Getting Started with Gina on Linux

Requirements

• wine
• winetricks

Tested Linux Distribution

• Ubuntu20.04
• Ubuntu22.04
• MX Linux
• openSUSE Tumbleweed

Installating the requirements

This is an example on how to set up the requirements on a brand new Ubuntu22.04 after it's first boot.

Definitly adjust to suit your need and your distribution.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
reboot
sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo wget -nc -O /usr/share/keyrings/winehq-archive.key https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key
sudo wget -nc -P /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/dists/jammy/winehq-jammy.sources
sudo apt update
sudo apt install --install-recommends winehq-staging
sudo apt install winetricks

Installing Gina

WINEPREFIX="$HOME/Gina" WINEARCH=win32 wine wineboot
WINEPREFIX="$HOME/Gina" winetricks -q sapi
WINEPREFIX="$HOME/Gina" winetricks --force -q dotnet462
wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/espeak/files/espeak/espeak-1.48/setup_espeak-1.48.04.exe -P "$HOME/Gina/"
WINEPREFIX="$HOME/Gina" wine $HOME/Gina/setup_espeak-1.48.04.exe
wget https://eq.gimasoft.com/GINA/setup.exe -P "$HOME/Gina/"
WINEPREFIX="$HOME/Gina" wine $HOME/Gina/setup.exe
mv $HOME/Desktop/GINA.appref-ms $HOME/Gina

Running Gina

This command will also print debug output. (may be usefull if an issue has to be corrected at some point)

WINEPREFIX="$HOME/Gina" wine $HOME/Gina/GINA.appref-ms

To remove the wine debug output, use this instead.

WINEPREFIX="$HOME/Gina" WINEDEBUG=-all wine $HOME/Gina/GINA.appref-ms

Stopping Gina

Once you close the application, there are some lingering wine process that does not stop completly.

I think it's related to Gina being a ClickOnce type application.

Using the following will do a clean shutdown of your wine Gina prefix.

WINEPREFIX="$HOME/Gina" wineserver -k -w

What works

• Pretty much everything that I managed to test so far
• Text to speech included

What does not work

• N/A

Reference

• https://eq.gimasoft.com/gina/Default.aspx
• https://www.takproject.net/forums/index.php?threads/gina-under-linux.23164/