04 tho). They (debian wine team) 
do not build staging and i think there was some consensus about not 
building development packages as it was way too much work and problems 
keeping that up to date. This may change in the future tho.

Just my thoughts

Sveinar