Tip Top Tips: SketchUpMake 2015 On PCLOS64

Editor's Note: Tip Top Tips is a new monthly column in The PCLinuxOS Magazine. Each month, we will feature -- and possibly even expand upon -- one tip from the PCLinuxOS forum. The magazine will not accept independent tip submissions specifically intended for inclusion in the Tip Top Tips column. Rather, if you have a tip, share it in the PCLinuxOS forum's "Tips & Tricks" section. Your tip just may be selected for publication in The PCLinuxOS Magazine.

This month's tip comes from PCLinuxOS forum member One_Beerhunter.

First, let me make this perfectly clear, I am not an authority on either WINE or SketchUpMake. I am, on the other hand, more persistent than many … willing to devote untold hours to get something working out of an innate compulsion to never give up.

Editor's Note: If you are unfamiliar with SketchUp, here is the Wikipedia description: "SketchUp (formerly Google Sketchup) is a 3D modeling computer program for a wide range of drawing applications such as architectural, interior design, civil and mechanical engineering, film, and video game design—and available in a freeware version, SketchUp Make, and a paid version with additional functionality, SketchUp Pro.

This is, to the best of my recollection, how I got SketchUpMake to actually work under WINE on PCLinuxOS 64.

First, open Synaptic and select PlayOnLinux. The following will be installed:

PlayOnLinux
wine32.32bit
wine64
wine-gecko

Second, download SketchUpMake2015 from here http://www.sketchup.com/download/all. Download the 64 bit Windows version.

Third, open PlayOnLinux and from the tools menu select, Manage Wine versions and add the latest version of Wine versions (amd64), currently version 1.7.37.

Fourth, from PlayOnLinux select "Install a program." At first, you may be presented with a window that lacks the "Install an unlisted program" button. If that happens, close the install window and try again. Once you have located the "Install an unlisted program" button, click it and follow the prompts. Create a new 64 bit PlayOnLinux virtual drive. I labeled mine SketchUp2015.

Fifth, a window will appears offering checkboxes for selecting the wine version, running wine config, and adding windows components; check all the boxes. At that time I could only select "system" for wine version. In wineconfig on the applications tab, I changed the Windows version from "XP" to "7." From the add components section, install "vcrun2010."

Sixth, browse to your downloaded file, "SketchUpMake-en-x64.exe," and install.

Seventh, PlayOnLinux will offer to make shortcuts to the executables. I only selected SketchUp.exe, and then chose to not make any more shortcuts.

Finally, with your new shortcut to SketchUp highlighted, select configure and change the wine version in the drop down box from "system" to "1.7.37."

With your highlighted shortcut, you may start the program via run or debug. Debug allows you to review the numerous error messages. One might complain about a missing mfc100u.dll. I copied that dll from the /home/"yourusername"/PlayOnLinux's virtual drives/SketchUp2015/drive_c/windows/syswow64 folder into the /home/"yourusername"/PlayOnLinux's virtual drives/SketchUp2015/drive_c/Program Files(x86)/Sketchup/SketchUp 2015 folder, and the error went away.

MOVING THIS DLL HAS PROVED ITSELF TO BE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SUCCESS AND FAILURE. Following my own advice, I just installed Sketchup on my laptop after a fresh install of PCLOS64. I forgot to move the dll and was greeted by the frowning penguin program crash error message. I moved the DLL, and the problem was resolved.

I also discovered the tooltips do not display properly when you hover your mouse over the icons - those tips can be turned off as they also appear at the bottom of the drawing window. So, they are somewhat redundant.

In the end, this has been quite a trip, and I still have a couple of errors in debug such as "(process:779): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_slice_set_config: assertion 'sys_page_size == 0' failed." I have no idea what that means, or if it is even significant. All I can say with certainty is this: The above worked for me, and I hope this helps others here. Now all I have left to do is start watching some tutorials on how to use SketchUp.