Infostore
FYI: Just installed Infostore 3.2 and it works like a charm. Enjoy!
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you fail to follow STEP 3 exactly as stated, Infostore 3.1 will not work and you probably will have to start the process over again. Pay attention to STEP 3.
When some folks have copied the different snippets for files straight from the site, there seems to be a problem with it putting incorrect double quotes in. I will try and correct this problem, but just thought I’d put a notice here in case others run into the same problem. (Thanks Francesco for the heads up on this).
This how-to will help you get Infostore 3.1 on Ubuntu Linux. You can most likely adapt it to cover other distributions of Linux using the same tools. However this is specifcally for Ubuntu and it’s derivatives including:
- Kubuntu
- Xubuntu
- Linspire
NOTE: Any time “yourname” is used in a path this is usually the name you use for logging into Linux.
STEP 1: Wine and CabExtract
Open Konsole or your favourite terminal program (I use Yakuake) and run the following commands:
sudo aptitude install wine cabextract
STEP 2: IE6
Infostore 3.1 requires that you have Internet Explorer installed. If you try to run Infostore 3.1 without installing it you will get a lot of errors. Of all the different how-tos out there I got the best results with IEs4Linux. You can either go with the stable version (2.0.5) or with their beta (2.5 currently on Beta 6) which I recommend.
Whichever version you chose go with the default options making sure that only IE6 is being installed. Installing Flash Player 9 is optional. The path however is important and should remain ~/.ies4linux (/home/yourname/.ies4linux).
IEs4Linux 2.5 (Beta):
To install open Konsole or your favorite terminal and run:
wget http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/downloads/ies4linux-2.5beta6.tar.gztar zxvf ies4linux-2.5beta6.tar.gz cd ies4linux-* ./ies4linux
Once launched you should get a window that looks like this:
Install with the default options and proceed with STEP3.
IEs4Linux 2.0.5 (Stable):
To install open Konsole or your favorite terminal and run:
wget http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/downloads/ies4linux-latest.tar.gztar zxvf ies4linux-latest.tar.gz cd ies4linux-* ./ies4linux
Follow the prompts and go with the default options (only installing IE6 – very important).
STEP 3: Infostore 3.0 and Upgrading to 3.1
This first step is very important. In your terminal run the following command:
ln -s /home/yourname/.ies4linux/ie6 /home/yourname/.wine
Without running the above command Infostore will not work as it won’t be able to properly access IE6 components.
Load your CD or download the Infstore 3.0 Installation and start the setup. You can install any of the components you want though I recommend not installing:
- Narrator (has issues and is better off just not being there)
- Desknotes (this is just pesky as there are already similar programs in linux)
Install as if you were setting up for Windows. Once completed run Infostore (the icon should be on your desktop) once to make sure everything is working and to create a new user account.
Exit Infostore and run the Infostore 3.1 Upgrade (if you installed Narrator run the upgrade for that as well otherwise it’s not necessary). Run Infostore again to make sure it launches properly.
While running go to Tools > Program Options (or press Ctrl + Y), under Quotes / Tips make sure both Show Tip Options are deselected (see image). This will keep Infostore from locking up when it can’t properly display the Quotes / Tips at startup.
If you receive no errors move on to Step 4.
STEP 4: Install your library
Now that we know Infostore is working we can install our library as usual. Any questions – consult the Infostore how-tos/manuals.
STEP 5: Configuring Acrobat Reader
Now that Infostore is working we have one last hurdle – Acrobat Reader. This step is optional and if you aren’t gonna be reading PDFs in Infostore then you can skip this step.
In Infostore go to Tools > Program Options (or press Ctrl + Y). On the option that says “Other Document View”, check that “Use internal PDF viewer” is deselected. (See picture for example).
