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Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Curse Client Linux Alternatives For Updating World Of Warcraft Addons

Curse Client is an addon management tool for games such as World of Warcraft and others, which unfortunately doesn't work on Linux.

Installing a World of Warcraft addon is easy, you must simply extract a zip into the game's AddOns folder however, updating them manually is pretty time-consuming, even if you only use a few addons, because you must check if the addon has a new release, then download the new version, extract the zip - all of this manually and for each addon.

That's why I searched for a Curse Client Linux alternative that works with the latest World of Warcraft (Warlords of Draenor) and I found a couple of such tools which, even though are not perfect, can automatically update all World of Warcraft addons via curse.com, and I though I'd share them with you.

Important notes: both Curse Client Linux alternatives below only support World of Warcraft. Also, they don't support searching the curse.com WoW addons database from the application so to install addons, you must add their URL (lcurse) or short name (jcurse) - that's not required when updating addons though.

I should also mention that WowMatrix is a tool similar to Curse Client (for WoW only) and it works on Linux, but it uses its own database, which lacks many addons (in my test, only one of the 5 addons I use was available via WowMatrix), that's why I searched for Curse-compatible alternatives.

lcurse: a Python "Curse" compatible client for Linux (GUI)

lcurse is a Python "Curse" compatible GUI client for Linux initially developed by ubuntuusers.de's user JörnS and then improved by Thilo Cestonaro.

lcurse features:

install, remove or update World of Warcraft addons via a GUI;
supports installing beta addon versions;
you can install Addons by addon name (with autocomplete) or Curse URL;
import/export addon list;
configurable World of Warcraft installation path and concurrent threads.

To install lcurse in Ubuntu or Linux Mint (and derivatives), you can use the main failsdownloads PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/failsdownloads
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install lcurse

If you don't want to add the PPA, you can download the deb from HERE or grab the source from GitHub.

Installing addons is very easy: the first time you start lcurse, click "Update Catalog" - this gets a list of all the available addons from Curse.com. This can take quite a while but only the first time as it's much faster after that. Then, click "Add addon" and enter either the addon name (this field uses autocomplete so typing just a few letters from the addon name should list the addon you want to install) or the Curse.com addon URL, click OK and that's it:

jcurse: a Java "Curse" compatible client for Linux (command line)

jcurse is a command line Java tool to install and update World of Warcraft addons on Linux, via curse.com, developed by ubuntuusers.de's user otakun.

jcurse features:

install or update World of Warcraft addons from curse.com via command line;
supports installing alpha/beta addon versions (as well as stable releases, of course).

Note that jcurse (unlike lcurse) doesn't detect addons that are already installed so you must reinstall them via jcurse to be able to update them later on.

Because jcurse requires Java 8 and OpenJDK 8 is not available in the Ubuntu 14.04 and 12.04 repositories, I didn't package the application.

To install OpenJDK 8 (JRE) in Ubuntu 14.10 or 15.04, use the following commands:

sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jre

For Ubuntu 14.04 and 12.04, you can use THIS PPA to install OpenJDK8 (not tested).

Also, for any Debian/Ubuntu/Linux Mint version, you can use the failsdownloads Oracle Java PPA to install the latest Oracle Java 8:

for Ubuntu / Linux Mint
for Debian

After installing Java 8, simply download the latest (version 1.0 at the time I'm writing this article) jcurse from HERE and extract it in your home directory.

The first thing you need to do to be able to use jcurse is to set the World of Warcraft installation path:

cd ~/jcurse*
./jcurse --set-wow "/path/to/World of Warcraft"

(the first command above navigates to the jcurse folder and it assumes you've extracted jcurse in your home directory)

For example, to set the path to the default World of Warcraft installation folder, use:

./jcurse --set-wow ~/.wine/drive_c/"Program Files (x86)/World of Warcraft"

(add quotes if there are spaces or precede the spaces with "\")

You can now proceed to installing/updating WoW addons. To install an addon, use the following command:

./jcurse add ADDON_SHORT_NAME

where "ADDON_SHORT_NAME" is the addon short name which comes after "/wow/" in the curse.com addon URL. For instance, if the curse.com addon URL is http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/deadly-boss-mods, for the command above you'd have to use "deadly-boss-mods" (without the quotes).

