FL Studio

What works

Launching it, making sounds with existing channels, filters, registering. No more scratchy sounds, CPU overload, and blacking as of WINE 0.9.8

What does not

Opening songs, adding channels.

Workarounds

What was not tested

exporting songs, saving songs

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

Basically it somewhat works, but is useless without the features that don't work

This is a how-to on getting FL Studio to run in Wine. It won't run perfectly(not yet anyway), and there are some quirks and flaws but it is usable. :)

I'll keep this how-to updated as wine progresses and changes.


Changes in Wine 0.9.31

"Help" now starts up and displays some content.

Changes in Wine 0.9.30

No changes noticed.

Changes in Wine 0.9.29

Mouse now works correctly without the "Use Tablet PC" option.

"Channels->Add one->More..." Now shows up correctly in KDE's window manager and won't freeze FLS.



Note
If you have FL Studio installed on your Windows partition I recommend you keep it seperate from the one you're about to install in Linux and just copy over your Project Files later.


The How-To

Ok, so too start off make sure you have the latest Wine(as of now it's version 0.9.31). You can get the latest Wine packages for the most common distros here: http://winehq.org/site/download

Once you have Wine installed start your favorite terminal emulator(Konsole,GTerm)or press ALT+F2 and type in: winecfg
This will start up the wine config utility. Open the Audio tab and check the "OSS Driver" box. For "Hardware Accelaration" I find FL Studio works best with "Full" but it might work better for others with different sounds cards with "Emulation". Now open the Graphics tab and check "Allow the window manager to control the windows". (this step shouldn't be needed anymore since window management is now set on by default)

Download the latest version of FL Studio(6.0.8) and save it in your Home folder. Now open your favorite terminal program (Konsole,GTerm,etc) and type in: wine flstudio608_install.exe

Now the install will start. To make it easier to follow this how-to chose the default install locations.

After you're done the installation you'll have to edit a text file and copy over a codec file to be able to play most of the sound files that come with FL Studio.
The default install location of FL Studio is the fake C drive. This fake C drive is located in the .wine folder in you Home folder. Open your Home directory. The .wine folder is hidden so enable viewing hidden files with your file manager (View->Show hidden files in KDE, Rightclick->Show Hidden files in GNOME).

Now navigate to the FLStudio folder and into where the codec is: .wine/drive_c/Program Files/Image-Line/FL Studio 6/System/Installers/VorbisACM
In this folder there will be a bunch of files. Copy the vorbis.acm file to: .wine/drive_c/windows/system

Now go back into the windows folder (.wine/drive_c/windows) and edit the system.ini file with your favorite text editor.
Add this under the drivers32 section: MSACM.vorbis=vorbis.acm

Now you'll have to get a dll from your real Windows(XP or 2000 should work) installation because the Wasp and DrumSynth plugins(and others) need it to run.
The dll is mfc42.dll and it'll be in Windows/System32 in your Windows installation.
Copy the mfc42.dll file to .wine/drive_c/windows/system32

Now to import your FL Studio key to run FL Studio in Full Express/Fruity/Producer/whatever you paid for mode. (not needed to run in demo mode)
Download your FL Studio Registry key: FLStudioLogin
Save it in your Home folder. Now press ALT+F2(or start your terminal program) and type in: regedit
This'll start the wine registry editor. Click Registry->Import Registry File, and then select your reg file.

Ok, so that's all the tweaking that has to be done with Wine, the rest will be in FL Studio. :)

You should have an FL Studio icon on your desktop, but if you don't you'll start FL Studio from the terminal, and you can make a desktop icon yourself later.
Ok, so start FL Studio with the desktop icon or in a terminal program like this: wine "~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Image-Line/FL Studio 6/FL" (with the quotes)

FL Studio will crash the first time it runs, this is one of the known issues. Run FL Studio again and it'll start up normally with the default 4 audio channels.

Experiment with buffer length in Options->Audio Settings.
You'll notice the Buffer Underrun counter will be counting like crazy, this is normal since it's not able to count the underruns accurately in Wine. :P
Polling and Hardware Buffers options don't seem to have any effect on performance.

That's it, just read through the Know Issues to avoid them if possible and enjoy FL Studio in Linux. :)


Known Issues

Fl Studio will crash when any channel or project is opened while the Step Sequencer is up, so hide the Step Sequencer when adding a new channel or opening a project.


Moving a window in FL Studio is extremely slow and will spike the cpu usage to 100%. This is because Wine is very inefficient with this part of the windows API at the moment(bug #421 I believe).


FL Studio playback will stutter and freeze for a second if you do anything anything else that uses the cpu. This is because Wine is unable to prioritize cpu usage to a section of the wine sound driver, and this causes stutters and buffer underruns(bug #1631).


If you get a notice saying something like "Cannot open DSound device" when starting FL Studio then log out and in and the problem should be gone.


Maximizing a window inside FL Studio(like the pianoroll) is not refreshed correctly, minimize and maximize the entire program to refresh it.
DO NOT use FL Studio's minimize button, you won't be able to maximize again if you do. Use the taskbar to minimize and maximize FL Studio.


Audio latiencies should not be a problem since realtime kernels can be used and JACK substitutes ASIO, but until Wine can prioritize cpu usage to avoid buffer underruns this problem can't be solved.


The ReWired plugin does not work.


Using .rex files does not work.


Any hardware synths or keyboards probably won't work with FL Studio, however MIDI hardware might work. A user mentioned their midi keyboard works, thanks for the comment. :)


Anything beyond stereo(5.1,7.1) will not work, this is a limitation of the current Wine sound driver.


"Help" starts, but isn't very usable. Use a native CHM viewer(KchmViewer,GnoCHM) to view the help files.
They're located in: FL Studio 6/Help