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Can I get to work RCX 2.0 software RIS2.0 under Ubuntu 14.04? I've installed it under wine, but the graphics of my notebook was to high for it, and the next phase of installation - the looking for the tower did not work at all.

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  • USB or serial tower?
    – user3971
    Nov 22, 2015 at 4:21
  • USB tower. I've found there is a driver for W7, because without that driver the tower simply doesn't work. But I guess these driver would not work under wine. Here is the way on windows7: legomindstormsrobots.com/lego-minstorms/… Nov 22, 2015 at 22:50
  • Yeah, USB under Wine is going to be an adventure. This is a situation where a COMx based tower is going to be easier. Unless you really need RIS, I'd probably just switch to BrickxCC (if this runs on Linux( or NQC and side step the whole thing.
    – user3971
    Nov 23, 2015 at 1:37
  • I've tried BrickxCC as well: the tower doesn't communicate either. Mayba there is a linux version of BrickxCC, because the recently installed runs under wine as well. So or I shell by an COMx based tower, or try under W7. Nov 24, 2015 at 12:12

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Just to close the circle (and not just hide this info in the comments), I don't have high hopes this will ever work satisfactorily. At least without not a fair amount of hacking.

As per WineHQ, USB support in Wine is weak at best, and so BricxCC via Wine is probably a non-starter, as well, for the same reason.

You might have better luck with a COM port based tower. These can be had from eBay rather cheaply. Wine has documentation about presenting serial ports in Linux or OS X to COM ports in Wine.

Many of those USB serial dongle/cables that use FTDi chips can be used in Wine, as these can be used as COM ports (using the same facility I mentioned above) but the Lego USB tower is a special device that doesn't abstract well; it uses a very custom protocol above a thin USB layer.

Or you can switch to a less pretty IDE based solution like NQC or LeJOS that runs natively on Linux. The USB tower works reasonably well using native Linux enumerations and comms. It's a very simple half-duplex medium speed protocol with simple error checking and (AFAIR) no flow control.

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