{"id":1055,"date":"2017-03-28T16:32:47","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T15:32:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ofalcao.pt\/blog\/?p=1055"},"modified":"2017-03-28T17:31:42","modified_gmt":"2017-03-28T16:31:42","slug":"running-lego-ldd-on-linux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ofalcao.pt\/blog\/2017\/running-lego-ldd-on-linux","title":{"rendered":"Running LEGO LDD on linux"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m finally going to try the EV3DPrinter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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3D pen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now that my 3D pen<\/a> arrived from China I downloaded\u00a0Marc-Andr\u00e9 Bazergui<\/a> LDD file to understand how to assemble it and then it striked me… dang, need Windows to run LDD!<\/p>\n

I still have the Windows VM I used to update the firmware of my EV3 but I don’t want to use it (yes, I’m stubborn) so I decided to try wine<\/a>. I once had LDD working with wine but never really used it and now that I got a new laptop I didn’t even bothered to install wine again.<\/p>\n

So after a few tweaks I got LDD running – it seems that running 32-bit MS Windows programs on wine on a 64-bit linux breaks some things but essentially one just needs to add some 32-bit gstreamer plugins to make LDD work fine.<\/p>\n

To show the full process I created a 64-bit virtual machine (1 CPU, 4 GB RAM, 32 GB thin provisioned disk), installed Ubuntu 16.10 (64-bit) on it (default installation, just enabled the download of updates while installing and the installation of 3rd party software).<\/p>\n

As I’m using VirtualBox I also installed the VirtualBox Guest Addictions, enabled bi-directional clipboard to allow copy&past of commands between the VM and my desktop and enabled a shared folder to exchange files (just the LDD 4.3.10 setup file<\/a> and the EV3DPrinter .lxf file<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Then a full last update:<\/p>\n

sudo apt update\r\nsudo apt upgrade\r\nsudo apt dist-upgrade<\/pre>\n
followed by a reboot and a safety snapshot (“trust no one”).<\/p>\n
So this is the full process:<\/p>\n
sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 \r\nsudo add-apt-repository ppa:wine\/wine-builds\r\nsudo apt-get update\r\nsudo apt-get install --install-recommends winehq-devel<\/pre>\n
at this moment, I have wine 2.4 installed:<\/p>\n
wine --version\r\nwine-2.4<\/pre>\n
I could install LDD right now but it will not work because at first run it tries to play some music and or video and it fails. The trick is to install some plugins for gstreamer:<\/p>\n
sudo apt install gstreamer1.0-plugins-good:i386 gstreamer1.0-fluendo-mp3:i386<\/pre>\n
So we install LDD by just double-clicking it. As it is the first time wine runs, it first asks to install two dependencies: mono and gecko (that assures some .Net Framework and Internet Explorer compatibility).<\/p>\n
LDD setup asks for a language (“English”) then asks us to accept the License Agreement and suggests creating two shortcuts (“Desktop” and “Quick lauch”).<\/p>\n
Then it asks to install Adobe Flash Player and to choose a destination folder (default is fine).<\/p>\n
When completed, we may check the option to “Run LEGO Digital Designer” but it will not work, it just shows a black window that we need to force close.<\/p>\n
But if we launch LDD again, it works now.<\/p>\n
Just a last issue: when opening the EV3DPrinter .lxf file we get a request for a FLEXnet license file, it is located at the installation folder:<\/p>\n
~\/.wine32\/drive_c\/Program Files\/LEGO Company\/LEGO Digital Designer\/RL278-1000.lic<\/pre>\n
Everything seems to work, even creating a Building Guide and the HTML Building Instructions.<\/p>\n
I recorded everything in this video:<\/p>\n