Want to play Track Mania Nations Forever on Linux using Wine? There's a snap for that

Nice, if it can make it simpler. Does the snap include like a wrapped version of wine withing the snap?

Otherwise the game works perfectly if you have wine installed. I just have a little glitch on the launching menu when it pops up. But hovering the mouse on it make the options appears.

It is still a great game after all these years and it still looks quite good if you max out the graphic settings.


Last edited by Jahimself on 13 Jun 2018 at 1:27 pm UTC

Nice, if it can make it simpler. Does the snap include like a wrapped version of wine withing the snap?

Otherwise the game works perfectly if you have wine installed. I just have a little glitch on the launching menu when it pops up. But hovering the mouse on it make the options appears.

It is still a great game after all these years and it still looks quite good if you max out the graphic settings.

Yes, that's the point of having it in all a single package, it has everything it needs to run. Making it simple and cross-distro compatible. I didn't have a single issue with it, apart from the driver issue I found as noted.

Hmmmm, Snaps + Wine + DXVK...

So, no mentioning of all the flatpaked games?

So, no mentioning of all the flatpaked games?

We're getting to it.

What a good idea, I would love this for alot of titles. Like Hearthstone! Or other F2P games.

i'll just wait for it to work on 396 ;)

Nice idea but Track Mania Nations Forever seems to work really well with the version you can download from the Trak Mania website. I just tried it. Installed a new Wine 3.7 prefix with PlayOnLinux and the game installs and runs without making any Wine configuration adjustments.

PlayOnLinux has an installation script for Track Mania Nations Forever but it doesn't seem to work. But as mentioned above: It's not necessary at all for this game.

But Snaps or Flatpaks for other Windows games which require some sort of special Wine configurations or additional libraries (normally installed via Winetricks e.g.) would be really great.

Strangely enough it complains about lacking dx9 when I try to run it. Shouldn't the snap install that?

What a good idea, I would love this for alot of titles. Like Hearthstone! Or other F2P games.

Saw this on OMGUbuntu: there's a flatpak repo with some games, including Overwatch and World of Warcraft. I'm not sure there are other Blizzard games but it's quite likely they'll add HearthStone and Heroes of the Storm (maybe even StarCraft 2) as they work quite well with Wine. Maybe it's even possible to install them from the Battle.net client that has to be included with Overwatch/WoW, I'm not sure how flatpaks handle downloading data.

Strangely enough it complains about lacking dx9 when I try to run it. Shouldn't the snap install that?

Last time I installed TMNF with Wine, I don't remember having to install DX9. I think it should work with Wine's implementation.


Last edited by abelthorne on 13 Jun 2018 at 3:51 pm UTC

snap install tmnationsforever --edge

this killed my X and after re-logging I found all konsole tabs wiped out

Hmmmm, Snaps + Wine + DXVK...

Witcher 3 on linux! Yes! Finally! :)

If they could find a way to stay legit with Steam, GoG or other online stores, that would be awesome! Some kind of specific launcher requesting our store credentials for validations, maybe?

snap install tmnationsforever --edge

this killed my X and after re-logging I found all konsole tabs wiped out

Wow, weird. Might want to report a bug to the snap people with all details.

This game has worked in wine for years with pretty good performance even. I have had countless hours of online fun with this game under linux back in the days. This game and WoW were the first games i played in wine back in 2006-2007 and they both worked pretty good.

Snaps have already had some malware uploaded to it. Looks like there definitely needs some more auditing to be done.

Snaps have already had some malware uploaded to it. Looks like there definitely needs some more auditing to be done.

Thanks but no thanks, if I want to fight Malware I'll fire up Windows, I don't need that crap in Linux. Snap is gone from my system & staying gone.

Snaps have already had some malware uploaded to it. Looks like there definitely needs some more auditing to be done.

The most I've heard about malware on snaps was that a couple of applications by a single developer had an undisclosed cryptocurrency miner built into them. No damage was done to anyone's computer or data, nor was any personal information scraped and sent back home.

