Difference between revisions of "Running LFS on OS X"

Revision as of 14:49, 29 December 2015

This document will guide you through the process of installing and configuring Wine and LFS to allow you to run LFS's game client in Mac OS X. We'll also touch on the subjects of configuring your wheel.

Intro

What to expect

During my brief testing, LFS performed great on OS X. Below I will describe two different methods to get LFS up and running on OS X. Firstly a terminal-oriented approach, secondly a more GUI-oriented one. Pick one or the other.

The steps in this article has been verified to work with:

LFS S2 6K
OS X El Capitan (10.11.1)
Wine-1.8
Logitech G25 Racing Wheel

Prerequisites

Non in particular other than a willingness to install 3rd party software.

Basic setup

Terminal-based method (Homebrew)

If you are not afraid to open up a terminal this is the recommended method. Homebrew appears to have a more up-to-date version of Wine than WineBottler.

Install Homebrew

Homebrew is a package manager for OS X. To install it, follow the instructions at their website or simply run:

 ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

Then make sure Homebrew and it's packages are up-to-date:

 brew update
 brew upgrade

Install wine and cabextract

After installing Brew, use it to install Wine (the compatibility layer capable of running Windows applications on OS X) and cabextract (a software for extracting Microsoft cabinet (.cab) files):

 brew install wine cabextract

Since the packages need to be downloaded and compile, this could take a while.

Install Winetricks

In order for LFS to run properly, we need winetricks (a helper script to download and install various redistributable runtime libraries) along with additional DLLs. First, install winetricks:

 curl -o /usr/local/bin/winetricks https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Winetricks/winetricks/master/src/winetricks

Then make the script executable:

 chmod +x /usr/local/bin/winetricks

Finally install the DLLs:

 winetricks d3dcompiler_43 d3dx9_43

Install LFS

Download LFS (list of mirrors):

 curl -O https://www.lfs.net/download/LFS_S3_6K_setup.exe

Then run the executable with Wine to install the game:

 wine LFS_S2_6K_setup.exe

Follow the on-screen instructions. This guide assumes that you install LFS to the default location (C:\LFS\).

Change to the folder where LFS was installed and run LFS:

 cd ~/.wine/drive_c/LFS
 wine LFS.exe

That's it!

GUI-based method (WineBottler)

WIP

Configure a Logitech wheel

OS X should have basic support out a Logitech wheel out of the box, see Options - Wheel/Joystick for more information on how to configure it. If you'd like enable missing features such as clutch and/or force feedback, read on.

Enable Native mode

In order to enable 900˚ rotation and separate throttle/break axes, you'll need FreeTheWheel (FTW).

To use it:

Make sure your wheel is connected,
Download the .dmg from their website,
install it to your Applications folder,
and run FreeTheWheel.

You may close the terminal window after the process has completed. You may have to run the program again after a reboot or if your wheel was reconnected.

Enable Force Feedback (FFB)

A kext is a OS X kernel extension that enables additional functionality for third party soft- and hardware. The extension required for FFB (LogitechForceFeedback.kext) is no longer present in OS X since Mountain Lion (10.7).
In order for FFB to work in more recent versions of OS X, we must install it manually.

Disclaimer: DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Since I'm not sure if it's legal to mirror the file, I'll simply provide with a link where it can be found. iRacing distributes the file as an attachment in this article (logitechforcefeedback.kext.zip).

Install FFB kext

Since this kext business is a bit hacky I prefer to install it manually (also, this ensures that you are more aware of what you are doing):

Download the .zip file:

 curl -O http://faq.iracing.com/assets/logitechforcefeedback.kext.zip

Extract it:

 unzip logitechforcefeedback.kext.zip

Copy the contents to your system's Extensions folder:

 sudo cp -R LogitechForceFeedback.kext /System/Library/Extensions/

Make sure not to leave a trailing slash in the filename!

Change the permissions and ownership of the kext:

 sudo chmod -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions/LogitechForceFeedback.kext/
 sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/LogitechForceFeedback.kext/

Reboot:

 sudo reboot

... Or use the GUI to reboot :)

Cross you fingers that your system boots up.

Uninstall FFB kext

In case you need to uninstall the kext, simply remove it:

 sudo rm -rf /System/Library/Extensions/LogitechForceFeedback.kext/