$30 reward: Lego Mindstorms EV3 software running on RPi

[Botspot]

Just a friendly reminder that $30 is up for whoever can get Lego Mindstorms EV3 Home Edition running on RPi.

Download the EXE from: https://le-www-live-s.legocdn.com/downloads/LMS-EV3/LMS-EV3_Full-setup_1.4.5_en-US_WIN32.exe

Using box86 and x86 WINE, I got Mindstorms to partially install. But the installation failed right towards the end.

[Pythonic456]

@Botspot Do you know where I can get a x86 32 bit virtualbox? Thanks :)

[Botspot]

@Botspot Do you know where I can get a x86 32 bit virtualbox? Thanks :)

Several people have tried doing so in the Pi Labs Discord Server that it doesn't work. :(

Download link: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Download_Old_Builds_5_2

[SpacingBat3]

@Botspot maybe try installing it on X86 PC first – many EXE installers on box86 + wine doesn't seem to work properly, but the applications themselves will do once they're installed.

After installation copy it's data to your Raspberry Pi – it should be installed somewhere in C:\Program Files, C:\Program Files (x86) or ~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86) (if you've installed it on the amd64 Linux distro with wine).

You can also try to extract it with some archive software (most of the *.exe and *.msi installers are in reality archives) if you couldn't install it using the X86 PC – but I would rather avoid that method, especially for complex installers like this.

[Botspot]

@Botspot maybe try installing it on X86 PC first – many EXE installers on box86 + wine doesn't seem to work properly, but the applications themselves will do once they're installed.

After installation copy it's data to your Raspberry Pi – it should be installed somewhere in C:\Program Files, C:\Program Files (x86) or ~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86) (if you've installed it on the amd64 Linux distro with wine).

You can also try to extract it with some archive software (most of the *.exe and *.msi installers are in reality archives) if you couldn't install it using the X86 PC – but I would rather avoid that method, especially for complex installers like this.

@SpacingBat3 That is an interesting approach that I had not thought of before. Well, $30 up for grabs, who wants it? ;)

[Pythonic456]

The installation also fails on an X86 PC. Any ideas?
:)

[Pythonic456]

Is this what it should do?
:)

[SpacingBat3]

Is this what it should do?
:)

You might need to use the Windows for the installation, as some applications fails to install on X86 Wine as well. Some might not be even runnable with it at all. Personally, I've never had an issue with wine under the Linux x86_64, but that doesn't mean it will work with every Windows executable (especially with these less known and popular).

You might also need to install the vcrun* and dotnet* software to use them instead of the wine-mono package with some applications. AFAIK they will fail to install on the newer (win7 and newer) Windows versions that are simulated on wine with the 64-bit enviroment (which is the default one on the Linux x86_64 distributions), so you might need to switch your Windows version to some as old as the winxp.

[chills340]

if you do BOX86_NOBANNER=1 winetricks --gui with the latest winetricks 20201206 there is an option in the install an application menu for EV3. It installed vcrun2005 with a workaround for wine, IE8 to replace gecko, and dotnet40. i should have installed aria2 first to make the download quicker for the ev3 full installer it is taking abit on my internet but when it finishes i'll report back.

[chills340]

well it was worth a shot the installer did its thing then crashed after it said it installed and winetricks gave the following error:

---

warning: ev3 install completed, but installed file /home/pi/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/LEGO Software/LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Home Edition/MindstormsEV3.exe not found

the debug log from that screen is below:

Structured Exception number 0xC0000005

Exception Report:
Exception code: C0000005 (ACCESS_VIOLATION)
Fault address: 714526D2 0001:000516D2 C:\windows\system32\msi.dll

Registers:
EAX:00000000
EBX:00000000
ECX:00000050
EDX:FFFFFFFF
ESI:02B3C9B0
EDI:02B3D2E0
CS:EIP:007B714526D2
SS:ESP:007B02E4EC18 EBP:7FA0BDF0
DS:007B ES:007B FS:003B GS:0033
Flags:00000243

Stack Trace
Address Frame LogicalAddr Module SymbolName + Offset
714526D2 7FA0BDF0 0001:000516D2 C:\windows\system32\msi.dll MsiSequenceA + 1378
714170C1 02B3C9B0 0001:000160C1 C:\windows\system32\msi.dll QueryInstanceCount + 89409
7140BD20 02B3C9B0 0001:0000AD20 C:\windows\system32\msi.dll QueryInstanceCount + 43424
7141A49A 02E4F264 0001:0001949A C:\windows\system32\msi.dll QueryInstanceCount + 102682
7141A76C 02E4F264 0001:0001976C C:\windows\system32\msi.dll QueryInstanceCount + 103404
7146CB19 02E4F264 0001:0006BB19 C:\windows\system32\msi.dll MsiViewClose + 505
7141B061 02B3E9F0 0001:0001A061 C:\windows\system32\msi.dll QueryInstanceCount + 105697
7141B198 02B3C9B0 0001:0001A198 C:\windows\system32\msi.dll QueryInstanceCount + 106008
7140BD20 02B3C9B0 0001:0000AD20 C:\windows\system32\msi.dll QueryInstanceCount + 43424

[Pythonic456]

@Botspot has anyone ever got Lego Mindstorms EV3 to work with wine on anything?

