B4J Tutorial [B4X] Using/running B4A and/or B4J on 64 bit Linux Mint 20.2 Cinnamon with 64 bit Wine

incendio · Sep 6, 2021

That's really an intensive tutorial, thanks for your effort.

walt61 · Sep 30, 2021

Added section 'A semi-automated way to get your B4J UI programs ready' and the attached projects.

incendio · Nov 15, 2021

I tried to install B4A 11 on Linux Mint 20, B4A runs OK, but when compiled the project, got an error

Can not find c:\windows\system32\Robocopy.exe.

Tried to copy that file from my Windows OS, to /my_user_name/virtualwinedrives/b4x64/drive_c/windows/system32,compiled again, still got the same error.

Copied that from Windows OS (c:\windows\syswow64\Robocopy.exe) to /my_user_name/virtualwinedrives/b4x64/drive_c/windows/syswow64, got an error

The program Robocopy.exe has encounter a serious problem and needs to close.

Edit:
Delete this line in B4A Project, solved the problem :
CustomBuildAction: folders ready, %WINDIR%\System32\Robocopy.exe,"..\..\Shared Files" "..\Files"

walt61 · Nov 15, 2021

Indeed, there doesn't seem to be a robocopy for Linux (not even under Wine) so that's the solution. I'll add a note to the 'Useful tips' section.

dragonguy · Nov 24, 2021

i like to ask is it can do this in raspberry pi 4?

walt61 · Nov 24, 2021

I can't say for sure, but I doubt it, as per https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=319603. My tutorial was tested with the environment I mention at the beginning of the post - that's the only one for which I can say with 100% certainty that it works.

johnaaronrose · Jan 29, 2022

Excellent tutorial. However, somewhere between steps 6 & 14 there should be instructions on how to install B4A.exe itself. I tried:

B4X:

john@johnpc:~/virtualwinedrives/b4x64/drive_c/Program Files (x86)$ wine ./B4A.exe

However, it gave:

B4X:

john@johnpc:~/virtualwinedrives/b4x64/drive_c/Program Files (x86)$ wine ./B4A.exe
wine: created the configuration directory '/home/john/.wine'
0012:err:ole:marshal_object couldn't get IPSFactory buffer for interface {00000131-0000-0000-c000-000000000046}
0012:err:ole:marshal_object couldn't get IPSFactory buffer for interface {6d5140c1-7436-11ce-8034-00aa006009fa}
0012:err:ole:StdMarshalImpl_MarshalInterface Failed to create ifstub, hres=0x80004002
0012:err:ole:CoMarshalInterface Failed to marshal the interface {6d5140c1-7436-11ce-8034-00aa006009fa}, 80004002
0012:err:ole:get_local_server_stream Failed: 80004002
0014:err:ole:marshal_object couldn't get IPSFactory buffer for interface {00000131-0000-0000-c000-000000000046}
0014:err:ole:marshal_object couldn't get IPSFactory buffer for interface {6d5140c1-7436-11ce-8034-00aa006009fa}
0014:err:ole:StdMarshalImpl_MarshalInterface Failed to create ifstub, hres=0x80004002
0014:err:ole:CoMarshalInterface Failed to marshal the interface {6d5140c1-7436-11ce-8034-00aa006009fa}, 80004002
0014:err:ole:get_local_server_stream Failed: 80004002
Could not find Wine Gecko. HTML rendering will be disabled.
Could not find Wine Gecko. HTML rendering will be disabled.
wine: configuration in L"/home/john/.wine" has been updated.
0035:err:richedit:ReadStyleSheet skipping optional destination
0035:err:richedit:ReadStyleSheet skipping optional destination
Could not parse file "/home/john/.local/share/applications/epiphany-nostringsfuck.co.uk-4cf0ab6494cb2aae2ca7ebefe47543d99e4b1a9c.desktop": No such file or directory
003d:err:mscoree:CLRRuntimeInfo_GetRuntimeHost Wine Mono is not installed

I guess that I need to install Mono. How do I do that?

walt61 · Jan 29, 2022

Hi John, no need to install Mono (as far as I'm aware). Have another close look at step 9: it contains the instructions to install B4A/B4J.

agraham · Jan 29, 2022

walt61 said:
2. Download the 'dotnet 4.5.2 redistributable (offline version)' (at the time of writing it could be obtained at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=42642 ; search the web if the location would have changed).

