Hosting Area Servers on low end linux servers via XVFB and XPRA

[Ｂｉｓｏｎ]

This is more or less a straight copy and paste from my old post at coldbird.net, but it should still be applicable here. This was written with my old ubuntu machine in mind, so you may have to change a few things if you are using a different distro or version.
With this setup I was able to run the Area Server 24/7 on an Ubuntu VPS with 128mb of RAM (that's below the minimum requirements!).

Setup:

On your host machine, you will need Screen, Xvfb, Xpra Wine and the X fonts, install them:

sudo apt-get install screen

sudo apt-get install Xvfb

sudo apt-get install xpra

sudo apt-get install wine

sudo apt-get install xfonts-100dpi xfonts-75dpi xfonts-scalable xfonts-cyrillic

Before transferring your Area Server over to your host you should make sure it is set to run fullscreen mode at your desired resolution via the television shaped button in the Area Server menu.

Next up we have to start XVFB, for my toaster of a server I ran at 800x600x16, but if you are rich and have cpu cycles to burn go for whatever it is you want.

Open up a new screen by typing "screen"

Xvfb -screen 10 800x600x16

If all has gone well, detach from that screen by pressing ctrl +a and then ctrl + d

Open up another new screen by typing "screen"

xpra start :10

Now is the time to install Xpra (http://xpra.org/) on your home computer. You should open it and enter your servers information to connect.

Back on your server you need to set up wine,

wget http://kegel.com/wine/winetricks

sh winetricks d3dx9

DISPLAY=:10 winecfg

You should see the winecfg window open on your home computer thanks to xpra. Set it to Windows 2000 compatibility and press Apply then Ok. It should close.
Back on your server machine you need to type

DISPLAY=:10 wine "AREA SERVER.exe

On your home computer should see a pop up containing the area server, connect as you normally would. Be patient, the window will be slow to react.
Once you have your Area Server running the tray icon of Xpra on your home computer and disconnect.
In the server terminal press ctrl +a and then ctrl + d.

That's all folks.

[vector]

I'm using Raspbian Buster. Sped my way thru the guide encountering zero issues, but then I got to the final step. when I try to run the Area Server .exe it spits out the following:

Code: Select all

wine: Bad EXE format for E:\home\pi\AreaServer\NETSLUM_SERVER.exe

any ideas?

[Ｂｉｓｏｎ]

Not going to be much help because I've never used a raspberry and I haven't touched anything linuxy in about 5 years, but my first vague guess would be that it's something to do with 32 vs 64bit wine. I could be talking complete rubbish but I think you're going to need it in a 32 bit wotsit.
My second would be maybe the download went funny.

[Ｂｉｓｏｎ]

Actually, aren't those things ARM? Will wine even do anything in that case? So sorry I'm not being very helpful here.

[vector]

drat, I had a complete brain fart. you're right, they are arm64, so it won't run 32-bit programs.

[1UP]

Actually, aren't those things ARM? Will wine even do anything in that case? So sorry I'm not being very helpful here.

There was a guy who was running an AS off a pi that was in the discord.(Sadly I can't remember who it was) There are a few ways to do it and I know the guy had issues (it also ran pretty slow but I think he got it all figured out)

Something like:
https://thepi.io/how-to-run-x86-program ... pberry-pi/

might help.

[vector]

There was a guy who was running an AS off a pi that was in the discord.(Sadly I can't remember who it was) There are a few ways to do it and I know the guy had issues (it also ran pretty slow but I think he got it all figured out)

Something like:
https://thepi.io/how-to-run-x86-program ... pberry-pi/

might help.

that was actually me =p i got them to run on my 3b's using WOA Project's deployer.

was hoping I could put the pi 4 to use as it still doesn't support windows IoT.