[chills340]

@Pythonic456 an older version is silver in the winedb. https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=33517 so it might be possible. I'll mess with the program some more later.

[Botspot]

@Botspot has anyone ever got Lego Mindstorms EV3 to work with wine on anything?

It looks like it. https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=15648

Maybe an older version of the software could work?

I've seen a couple people get Lego Mindstorms running on Linux using Virtualbox. Someone, @SkywalkerSW5, said he got x86 Virtualbox running on RPi under an emulated chroot called "Rpi686".

IDK how he did it, and he doesn't seem to remember either, but it's worth a shot.
Looks like he gave instructions for virtualbox here, but I haven't tried it: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=251107&p=1532973&hilit=rpi686+virtualbox#p1532973

[ryanfortner]

Here's an older version, https://le-www-live-s.legocdn.com/downloads/LMS-EV3/LMS-EV3_Full-setup_1.3.1_en-US_WIN32.exe#noUrlRewrite, i haven't tried it out yet though...

[Botspot]

According to winehq, Lego Mindstorms 1.1.1 is "bronze", meaning it installed fine on Wine without difficulty.

I've not found download links for this old version, until today when I found the broken old download link was on archive.org.
This download is stupidly slow - about 600 Kb/s, but at least it's working at all.

[Itai-Nelken]

This download is stupidly slow - about 600 Kb/s

@Botspot try using aria2c -x16 https://example.com/file, using this method files from archive.org download way faster.

[Botspot]

This download is stupidly slow - about 600 Kb/s

@Botspot try using aria2c -x16 https://example.com/file, using this method files from archive.org download way faster.

Wow that's crazy fast!! It cuts download time in half for downloading images from the raspbian website!
This might be time for another killer app... ;)

[Pythonic456]

I'm interested in how this works, how can it download it faster?

[ryanfortner]

I think it might be by using multiple conenctions.

[Itai-Nelken]

@Pythonic456 what @Chunky-Milk said: it uses multiple connections, so the server you are downloading from thinks 16 computers are downloading the file.

[NoozAbooz]

well it was worth a shot the installer did its thing then crashed after it said it installed and winetricks gave the following error:

warning: ev3 install completed, but installed file /home/pi/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/LEGO Software/LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Home Edition/MindstormsEV3.exe not found

Well no duh it didn't find it, the file path has spaces so you need to edit winetricks to somehow use /home/pi/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program\ Files/LEGO\ Software/LEGO\ MINDSTORMS EV3\ Home Edition/MindstormsEV3.exe for the spaces to register I think.

[Botspot]

Well that's interesting...
https://github.com/Winetricks/winetricks/blob/95dc6433ecec0ff0131797d2ba85402471be499e/files/verbs/all.txt#L16

[NoozAbooz]

Well that's interesting...
https://github.com/Winetricks/winetricks/blob/95dc6433ecec0ff0131797d2ba85402471be499e/files/verbs/all.txt#L16

👀

[Botspot]

Looks like a later version of Wine is required.

warning: This package (dotnet40) is broken in wine-5.13. Broken since 5.12. Upgrade to >=5.18. See https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=49532 for more info. Use --force to try anyway.
------------------------------------------------------
pi@raspberrypi:~ $ 

[NoozAbooz]

https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=49532

Ask WheezyE in Pi Labs, I think he knows how to do it.

[Botspot]

https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=49532

Ask WheezyE in Pi Labs, I think he knows how to do it.

Speaking of that, why aren't you in Pi Labs anymore?

[Botspot]

Update: I've discovered that winetricks has a built-in way to install Lego Mindstorms EV3! The download URL doesn't work though.
I made a modified version of winetricks with a fixed URL. https://github.com/Botspot/winetricks <-- install that first

Procedure I'm following on my RPi:

rm -rf ~/.wine
BOX86_NOBANNER=1 setarch linux32 -L bash -c 'BOX86_NOBANNER=1 winetricks ev3 --force'

Could someone with a X86 Linux PC try this?
For me, it successfully installs vcrun2005, IE8, and dotnet40, but while installing Lego Mindstorms EV3, a DOS shell stays open indefinitely running coregen.exe.

I left it open overnight but nothing changed. All that time it had high CPU usage.

[Pythonic456]

Try running strace? Or using something else to see what file it currently has open. I know strace doesn't work great with multi-threaded stuff like wine, worth a try though.