The developer in question was attempting to commercially support his apps by integrating this CC miner and seemed to honestly not realize that this was going to be a problem. I suppose he thought that "CC-supported software is the new ad-supported software", which is an understandable conclusion for any blockchain enthusiast. It appears, at least to me, to be an attempt to innovate a new solution for commercially supporting a program that doesn't involve annoying the user with advertisements, as well as providing the developer with more freedom to create without being subjected to the ever-changing whims of advertising companies. Technically speaking, mining cryptocurrency isn't illegal, nor is supporting your software with it.

The real issue here is the lack of disclosure, since it's damn obvious when ads are on an application, but not as obvious when CC miners are on an application. Considering the resource usage and electricity bills involved in mining cryptocurrency, I do think that ethically speaking, disclosure should be absolutely necessary when implementing an idea such as this one.

In any case, Ubuntu pulled both offending apps almost immediately, contacted the developer, established a dialogue and determined that this was more of a case of ignorance than malice. I expect Ubuntu will be more proactive in enforcing ethical requirements in the future with regards to cryptocurrency supported software.

I'd imagine it wouldn't be too hard for Ubuntu to create a script on their end which will automatically unpack snaps, run them and check for the presence of cryptocurrency mining activity before they appear on the store. They could also create an option for uploaders to disclose how a commercial application is supported. If there isn't any disclosure, but the system detects mining activity, the snap could be rejected before it even appears on the store. If they're not working on something like this as we speak, they damn well better start.


Last edited by Ryblade on 14 Jun 2018 at 1:25 pm UTC

Snaps have already had some malware uploaded to it. Looks like there definitely needs some more auditing to be done.

That's right and people have to be extra vigilant when installing things from the snap store. But in the case of TMNF, the snap package is done by Canonical developers.

Snaps have already had some malware uploaded to it. Looks like there definitely needs some more auditing to be done.

The most I've heard about malware on snaps was that a couple of applications by a single developer had an undisclosed cryptocurrency miner built into them. No damage was done to anyone's computer or data, nor was any personal information scraped and sent back home.

The developer in question was attempting to commercially support his apps by integrating this CC miner and seemed to honestly not realize that this was going to be a problem. I suppose he thought that "CC-supported software is the new ad-supported software", which is an understandable conclusion for any blockchain enthusiast. It appears, at least to me, to be an attempt to innovate a new solution for commercially supporting a program that doesn't involve annoying the user with advertisements, as well as providing the developer with more freedom to create without being subjected to the ever-changing whims of advertising companies. Technically speaking, mining cryptocurrency isn't illegal, nor is supporting your software with it.

The real issue here is the lack of disclosure, since it's damn obvious when ads are on an application, but not as obvious when CC miners are on an application. Considering the resource usage and electricity bills involved in mining cryptocurrency, I do think that ethically speaking, disclosure should be absolutely necessary when implementing an idea such as this one.

In any case, Ubuntu pulled both offending apps almost immediately, contacted the developer, established a dialogue and determined that this was more of a case of ignorance than malice. I expect Ubuntu will be more proactive in enforcing ethical requirements in the future with regards to cryptocurrency supported software.

I'd imagine it wouldn't be too hard for Ubuntu to create a script on their end which will automatically unpack snaps, run them and check for the presence of cryptocurrency mining activity before they appear on the store. They could also create an option for uploaders to disclose how a commercial application is supported. If there isn't any disclosure, but the system detects mining activity, the snap could be rejected before it even appears on the store. If they're not working on something like this as we speak, they damn well better start.

Canonical/Ubuntu. The ones who put amazon searches by default within their Desktop Environment? Thought there was some other semi-shady things they did, like tracking searches and such?

I think Snap as a 'Everyone else is doing A, let's do B until we lose and we end up ditching it and going with A' that Ubuntu is almost famous for.

Canonical/Ubuntu. The ones who put amazon searches by default within their Desktop Environment?

Yes, them. The same ones who made snapd capable of running on other distributions that don't track you at all. What's your point? Nobody is forcing you to use Ubuntu.