For Board Gamers Vassal running on KLV's

[rockedge]

Set up of the latest Vassal package and java engine on a KLV-Boxer.

Vassal is a game engine for building and playing online adaptations of board games and card games. You can use Vassal to play in real time over the Internet or by email. Vassal runs on all platforms and is free, open-source software.

Pictured is the game Afrika Korps from Avalon Hill.

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Vassal was downloaded and place in /opt. The java engine are the Void Linux packages openjdk21 and openjdk21-jre

[ChrisH]

Hi @rockedge , thanks for your helpfup post. I also want to get Vassal working on my system so your post is a good start for me but I'm puzzled by a couple of things so I wonder if I could trouble you for some advice?

My first question is this. You said that you'd downloaded Vassal to /opt. Do you mean that you extracted the contents of the Vassal .bz2 file straight into /opt or into a subdirectory within /opt?

My second question is this. Vassal needs Java v 11 to run. The Java version available as a .sfs file via quickpet fossa is v8. You make the commment that "The java engine are the Void Linux packages openjdk21 and openjdk21-jre". I'm not sure what is means. Do you mean that those are the only java packages that I'd need? If so, where can I get them and where would I put them?

Lastly, assuming that I can get that lot sorted out, how would I run the application?

I'm sorry if these questions are all a bit basic but I'm not too experienced at rooting around under the hood of my Puppy yet so any help you can offer will be appreciated.

Best regards, ChrisH

[geo_c]

My second question is this. Vassal needs Java v 11 to run. The Java version available as a .sfs file via quickpet fossa is v8. You make the commment that "The java engine are the Void Linux packages openjdk21 and openjdk21-jre". I'm not sure what is means. Do you mean that those are the only java packages that I'd need? If so, where can I get them and where would I put them?

If you are running a KLV, you would use the OctoXbps package manager to install openjdk21-jre. I have these installed so I can run the Cruiser open maps java app. It runs great. Easy install, and opendjdk gets updated from time to time with a system wide package update.

[ChrisH]

Hi @geo_c, thanks for your reply. As I happens I don't think I'm running a KLV, by which I presume you mean something to do with Kennel Linux? I'm running:

Frugal installation of Fossapup64 9.5
Installed on an internally mounted 500Gb SSD (ATA Samsung SSD 860)
System hardware is an aging, Acer Aspire 5552 laptop running an AMD Athlon(tm) II P320 Dual-Core CPU @ 2.10GHz per core with 4Gb of RAM.

SSD is partitioned as follows:
1 x FAT32 @ 512Mib for the boot files,
1 x ext4 @ 14Gb for the Puppies, save folders and portables, etc.,
1 x ext4 using the remaining space (approx 450Gb) for my data.
No Swap

I'm a long standing user of Puppy Linux in various forms but I'm not particularly able or experienced when it comes to fiddling around under the hood, as I mentioned in my post. But the beauty of Puppy is that it's easy to back up and restore so I'd be happy to give anything a try.

In my case I just want to get the current version of Vassal working on my system. Ideally in the most compact and portable fashion possible but that's not critical. The Vassal Linux variant is based on Ubuntu so it should work nicely with Fossapup. However it needs Java v11 or higher to run.

As I wrote, I've got the Vassal .bz2 file, I'm just stuck on the next steps. Where best to place the Vassal components? How to get Java 11 running alongside?

At the moment I have the Vassal components extracted to /mnt/home/executables/vassal. That's for no good reason other than it mimics the way that I store the portables I'm running, all tidily in one, easily accessible folder.

I've downloaded the Java sfs package from Quickpet but I now realise that it's Java V8 so that doesn't help. I need to work out how to get v11 onto my system and accessible to Vassal. That's the reason why I was so interested in @rockedge comment that "The java engine are the Void Linux packages openjdk21 and openjdk21-jre". I didn't fully understand what he meant but it sounded very much like I only had to find those two packages and work out what to do with them.

I have vaguely wondered whether it might be possible to get the whole lot, Vassal and Java v11, bundled up as a portable. I had a brief conversation with @mikewalsh about implementing Vassal a while back on this thread https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic. ... sal#p93078 but it stalled for me as real life got in the way. Rather than bother Mike again I thought it might be more fruitful to see what advice @rockedge might be able to offer as he's managed to get it working on at least one puppy variant or other.

