*Added*
Scripts allowing the conversion of KotOR2 installers into .deb packages.

*Updated*
The scripts for KotOR1 have been slightly edited, but the resulting packages are the same, so no need to re-build them if they already work for you.

This is an interesting project, as a fellow Linux user and huge fan of KotOR and KotOR II I'm happy to see that there are other people out there trying to make living with Wine and stuff like that a bit easier.

I have to ask though: What is this for, exactly? You're wrapping the files, okay, but what about all the tweaks most have or want to add to the games? Especially TSLRCM and M4-78, but also widescreen-support.

I just tried to install TSLRMC on KotOR2 installed via my script, and it worked flawlessly.
I’ll write a quick guide about it soon.

My method is not especially "mod-friendly", but I’ll try to make sure TSLRMC and M4-78 installation goes smoothly. About widescreen, I usually don’t use it (I bought a 5:4 screen to play all my old games) but I’ll give it a try too.

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Oops, forgot the "What is this for, exactly?".
Here we go:
_easy installation/removal
_multi-user installation (install the game once for all users of the computer)
_easy transfer of the game between computers
_easy transfer of the saves/settings between computers/users
_automated dependencies management
_no need to know *anything* about WINE ;)
_removal of the game *doesn’t* remove saves/settings, no matter where the game stores them
_in case of moddable games, gives the ability to reverse your installation to vanilla state at any time
_per-user saves/settings/mods

That’s from the top of my head, so some advantages might not be pertinent for everyone, while I might have forgotten some others.

Cool, as long as the aforementioned essential modifications work, I think most users will be fine. I, for example, don't use any other mods.

I can see why not having to deal with Wine is an advantage of course, I give you that. Though that can become a problem if something doesn't work out of the box.

Only one install per system is great too, but how do different mods per user work? That could be quite complicated...
For example, I play Knights of the Old Republic with a widescreen resolution (16:9), which requires me to patch the game files and add new GUI files in the main installation folder. My brother plays the game with its original resolution (4:3) and therefore prefers a clean installation. If we'd share a system, I could simply copy the Wine prefix and alter it to my liking. So, would you simply link to everything else, or what?

I've created a separate prefix a while ago and performed a perfect installation with every tweak I considered necessary or nice to have (including the cropping and re-rendering of all movie files, what a horror, took me three days). So, I can copy that one, back it up, modify it, reset it - simply through my file manager... therefore those advantages are given for me already and more comfortable so. Well, to be fair, I know a bit about Wine in general.
Anyway, that doesn't make your points invalid.


It could be interesting to extend this idea to other package managers and to perhaps include some tweaks in the package already. To clarify: incorporating widescreen support, mods and my HD videos directly into your script via executable and just some files would be pretty neat.


Oh, and please don't read too much criticism into these posts, I really appreciate what you're doing.

I’ll try to make sure the most popular mods are supported at any time. It does use WINE of course, but the configuration is automated. You still can access the prefix if something doesn’t go as expected. Here we go for the technical bits: the game data files are installed system-wide, and not writable by the user. At first launch, a prefix specific to the game is created in the user $HOME, and a "fake tree" is created mostly with symbolic links.
Only the files that could need to be writable by the user are really copied into the prefix. Modifications take place in the prefix, so the original data files are kept unchanged. You don’t really need my scripts if you already know WINE well, but it can still have some advantages.
I’d guess your prefix does include the whole game, so is around ~4.5G in size? With my method, a prefix including TSLRCM is only ~500M, because every file in its original state does not need to be copied in the prefix. While I don’t plan to support more packages managers yet (I don’t know them well enough), having an automated process for the installation of some popular mods is definitely part of the project. Hey, it’s nice to see someone interested enough to take the time to send some suggestions on how to get the whole thing better ;)
Thank you for this!

Just as I hoped. Now, that is awesome and a real advantage for multi-user or -purpose installations!

Actually more like ~12.4 GB, those HD movie files are huge. Anyway, that wouldn't help me at all. The game files would be in / instead, so there is really no disk space saved, right? And I install everything external in /home, especially games.

Good to hear.


Hm, maybe I could alter your scripts to support .pkg.tar.xz (Arch Linux; pacman). I haven't done any major scripting for a long time, but I'll look into it.

Tell me if something is hard to understand in the scripts, I’ve written the commentaries in French before translating them to English, so some parts might be unclear.

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I think I’ll work on mod support for TSLRCM, M4-78 and widescreen support during the week-end.
I plan to provide commands to install them, something easy to use like this:

Regarding widescreen support: I've written a guide for KotOR II with Wine, with a few tweaks and other stuff, maybe it's useful.
In any case, fixed GUI files are a necessity if playing with a resolution of 1920x1080 (which should be the case for most), so make sure to include them (link in the guide). No executable here, just a few files for the Override folder.

Maybe options with parameters for these mods would be better. You know, something like: Oh, and switches for other package managers could be included too.

Or, even better, an interactive console-based menu for the truly clueless users:

Thanks, I’ll have a look at it. Looks like it’s time I learn to code parameters ;) No need for this for mod support, it would be something run after the game has been installed, independent from the package manger used to install it. Something else I still need to learn ;)
It would be a good idea I think to provide a "silent mode" when used with arguments, and switch to the interactive one if launched without arguments.

For now I’ll focus on basic but functional per-mod scripts, but I’ll work on your suggestions as soon as I’ve a bit of time to learn how to code this in shell.

Update:
Added mod support for KotOR 1 Restoration 0.9, TSLRCM 1.8.3B & M47-8EP 1.1B

/!\ - The instructions in this post are no longer valid for the current version of the script.

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The packages built by the scripts come with scripts allowing an easy installation of the following mods:

_KotOR 1 Restoration 1.0 for KotOR1
http://deadlystream.com/forum/files/file/558-kotor-1-restoration/  
_TSLRCM 1.8.3B for KotOR2
http://deadlystream.com/forum/files/file/398-tslrcm-183b/  
_M47-8EP 1.1B for KotOR2
http://deadlystream.com/forum/files/file/399-m4-78ep-11b/

I'm guessing this method won't work for the GameStop version, or will require modification if it does. Any help?

It works only with the GOG version, sorry for the disappointing news.
I don’t know anything about the GameStop version, so I don’t know how easy or hard it would be to adapt it to this version.

Thanks. I just removed the game files today (bit of a long story) but I might consider reinstalling or buying KotOR from this site. Thus far it seems there's a reasonable, friendly community here. :)