Installing VarAC on Linux/raspberry64 using WINE

There are numerous tutorials for installing VarAC (and VARA) on a Linux/Pi.

As some installtions can be different than others, we have brought to you 3 tutorials from our VarAC community member.

VIDEO (by KM4ACK)

Installation kit (By K7MHI @kellykeeton)

Follow these instructions on this github page:

https://github.com/SpudGunMan/bapi/blob/main/data/VARA.md

MANUAL (By K7MHI @kellykeeton)

This is how it looks...

I assume this will work on 32bitDebian (had a report of no) I do run in 64bit mode bullseye RPi4 fully updated to the day of this post. the very nice Build-A-Pi project is also used to load ham software.

There are some nice tools for ham radio included in this project.

https://github.com/km4ack/pi-build

1. Install WineLink

WineLink deploys WINE with a full Winlink RMS version and VARA using this following project script. We only need the WINE and the VARA modem part of it but this installer simplifies the installation.

https://github.com/WheezyE/Winelink

2. Install WINE fonts that are needed by VarAC

sudo apt install ttf-mscorefonts-installer

Also follow the instructions here to install "Segoe UI Emoji" font which is also required by VarAC.

3. Download VarAC

Download, unzip and place the files in the ~/.wine/drive_c/VarAC directory

4. Launch VarAC

Using the following command. You can use in a menu.desktop object:

env WINEDEBUG=-all wine /home/pi/.wine/drive_c/VarAC/VarAC.exe

I had to launch a few times and get the settings saved and working but it did work with no major issues! using a IC-705.

5. Enable "Linux compatible mode" in VarAC settings

You can do it by directly editing the VarAC.ini file using the following command:

sed -i 's/LinuxCompatibleMode=OFF/LinuxCompatibleMode=ON/' ~/.wine/drive_c/VarAC/VarAC.ini

Or alternatively you can launch VarAC and do it through the settings menu:

• Go to Settings --> Rig control & Vara configuration

• Check the "Linux compatible mode" checkbox:

• Click Save & Exit

OS/HW specific configuration

by @kellykeeton

Pi5 & Bookworm:

Pi5 only bookworm 16K pagesize is incompatible with wine/box (Dec42023)

• Switch to 4k-page by adding 'kernel=kernel8.img' to /boot/config.txt

• Reboot

To manually install VARA and VarAC on a Pi:

• Load up Pi-Apps via http://pi-apps.io 

• run: wget -qO- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Botspot/pi-apps/master/install | bash

• Use the Pi-Apps GUI navigate to Tools->Emulation

• Install Box86 (also installs wine)

• Install DLL with winetricks by running "winetricks" from CLI

• Press OK for 'default prefix'

• Choose install a DLL or component

• Select some needed DLL and press OK to install

• comdlg32ocx, pdh-nt4, vb6run

• Download Vara, VarAC

• Install them all, if you install VarAC first it will open the Vara Modem download page

• from CLI you can run setup’s with "wine setup.exe"

• copy all the OCX files in VARA rather then set paths or register

• cp ~/.wine/drive_c/VARA/OCX/* ~/.wine/drive_c/VARA/