Step 2 includes installing .NET 4.5. B4J and B4A probably will not work under Mono as they need WPF.

johnaaronrose · Jan 29, 2022

Thanks Walt. For some inexplicable reason I missed that step out: I think that I thought that it was concerned with B4J installation which I don't want as I'm only interested in Android dev. I last used B4A about 3 years ago and stopped using it as I changed computers to an AMD based desktop from my ancient Intel NUC as that couldn't do Zoom

The thing that I most disliked about B4A was that I ended up with creating a spreadsheet of the pixels that each control/view used in order to put controls/views in their correct places & sizes to work on all phones. Also, I disliked the Basic language one used to code for events: this might have been due to my using Gambas for standalone/client-server apps, which has a superb IDE with its Basic language being object-oriented. I wanted to install B4A as I have an app which I want to revive.

Currently, I'm about to develop another Android app as a Flutter project with Dart coding using Android Visual Studio. I'm not sure whether that or B4A is the better dev environment for Android apps.

PS if you have any questions regarding Ubuntu, please ask me. I don't guarantee to know everything about Ubuntu but I have been using it for over 10 years.

johnaaronrose · Jan 29, 2022

2 questions:

1. I tried putting the adb lines into the .bashrc file and did "source bashrc" and "adb --version" showed the B4X version but I got on Compile & Run after the "Signing Package message:
Installing file to device. Error
* daemon not running; starting now at tcp:5037
could not read ok from ADB Server
* failed to start daemon
error: cannot connect to daemon2.

2. I have a version of adb which is specifically required by AndroidStudio. If I were to add to .bashrc :

B4X:

# Start the Linux version of adb by just typing 'adb'
alias adb='/home/YOUR_USER_NAME/B4X/platform-tools/adb'

it would confuse AndroidStudio which uses adb. Normally I use the version of adb required by AndroidStudio in /usr/bin. I guess that I could change the start of AndroidStudio & of B4A by having separate shell scripts for each with the adb location being set appropriately in each before starting the relevant app. But that seems very messy. Any ideas about a simple solution?

walt61 · Jan 29, 2022

Oops, the forum didn't send me a notification mail about the thread being updated.

I take it you did 'source .bashrc' (with the dot prefix) and 'bashrc' in your post was just a typo? Also - probably a silly question but I have to ask - I guess you also tried signing out and in again? (Still reading 'How Linux Works' here, still very much in newbie mode, and thanks for the support offer

).

I have the impression (from the original post upon which I based mine - https://www.b4x.com/android/forum/t...under-linux-with-wine-fully-functional.98431/) that 'adb' should invoke the specific one for B4A, so as you seem to need another specific one for AndroidStudio, I think indeed setting the correct location for the respective programmes would be the way I'd handle it too and then launch them from shell scripts?

johnaaronrose · Feb 4, 2022

@walt61 You mentioned installing SDK Manager. My guess is that it is required to create emulator "images". Even after installing it, running SDK Manager or AVD Manager from B4A menus only brings up a blank screen titled SDK Manager. Invoking the desktop launcher for B4A SDK Mgr does nothing. Any ideas?
I would like to do that as I'm not impressed by B4A-Bridge which can be a little hit & miss as well as the nuisance of going through answering requests about installing the app (e.g. Play Protect objecting even though I've amended my phone's Android Settings to "Allow installation from unknown sources"). I've also noticed that installing the app allowing overwrite of the existing app on the phone can lead to an unusable app on the phone. IMO B4A should really allow automatic downloading & installation of the app by usb cable: you can do it manually using Terminal but that's a nuisance.
Reviving an old app of mine has lead to a problem with synchronously calling (using library Okhttputils2) code to download a database from the internet. Erel advised putting the code in a Service Module or using B4XPages: to me B4XPages seems the better option as I want a progress bar (on the calling layout's module) updated as the database is downloaded. I haven't been able to find much documentation on converting to B4XPages, except for a youtube video which is about creating a B4XPages app from scratch.
.
Any ideas?
BTW my email address is johndotaarondotroseatgmaildotcom if you wish to ask me any Ubuntu/Linux questions.

walt61 · Feb 4, 2022

Hey @johnaaronrose , here we go:

- AVD manager indeed just produces a black window over here, like the built-in SDK manager does. I can't comment on AVD manager as I haven't ever used it. SDK manager was mentioned in Mihai's post, which is why I added it here as a separate section because of @Erel 's recommendation on https://www.b4x.com/b4a.html.

- B4Xpages: highly recommended, it gets rid of all the headaches related to the Android app life cycle and makes code way more straightforward and manageable. Through my 'B4Xgoodies' (see signature) I found 2 threads that might be useful to you to convert 'classic' code to B4Xpages:

I converted several of my own apps to B4Xpages by just
- creating a new project
- with one B4Xpage for each activity I had in the original project
- copy/pasting the code from the original activities to the B4Xpages
- getting rid of the compiler errors and otherwise cleaning up the code (no more Activity_Pause/Resume et al in the B4Xpages)
- and then testing and ironing out anything unforeseen that was left
Perhaps not the most (time-)efficient way, but it worked for me; also, the 'unforeseen' things made me look for answers on the forum and helped me understand why some things were happening (or not).

