1.2.6 Scrivener for Linux Released (NOT LATEST)

[uriel1998]

Unfortunately, I tried all the suggestions brought up in this forum, but wasn't able to make it work in Kubuntu 12.10. Maybe Lee can take a look and points us to the right direction?
Thanks.

Just doublechecking: You tried running it as root, right?

Are you getting any particular error messages (you may need to run it from the terminal to see them)?

[Jeco]

No, I installed Scrivener with the package installer and then clicked on the icon. Nothing happens. I'm quite new to Linux and I'm trying to figure out how things work. If you have any suggestions, I would appreciate.

Thanks.

Jeco

[uriel1998]

Welcome to linux! One thing I'll let you in on off the bat: It seems like there's more stuff to fiddle to make linux run sometimes. As the resident unofficial "techie" everywhere I've worked, believe me, Windows is just as fussy. (Ever search for a driver or dll? Oy.)

Kubuntu means you're using the KDE graphical environment. (If you don't know the difference between "window managers" and "desktop environments" and the like, [url=http://askubuntu.com/questions/18078/whatisthedifferencebetweenadesktopenvironment-andawindowmanager]this breaks it down pretty simply and is a useful thing to know when running linux.)

Quick caveat - I've never run KDE. That's why I'm offering somewhat vague suggestions, and then workarounds later down instead of giving you step-by-step instructions, and why I cover a couple of "if-then" situations.

There's a suspicion that KDE isn't using the proper libraries (this is roughly like Windows using the wrong dll, if you're wondering). This "fix" is actually a hack to run it as root. The launcher (akin to shortcuts in Windows) are actually simple text files. You should be able to right-click to edit it in Kate (if not, see below). Find the line that begins with

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Exec=

It probably reads:

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Exec=/usr/bin/Scrivener %U

(If it's something different, use what's right of the equal sign below; you're just adding "kdesudo".)

Change that line to

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Exec=kdesudo /usr/bin/Scrivener %U

Save, and try clicking it. It will ask you for your root password, and from what others have said, it'll run at that point. If that's the case, report back here that it worked so that the devs can help track down this issue.

If you can't figure out how to edit the shortcut:
Right click this link and save the icon to your hard-drive. Make a note of where you put it - you'll need it.
Open up a terminal and type:

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which Scrivener

Note the full path name it gives you.

Open up Kate. Cut and paste, changing the Icon= line to point to where you put the icon, and Exec= to what you got from the terminal command above if needed:

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#!/usr/bin/env xdg-open
[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Name=Scrivener
Type=Application
Icon=/home/(your username)/.icons/Scrivener_Logo.png
Exec=/usr/bin/Scrivener %U
Terminal=false
Categories=Application;Office;


Save it to your Desktop as Scrivener.desktop. It should show up and be launchable; if not, follow the steps to add kdesudo as detailed above. Again, come back and let us know which (if any) steps worked so that it can all be made better.

The above is from the "Mostly Complete Guide" I put together a while back.

[claydoh]

Just doublechecking: You tried running it as root, right?

Why suggest running this with sudo/root privileges?

[claydoh]

As Scrivener is a 32 bit binary (at least for the .deb file), what is missing for those running 64 bit systems are the 32 bit compatibility libraries - ia32-libs in Ubuntu/Kubuntu for example. The .deb file simply doesn't specify this as a dependency, and not everyone installs these unless they are pulled in by something else - say wine or Skype.

Now, installing ia32-libs will pull in a lot of dependencies, and I am not sure how to tell which specific ones are needed, but Scrivener will run once they are present

[uriel1998]

Just doublechecking: You tried running it as root, right?

Why suggest running this with sudo/root privileges?

Just to clarify in case anyone was gettting the wrong idea - I'm NOT an official member of the team. Please don't take any suggestions of mine as gospel or official instructions from L&L!

Re: Why root privs? Other folks have suggested that it worked in sticky situations where nothing else did. In the "Mostly Complete Guide" and here I included it for completeness.

My guess from afar (MGFA? should that be an acronym?) was that there was something wrong with libraries if it ran with root privileges and not with regular user's, and that was a symptom of a bigger problem.

As Scrivener is a 32 bit binary (at least for the .deb file), what is missing for those running 64 bit systems are the 32 bit compatibility libraries - ia32-libs in Ubuntu/Kubuntu for example. The .deb file simply doesn't specify this as a dependency, and not everyone installs these unless they are pulled in by something else - say wine or Skype.

Now, installing ia32-libs will pull in a lot of dependencies, and I am not sure how to tell which specific ones are needed, but Scrivener will run once they are present

Ah. I have a 32 bit system, so that would have never occurred to me.