We'll, that's it. I'm sorry if I've been a bit long winded. Thanks again for your input, I really appreciate it

Best regards, ChrisH

[rockedge]

@ChrisH

I will look into working with @mikewalsh to see if we can wrangle together a Vassal portable.

Turns out this is easy to get going on F96-CE_4!!

In your case I would also use the /opt filesystem location to position Vassal.
Step one, download VASSAL-3.7.14-linux.tar.bz2 and extract the Vassal package and place in a directory: /opt/vassal

Now we will look at getting the proper java engine version installed. Open the PPM and update the package list! Search for jdk

Select openjdk-21-jdk_21.0.4+7 and install.
Select openjdk-21-jre_21.0.4+7 and install.

go into the directory /opt/vassal and run vassal.sh

You can make a /usr/share/applications/vassal.desktop file or from a Rox window drag vassal.sh to the desktop and assign an icon.

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[ChrisH]

@rockedge , thank you very much for replying so promptly and especially for picking up the problem. It's very good of you and I'm really grateful.

I can easily move the Vassal folder to /opt and I'll do that but I also wonder, would placing a symlink to the folder in /opt do the same job?

Let me know it there's anything else that you might want me to do.

Best regards, ChrisH

[rockedge]

I can easily move the Vassal folder to /opt and I'll do that but I also wonder, would placing a symlink to the folder in /opt do the same job?

Sure, it should. I have put Vassal in /root/my-applications which is also fine to do.

[Sofiya]

@rockedge

[ChrisH]

@rockedge for some reason I missed the back end of your post when I replied earlier. The part following "getting the proper java engine version installed". I've no idea why. So I hadn't spotted your instructions for installing Java, doh! I've seen those now so I'll try all this out tomorrow evening, which is the next time I'll be online with my laptop and Puppy. I'll let you know how I get on. Best regards and thanks again, ChrisH

[mikewalsh]

@ChrisH :-

This would not be an easy one to package as a portable. Not all of them are.

I'm also not at all sure where you would obtain "Java 11", anyway. If you go to the official Java Linux downloads page, the only variant on offer is the currently patched build of Java 8, presently @ 8u421.

Java had a big shake-up of their distribution protocols a few years back. Anything above Java 8 now requires the creation of a developer account, along with a subscription-based format. I know there ARE newer builds than Java 8, but the newest official builds of Java now require the installation of the Developer Toolkit (JDK), in addition to the JRE (Java Runtime Environment, which is all that's needed for the vast majority of Java apps).

And I don't believe they're free any more.

That's where OpenJDK/JRE and/or IcedTea come into play. These are the open source equivalents of Java. Official JRE is packaged as a single, self-contained directory, which CAN be 'portabilized' - you keep JRE in your portable directory, sym-linking it out to /opt at runtime via a launcher script, then deleting it again at close of the app. I tested this today, with a Java-based game called "Remnants of the Precursors" (a re-make of the older "Master of Orion") which puppy_apprentice linked us to on the Java apps thread, so I know it works. The open-source version, on the other hand, is packaged as a traditional Linux app, along with at least a dozen or more dependencies which, in the usual manner, are spread out across the OS in multiple different locations.

Even with the use of LD_LIBRARY_PATH, I still can't really see a way to easily portabilize the open-source version.....I did my best, but it's not really workable, and involves a hell of a lot of what MochiMoppel calls sym-linking gymnastics (here, the XDG file-system protocol, which normally keeps everything "in-house" within the portable directory, doesn't want to play ball).

We did at least give it the good old "college try". Sorry about that. Like I said further back, not everything will work in this format......and ever since Fred started me off down this by now well-trodden path back in 2017/2018, I've tried it with literally hundreds of applications. Many are happy running like this.....but not all.

Mike.

[ChrisH]

Hi @mikewalsh , thanks very much for your input. Funnily enough I was reading back over our previous conversation at almost the same time as you were writing so I've now "remembered" what the problem was but your message is also a big help to me getting a better sense of it.

It's a bit sad that the portable idea doesn't look like a goer* but my main concern is to get Vassal running somehow and @rockedge's advice should help me do that. Let's see.

* In any case I was beginning to wonder whether it would be more bother than it's worth as the Vassal developers release new updates pretty frequently so any portable would get left behind fairly quickly. It wouldn't matter much at first as most of the available game boxes were produced for earlier versions of Vassal but it would become a problem with time and it's a bit of a niche application.