Hope this helps!

johnaaronrose · Feb 4, 2022

@walt61
I did the step for cp of B4ASdkManager because I'd omitted it earlier. It copied Ok and I started the SdkManager with "WINEPREFIX="/home/john/virtualwinedrives/b4x64" wine ./java.exe -Xmx1G -Dprism.order=j2d --module-path ../javafx/lib/ --add-modules=javafx.fxml,javafx.controls -jar ./B4ASdKManager.jar"". It displayed the window for B4A SDK Manager but when I clicked on "AVD Manager", it gave a popup with "javalang Runtime Exception" & "java.lang reflect.InvocationTargetException". I've googled for that but not found anything. Mihail Raine does not use the AVD Manager as he connects his phones by wifi or by ethernet as they are industrial and have a ethernet socket. Another possibility is to use genymotion to generate emulator images. I can connect by usb but when I try using Ubuntu nautilus to copy the generated apk file to the phone, it gives "libmtp error: Could not send object info". So I seem to be stuck with B4A-Bridge!
Thanks for the useful info about converting a project to B4XPages. One link https://www.b4x.com/android/forum/threads/how-i-converted-my-apps-to-b4xpages.120816/ states that it's very easy to convert an existing project (by presumably doing it in situ) whereas the other https://www.b4x.com/android/forum/threads/conversion-of-b4a-to-b4xpages.136366/ is much more involved and first step is to save existing project with a different name. Which method did you use?

walt61 · Feb 4, 2022

AVDmanager does start from the separately installed SDK manager; not an empty black window with that version, but it states "The emulator requires an Intel CPU..." and mine is AMD so I reckon that's as far as I can test it. Perhaps redo all instructions from the SDK manager section in case you overlooked something?

I used neither approach for my B4Xpages conversions: I went with option 3 (the one I mentioned under the 2 links).

johnaaronrose · Feb 5, 2022

@walt61 I'm now trying to convert my existing B4A project to B4XPages. I'm following your second link i.e. the one with many pdf files. All Ok until step 8 instruction 7 (in attached pdf): Bring up your original App and copy the contents of ‘Main’ from the ‘Sub class Globals’ down...Paste over top of Private Sub Button1_Click routine on down. I do that and it then has the original Activity_Create code there. It then says "Remove the Sub Activity_Create(FirstTime As Boolean) line". I do that and it results in all that pasted code not being part of a Sub. Should that code be in Private Sub B4XPage_Created? Also, what about the Sub Activity_Pause coding? Should that be deleted?
In step 9, on compiling I get:

B4X:

Cannot find: C:\windows\System32\Robocopy.exe Please configure paths (Tools - Configure Paths).

But I don't know where Robocopy.exe is and there is no obvious place to refer to Robocopy.exe when I bring up the the Config Paths window. Do you know where Robocopy.exe is and how you refer to it in the Config Paths window?

walt61 · Feb 5, 2022

Hi John, yes, just remove methods that aren't applicable to B4Xpages classes (if their code is relevant, use it wherever it's appropriate to do so).

As the 'Useful tips' section in the first post of this here thread states: "Robocopy isn't available for Linux/Wine, so if the CustomBuildAction with Robocopy is present in your project, you'll have to turn it into a comment or replace it with something else."

johnaaronrose · Feb 5, 2022

@walt61 I've done as you said but I want to refer to variable defined as Public in B4XMainPage. I've tried:
Public Main As B4XMainPage = B4XPages.GetPage("B4XMainPage")
with line in Class_Globals of B4XMainPage.
but I get:
Error compiling program.
Error description: Current declaration does not match previous one.
Previous: {Type=Main,Rank=0, RemoteObject=False}
Current: {Type=B4XMainPage,Rank=0, RemoteObject=True}
Error occurred on line: 10
Public Main As B4XMainPage = B4XPages.GetPage("B4XMainPage")
I've also tried Public Main As B4XMainPage
Is putting "Public MainPage As B4XMainPage = B4XPages.GetPage("B4XMainPage")" in each module's Class_Globals the correct way to do it?
I'm now trying to delete the old modules e.g. ChoosePage when I renamed it from Choose, but even though I delete them in B4A's menu or in the directory of the amended project, they keep returning. Is there some mysterious place where they are referenced?

B4J Tutorial [B4X] Using/running B4A and/or B4J on 64 bit Linux Mint 20.2 Cinnamon with 64 bit Wine

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