Installing VARA on Debian 12 Linux

I started a project that required I run VARA on linux. I tried following some documentation from winlink, and the first 5 pages of google didn’t get me anywhere. The write ups were old, and there were just too many snags. I got it working, so I thought it best to document it here, and maybe help another poor lsot soul.

Requirements:

• Debian 12
• Soundcard and PTT Interface for your Radio.
• Logged into a non-root user in the sudo group.
• Good understanding of Linux command line navigation. (You know how to add a user to sudo etc…)

Installing VARA on Linux

Give our current user permissions to use what we need from VARA

sudo usermod -a -G dialout $USER
sudo usermod -a -G tty $USER
sudo usermod -a -G audio $USER

Add the following line to the end of your /etc/apt/sources.list with your favorite editor such as nano

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye main contrib non-free

Then we add the i386 packages to be installed, as well as install wine, and winetricks nad wget.

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install wget

Download and add the WineHQ repository key
(Please note that the wget commands may wrap to the next line below)

sudo mkdir -pm755 /etc/apt/keyrings
sudo wget -O /etc/apt/keyrings/winehq-archive.key https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key
sudo wget -NP /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/debian/dists/bookworm/winehq-bookworm.sources
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

And now, finally installing wine:

sudo apt install --install-recommends winehq-stable
sudo apt-get install winetricks exe-thumbnailer unzip zenity

The following must be ran on a terminal via the desktop (not SSH):

mkdir ~/.win32
env WINARCH="win32" env WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wine32" winetricks winxp
env WINARCH="win32" env WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wine32" winetricks sound=alsa
env WINARCH="win32" env WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wine32" winetricks -q dotnet35sp1
env WINARCH="win32" env WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wine32" winetricks -q vb6run

Finally, we can install VARA:

wget https://downloads.winlink.org/VARA%20Products/VARA%20HF%20v4.8.7%20%20setup.zip
unzip 'VARA HF v4.8.7 setup.zip'
env WINARCH="win32" env WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wine32" wine 'VARA setup (Run as Administrator).exe'

Run VARA

The desktop icon may not use the correct prefix. You can run VARA using the below command. Replace “YOURUSER” with your linux username.

env WINARCH="win32" env WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wine32" wine /home/YOURUSER/.wine32/drive_c/VARA/VARA.exe

About WINE and COM Ports

On later versions of wine, the COM port your radio is using may automatically bind to COM33 or COM44 within wine applications like VARA. Try those if the first several do not work.

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