Installation How To: Retail Version

This guide is written using Wine version 0.9.40.

1. Buy a copy of the game. As of 2007, the game can be purchased new for $15 USD, including shipping. Used copies cost even less. The game comes with a "Case Book" that gives a deeper background story for the game. This story is briefly shown in the game's introductory movie sequence. You do not need to read the "Case Book" to figure out the puzzles Alice faces in the game. Original boxed versions of the game contains a printed game manual, 19 pages of which are the Case Book. Newer versions of the game (GTIN: 5-037999-006411) contain the manual and Case Book in the Manual.pdf file, found in the top level directory of disc 1.
2. Install Wine
3. Configure Wine. I tested using the ALSA driver.
4. Install the "IkernelUpdate" InstallShield update.
5. Run Setup.exe. The installation wizard's defaults work well.
6. In a terminal enter
   echo "seta in_mouse -1" >> "$HOME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/EA GAMES/American McGee's Alice/Base/config.cfg"
   This will disable use of "Direct Input" for mouse events, which allows the game know the absolute position of the mouse, which avoids a wine bug. If you skip this step, depending on your Wine version, Alice won't be able to turn clockwise or counter-clockwise more than one rotation (360°). For example, Alice wouldn't be able to circle strafe. Or, the game won't know the positon of the mouse and will, for example, leave the mouse pointing to the middle of the screen even if you keep moving the mouse to the right. This is very noticeable when the game starts and you try to move the mouse around the main menu screen.
7. Wine requires a version of the alice executable that is not encumbered by the SafeDisk v2 copy prevention. In other words, you need to use a "fixed" or "craked" or "NoCD" version of "alice.exe".
   1. Rename the existing alice.exe, in a terminal enter
      mv "$HOME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/EA GAMES/American McGee's Alice/alice.exe" "$HOME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/EA GAMES/American McGee's Alice/alice-orig.exe"
   2. Download the alice_10_de_nocd.rar "no-CD" fix.
   3. Extract the "rar" archive by entering in a terminal
      rar x alice_10_de_nocd.rar
      If your system does not have "unrar", install your linux distribution's "unrar" software package, or manually install from the unrar website.
   4. Extract the "ace" archive by entering in a terminal
      unace x alice_10_de_nocd.ace
      If your system does not have "unace", install your linux distribution's "unace" software package, or manually install from the WinAce website (the WinAce download page has a Linux version of their software).
   5. Move the fixed alice executable to the game directory. In a terminal enter
      mv alice.exe "$HOME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/EA GAMES/American McGee's Alice/alice.exe"
8. Run the game. One at a time, enter in a terminal each of the below commands, until one of them runs the game successfully. In the future, to start the game again, re-run the command that worked.
   1. cd "$HOME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/EA GAMES/American McGee's Alice/" && wine "alice.exe"
      As of Wine version 0.9.40, the first time you run this command, Wine might try many different video modes. The video mode scan takes up to 7 minutes, during which time your display will go black and flicker often.
   2. xrandr -s 640x480 ; cd "$HOME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/EA GAMES/American McGee's Alice/" && wine "alice.exe" '+set r_mode 3'
      Once the game has started, you can use change the game's display resolution. In the game's main menu click "Settings", then click "Video (1)", then click the left or right arrows under "Resolution" to set the new game resolution. When done click the "Apply" button.
   3. cd "$HOME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/EA GAMES/American McGee's Alice/" && wine explorer /desktop=Alice,1024x768 "alice.exe"
      If you use this command, you may wish to configure your window manager to not put boarders on the window so the game can use your entire screen. Note: you may have to change "1024x768" to whichever resolution you wish to play the game. To find your current display resolution, enter in a terminal
      xdpyinfo | grep 'dimensions:'
9. If you trouble with sound, configure Wine to use the OSS driver.
10. Optional: If you have a wide screen display, follow the instructions at this link.

Installation How To: Demo Version

This guide is written using Wine version 0.9.40.