To update all the addons, use:

./jcurse update all

To see all the available options, simply use the command below:

./jcurse

Also see: How To Install World Of Warcraft In Ubuntu Or Linux Mint (W/ Fixes, FPS Optimizations)

How To Install World Of Warcraft In Ubuntu Or Linux Mint (W/ Fixes, FPS Optimizations)

Installing World of Warcraft (WoW) in Ubuntu or Linux Mint (with Wine) is pretty easy, however there are various crashes that can occur, especially if you're not using the latest Wine and also, the FPS can be pretty low without a few tweaks, so I though I'd document everything I did to get World of Warcraft to work properly on my laptop (Nvidia Optimus, so I was able to test the game with both Nvidia and Intel graphics), even in large scale PvPs and hopefully, this will help you play WoW under Ubuntu or Linux Mint.

Install World of Warcraft in Ubuntu / Linux Mint

1. Download the WoW installer (you can of course use a CD/DVD instead).

2. Optional but recommended (using this will most probably result in not experiencing most of the errors described below, in the "fixing various crashes" section): install the latest Wine from the official Wine PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wine1.7

3. Right click the downloaded installer, right click it and select Open With > Wine Windows Program Loader:

Then install Battle.net:

Update: a recent Battle.net update broke the UI for Linux users with Intel graphics. You can find a workaround here: Partial Workaround For Black / Distorted Battle.net UI On Linux (Wine) With Intel Graphics

4. And finally, launch Battle.net from the menu / Dash (the icon should also be on your desktop unless you've deselected that option) and install World of Warcraft:

Fixing various potential World of Warcraft crashes (Ubuntu / Linux Mint w/ Wine)

A. If the World of Warcraft installer / Battle.net crashes

If Battle.net crashes on start:

Fix it by launching "Configure Wine" from the menu / Dash (or press ALT + F2 and enter: winecfg) and on the Libraries tab, under "New override for library", enter "dbghelp" (without the quotes), then click "Add". Next, select "dbghelp" under "Existing overrides" and click "Edit" and in the new pop-up, set it to "Disable":

B. If you're on 64bit and the World of Warcraft 64bit game client crashes with an error similar to this:

ERROR #132 (0x85100084) Fatal exception!

Program: C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Wow-64.exe
ProcessID: 57
Exception: 0xC0000005 (ACCESS_VIOLATION) at 0033:0000000005A11A71

The instruction at "0x0000000005A11A71" referenced memory at "0x00007F38ACD6C028".
The memory could not be "read".

... you'll need to force World of Warcraft to use the 32bit client. If you use Battle.net to launch the game (that's only possible if you don't use OpenGL, see below), you can change WoW to use the 32bit client from the Battle.net settings available via left-click on the blue icon on the top-left Battle.net corner - the menu is not responsive and unfortunately you have to click quite a few times to get it to work.

Or, you can launch World of Warcraft using a script - adding "-noautolaunch64bit" will force the 32bit WoW client to be launched instead of the 64bit one. If you're already using a script, simply add "-noautolaunch64bit" at the end of your WoW launch command. Or, if you're not using a script already, create a new text file in your home folder - let's call it "wow" and in this file, paste the following:

on Ubuntu / Linux Mint 32bit:

#!/bin/sh

WINEDEBUG=-all wine "/home/YOURUSERNAME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/World of Warcraft/WoW.exe" -noautolaunch64bit

(replace "YOURUSERNAME" with your username; you may need to adjust your WoW.exe path!)

on Ubuntu / Linux Mint 64bit:

#!/bin/sh

WINEDEBUG=-all wine "/home/YOURUSERNAME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/World of Warcraft/WoW.exe" -noautolaunch64bit

(replace "YOURUSERNAME" with your username; you may need to adjust your WoW.exe path!)

Then save the file and make it executable using the following command (assuming you've created the "wow" file in your home directory):

chmod +x ~/wow

Then double click the "wow" file and run it to launch WoW (you can also launch it from the command line using "~/wow", or edit the World of Warcraft desktop file to point to your newly created script).

C. 64bit only: if you're using Bumblebee and World of Warcraft crashes with the following error:

X Error of failed request:  GLXUnsupportedPrivateRequest

Fix it by installing the 32bit virtualgl-libs:

sudo apt-get install virtualgl-libs:i386

D. If World of Warcraft fails at the login screen (it's unable to connect) when launching the game through Battle.net and you're using the OpenGL gxapi, you'll find a work-around below, under the WoW Linux/Wine optimizations and tweaks - see "A. Use OpenGL".

Optimizations and tweaks (increase the World of Warcraft FPS under Linux, etc.)

A. Use OpenGL

There are numerous reports saying that World of Warcraft runs better using OpenGL. In my test, I did indeed get a much higher FPS when using Nvidia graphics, but not using Intel graphics. However, this depends on hardware so it may not be the case for you.

