Description

Lutris YAML “scripts” for installing a 64-bit version of NVil on a GNU/Linux operating system.

These scripts are compatible with standalone version of NVil, downloadable directly from DigitalFossils forum, and all required files (program archive and SlimDX) are automatically pulled from that website. You can choose to install a dotnet48 or Mono version (dotnet48 is installed with winetricks). The latter (Mono) is much faster to install, but has some minor problems which are absent in the .NET 4.8 version (for more information consult the Known Quirks And Problems section at the bottom of this document).

Keep in mind though, that NVil+Mono installation flavor contains less non-free software because it does not install Microsoft’s proprietary .NET framework. I’ve also tested it more thoroughly than the dotnet48 installation.

Personally, I suggest to completely skip the dotnet48 flavor. Recent versions of NVil work very well with Mono, so there’s no further need to maintain the .NET script and it will be deleted in the near future.

To save yourself some frustration, please read this whole document. Especially the Known Quirks And Problems section, and paragraphs marked as Important.

Installation

To install NVil, clone this repository to a path of your choice and invoke Lutris with:

lutris -i path/to/installation-script.yml

Where installation-script.yml is either nvil-installer-latest.yml or nvil-mono-installer-latest.yml — this will pull and install the most recent version of NVil.

At the end of the installation procedure, you will be prompted to install 64-bit SlimDX, which is required to run NVil. Unfortunately I couldn’t figure out how to make this part of the installer silent.

Important! After installation and before starting the program — kill all Wine processes. Then restart Lutris. This is a crucial step, because for some reason the program will not start properly if this is not done. It will either have a completely broken GUI, or will simply throw an ”Object reference not set to an instance of an object” exception. Both of these will prevent you from using NVil, and most of the time you will have to recreate Nvil wineprefix by deleting NVil from Lutris and re-running the installation script.

Updating NVil

Reinstallation of the whole wineprefix is not required to update the program, unless something goes wrong and becomes incompatible with version of Wine that the installer is configured to use. To update NVil to a newer version, simply download the archive file from DigitalFossils News and Updates subforum and extract it to your_wineprefix/drive_c/nvil, overwriting all files in the process.

Known Quirks And Problems

Common

• Important! Multi-threading does not work well and will slow down many tools (especially Draw Mesh). Be sure to turn it off in Edit → Preferences → Options 1 → Multi Threading Disabled (NVil Sep-28-21+).
• Radial menus are probably slightly slower to draw on screen than on MS Windows.
• Top menu items are trailed with an ampersand character.

.NET version

• Two black rectangles appear on top and at the bottom of the splash screen.
• Right after NVil starts, some GUI elements might flicker. The flickering will disappear after a while of using the program.
• Some UI elements, like radial menus, setting some options in Edit → Preferences, or moving child windows, can cause the viewport to briefly flicker, though this has improved in the most recent NVil versions.
• Switching from single-view to quad-view (and vice-versa) for the first time in each session, might be slower than subsequent switches.
• Some GUI actions might be slightly slower than on Windows.

Mono Version

• By default, non-standard Windows tooltips, which are used by some GUI elements, will throw System.ArgumentException: A null reference or invalid value was found [GDI+ status: InvalidParameter] and will not appear on screen. This is mostly limited to top and bottom default toolbars, as well as custom user windows. For toolbars, These non-standard tooltips can be disabled in Edit → Preferences → Options 1 → Tooltip on toolbar enabled. To prevent NVil from throwing exception caused by tooltips of custom user windows, Window → Use Windows Standard Tooltip Style must be enabled in the context menu of user window customization mode (press RMB on user window, then select Enter Customization).