Open the file /home/yourname/.wine/system.reg in your favourite text editor (mine is vi) and add the following lines to the bottom:
[Software\\Classes\\.pdf] 1051470000
@=”acroread.pdf”[Software\\Classes\\acroread.pdf] 1051470000
@=”Documento Adobe PDF”[Software\\Classes\\acroread.pdf\\DefaultIcon] 1051470000
@=”C:\\Program Files\\Acroread\\acroread.exe,1″[Software\\Classes\\acroread.pdf\\shell] 1051470000
@=”open”[Software\\Classes\\acroread.pdf\\shell\\open\\command] 1051470000
@=”\”C:\\Program Files\\Acroread\\acroread.exe\” \”%1\”
Once completed, create a file in “/home/yourname/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Acroread” named acroread.exe. Edit the file and place the following in it:
#!/bin/sh
#set -x
mkdir -p “$HOME/tmp”
LOG=”$HOME/tmp/acroread.exe-log.`id -u -n`”
echo “Arguments received: $@” > $LOG
#
RESULT=`winepath “$@” 2> /dev/null`
echo “/usr/bin/acroread $RESULT” >> $LOG
TMP=$TMPDIR ; TEMP=$TMPDIR ; /usr/bin/acroread “$RESULT”
# removing the temporary file
rm -f “$RESULT”
Save the file and then chmod it as executable or 777. Run wineboot from your terminal and then try opening a PDF with Infostore.
If that all worked you are up and running with Infostore. Any questions feel free to ask them here. Enjoy
Xanthous 11:05 am on March 24, 2007 | #
I’m getting an error window: “This application is requesting an ActiveX browser object……etc”
If I click yes, it tries to download from source.winehq.org but takes forever and nothing happens.
Finally a new window pops up “OLE error”. click ok and the next window says “in order to use this version of infostore, you must upgrade IE to 5 or above….etc”
Originally I had installed the 3 versions of IE4Linux. Then I deleted them all and followed your instructions, with only the 6 install. Any ideas what’s happening and how to fix? Is the IS 3.1 update necessary…as it worked b4 the upgrade?
Thanks!!
D. Johnson 3:47 pm on March 24, 2007 | #
It obviously isn’t being installed to the same directory as IE6 is installed. IS3.1 is necessary for some of the newer library updates.
Did you do: ln -s /home/yourname/.ies4linux /home/yourname/.wine
If you had .wine installed before you will need to remove that directory and make it a symlink to ~/.ies4linux
Xanthous 1:59 am on March 25, 2007 | #
Which directory are you referring to, to remove?
Wine I had installed via synaptic.
I followed your instructions for ies4linux
Here’s my folder structure:
Xanthous 2:00 am on March 25, 2007 | #
here’s the folder structure: http://picasaweb.google.com/david.valiant/Errors/photo#5045784005220710770
D. Johnson 10:14 am on March 25, 2007 | #
Okay /home/dv/.wine has a symlink inside pointing to the /home/dv/.ies4linux directory. The .wine directory itself should point to .ies4linux/ie6.
I actually corrected that line in the how-to as I realized that ~/.wine should point to ~/.ies4linux/ie6.
So unless you have other programs installed on wine just go ahead and remove the .wine directory and run:
ln -s /home/dv/.ies4linux/ie6 /home/dv/.wine
Xanthous 12:27 pm on March 25, 2007 | #
well, infostore is installed in the wine dir….
Zeth 11:28 pm on April 20, 2007 | #
Excellent work here!!!
Thank you for posting this How-To!
I have had a problem when installing the Libraries from 2 different CD’s (which is how IS is shipped to the Homes). When the install would get through to the point where you swap to CD#2 I cannot get the CDrom to release the CD tray because the program is using it.
I ended up just copying the 2 CD’s onto a DVD and that solved me not having to open the CDrom during the install, but I thought others may have this problem as well.
Then I have IS installed with the Libraries and I enter the program using Wine. When I try to open any document the main window in IS says “Loading…” for as long as I wait around. Then I minimized the program and restored it and the text was there. It does this every time I try to access a file — I have to minimize IS and restore it to see the text.
D. Johnson 7:29 am on April 21, 2007 | #
The CD problem is one I’ve seen before. I’ve actually just forced an unmount of the drive and mounted a new one and that worked ok. But I’ll see if there’s a better solution.
As far as your text problem. It sounds like something with the riched20 DLL. Could you let me know what version of Wine you are using? And I suppose you have update to IS 3.1 correct?
john 7:42 am on April 21, 2007 | #
Hi it’s not that the program is still open that won’t let you open the cd tray, but it is the terminal thats open in the cdrom directory so if you close the terminal you should be able to open your tray. I have found that when I get the loading screen that won’t go away I just minimize then maximize and then it loads.
P.S thank so much for the How to Dan this is great, now we just need a native GUN/Linux infostore for the family.