Thanks again for taking the trouble to chip in. Best regards, ChrisH

[rockedge]

@ChrisH In case the vassal.desktop doesn't work, open a terminal and start it with:

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/opt/VASSAL/VASSAL.sh

[ChrisH]

@rockedge Thanks. Will do. Regards, ChrisH

[Sofiya]

vassal-3.7.14_1.x86_64.xbps

Afrika_II_v0.9

dependencies will be installed along with the program

vassal-3.7.14_1.x86_64.xbps -- https://github.com/sofijacom/vassal/rel ... 4_1.x86_64

in /usr/local/bin/vassal.sh

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#!/bin/bash

shopt -s nullglob

JAVA_BIN="$(which java)"

cd /usr/share/java/vassal && "${JAVA_BIN}" -classpath lib/Vengine.jar VASSAL.launch.ModuleManager "$@"

in /usr/share/applications/vassal.desktop

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[Desktop Entry]
Comment=Game engine for building and playing online adaptations of board games and card games.
Terminal=false
Name=Vassal
Exec=/usr/local/bin/vassal.sh
Type=Application
Icon=/usr/share/java/vassal/VASSAL.svg

in /usr/share/java/vassal folder VASSAL-3.7.14-linux.tar.bz2 -- renamed as "vassal" https://vassalengine.org/

[ChrisH]

@Sofiya Thanks for your input. I take it that you're presenting here an alternative way to get Vassal installed and running on Puppy? That's good of you. Thanks. I'll test @rockedge's approach first, as I've promised too, but I'll come back and try yours if his approach can't be made to work. Best regards, ChrisH

[Sofiya]

vassal-3.7.14_1.x86_64.pet

https://github.com/sofijacom/vassal/rel ... 4_1.x86_64

installed on FossaPup64

Open PPM and refresh your package list. Find openjdk-21-jre install

program launch icon in entertainment section

after installing the package and dependencies, save and reboot, so that the patch can find the path correctly to run the program

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# which java
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.21.0-openjdk-amd64/bin/java
----------
# echo $PATH:
/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/root/my-applications/bin:/usr/games:/usr/lib/qt5/bin:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/bin:/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.21.0-openjdk-amd64/bin:

[ChrisH]

Hi @rockedge , I'm sorry to be late back to the party. I got diverted by some family stuff so it's taken me longer to find a space to get on with this than I expected. However I'm back on it now and here's where I'm up to.

I've followed the instructions in your earlier post and
(1) downloaded and extracted VASSAL-3.7.14-linux.tar.bz2 to /opt/vassal;
(2) opened the PPM and updated the package list. Searched for jdk. Selected openjdk-21-jdk_21.0.4+7 and openjdk-21-jre_21.0.4+7 and installed both. This resulted a successful installation of the two packages but also what looks like a warning message, shown here, under Libs

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. I haven't yet worked out what to do about that or whether I need to do anything.
(3) shut down and rebooted (see Sofiya's advice) to get Java recognised (I think).
(4) run a terminal command

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cd /opt/vassal

and then

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VASSAL.sh

, which results in the following error message

Error: cannot be run. Please ensure that Java is installed.

So that suggests to me that the missing libraries are necessary. I'll see if I can get the missing libraries installed and try again. Or do you have another suggestion perhaps?

Best regards,

ChrisH

[mikewalsh]

@ChrisH :-

After you "cd" into the appropriate directory, you might get on better attempting to launch like this:-

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java -jar VASSAL.sh

Some Java apps will allow you to start them without the normal "catechism" ( ), but most require the addition of "java -jar" at the beginning of the command before condescending to play ball...

The reboot IS necessary. Without it, as far as Java is concerned it's only partially installed, and not correctly configured to do its job.

Let us know if that helps at all.

EDIT:- BTW, those libs probably are necessary. Libjvm would be the actual Java Virtual Machine - you need to understand that Java compiles much of what it does literally 'on-the-fly', as it's running - and libjava sounds to be definitely required. It's a long-standing issue with the PPM, needing more than one "pass" to get everything installed.....compounded by the fact that the repos it's drawing from are actually set-up for the 'parent' distro (which is rarely the same as Puppy itself).

Mike.

[rockedge]

@ChrisH,

I feel like you are really close to success. The installation of Java looks like it is in order enough to run Vassal.

In a terminal type these and let's look at the status of things.

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echo $PATH
which java

Should show the results:

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# which java
/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.21.0-openjdk-amd64/bin/java
----------
# echo SPATH:
/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/root/my-applications/bin:/usr/games:/usr/lib/qt5/bin:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/bin:/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.21.0-openjdk-amd64/bin:

Make sure to REBOOT the system!

