Installing Scrivener 3 on Linux using Lutris

[Grunfeld]

All good here. For me, I agree this has been the easiest way to install Scrivener on Linux.
For me, a fresh install [Mint] got rid of the debris from previous unsuccessful attempts to get Scrivener [64 bit] running. I think the issue was some complication of trying to put the 64 bit install over a previously working 32 bit version. I managed to kill everything with that move and couldn’t revert.

Lutris installed Scrivener 3 with no issues. Today (20 Sep 2024) there was no need to nuke the TextToSpeech folder.

I’ve used:
@adgalloway 's video
@AmberV 's suggestion to change the global UI font (Amazon Ember works well too)
@WagesOf 's suggestion to increase the the dpi of the Wine fonts

Cheers Tony, Amber, and Greg.
Getting there, fingers crossed this works.
In the year away from Scrivener I’ve tried several alternative ideas however it was all a bit clunky. Makes you realise what a unique bit of software Scrivener is. One day it would be lovely to see a native flatpack.
Oli

[adgalloway]

I’m glad you finally got it sorted out. That’s great news. I agree, I hope L&L puts together a Flatpak. I don’t think it would be terribly hard. Then again, what do I know. Enjoy Scrivener on Linux! And thank you for always supporting and commenting on my videos. I appreciate you. TG

[Orion]

I had to reinstall my system, so I decided to switch from Linux Mint Debian Edition (v6) to Linux Mint (22), and the installation of Scrivener via Lutris did not work this time.

I got this error message:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File “/usr/share/lutris/bin/lutris-wrapper”, line 202, in
main()
File “/usr/share/lutris/bin/lutris-wrapper”, line 129, in main
process_pid = subprocess.Popen(args).pid
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File “/usr/lib/python3.12/subprocess.py”, line 1026, in init
self._execute_child(args, executable, preexec_fn, close_fds,
File “/usr/lib/python3.12/subprocess.py”, line 1955, in _execute_child
raise child_exception_type(errno_num, err_msg, err_filename)
PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: ‘/home/orion/.local/share/lutris/runtime/winetricks/winetricks’

The folks in this discussion forum (below) seem pretty sure this is what happens when “you are trying to open a file, but your path is a folder.”

PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied

If anyone has any idea how to fix this, please let me know. I’m prepared to go back to LMDE if that’ll do it, or even migrate to Debian/Gnome. I cannot live without Scrivener.

[adgalloway]

I’m not sure, but let me make sure I understand. Exactly at what point does it fail? The installation itself doesn’t work? If that’s the case I’m wondering:

1. Are you using the Flatpak version of Lutris or a system package? All my tutorials use Flatpak

2. Is your computer using an AMD or Intel processor and approximately what generation of processor is it?

3. Presuming you are indeed using the Flatpak version of Lutris, try installing FlatSeal and using that to give Lutris all the read/write permissions under the “Filesystem” section. Just for troubleshooting, I’d try giving Lutris full access to all of them and you can alway turn them off one by one after a successful installation to see which might be the issue

4. At the beginning of the installation process, Lutris displays a blue screen with a bunch of common issues you might encounter and their potential fixes. Does any of that apply to your situation?

Sorry, I know that’s more questions than answers.

[Orion]

It’s okay. It’s fixed. Someone on the Lutris forums helped me, thank baby Superman.

It turned out to be a (common) permissions issue with the Winetricks file. Once I found it and gave myself the correct permission, it loaded just fine.

Huzzah.

[adgalloway]

It’s the solution something you could detail here in case others have the same issue?

[Orion]

Yes! Of course. Thanks for reminding me to do that.

You have to find your Winetricks file, and the location depends on whether you have the System Package version of Lutris or the flatpak.

System package: /home/orion/.local/share/lutris/runtime/winetricks/winetricks --self-update

Flatpak: ~/.var/app/net.lutris.Lutris/data/lutris/runtime/winetricks

There’s a terminal solution, but I honestly had troubling figuring that out, so the GUI solution is to click it, click Properties, and tick the box “allow executing file as program.”

[zappy]

Just (Nov 7) installed and activated, want to share my experience.

Kubuntu 22.04.5 running Lutris 0.5.17, freshly installed today from github .deb via apt

Scrivener would error out almost immediately the first few times I tried running it - something about an unknown call in user32.dll?

Changed runner to Proton Experimental. Scrivener loaded and activated successfully and I’m now going through the tutorial. Menu bar and folder tree fonts look kind of Windows 98-ish but everything seems to be working. A big thank you to everyone who came before me, showing the way!

[adgalloway]

Excellent. Regarding that Win 95 looking GUI. Here’s a quick walkthrough on increasing the DPI which may help. The relevant part starts at 1:45.

Configure Scrivener on Linux

You can also go into File>Options

Under the Appearance section at the top of the Options window you’ll see General Interface on the left. There should be an option to select the GUI font. Pick something that looks better.

Another option is to change the Scrivener theme. Window>Themes.

One of those options ought to sort it out.

[jllop]

ACTIVATION FAILED

I followed the steps above for running Scrivener in Lutris, in the trial period, with no problems. When I purchased the license I got an automatic activation online before I got my license key. However, when I’ve tried to reinstall Scrivener in Lutris (with the code activation) the next message pops up:

Activation failed
There was a problem activating Scrivener. Please try again in a moment, or restart your computer and ensure it is connected to the Internet, then try again.
If you still cannot activate this copy of Scrivener contact windows.support@literatureandlatte.com for assistance.
Unable to find requested license.

I suspect that the problem has to do with the server to which Lutris has to connect to validate the code, and I suppose it requires to modify the configuration on Wine /Winetricks in Lutris. I haven’t the slightest idea of how to do it. I would thank any help here, please.

