Frets On Fire - FOFix Help

I'll look into this and get back to you on what is needed, most likely during the weekend.

Since Arch packages all development headers in the normal packages, I decided to install Mint in VirtualBox so I could make sure I know which packages are required. First off, you will want to install the following packages in your mint:

• build-essential
• ffmpeg
• python-dev
• freeglut3-dev
• libsdl2-dev
• libsdl2-mixer-dev
• libogg-dev
• libvorbis-dev
• libtheora-dev
• libsoundtouch-dev
• libswscale-dev
• python-virtualenv
• virtualenv
• portaudio19-dev

Or if you just want a line to copy into your terminal:

Code:

sudo apt install build-essential ffmpeg python-dev freeglut3-dev libsdl2-dev libsdl2-mixer-dev libogg-dev libvorbis-dev libtheora-dev libsoundtouch-dev libswscale-dev python-virtualenv virtualenv portaudio19-dev

Now you want to download the source code from github, the latest stable release is actually quite old so it's probably best to just download the master branch:

https://github.com/fofix/fofix/archive/master.zip

unzip it and enter into the folder. Now you want to open up a terminal in the extracted archive's directory. Running this program will require some python libraries, and I could not find all of them as system packages in Mint, so we will use pip to install them. However, we don't want pip to install stuff system wide as that can lead to breakage, so we will create a virtual environment for python. Do make sure you are in the directory for the extracted archive before you run the following commands.

First we create the virtual environment:

Code:

virtualenv -p python2 venv

All the following commands must be run from the same terminal without exiting, so don't close the terminal before you have done the following commands. First we enter into the virtual enviroment:

Code:

source venv/bin/activate

Then we install the python requirements in the venv:

Code:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Then we build the required modules:

Code:

python setup.py build_ext --inplace --force

Generate translations:

Code:

python setup.py msgfmt

Lastly you can run the game to test that everything works:

Code:

python FoFiX.py

In order to launch the game in the future, you will need to enter into the virtual environment, the most convenient way to do that would be to use a launch script, so create a launch script with the following content. Make sure to replace /path/to/fofix/directory with the actual path.

Code:

#! /bin/bash
cd /path/to/fofix/directory
source venv/bin/activate
python FoFiX.py

The packages you install are just that, packages. The only downside is that they will take up a little bit of hard drive space.

Compiling FoFiX itself does not install anything system-wide, everything is contained within the directory. The pip install command will also only install the python packages in a virtual environment contained within the directory of FoFiX.

Normally it is not this much of an involved process to compile software, but the more external libraries and other software something relies on, the more complicated the process becomes.

The process above is basically just three steps. First install the required dependencies, which was listed in the readme on github. It is important to get the development headers for the packages, hence the -dev ending on the packages.

Next we need some specific python dependencies, and FoFiX wants specific versions, so we use pip for that. Installing through pip system wide is a bad idea, so we create a virtual python environment in which to install the python packages.

Third step, we compile some of the modules for FoFiX that are written in C or C++, that was all done in a single command. And after that, we can run the program.

Since the program relies on some python packages that we installed in a virtual environment, then we must ensure we always enter the virtual environment before we attempt to launch the game. It will simply not run if we don't. That is what the launch script is for, saves us having to type out all the commands to enter the environment before launching the game.

EDIT: Do let me know if some of the steps are unclear or something goes wrong on your end.

Not at all. All the virtual environment does is ensure that Python loads and installs libraries within the venv instead of the default system-wide location.

Oh yes, do make sure you perform a full system update first. Just do "apt update", and I would suggest you also do "apt full-upgrade" next so that your system is fully updated.

In most cases you will not need source files, but this program is primarily written in Python, so you will need all the source files. There are probably a few files that can be removed at this point, but they are not taking up any significant space so I would not bother.

Seems like lazy coding on the developers part if having uppercase characters in song names causes a problem. Do keep in mind that this is not the original Frets on Fire, this is a forked version. On the top of the github page it says: "Frets on Fire X: a fork of Frets on Fire with many added features and capabilities"

As for copying this over to other machines, I would suggest just redoing the process. After all, it only takes as long as typing the commands. Actually, that inspired me to automate the process.

Code:

#! /bin/bash

echo "Installing Frets on Fire X, this is intended to be run on Linux Mint 19.3"
echo "Your system should be fully up to date before doing this, but this installer will update the package database before proceeding just to be sure"
echo -e "\nYou will be prompted for your password once as it is needed for installing packages\n"

sudo apt update && sudo apt install build-essential ffmpeg python-dev freeglut3-dev libsdl2-dev libsdl2-mixer-dev libogg-dev libvorbis-dev libtheora-dev libsoundtouch-dev libswscale-dev python-virtualenv virtualenv portaudio19-dev

cd ~
mkdir FoFiX
cd FoFiX
curl -L https://github.com/fofix/fofix/archive/master.zip -o master.zip
unzip master.zip
rm master.zip
cd fofix-master
virtualenv -p python2 venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt
python setup.py build_ext --inplace --force
python setup.py msgfmt
deactivate

echo -e "\nCreating a launch script in your home directory named 'FoFiX_launcher' which you can use to launch the game\n"

echo -e "#! /bin/bash\ncd $(pwd)\nsource venv/bin/activate\npython FoFiX.py\n" > ~/FoFiX_launcher
chmod +x ~/FoFiX_launcher

Copy all this into a file which you can call FoFiX_installer or something like that. Put it in your home directory, make it executable and run it from terminal. It will handle everything, including the creation of the launch script to actually run the game.