1. Install Wine
2. Configure Wine. I tested using the ALSA driver.
3. Download the demo, then save the file to disk, for example to
   /tmp/alice_demo_beta7a.exe
4. Run the demo's installer. In a terminal enter
   wine /tmp/alice_demo_beta7a.exe
5. When an install window appears, click "Unzip", then wait the the installaiton to finish. When the demo is done installing it automatically starts the game.
6. In a terminal enter
   echo "seta in_mouse -1" >> "$HOME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/EA GAMES/American McGee's Alice Demo/demo/config.cfg"
   This will disable use of "Direct Input" for mouse events, which allows the game know the absolute position of the mouse, which avoids a wine bug. If you skip this step, depending on your Wine version, Alice won't be able to turn clockwise or counter-clockwise more than one rotation (360°). For example, Alice wouldn't be able to circle strafe. Or, the game won't know the positon of the mouse and will, for example, leave the mouse pointing to the middle of the screen even if you keep moving the mouse to the right. This is very noticeable when the game starts and you try to move the mouse around the main menu screen.
7. Run the game. One at a time, enter in a terminal each of the below commands, until one of them runs the game successfully. In the future, to start the game again, re-run the command that worked.
   1. cd "$HOME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/EA GAMES/American McGee's Alice Demo/" && wine "alice.exe"
      As of Wine version 0.9.40, the first time you run this command, Wine might try many different video modes. The video mode scan takes up to 7 minutes, during which time your display will go black and flicker often.
   2. xrandr -s 640x480 ; cd "$HOME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/EA GAMES/American McGee's Alice Demo/" && wine "alice.exe" '+set r_mode 3'
      Once the game has started, you can use change the game's display resolution. In the game's main menu click "Settings", then click "Video (1)", then click the left or right arrows under "Resolution" to set the new game resolution. When done click the "Apply" button.
   3. cd "$HOME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/EA GAMES/American McGee's Alice Demo/" && wine explorer /desktop=Alice,1024x768 "alice.exe"
      If you use this command, you may wish to configure your window manager to not put boarders on the window so the game can use your entire screen. Note: you may have to change "1024x768" to whichever resolution you wish to play the game. To find your current display resolution, enter in a terminal
      xdpyinfo | grep 'dimensions:'
8. If you trouble with sound, configure Wine to use the OSS driver.
9. Optional: If you have a wide screen display, follow the instructions at this link.

1. From the game's main menu, select "Settings", then select "Game Options" (number 4 on the head).
2. At the bottom of the settings page enable "Console".
3. While playing, show the game console by pressing the "~" key.
4. In the console enter "cg_cameradist 45".
5. Press the "~" key again to hide the console again.
6. To return to the normal perspective, in the game console enter "cg_cameradist 128"

How To Library

How to get help

How to enter commands into a terminal window

1. In the Gnome Panel (the strip on the edge of the screen, similar to the MS Windows "task bar"), I click the menu "Applications"
2. I click the sub menu "System Tools"
3. I click the application "Gnome terminal".

1. instead of clicking on "Applications", you might click on an icon, or some other text such as "Launch", "Start" or "Programs".
2. instead of clicking on "System Tools", you might click on some other text, such as "System", "Utilities" or "Tools".
3. instead of clicking on "Gnome terminal", you might find one or more of the terminal listed below. Any one will work.
   • Terminal
   • Console
   • Konsole
   • multi Gnome Terminal
   • 9term
   • aterm
   • Eterm
   • rxvt
   • Xvt
   • xterm
   • PowerShell

This website specially formats text to enter into a terminal. For example, if you see

You can enter any number of commands into the terminal by typing a command, then pressing the "Enter" key. You should enter new commands in an existing terminal window, unless you are explicitly instructed to enter commands "in a separate terminal" or "in a new terminal" or "in a new shell".

The normal text copy (Control + c) and paste ( Control + v) commands probably won't work in the terminal window. In the terminal window, text you highlight is implicitly copied. To paste text, press straight down on you mouse's scroll wheel. If your mouse lacks a scroll wheel, click both the left and right mouse buttons simultaneously. If your terminal the menu items Edit → Copy and Edit → Paste, you can use those.

Style conventions

Guide

• Tag all user input. This highlights what users should copy and paste.
• Short, single line computer output can be put in quotes, for example:
  Click the "Save" button.
  At the "Password:" prompt, enter the root (also known as the super user) password.
• Tag multi-line or a long single line of computer output.
• As a shorthand for describing how to navigate the user interface, separate menu and tab names with an arrow such as "-->" or "→" ( the HTML code for the → is → ).
• If you are using a graphical HTML editor, you may have to break descriptive text and a command appart by putting the command in a "bullet" list. Such as
  • example command