Then try in a terminal:

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/opt/vassal/VASSAL.sh

If this now works we can go ahead and add in the script from @Sofiya to streamline starting Vassal from a menu selection.

[ChrisH]

@mikewalsh , @rockedge , thanks very much for your replies and advice. I'll follow up your suggestions, though it may be a day or two before I can get back to this. I'll let you know how I get on as soon as I'm able. Best regards, ChrisH

[ChrisH]

Hi @mikewalsh , right, I just managed to get back to this and I tried your suggestion of executing

java -jar VASSAL.sh

while in

/opt/vassal

.

That didn't work. Here's the sequence of commands and the returned error.

root# cd /opt/vassal
root# java -jar VASSAL.sh
bash: java: command not found

So maybe that's due to the missing libraries?

I'm just about to try @rockedge suggestions. I'll post the results shortly.

Best regards, ChrisH

[ChrisH]

Hi @rockedge right, I just managed to get back to this and I tried your suggestion of executing:

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echo $PATH

which returned the following string of locations

/bin : /usr/bin : /sbin : /usr/sbin : /usr/local/bin : /root/my-applications/bin : /usr/games :

. So that looks to be short of the following, which you expected to see

/usr/lib/qt5/bin : /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/bin : /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.21.0-openjdk-amd64/bin :

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which java

returned nothing. It just returned me to the command prompt.

You made the point that I should "Make sure to REBOOT the system!". So I just did that and then ran

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/opt/vassal/VASSAL.sh

which returned the following

Error: cannot be run. Please ensure that Java is installed.

Just for fun and to be thorough I tried

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cd /opt/vassal

and then ran

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VASSAL.sh

which returned

bash: VASSAL.sh: command not found

. A different error! Puzzling, to me at least, but maybe revealing to you guys?

Playing with Puppy. Never a dull moment, eh? If you have any ideas I'll be grateful to read them but I'm concious that I'm taking up a lot of your time so please don't feel pressed.

Best regards, ChrisH

[rockedge]

@ChrisH No worries. I want you to be able to play a board game using Vassal. I am having a whole new expereince using it playing the Avalon Hill war games I grew up with.

We must re-install JAVA. The problem is it's just not there it seems........... Let us review the installing the Java engine steps you took.

[Sofiya]

@ChrisH No worries. I want you to be able to play a board game using Vassal. I am having a whole new expereince using it playing the Avalon Hill war games I grew up with.

We must re-install JAVA. The problem is it's just not there it seems........... Let us review the installing the Java engine steps you took.

It makes me think that after installing Java, it reboots without saving the session

[ChrisH]

@rockedge thanks for your reassurance. I'm really grateful for everyone's, very generous support. I'm not online with puppy just now but as soon as I am I'll reinstall Java, make a careful note of the steps that I go through and let you know the result.

@Sofiya Your point that, "after installing Java, it reboots without saving the session" had occurred to me too. But it seems odd because I'm running a standard installation of Fossapup, utilising a save folder with the standard settings. I think those include saving the session automatically and that certainly seems to be the way it's working in most cases. So let's wait with bated breath to see how we fare at the next iteration.

Best regards, ChrisH

[ChrisH]

@rockedge , @mikewalsh , @Sofiya , Good afternoon (well, here in the UK) everyone. I've now managed to work through the various suggestions which you all kindly made and here are the results. Don't get too excited, it's still not working but at least I can give you some more details to work with.

NOTE - I hit a wrinkle in creating this post. I have screenshots for nearly every step listed below but the post editor seems to be restricting me to three files. I can add as many files as I like from that point but they just don't appear in the list and I have no idea why. If that's just something I'm missing, let me know and I'll edit the post to add the remaining files.

First off, I reinstalled Java 11 as @rockedge suggested. Here are the steps that I took.

(1) Updated the PPM.

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(2) Checked to see whether there is any evidence of Java on the system. In /etc there are folders with contents for java-11-openjdk and java-21-openjdk.

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(3) Carried out auto-remove via PPM of all java related packages.

(4) After removal of Java via the PPM I checked /etc and discovered that the Java folders noted above remained but were empty of content excepting the following sub-folders /etc/java-11-openjdk/security/policy and /etc/java-21-openjdk/security/policy which were themselves empty of content. I removed the empty folders.