Two questions:
1. Do you think that is that the problem with people running KDE? As I've never used KDE as an environment, I have no idea whatsover.
2. Oh, holy crud, I started looking into getting ia32-libs (for updating the guide) and it's a complete rabbit-hole of people with different issues. Including the package not installing more than common libraries. And this is where my older system and version of the OS really start to show.

Here's the pages I looked at with a brief synopsis of my thoughts looking at them:

"Install everything that looks like it might apply"

"Here's a launchpad package that might or might not work so I don't want to point people at it in a guide"

"Saying ''use your favorite search engine'' is a pretentious way of saying ''google it''. And then the advice is ''use ldd and search some more''. Really?"

The last, while perhaps the most grating in tone for me, is the most useful - but something I literally cannot test. As someone who recommends linux and Scrivener to folks, none of these are good enough answers for production-level support. So I'm hoping that one of you kind folks with a 64 bit system will be able to poke around at this. I'm pretty sure I can't run a 64 bit VM on my 32-bit box, otherwise I would.

[claydoh]

Generally speaking, running a gui program with sudo privileges, at least in Ubuntu based systems, can lead to mangled file permissions on the user's /home directory. While this does not happen on other Linux systems that have a root user account so much, running a non system program with root privileges is considered unsafe and insecure.


Using KDE over Unity, Gnome, or any other desktop environment has no effect on the 32bit/64bit situation. I do not know if my particular Kubuntu 64 bit setup has all the required libraries needed by default, or if I have installed something that pulled them in, outside of the massive ia32-libs. I can try to discover what may be needed in a VM or on a fresh install to reduce the number of packages needed to the minimum. Since Scrivener looks to have its own Qt already included, I think there will be a small portion of the 32bit compatibility packages needed which will reduce significantly the massive download size for *buntu users.

A Kubuntu user posted on kubuntuforums about about not being able to run Scrivener. I looked into it as I have looked at various Linux tools for authors in the past and could not remember my thoughts on Scrivener, or if I even was able to run it myself. My meager dabblings are usually done using Libreoffice or Caligra (formerly Koffice). I had no problem installing this, and quickly discovered why it might not open for some users.

Now I need to find the time to look at this interesting program, see if it can help me . Looks quite nice!

[uriel1998]

Generally speaking, running a gui program with sudo privileges, at least in Ubuntu based systems, can lead to mangled file permissions on the user's /home directory. While this does not happen on other Linux systems that have a root user account so much, running a non system program with root privileges is considered unsafe and insecure.

Agreed.

Using KDE over Unity, Gnome, or any other desktop environment has no effect on the 32bit/64bit situation. I do not know if my particular Kubuntu 64 bit setup has all the required libraries needed by default, or if I have installed something that pulled them in, outside of the massive ia32-libs.

No idea either - but I was thinking that it might be something like the inverse of when you have a cron task which has root's permissions and variables and not the user's....

[garpu]

It sounds like Kubuntu distros do something very different from other distros. I'm running KDE 4.9.1 on a 64-bit distro, and aside from some crashing issues, I don't have a problem starting it. One person reported that installing the game "Limbo" fixed his issues on Kubuntu. Again, I can't use the Ubuntu-based distros, so I can't test what the installer might've done to change whatever setting that needed to be changed or installed a dependency that was missing.

[macdebian]

Hi all,
I'm new here and also new to Scrivener which seems awsome. I'm running a Debian Squeeze 64bits on a macbook and I'm trying to run Scrivener on this setup. However, so far I didn't succeed! I have installed all the required ia32 libs however, one is missing:

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libgstapp-0.10.so.0

And so far I can't find it in any Debian package!
Any tips will be much appreciated, thanks,
Best regards,

[garpu]

That's part of the gstreamer package, if memory serves. You'll need that and the base plugins for it. (For 32 bit, of course.)

[macdebian]

In fact I also have an other computer with Ubuntu 10.04 64bits and this lib is part of the ia32-libs. Hence so far Scrivener works quite well on this machine. However my main computer runs debian for which I can't find the required lib!

[claydoh]

In fact I also have an other computer with Ubuntu 10.04 64bits and this lib is part of the ia32-libs. Hence so far Scrivener works quite well on this machine. However my main computer runs debian for which I can't find the required lib!

Try gstreamer0.10-plugins-base:i386

[macdebian]

@claydoh, thanks for your tips. However the required lib is not included in gstreamer0.10-plugins-base:i386 for the debian 6 distrib. And how should I install this package on a 64bits install?

[claydoh]

@claydoh, thanks for your tips. However the required lib is not included in gstreamer0.10-plugins-base:i386 for the debian 6 distrib. And how should I install this package on a 64bits install?

libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0 should include it, I think I grabbed the filename for the wrong package
http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/i386 ... 0/filelist

Install it using apt

apt-get install libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0:i386

I think that works in squeeze.