Zeth 3:13 am on April 22, 2007 | #
Well, I have Wine 0.9.33. I have not updated to InfoStore 3.1
Is that a problem?
Thanks, John, for the tip on closing the terminal.
D. Johnson 1:20 pm on April 22, 2007 | #
I have a funny feeling that Infostore 3.1 will fix your loading problem as far as the display goes. Infostore 3.0 and the built in riched20 don’t sit nicely. Of course if you upgrade to 3.1 you will need to be sure to have IE 5.5 or 6 installed in wine as well.
Zeth 10:03 pm on April 22, 2007 | #
I did install IE 6 as you suggested in your How-To above. I suppose I perform the IS 3.1 update through wine using the terminal? Or is there a way to do it through IS itself?
Zeth 5:31 am on April 23, 2007 | #
I have now upgraded to IS 3.1 and now the program does not open at all. I get an error as follows: OLE error 80040154
This happens when I try to run it from the terminal or from the shortcut on the desktop as well as when I go to Infostore.exe and right click and say “open with wine”.
After I click “ok” to the error, another box opens and tells me that I need to have IE 5 or higher, but I have already installed IE 6 by following your instructions.
D. Johnson 7:42 am on April 23, 2007 | #
Oh bummer. I had that OLE error before and it was because my wine dir wasn’t properly mapped to the .ies4linux dir. Can you post the path of both .wine and .ies4linux. Thanks.
Zeth 3:58 pm on April 23, 2007 | #
home/zeth/.wine
home/zeth/.ies4linux
Thaddeus 1:07 pm on May 2, 2007 | #
I wonder if the IS could work on a Mac now? I believe you can run versions of Linux on both the PPC & Intel Macs. Intel Macs can also run Wine &, of course, Windows but the PPC can only run through an emulator which is very slow. Any ideas?
D. Johnson 7:42 pm on May 3, 2007 | #
Probably your best bet is to use wine since it’s able to compile on PPC and Intel Macs. The instructions should be similar other than that. Let me know if you have any success. The next time I’m around a Mac I’ll give it a go as well.
john_in _jakarta 11:45 pm on May 4, 2007 | #
Dan thanks for a smooth how_to. It installed, added libraries & ran flawlessly. Now the catch, until I tried to view a pdf. For some reason I couldn’t navigate to the Acroread.exe I created. I always get a not found error. In my home directory the /.wine is a link that points to /home/john/.ies4linux/ie6/drive_c/Program Files/Acroread –is this right? At any rate I set the file as executable via file properties, but obviously it wasn’t enough.
Thanks again.
D. Johnson 9:08 am on May 5, 2007 | #
Hi John, Nice to hear from you. Hi to your family from Gin and I.
The path for the acroread.exe sounds correct. It seems that maybe either:
1. You don’t have acroread installed on Linux
2. The path is different.
A simple: “whereis acroread” at the command line should give you the path to acroread and you should correct that in the acroread.exe once verified. If no path is shown you probably don’t have acroread installed. If you are using Ubuntu enable the multiverse repositories and then can install with
apt-get install acroread
If on other systems you can download and install via Adobe’s website. LMK.
Dan
Ezekiel 5:58 am on May 6, 2007 | #
All right, now here’s a challenge for you Dan. Can you get the TeleTRF working under WINE?¿ I tried a while back… had inifinite problems…
D. Johnson 8:17 am on May 6, 2007 | #
That would definitely be a good challenge. I hadn’t tried that yet, but will give it a shot sometime. I remember there were issues before because of certain controls that were used in the TeleTRF. I’ll give it a look and if successful will post a how-to.
D. Johnson 10:29 am on May 6, 2007 | #
RE TELETRF: I just successfully installed HF2b (Vista version), which doesn’t have PGP dependencies, on Wine 0.9.33. It installed and ran fine. (Though I did have to install MDAC).
All screens work except for the Comments and Suggestions screen which has issues with the controls used. I will try and come up with some fixes for that and will publish a how-to once completed.
Other than that the sendoff file generates fine and it runs pretty smooth!
Ezekiel 11:54 am on May 6, 2007 | #
Wow, that was fast… once you get the how-to up, maybe I can convine my parents to switch to Feisty…
Zeth 10:42 pm on May 9, 2007 | #
I ended up installing InfoStore into VMware with Windows XP Pro installed. In Feisty it was just not happening for me after i updated the program from 3.0 to 3.1.
