Automated installation using Lutris script

[MangelMaxime]

Hello,

Thank you for the guide it is really helpful as I always forget how to setup the different tools.

Because, I often switch machines I had the idea of creating a Lutris script installer which setup Guild Wars with gMod, GWToolbox, etc. automatically for me.

I though it could be useful for others too, or to people who are not used to tinkering with their machine.

Do you think it could be worth linking to that script from this repo?

Link to my repo: https://github.com/MangelMaxime/guild-wars-enhanced-lutris

I also didn't send the script to Lutris (yet?) because I am not sure if they allows such setup which includes third party tooling, mods, etc.

[ChthonVII]

I'll have to think about it.

Personally, I strongly dislike Lutris because it adds unnecessary complexity and does opaque stuff that you often can't fix when it breaks because you have no idea what it did in the first place.

I'm also not too keen on an automated installer that can't do uMod instead of gMod (if you want), DirectSong, or DSOAL. (Which very well might be beyond the capabilities of Lutris's scripting language. So an installer including them might have to be in bash or ansible or something.)

On the other hand, people seem to want a one-click solution like Lutris. And I get a lot of frankly irritating comments of "oh, I just used Lutris." So maybe it would be better to point such people to a better Lutris installer, even if it's missing some stuff.

[MangelMaxime]

Hello,

I strongly dislike Lutris because it adds unnecessary complexity

What complexity does it adds?

I'm also not too keen on an automated installer that can't do uMod instead of gMod

I choose to got with gMod because it allows to be configured by CLI thanks to injectory and is actively develop. Is there something that uMod does better than gMod ?

DirectSong, or DSOAL

From what I see it should be do-able to support these out of the box, I didn't do it because I already spent some time trying to debug issues which in fact where not related to Lutris/Wine but GWToolbox being broken by a recent GW update 😅

Thank you for your input, and please don't feel pressure with my proposition. I just wanted to share something I though could be useful to some people :)

[ChthonVII]

What complexity does it adds?

1. It adds an entire runtime.
2. The "runner settings" are a semi-opaque layer of middleware between the user and the environment variables that control wine. (I believe some of them also muck with files too.)

Is there something that uMod does better than gMod ?

uMod can turn mods on/off while GW is running; gMod can't.

The user might also want TexMod installed because it's the only one that can capture textures on Linux.

[MangelMaxime]

The user might also want TexMod installed because it's the only one that can capture textures on Linux.

If someone is willing to mod GuildWars to this extends, I suppose they are used to creating their own installation.

Is there something that uMod does better than gMod ?

uMod can turn mods on/off while GW is running; gMod can't.

True but does people often toggle mods? In my player circle, we in general have 1-2 mods (Cartography Made Easy + UI mod) configured and always launch the game with them.

Adding uMod to the installer is possible, I just didn't do it because gMod can be configure from config files, I don't remember if uMod can. I also wanted to avoid adding too many Launchers options.

But it is possible to add more launchers or to even customize the Automatic Installation script to let people choose what they want to install. However, doing so means more works / maintenance.

What complexity does it adds?

1. It adds [an entire runtime](https://github.com/lutris/docs/blob/master/LutrisRuntime.md?rgh-link-date=2025-06-25T03%3A58%3A43.000Z).

2. The "runner settings" are a semi-opaque layer of middleware between the user and the environment variables that control wine. (I believe some of them also muck with files too.)

I am not well versed into Lutris and because it just worked for me I didn't investigate more.

It seems possible to disable Lutris runtime by using:

  system:
    disable_runtime: true

On another note by using Lutris, some of the configuration is available for free to the user like DXVK.

Thanks again for your time, if there is anything I can improve in the Lutris installer I will try to do it. The problem with modding is that everyone probably have its own idea on how to configure stuff 😅

[ChthonVII]

It seems possible to disable Lutris runtime by...

Whether you can turn it off is beside the point. The point is that it's a large new surface that may be the site of problems, which may be hard to troubleshoot, especially if you, like many users, aren't even aware that it exists. It's additional complexity and opacity.