IBM Lotus Notes 8.5.2 running on Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) under WINE

In my other blog post I talk about the display\graphic problems using the native debian/ubuntu IBM Domino client.

Seeing as I also use the admin client, and occasional designer I thought I'd have a crack at installing under Wine v 1.2.2.

I'm going to blog this exactly as it happened, theres a point in which the gremlins get in and make something do something which is good (ish) but I'm not exactly sure when and what. I'll be sure to point that bit out.

Once Wine is installed use the Wine utils to run setup.exe. All appears well until about 90% on the install bar when you then receive a notes.ini error. I suspect the install procedure can't write it and so barfs.

I cancelled the error and then the install (had to use force quit). This actually left the Domino application files in .wine/drive_c/Program Files/IBM/Lotus/Notes (or your chosen path).

For all Dominos bad points its portability across systems and OS is a massive plus. So wondering if I could cheat I copied a notes.ini (paths were the same), names.nsf, bookmarks.nsf from my Windows install, right click notes.exe and open with Wine. Close, splash screen and the status bar just kept getting 100% and then starting again.

At this time Wine started to also play up, very slow to launch, like minutes. No config etc. I pushed through and tried to install Domino over the top of the existing install, you have a good .ini so use it. This seemed to fail, again couldn't launch.

So I slept on it and wondered about the Wine slow problems.

This morning a quick google and I ran :

wineboot --update

Bingo, Domino icons appeared on the desktop and applications menu. Excitement +1
Launched the app, password, desktop. +2

Opened an email -5
Opened a db -5

Exactly the same display problems as when I run the native Linux client. Certainly seems to point more to a graphics issue now though .. But on the plus side I got to play with Wine which is a new app for me, office 2010 and a h.323 client might be next !

So the gremlins. My hunch is that after the first Domino install I started to have Wine problems (hic). The second Domino install when there was a working notes.ini probable worked and had I run --update it would have got me to a working(ish) install.

If I were to do it again create the full domino path and plonk a good notes.ini in there prior to installing. If I get time/motivation I'll test this theory out. Please comment if you do ..