My distro is Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon and I use Brave as a web browser.

[adgalloway]

My first thought is to ask you to install it on Windows and see if the activation succeeds there. It would only take five minutes and would tell us:

1. Installation on Windows fails to activate with your license, then there is a problem with your license and you need to get support from Literature and Latte

2. It activates on Windows and we know something has changed with either Lutris or Mint that needs troubleshooting.

Do you have access to a Windows machine by chance?

[jllop]

ACTIVATION PROBLEM SOLVED:

Finally I followed your advise and tested with a Windows machine that there was no problem with my license code. I then proceeded with purging in my Linux any Wine component, unistalling Scrivener from Lutris, uninstalling Lutris and reinstalling Lutris and Scrivener again . I typed then then code and…it worked! It seems that Lutrist is the faster and easiest way to get Scrivener going in Linux. Thank you adgalloway for your wonderful finding.

Happy Writing.

[adgalloway]

That’s great! Glad it is working for you now. Happy writing.

[RuffPub]

After assisting a friend in South Australia who is moving from Windows to Linux to get Scrivener 3 for Windows running on his machine, I have taken the lessons I learned from the process and added it to my Book Scrivener 3 For Windows and have released a version of the book Scrivener 3 On Linux (Amazon.com: Scrivener 3 On Linux: Run Scrivener 3 For Windows on Linux Full installation, and Tutorial Manual (Scrivener 3 - from beginner to published author) eBook : Roughton, Robert: Kindle Store). There’s a section on addressing the issues that he came across, Windows version and Font clarity.

After trying it remote with him (I’m north of Sydney) and pointing him to your video without success (he’s recently turned 80 and for whatever reason struggled) I did the install on an old 2011 17" MacBook Pro did screenshots etc and sent him what has become the Linux install chapters in the book which he managed to follow. I’ve since also installed Linux as a dual boot on my desktop PC which worked just fine also.

[adgalloway]

Awesome! I’m working on a new video for 2025 that will hopefully cover every method in a single video in a simpler format.

[RuffPub]

I have 3 different systems, 2011 MBP 17" Linux Mint, 2013 15" Dual Boot MacOS/Mint, PC Dual Boot Win 10/Linux Mint that I’m happy to throw other Distros at if you want any testing etc done in the process. I also have an M2 Max, but it might be a bit early for Linux ARM.

Doing this has reminded me I actually enjoy playing with Linux, and given there’s not a Linux version in the pipeline we know of, getting mate up and running was a bit of a buzz.

[adgalloway]

I’m definitely interested in Linux on arm architecture. I don’t have anything apart from Intel/amd machines to test on. I’ll definitely get you to try some installs when the Linux kernel support for arm matures a little more.

I wonder if L&L could package Scrivener as a Flatpak installer that includes the necessary WINE components and just automates everything. Seems like it wouldn’t be that hard. Lutris almost has it automated as is.

[RuffPub]

That sounds like an interesting prospect (the flatpack)

Give me a yell when you want something played with on ARM.

[brookter]

I have a test implementation of Asahi Linux on my MBP M1 Pro. It’s the latest version, with Fedora 41 Gnome. I tried it out yesterday.

It’s made great strides recently in providing the necessary infrastructure to run x86 games. Installing Steam was really easy and I got Portal 2 working without any difficulty.

It’s supposed to be possible to install non-Steam games as well, so I thought I’d try Scrivener. Apparently, it’s possible to install non-Steam programs by adding them to the Steam library and enabling a compatibility layer (e.g. a version of Proton).

Using this method, I managed to get the Installer to work, so I have Scrivener supposedly installed on the system. However, I couldn’t get the program itself to work – it just hung before anything visual happened.

I didn’t have any time to explore this any further, but my initial guess is that there are so many layers to this (it’s running in a special VM to get round the 16k page limitation) and then you have the various Proton / Steam layers, so it’s perfectly possible that there’s a setting somewhere which will address this.

I also tried installing Lutris – there’s an Asahi version – using the bottle on the website, but again couldn’t get the program to work. I didn’t have any time to explore this further, or look through any logs, so can’t give any useful info as to why it didn’t.

Basically, I don’t know enough about how this is supposed to work behind the scenes to make sensible decisions about how to proceed, and there are no how tos available to give you a step by step process.

Apparently, the latest version of Wine (10) makes all this easier, but according to a post by the lead developer of Asahi, it doesn’t work on Asahi yet, which is why I tried the Steam route, which someone mentioned was a possibility.

I’m only trying this out because one day this Mac will be obsolete, so I want to explore running it with Linux eventually – I’ve no intention of stopping using the Mac version till I need to. So I don’t really intend to explore this any further – given the progress Asahi have made, I don’t doubt that this will become a lot easier reasonably soon, and I’ll wait till then.

I mention this in case anybody with suitable technical beyond mine wants to take it up to explore further. Good luck…

[Stazzy]

Hi, I have a weirdest small but for the moment blocking problem with the keyboard integration.
[TL;DR Can’t use diaresis / umlaut over a vovel.]

I installed Scrivener 3 with Lutris (Flatpack) on Linux Mint 22.

I have an AZERTY keyboard (French) but I’m mainly writing in Finnish language. So, I need letters “ä” and “ö”. With the azerty keyboard I need two touches for that: " ¨ + a " or " ¨ + o ". (diaresis/umlaut + the letter). And Scrivener recognizes the key combination very badly.
I mean, when I write the letter (key combination), two times out of three it’s just an “a” or an empty place.

Is it something in Wine configuration that recognizes the keyboard badly? Or maybe the Scrivener, or both of them? Where should I start to look? (tried a few different runners, but can’t see any difference.)

Add: I usually use Scrivener on a small Win10 VM, no problems there.