Example

1. Install Wine
2. Configure Wine. I tested using the ALSA driver.
3. Install the "IkernelUpdate" InstallShield update.
4. Run setup.exe. The installation wizard's defaults work well.
5. Set the registry [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Direct3D] "UseGLSL"="enabled"
6. During each program startup an "Alert Dialog" appears saying:
   The Adobe UI font could not be loaded. For best results, please exit the program and either install it or uninstall other fonts.
   Click "OK", then the program loads as expected.
7. If you trouble with sound, configure Wine to use the OSS driver.
8. In a terminal enter
   wine notepad
9. On the menu bar click File → Save as...
10. In the "Save" window, in the "File name" text box enter
    test.txt
11. Click the "Save" button.
12. My system's configuration
    $ wine --version wine-0.9.40 $ uname -a Linux debian 2.6.21-rc1+debian.55 #2 PREEMPT Wed Feb 28 22:23:19 PST 2007 i686 GNU/Linux $ grep -Ei '(udf)|(iso9660)|(dvd)|(cdrom)' /etc/fstab /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom iso9660 ro,user,noauto,unhide 0 0 $ cat /proc/asound/version Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.14rc2 (Wed Feb 14 07:42:13 2007 UTC). $ visualinfo | grep '^[a-zA-Z]' OpenGL vendor string: NVIDIA Corporation OpenGL renderer string: GeForce FX 5200/PCI/SSE/3DNOW! OpenGL version string: 2.1.0 NVIDIA 97.46 OpenGL extensions (GL_): GLU version string: 1.3 GLU extensions (GLU_): GLX extensions (GLX_):

How to configure Wine

1. Ensure your system does not hide files on discs. To do this, in a terminal enter
   su -c "/bin/echo -e 'g/iso9660.*[[:space:]].*user/,s/,unhide//g\n,s/\(iso9660.*[[:space:]].*user\)/\\\\1,unhide/g\nwq' | ed -s /etc/fstab"
   If prompted for a password, enter the root (also known as the super user) password.
2. In a terminal enter
   winecfg
3. In the "Audio" tab, ensure you have at least one audio device selected.
4. For more information read the Wine User Guide

How to mount a disc (such as CD-ROM or DVD)

1. Insert the disc into your computer's CDROM or DVD drive. Wait until the drive's indicator shows the drive is no longer reading the disc.
2. Depending on how your system is configured, the disc might now be attached to your file system (i.e. "mounted"). To verify this, in a terminal enter
   mount
   One line should look like /dev/cdrom on /media/cdrom type iso9660 (ro) If you see this, then you are done. Otherwise, continue to the next step.
3. You must manually mount the disc. In a terminal enter
   su -c "mkdir --parents /media/cdrom; mount -t iso9660 /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom"
   If prompted for a password, enter the root (also known as the super user) password. Depending on your system, you may need to substitute "/dev/cdrom" with "/dev/hdX", where X is some letter of the alphabet. To see which letter to use, in a terminal enter
   dmesg | grep -Ei '(cdrom)|(dvd)'

How to run setup.exe

1. Mount disc 1.
2. In a terminal enter
   cd "$HOME" && wine /media/cdrom/setup.exe

   If the installation program prompts for a disc, insert that disc. If you had to manually mount the previous disc, then in a separate terminal you'll have to enter:

   1. eject /media/cdrom
   2. Insert the next disc.
   3. Follow the mount instructions.

How to run the OSS sound test.

1. Plug in and (if applicable) turn on your computer speakers.
2. In a terminal enter
   yes 'zzzz' | head -c 20000 > /dev/dsp
3. If you heard a beep for about 2.5 seconds, your system passed the OSS sound test. Otherwise, your system failed the test.

How to configure Wine's OSS audio

1. In a terminal enter
   winecfg
2. Click the "Audio" tab. You might have to wait about 15 seconds before the application responds.
3. Configure so there is a check next to "OSS Driver" and no checks next to the other drivers.
4. Run the OSS Sound Test. If your system passed the test, click "OK", you are done. Otherwise continue to the next step.
5. Perhaps your audio hardware and/or drivers allow only one application at a time to output audio. While another application has control of the audio hardware, Wine cannot use that hardware. Close all applications that use sound. To be safe, close all applications except the terminal window.
6. If you used the Gnome desktop, in the panel open sound settings via Destop → Preferences → Sound. Enable
7. In a terminal enter
   kill $(lsof -Fp /dev/snd/pcm* /dev/dsp* | sed -ne 's/^p//p')
8. Re-run the OSS Sound Test. If your system passed the test, click "OK", you are done, but be aware you must run the above terminal command before running a wine application that uses sound. Otherwise continue to the next step.
9. If your system did not pass the test, read the Wine audio user guide.

