Please note that there is now a native Lotus Notes 7.0.1 Linux Client. I've posted some installation instructions and screenshots if you want to see what's involved. Right now it's client-only and a little buggy, so if you need Designer and/or Admin you'll still need Wine.Also, according to the Wine Wiki page on Running Lotus Notes on Wine, it says that "wine-0.9.19 can install and run the Lotus Notes 6.0, 6.5, and 7 Windows clients without any special effort." So if you're doing a fresh install it makes sense to follow the instructions on that page first and see how it works. The information below (on this page) is from mid-2005, so be aware that it's dated...
If you try hard enough, you can get a Lotus Notes client running on a Linux desktop using wine. Instructions are below (thanks again to Volker Weber and Peter Leugner for providing the initial steps). First, a few caveats and general information, some of which I outlined in more detail in a much earlier blog entry:
2. Download and install the latest version of winesetuptk using apt-get or Synaptic.
3. Run winesetup (as you, not root) and accept the defaults.
4. Copy the Notes folder and all subfolders from a working copy of the Lotus Notes [6.5.1 or later] client on Windows to the equivalent directory in your wine installation (for example, if it was "c:\lotus\notes" under Windows, it should be copied to "~/.wine/c/lotus/notes" on Linux).
Make sure that your notes.ini file is in your Notes program directory (the same directory that nlnotes.exe is in). If it's not, you should find it (probably in the Windows directory) and copy it there.
Also, while you're looking at the notes.ini file, make sure that any AddinMenus= or EXTMGR_ADDINS= settings are commented out. They may not hurt anything if they're there, but you should definitely test without them first.
5. Copy mfc42.dll and msvcp60.dll from your "c:\windows\system32" directory in Windows to "~/.wine/c/windows/system" on Linux.
6. Add the following sections to your ~/.wine/config file:
[AppDefaults\\nlnotes.exe\\Version] "Windows" = "win98" [AppDefaults\\nlnotes.exe\\x11drv] "Managed" = "Y" "DesktopDoubleBuffered" = "Y"
If there are any other sections that were already there for [AppDefaults\\nlnotes.exe], [AppDefaults\\notes.exe], or [AppDefaults\\nhldaemn.exe], just comment them out. We don't need to override any DLLs or set screen resolution or anything with this setup.
Along those lines, make sure any global "Resolution=" settings are commented out. You don't need that either.
7. Try to run Notes. From a terminal window, type:
wine "c:\lotus\notes\nlnotes.exe"
Obviously, you should use whatever path you copied the Notes installation to (c:\lotus\notes, c:\Program Files\lotus\notes, whatever).
libwine_0.0.20041019-1.3_i386.deb
wine_0.0.20041019-1.3_i386.deb
wine-utils_0.0.20041019-1.3_i386.deb
We're purposely using this older build, because newer versions may have regression bug #2660.
2. Open a terminal window (Application - System Tools - Terminal on Ubuntu 5.04) and navigate to the folder you downloaded the files to. For example, if you downloaded to your desktop, type:
cd ~/Desktop
Now install the files you downloaded in step 1 by issuing the following commands in the Terminal window, one at a time:
sudo dpkg -i libwine_0.0.20041019-1.3_i386.deb sudo dpkg -i wine_0.0.20041019-1.3_i386.deb sudo dpkg -i wine-utils_0.0.20041019-1.3_i386.deb
3. In Ubuntu, make sure you can download files from the "universe" and "multiverse" repositories. The easiest way to do this is:
4. Download and install the latest version of winesetuptk. You can either issue the command:
sudo apt-get install winesetuptk
from a terminal prompt, or use Synaptic like this:
5. Open a terminal window (Application - System Tools - Terminal on Ubuntu 5.04), type winesetup, and follow the prompts and accept the defaults.
Make sure you do not do this as root (using either the "sudo" command, the "su" command, or the root terminal). If you just open a normal terminal window and run "winesetup", you'll be fine.
6. Copy the Notes folder and all subfolders from a working copy of the Lotus Notes [6.5.1 or later] client on Windows to the equivalent directory in your wine installation (for example, if it was "c:\lotus\notes" under Windows, it should be copied to "~/.wine/c/lotus/notes" on Linux).
