Guitar Pro

What works

The program starts, opens files, plays music properly (only with timidity), exports to pdf, saves files etc.

What does not

* RSE breaks TiMidity and TiMidity breaks RSE - only one of them can run at a time. In Wine 1.3.25 RSE does not work at all (GP5 throws an exception and breaks).
* The font is badly displayed, the tabulature is moved down from the lines making the tab completely unreadable.
* Clicking on any track propeties and then on the base window makes the base window get on top and nothing is clickable on it - you have to press Alt+F4 to close the window in the back and reopen it or resize the base window so the track propeties can be clicked.

Workarounds

What was not tested

Wave export.

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

The new Wine version made using GP5 a nightmare. The application not only throws exceptions and breaks but also badly displays the font and RSE stopped working (it either does not work at all [Windows Multimedia in GP5 options] or sounds choppy [DirectSound]).

2013-05-03 Admin note: The instructions below are very old and may not be applicable to current Wine. In particular, wineprefixcreate has been deprecated for several years. The instructions are being left here for the benefit of anyone who may wish to test and/or update them. 

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NOTE : THIS HOWTO WORKS WITH EVERY WINE+MIDI APPS !!

First : I suggest you to create a wineprefix :

wineprefixcreate --prefix "$HOME/.wine_gp/"

Then configure :

env WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wine_gp" winecfg

I use this as winecfg :

-Win2000
-No shader, no virtual desktop, only "allow WM to control my window"
-OSS Sound (16Bit standard with "emulate pilote)

You'll have to launch a MIDI sequencer (I use Timidity but you should be able to use qsynth/fluidsynth):

Here's the script I use :

#!/bin/bash

timidity -iA -B2,4 -Os -EFreverb=0&
cd $HOME/.wine_gp/drive_c/Program\ Files/Guitar\ Pro\ 5/ $1

env WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wine_gp" wine GP5.exe

sleep 1

killall timidity

Now, launch Guitar-Pro and open Options>MIDI. You should see "Timidity Port 0". Use it.

You'll notice that the sound is not perfect, sometimes it get slowed, especially when there are lots of instruments playing...

 

Anyway, you can use the Java-based TUXGUITAR, which is 100% free and open-source. It works perfectly on Linux, and partially supports Guitar Pro's file format. Or, if you're looking for something more sophisticated, Rosegarden is an excellent KDE-based music sequencer and notation editor. Although sometimes a bit hard to get working, it's quite featureful.

EDIT :

I suggest you configured "My documents" "Desktop" to your tab folders...