Dan… would you have any insight into using a iPaq Pocket PC with Ubuntu?
D. Johnson 8:41 am on May 10, 2007 | #
Are you using Evolution for your email/pim or Thuderbird?
Either way you will need the package SynCE for properly syncing an Ipaq. To see if Ubuntu is properly finding your iPaq type
dmesg | grep Pocket
And see what output it gives you. If you get something like:
ipaq 4-2:1.0: PocketPC PDA converter detected
You are in business.
Francesco 5:31 am on May 15, 2007 | #
I followed instractions and everything workes fine but pdf doesnt open files, it gives me error message:
This file cannot be viewed inside InfoStore and none of the other installed programs recognize the file’s extention (.pdf).
Francesco 8:01 pm on May 15, 2007 | #
Ok well I installed Infostore but still no lack with acroread infostore just gives me error message. When I run whereis acroread it gives me: acroread: /usr/bin/acroread /usr/X11R6/bin/acroread /usr/bin/X11/acroread /usr/share/man/man1/acroread.1.gz
Any thoughts?
D. Johnson 2:16 pm on May 19, 2007 | #
It would seem that you still have Infostore set to open PDFs with the internal viewer. Make sure you have completed:
In Infostore go to Tools > Program Options (or press Ctrl + Y). On the option that says “Other Document View”, check that “Use internal PDF viewer” is deselected. (See picture for example).
D. Johnson 5:57 pm on May 19, 2007 | #
P.S Sorry I didn’t respond sooner was attending a wedding for a week.
Francesco 8:55 pm on May 22, 2007 | #
Hey Dan,
I did deselected “Use internal PDF viewer” it still gives me error. If you give me you e-mail I can send you modified files I think I might made mistake there. By the way did you lived in Hungary before?
D. Johnson 8:58 pm on May 22, 2007 | #
Okay sounds fine, sent you an email just now. Yes lived in Hungary a while ago. I’m guessing you are someone I may know from there eh?
Francesco 9:24 pm on May 22, 2007 | #
Yes Francesco (Lithuanian)
Andrea G.V. 4:43 pm on July 19, 2007 | #
hi there, great article on installing infostore on linux…I tried it and it worked seamleassly, your instructions were very precise, bravo! I was wondering, do you know if it’s possible or have you tried to install infostore on a mac? i know quite a few people who do and it would be a very helpful tutorial to have. I suppose it’s possible to install via mac parallels desktop and run in windows. but maybe there’s a way to install it natively, who knows. thanks and god bless.
Paul 6:29 pm on July 22, 2007 | #
I have Infostore 3.2 installed and running on my macbook using X11, Darwine, and IEs4Linux.
I’ll post a how-to when I have the time.
Paul 1:05 am on July 23, 2007 | #
Hi Dan,
I’ve written a detailed how-to for Mac.
If you send me your email I’ll send it to you.
Paul 11:21 pm on July 23, 2007 | #
If you’re willing to pay for it, there’s a commercial version of wine called CrossOver Mac that works very well and includes OpenGL support.
I figured out how to use Darwine+ies4linux+MacPorts to do the same thing on Intel Macs, but it has issues with OpenGL support.
Paul 3:47 pm on July 26, 2007 | #
I’ve tested running Infostore on an intel mac quite a bit and it seems to work ok. I updated the instructions to fix a possible freetype (font) problem. The main problem I have found using Darwine is the lack of OpenGL. This is a mac-specific problem (Linux with wine works great) and I am still trying to solve this. You will be able to install and run Infostore fine but you will probably have problems with mouse scrolling (once you start scrolling it keeps on going till it reaches the end of the file), resizing the window will probably take a few seconds as the display refresh is very slow…basically it will act like a windows computer without any graphics driver installed.
Zeth 11:03 pm on July 26, 2007 | #
Me again…
I just wanted to ask for your help again regarding the installation of IS in Ubuntu Feisty.
I am still having the same problems with the text files not being viewable in IS, unless I minimize and maximize the window.
I also cannot update to 3.1, as when I do I thereafter receive an OLE error and the program does not open.
I also cannot minimize and maximize the actual program window. PDF files also do not open in IS.
Thanks for your help…..