(5) Using the updated PPM, I found and installed openjdk-21-jdk_21.0.4+7 followed by openjdk-21-jre_21.0.4+7.

(6) After reinstallation the PPM indicates the following packages installed. ###### Note that the libraries are still indicated as missing. Note also, I've searched the PPM for those libraries but I've been unsuccessful in locating either of them.

(7) Checked /etc again, which is now displaying the previously mentioned java folders with contents. AND I noted that the following files and folders had also been updated.

/etc/ca-certificates/update.d/jks-keystore (file)
/etc/default/cacerts (file)
/etc/ssl/certs/java (folder but empty)

(8) Rebooted.

(9) After reboot all the changes noted above were retained.

(10) Tried the following commands, each of which failed. I've listed any error messages that were returned.

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/opt/vassal/VASSAL.sh

returns

Error: cannot be run. Please ensure that Java is installed.

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cd /opt/vassal

followed by

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VASSAL.sh

which returned

bash: VASSAL.sh: command not found

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cd /opt/vassal

followed by

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java -jar VASSAL.sh

, which was @mikewalsh suggestion, but this returned

bash: java: command not found

For completeness I also tried the following commands, suggested by @rockedge :

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echo $PATH

which returned the same truncated list of paths that I reported in my previous post.

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which java

which returned nothing.

That's as far as I got. I hope that helps with the detective work.

Best regards, ChrisH

[mikewalsh]

@ChrisH :-

Just for kicks, what do you have in

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/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.21.0-openjdk-amd64/bin

??

You SHOULD have a file named java, which is a symlink to

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/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.21.0-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java

I figured this one out from within Tahrpup64. I downloaded the packages, then took a squizz at the contents. It's actually in the openjdk-headless .deb - and in this case, it's a much older version of openjdk - v7 - but I would imagine the package structure hasn't basically changed.

So; does

1.

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/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.21.0-openjdk-amd64/bin/java

.....exist?

Does

2.

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/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.21.0-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java

.....exist?

If 2 exists - but not 1 - it looks like you're missing a sym-link.....and Vassal is looking in /bin rather than /jre/bin for the executable. Re-create the sym-link.....and all things being equal, it should fire up.

That's just MY take on the matter. I could be WAY out..!

Mike.

[rockedge]

@ChrisFH

I am beginning to think something is wrong with your $PATH environment variable and it is not complete in the /etc/profile.

Going by your post indicating
/bin : /usr/bin : /sbin : /usr/sbin : /usr/local/bin : /root/my-applications/bin : /usr/games

because it should look like this:
/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/root/my-applications/bin:/usr/games:/usr/lib/qt5/bin:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/bin:/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.21.0-openjdk-amd64/bin:

no wonder the system can't find java!

[Sofiya]

I think he needs to get a new puppy

[rockedge]

@ChrisFH

I also will recommend starting with a fresh installation of F96-CE_4 or another Puppy Linux of choice.

For the exercise, I setup a new, clean F96-CE_4. Frugal sub-directory with everything stock and default configuration default.

I made some graphical changes to the desktop like another icon set and window buttons theme then rebooted, making a save folder

There are two ways presently that have proven successful to install the Vassal engine and the correct Java engine version:

First method is using @Sofiya's PET package version

1. Download vassal-3.7.14_1.x86_64.pet
   install the PET by clicking on the package in a Rox-filer window.

2. open the PPM and update the package lists. Search for openjdk-21-jre which will find openjdk-21-jre_21.0.4+7 which is then selected.
   Using the PPM automatic install mode installed this package.

3. In a terminal tested the installation with these commands (next to the '#') which are listed with the proper response:

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   #which java
   /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.21.0-openjdk-amd64/bin/java
   #echo $PATH:
   /bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/root/my-applications/bin:/usr/games:/usr/lib/qt5/bin:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/qt5/bin:/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.21.0-openjdk-amd64/bin:

4. Now Reboot the system again!!

There should be a menu entry in Menu->Fun

Second method:

1. Started with installing the openjdk-21-jre_21.0.4+7 package using the same procedure as explained in the First Method above and same tests.

2. Downloaded VASSAL-3.7.14-linux.tar.bz2.

3. Extracted it and renamed the VASSAL directory to /opt/vassal
   Open /opt/vassal and drag VASSAL.sh to the desktop and set the icon using /opt/vassal/VASSAL.svg

4. Reboot the system!!

Now the launch icon on the desktop should start Vassal. The first run might take a bit longer to load. All the subsequent program starts will be faster.