Not working on ubuntu 16.04 - sound only

[Nomad]

Hello,
i have over 400 hours in this game on Windows, some time ago decided to switch to Linux cause windows was getting too slow for my old laptop. Im not very linux tech-savvy though but not a complete noob.
Anyway, downloaded 32bit .deb 3.52 version of the game.
my exact version of the system:
Description:   Ubuntu 16.04.6 LTS
Release:   16.04

I THINK i managed to correctly install SDL 2, SDL image 2 and SLD mixer 2 libraries, with not some problems which were resolved through 30 minutes of googling and entering about 50 commands. Something about locked access and other stuff that popped around the way, killing processes, restarting the system, my first problem involved searching this phrase in google "E: Unable to acquire the dpkg frontend lock (/var/lib/dpkg/lock-frontend), are you root?" and some others about not able to install SDL2 libraries, but after like 30 minutes of work i think i managed to install all.

Here is what pops up when i check versions, sorry for the long post.

dpkg -s libsdl2-2.0-0

Code: [Select]

Package: libsdl2-2.0-0
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: libs
Installed-Size: 1126
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com>
Architecture: amd64
Multi-Arch: same
Source: libsdl2
Version: 2.0.4+dfsg1-2ubuntu2.16.04.2
Replaces: libsdl-1.3-0
Depends: libasound2 (>= 1.0.16), libc6 (>= 2.15), libpulse0 (>= 0.99.1), libsndio6.1 (>= 1.1.0), libwayland-client0 (>= 1.9.91), libwayland-cursor0 (>= 1.0.2), libwayland-egl1-mesa (>= 10.0.2) | libwayland-egl1, libx11-6 (>= 2:1.2.99.901), libxcursor1 (>> 1.1.2), libxext6, libxi6 (>= 2:1.2.99.4), libxinerama1, libxkbcommon0 (>= 0.5.0), libxrandr2 (>= 2:1.2.99.3), libxss1, libxxf86vm1
Conflicts: libsdl-1.3-0
Description: Simple DirectMedia Layer
 SDL is a library that allows programs portable low level access to a video
 framebuffer, audio output, mouse, and keyboard.
 .
 This version of SDL is compiled with X11 and Wayland graphics drivers and OSS,
 ALSA, NAS, sndio and PulseAudio sound drivers.
Homepage: http://www.libsdl.org/
Original-Maintainer: Debian SDL packages maintainers <pkg-sdl-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org>

dpkg -s libsdl2-image-2.0-0

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Package: libsdl2-image-2.0-0
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: libs
Installed-Size: 97
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com>
Architecture: amd64
Multi-Arch: same
Source: libsdl2-image
Version: 2.0.1+dfsg-2+deb9u1build0.16.04.1
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.11), libjpeg8 (>= 8c), libpng12-0 (>= 1.2.13-4), libsdl2-2.0-0 (>= 2.0.4), libtiff5 (>= 4.0.3), libwebp5 (>= 0.4.3)
Description: Image loading library for Simple DirectMedia Layer 2, libraries
 This is a simple library to load images of various formats as SDL surfaces.  It
 supports the following formats: BMP, GIF, JPEG, LBM, PCX, PNG, PNM, TGA, TIFF,
 WEBP, XCF, XPM, XV.
 
 This package contains the shared library.
Original-Maintainer: Debian SDL packages maintainers <pkg-sdl-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org>
Homepage: http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_image/

dpkg -s libsdl2-mixer-2.0-0

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Package: libsdl2-mixer-2.0-0
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: libs
Installed-Size: 206
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com>
Architecture: amd64
Multi-Arch: same
Source: libsdl2-mixer
Version: 2.0.1+dfsg1-1
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.14), libflac8 (>= 1.3.0), libfluidsynth1, libmad0 (>= 0.15.1b-3), libmodplug1 (>= 1:0.8.8.5), libsdl2-2.0-0 (>= 2.0.4), libvorbisfile3 (>= 1.1.2)
Recommends: musescore-soundfont-gm | fluid-soundfont-gm | freepats
Description: Mixer library for Simple DirectMedia Layer 2, libraries
 SDL_mixer is a sample multi-channel audio mixer library.  It supports any
 number of simultaneously playing channels of 16 bit stereo audio, plus a single
 channel of music, mixed by the popular FLAC, modplug MOD, FluidSynth and
 Timidity MIDI, Ogg Vorbis, and MAD or SMPEG MP3 libraries.
 .
 This package contains the shared library.
Original-Maintainer: Debian SDL packages maintainers <pkg-sdl-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org>
Homepage: http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_mixer/


When i start the game i hear the music, the icon appears on the left side icon bar and when i press enter i hear the characteristical "sword sheathing" sounds when you navigate a menu in this game. So apparently the game ts working, but there is no screen at all, no window of any kind appearing, no option to minimalize/ maximalize etc.

I think the problem may be somehow trivial. Help me out please.

EDIT OKAY, i noticed there is a "window" active with minimalize/maximalize and resize options, but its... transparent. Like, its showing my pulpit or a folder that was opened before. So certainly there is something wrong with those image libraries...

[Sami]

Anybody else playing on Ubuntu 16.04 who could give a little insight?
Or educated guesses from Linux experts?
This beats me too. The game is tested on 18.04 from my behalf, but it's built for 14.04 for compatibility.

[aat]

Uhm, I've been playing on fedora linux since 2017, first with the standalone version, and now with the steam version, and never had any problems.
I think the steam version runs via libraries pre-installed by stem, but since I don't like to play via steam I also had to install the sdl2 libraries via package manager, otherwise it would not run.

It shouldn't be that difficult to install SDL2 with apt, so it sounds a big mess what you had to do, and it's likely the source of the problems.

Try to uninstall all the sdl2 packages first, and then re install again.

Now it's years I don't use Ubuntu (and for a reason), so these commands might have some wrong syntax, but use apt-get to list all the sdl2- related libraries:
apt-get search sdl2

Then remove all the sdl2 packages with
sudo apt-get purge pkg1 pkg3 ... pkgn

Then install them again with
sudo apt-get install pkg1 pkg3 ... pkgn

Where pkg1 pkg3 ... pkgn are ALL the packages with sdl2 in the name
I know  this is very basic and likely not helpful, but that's what i can suggest without having any error log.

Did you try running urw from terminal? Are there any errors appearing in the terminal once you launch it?