Make sure that your notes.ini file is in your Notes program directory (the same directory that nlnotes.exe is in). If it's not, you should find it (probably in the Windows directory) and copy it there. Also, while you're looking at the notes.ini file, make sure that any AddinMenus= or EXTMGR_ADDINS= settings are commented out. They may not hurt anything if they're there, but you should definitely test without them first.
The easiest way to copy the files is probably to burn the files to a CD (since everyone seems to have a CD burner these days). If this is the method you choose, make sure you remove the "read-only" flag from the files after you copy them to Linux (because it will be set by default when copying from a CD). To do this:
7. Copy mfc42.dll and msvcp60.dll from your "c:\windows\system32" directory in Windows to "~/.wine/c/windows/system" on Linux. Use a rewritable CD, a USB memory stick, a floppy disk, or whatever.
8. Open the ~/.wine/config file in a text editor (Applications - Accessories - Text Editor), and add the following sections to the end (just before the "# [/wineconf]" line):
[AppDefaults\\nlnotes.exe\\Version] "Windows" = "win98" [AppDefaults\\nlnotes.exe\\x11drv] "Managed" = "Y" "DesktopDoubleBuffered" = "Y"
If there are any other sections that were already there for [AppDefaults\\nlnotes.exe], [AppDefaults\\notes.exe], or [AppDefaults\\nhldaemn.exe], just comment them out. We don't need to override any DLLs or set screen resolution or anything with this setup.
Along those lines, make sure any global "Resolution=" settings are commented out. You don't need that either.
7. Try to run Notes. From a terminal window, type:
wine "c:\lotus\notes\nlnotes.exe"
Obviously, you should use whatever path you copied the Notes installation to (c:\lotus\notes, c:\Program Files\lotus\notes, whatever).
Using agents that call Java and DXL
If you happen to be using agents that call Java and/or DXL, you'll want to make sure that you switch to the Notes program directory at the Linux terminal prompt before using Wine to call nlnotes.exe. For example:
cd ~/.wine/fake_windows/lotus/notes6 wine nlnotes.exe
This is because Wine sets the "current directory" to be whatever directory Wine was called from, not the directory that the executable file lives in, and Notes wants the current directory to be the Notes program directory in order to find the DXL DTDs and the Java libraries. You can easily copy those two lines to a text file, save it as something like "StartNotes.sh", and make it executable (chmod 755) as a shortcut.
Create a menu shortcut for running Notes
If you want to set up a menu icon to run Notes (instead of having to launch from a terminal window all the time), do this:
[Desktop Entry] Name=Lotus Notes Comment=Lotus Notes client running under wine Categories=Application;Network # use the appropriate path to your Notes installation here # this sets the Notes current directory properly Exec= sh -c 'cd ~/.wine/fake_windows/lotus/notes6 && wine nlnotes.exe' Type=Application # if you want to see all the "fixme" messages, add: # Terminal=True # if you want to have a custom icon, add: # Icon=yourfile.png
Note that we're using the ".wine/fake_windows" notation for the path instead of the "c:\..." notation. Also, if there's a space in the name of one of the folders, you need to put a "\" before it (for example, ".wine/fake_windows/Program\ Files/..."). And the directory names are case-sensitive in this situation.
If you're in need of an icon, Jake Howlett has some to choose from. The one I'm using is this: NotesIcon1.png. I had to put it in my /usr/share/pixmaps folder, add the filename to the "Icon=" line in my LotusNotes.desktop file, and restart Gnome to get it to show up on the menu.
Learn to deal with Notes crashes
if Notes crashes, do the following:
killall wine killall wineserver killall wine-preloader
Install the Microsoft True Type fonts
This is optional, but it makes Notes look a little more like you're used to. Make sure you're set up to "apt" files from the Ubuntu "multiverse", and use either Synaptic or apt-get to install the "msttcorefonts" package. This will install common Windows fonts like Arial, Verdana, etc.
Set up Notes to open file attachments natively
See this entry in the wine forums for more details (NOTE: if that link is no longer active, you can also check the Internet Archive cache for that message).
Other random thoughts
On my machine, if the wine config file did not have the "ScreenDepth" option commented out, the Notes client would crash. For example:
; MAKE SURE THIS IS COMMENTED OUT ;; "ScreenDepth" = "16"