Andrew 4:07 pm on January 30, 2009 | #
Just wondering if my 64btamd makes a difference with this. I’ve been following the steps to a tee over and over again trying to figure out where I went wrong but so far I haven’t found anything. Also it seems like my wine program is completely unresponsive. don’t know if you can help
Steve 1:52 pm on February 1, 2009 | #
Following the step-by-step worked fine for me running Ubuntu 8.10 64bit. What distro are you using
Andrew 3:35 pm on February 1, 2009 | #
the same 8.10 but the problem seems to be centered around wine. For some reason it’s not responding at all after install and not just to infostore either. I know this is not a ubuntu forum but I think that is my problem, new to linux so I don’t really know where to look.
Chris 11:33 pm on February 17, 2009 | #
I recently downloaded wine in a zipped package, I think tzz encoding, but I have no idea how to install it or make it run so I can install the windows programs. Could anyone tell me? Do you have to extract it to a certain directory or…..?
PS I have both Kubuntu 8.04 & Ubuntu 8.10
Dan 9:23 am on February 18, 2009 | #
You should be able to install wine on Kubuntu or Ubuntu straight from the repos using either Add/Remove Programs or the command line:
sudo apt-get install wine
Using Infostore Narrator on Linux | Steven and Linda 11:47 pm on February 20, 2009 | #
[...] running Infostore on Ubuntu for awhile now. Big thanks to Dan for his InfoStore on Linux walk through and of course to Kevin for his work on [...]
Vessel 9:13 pm on April 13, 2009 | #
Hmm, I didn’t get the window, Dan, in step 2 after installing the IEs4Linux, and Jon, of your sister, Liza was helping me most of the way. I tired
wget http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/downloads/ies4linux-2.5beta6.tar.gztar zxvf ies4linux-2.5beta6.tar.gz
cd ies4linux-*
./ies4linux
into my terminal,but that didn’t work, So I tired going to the IEs4Linux website and installing it from there. I thought we were doing good, until I couldn’t get the downloaded Infostore to install. (PS Jon left about the time I was installing from the website) Maybe the explorer didn’t install right?
dan-e 8:41 am on April 27, 2009 | #
Hi! I am using Ubuntu 8.10 and all went OK during the installation and I followed your manual yet Infostore freezes when I try opening a file.
Please help!
Lv,
Dan-e.
Dan 8:49 am on April 27, 2009 | #
Can you run Infostore from a terminal and post the output here? Would be helpful in troubleshooting.
Also Kevin from Infostore told me that he would roll a version of Infostore that wasn’t dependant on IE6, which would make the setup much easier.
danvera 9:36 am on September 14, 2009 | #
how do I install Inforstore with Apple?
Paul 1:52 am on October 6, 2009 | #
Is this Dan of Vera? I used to live with you in Ukraine years ago!
I can help you install InfoStore on a Mac. I use a custom wrapper that makes it a standalone app (doesn’t need Apple’s X11). Works in Leopard and Snow Leopard. Also includes the TeleTRF.
Add me to Skype, my skpe id is navajax.
Rejoice 1:35 pm on November 1, 2009 | #
I need to know the secrets to installing Info store and all the updates to my new Mac Book.
Do you have any blow by blow instruction sheets for Dummies? It would be appreciated as trying to see if this is the “machine” for me.
Thanks
Rej
Rejoice 1:40 pm on November 1, 2009 | #
Actually – you can see what a dummy I am. Just followed the link and looked to add reply instead of scrolling thru the window. Seems it is all here. Just need to do it. I’ll touch back if I run into any snags.
Thx.
OXOX
Rejoice 8:20 am on March 23, 2010 | #
Well, Dan, do you still visit and maintain your site here? I seem to have lost the real instructions I need to install Infostore and the TeleTRF on the MacBook with snow leopard. Are you still giving instructions at all? I would really like to be able to handle this on my own and learn. I now have CrossOver on my Mac, but really don’t want to use any PC programs I don’t need to. I also need PGP. ANy hope for me?
Rej
Zaposlitev 7:34 am on September 16, 2010 | #
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Grafik 10:15 am on September 19, 2010 | #
hey buddy… i just wanted to say that my msie is freezing when I click on the text… are you using some scripts or something?
Tristan Leitch 2:44 am on October 11, 2010 | #
Un blog muy competente, me ha gustado mucho. Seguir asi