Guitar Pro

What works

Mostly everthing.

• Realistic Sound Engine
• MIDI Playback
• Menus, buttons, etc.
• Exporting to most formats (see "What doesn't)
  

What does not

• Exporting to WAV, because it's heavily OS dependent. You need to set up a Jack server or similar if you want to export audio from it.
  
• The big problem: Even with proper fonts installed all note heads are slightly displaced down in the score so it looks like it's the note below it. (This didn't happen in previous tests in distros other than Fedora, and I can't figure out why it happens now.)
• Has the same memory related crashes that it has on Windows.
• From time to time all configuration is lost randomly, license key included. (I bypass this by having a full portable copy that I use to overwrite the oblivious one).
  

Workarounds

What was not tested

Installing. I copied my working windows folder directly to my linux partition and threw it on wine's folder tree.

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

I've been using the software on a daily basis for some time now, even with the described problems and it pretty much works alright. Biggest issue, the thing about note heads... Also, any soundfounts you choose to work with in Timidity are better sounding than Microsoft GS Wavetable and support for reverb and chorus effects actually works.

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...