If you are still having trouble, use the WineHQ help resources and Codeweaver's troubleshooting guide. Before asking for help, learn how to ask for help.

How to install the "IkernelUpdate" InstallShield update

1. Download "IkernelUpdate.exe". Save the file to disk, for example to
   /tmp/IkernelUpdate.exe
2. Run the downloaded file using Wine. For example, in a terminal enter
   WINEDEBUG=-all wine /tmp/IkernelUpdate.exe

How to set the registry [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Direct3D] "UseGLSL"="enabled"

1. In a terminal enter
   regedit
2. To do this, expand the registry by clicking the "+" to the left of "HKEY_CURRENT_USER". Expand "Software", expand "Wine".
3. Select the "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine" registry entry by clicking on the folder icon to the left of "Wine".
4. On the menu bar click Edit → New → Key
5. Set the name of the new key to
   Direct3D
6. With the newly created "Direct3D" key still selected, on the menu bar click Edit → New → String Value
7. Set the string name to
   UseGLSL
8. Double click on the newly created "UseGLSL" registry string.
9. In the "Edit String" window that appears, in the "Value data" section enter
   enabled
10. Click "OK" to close the "Edit String" window.
11. On the menu bar click Registry → Exit

How to detect viruses and other malware

ClamAV is an open source (GPL) anti-virus toolkit for UNIX. If your system does not have "clamscan" and "freshclam", install your linux distribution's "clamav" and "clamav-freshclam" software packages, or manually install from the ClamAV website. To scan files with ClamAV:

1. In a terminal enter
   su -c freshclam
   This will update ClamAV's detection system. If prompted for a password, enter the root (also known as the super user) password.
2. In a terminal enter
   su -c clamscan -v *.exe
   to scan the executable files is the current directory. Note: Scanning requires many CPU cycles, and can take a couple minutes per file. For example, as single 1.4MB file takes 1 minute and 30 seconds to scan on an "AMD Athlon XP 2400+" CPU.

Avira AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic distributes a Linux version of it's product that is no cost for personal use. To install:

1. Download the Unix version.
2. Extract the tar archive. For example, in a terminal enter
   tar xvzf antivir-workstation-pers.tar.gz
3. Extracting the tar archive creates the directory "antivir-workstation-pers-n.n.n-n/doc". In that directory look for and read the software manual. Follow the instructions for how to update the detection system and scan files.

How to work around problematic copy prevention systems

1. Make a backup copy the existing program ".exe". In a terminal enter something like
   cp "$HOME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Publisher/Software Title/program.exe" "$HOME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Publisher/Software Title/program-original.exe"
   Modify the actual path and "program.exe" to match the location of your application executable.
2. Get a NoCD version of the software executable. One way to get this NoCD version is to search web sites that specialize in distributing such executables. Below is a list of such web sites. Note: these websites often have advertisements that are sexual AKA "adult".
   • Game Copy World specializes in games.
   • MegaGames specializes in games.
   • You can try a web search, then narrow the results by adding the name of the software you are interested in .
3. If the NoCD version of the executable you downloaded is in an archive, extract the contents of the archive. For example:
   • If the archive has a "rar" extension, in a terminal enter
     rar x file_name.rar
     Substitute file_name.rar with the name of the archive file. If your system does not have "unrar", install your Linux distribution's "unrar" software package, or manually install from the unrar website.
   • If the archive has a "ace" extension, in a terminal enter
     unace x file_name.ace
     Substitute file_name.ace with the name of the archive file. If your system does not have "unace", install your Linux distribution's "unace" software package, or manually install from the WinAce website (the WinAce download page has a Linux version of their software).
   • If the archive has a "zip" extension, in a terminal enter
     unzip x file_name.zip
     Substitute file_name.zip with the name of the archive file. If your system does not have "unzip", install your Linux distribution's "unzip" software package, or manually install from the Info-ZIP website.
4. Scan the files for malware.
5. Follow the instructions included with in the downloaded NoCD archive. Often times, the instructions simply tell you to move the supplied program.exe to the application's program directory. To do so, you would enter something like the following into a terminal
   mv program.exe "$HOME/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Publisher/Software Title/program.exe"
   If instead the instructions tell you to run a patch or fix program, run it as described, but remember it is a Windows program, so if the instructions say run "patch.exe", you should in fact enter
   wine patch.exe