Unfortunately, running World of Warcraft with OpenGL from Battle.net is not possible at the time I'm writing this article, at least it wasn't in my test (and there are others who are experiencing the same issue) because World of Warcraft fails to connect. There is a work-around though.

To get World of Warcraft to connect when using OpenGL, you need to launch it using a script. To do this, create a new text file in your home folder - let's call it "wow" and in this file, paste the following:

On Ubuntu / Linux Mint 32bit:

#!/bin/sh

WINEDEBUG=-all wine "/home/YOURUSERNAME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/World of Warcraft/WoW.exe" -opengl

(replace "YOURUSERNAME" with your username; you may need to adjust your WoW.exe path!)

On Ubuntu / Linux Mint 64bit:

#!/bin/sh

WINEDEBUG=-all wine "/home/YOURUSERNAME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/World of Warcraft/WoW.exe" -opengl

(replace "YOURUSERNAME" with your username; you may need to adjust your WoW.exe path!)

For Nvidia-users only: for threaded OpenGL performance optimization, add "__GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATIONS=1" to the script you've just created, before "wine". After modifying the script, it should look like this:

- On Ubuntu / Linux Mint 32bit:

#!/bin/sh

WINEDEBUG=-all __GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATIONS=1 wine "/home/YOURUSERNAME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/World of Warcraft/WoW.exe" -opengl

(replace "YOURUSERNAME" with your username; you may need to adjust your WoW.exe path!)

- On Ubuntu / Linux Mint 64bit:

#!/bin/sh

WINEDEBUG=-all __GL_THREADED_OPTIMIZATIONS=1 wine "/home/YOURUSERNAME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/World of Warcraft/WoW.exe" -opengl

(replace "YOURUSERNAME" with your username; you may need to adjust your WoW.exe path!)

Note: I've used "WINEDEBUG=-all" to turn off debugging output to improve performance a little bit further.

Next, make the script executable (the following command assumes you've called the script "wow" and created it in your home folder):

chmod +x ~/wow

That's not all. To boost the WoW FPS, also perform the following tweak: press ALT + F2, enter "regedit" (without the quotes) and:

navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER -> Software -> Wine, select the Wine folder and right click it, then select New -> Key and rename the newly created key to "OpenGL" (without the quotes);
select the "OpenGL" key, right click it and select New -> String Value;
rename "New Value #1" to "DisabledExtensions" (without the quotes);
double click on the newly created "DisabledExtensions" and enter "GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object" (without the quotes) into the "value" field.

B. Intel graphics only

If you see black textures in the game or the game crashes, enable S3TC texture compression by following the steps below:

Firstly, install driconf:

sudo apt-get install driconf

Then launch driconf: it should show up as "3D Acceleration" in the menu/Dash (you can also launch it by pressing ALT + F2 and entering: "driconf") and on the Image Quality tab, set "Enable S3TC texture compression even if software support is not available" to "Yes", then close the window.

C. If you're still getting low FPS, here are a few game configuration tweaks (Config.wtf)

To be able to use the tweaks below, you need to run World of Warcraft at least once, or else the configuration file doesn't exist.

Open the Config.wtf file with a text editor (the file should be located under ~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/World of Warcraft/WTF/) and paste this:

SET M2UseShaders "0"
SET UseVertexShaders "0"
SET useWeatherShaders "0"
SET ffxGlow "0"
SET ffxDeath "0"
SET ffxSpecial "0"
SET weatherDensity "0"
SET reflectionMode "0"
SET maxFPS "60"
SET ffx "0"
SET maxFPSbk "5"
SET mapShadows "0"

Then save the file.

Other tweaks:

Using some WoW addons can considerably lower your FPS so if the FPS is bad, you can try removing them (note that you'll have to remove the addons and not just disable them!) and see if that improves your FPS;
For better performance, you can try the latest Wine Staging PPA.
For Ubuntu 14.04 and 14.10 / Linux Mint 17 and 17.1, you can use the Oibaf PPA (it requires Linux kernel >= 3.17 and wine from THIS PPA) which includes updated graphics drivers as well as Gallium Nine support which should get you a FPS boost in World of Warcraft with Direct3D.
Update your graphics drivers (e.g. for Nvidia, get the latest Nvidia beta drivers from the Xorg Edgers PPA but don't add that PPA or add it just to install the latest Nvidia drivers, then remove it).

Update 1: everything in this guide was checked and it works with the latest Warlords Of Draenor (WoD - 6.2).

Update 2: for a couple of Curse-compatible applications that work on Linux, which you can use to install or update WoW addons via curse.com, see THIS article.

Are you playing World of Warcraft under Linux? What other optimizations / tweaks have you used?

References / further reading: