HOWTO: Run Hero Designer on a Chromebook

[sentry0]

Here's a quick overview of how to run Hero Designer on a Chromebook.  My testing was done on an Asus C434 running Chrome OS 78.  I personally ran into a number of issues with Java on Debian Stretch that took my some time to track down so I figured I would share this with others.  The magic ingredient for smooth running Hero Designer on Stretch was to pass in -Dsun.java2d.opengl=true as a command line argument... after that all the slowness, artifacting, and UI flickering went away.

 

Assumptions

• Minimal proficiency with Linux and the the command line
• Linux (Beta) enabled under Settings
• Debian Buster installed under Crostini (this is the default Linux distro installed, assume this is the case unless you know you installed another distro)

 

Get Hero Designer

Get yourself a copy of Hero Designer from the store and put the zip into your home directory.  Make a directory to put the unzipped Hero Designer files into:

mkdir ~/Hero\ Designer

Unzip your Hero Designer into the directory you just created:

unzip ~/HeroDesigner.zip -d ~/Hero\ Designer/

Install Java

Update your packages:

sudo apt update

Install Oracle Java:

sudo apt install openjdk-15-jdk

Verify your version of Java:

java -version

You should see something like the following:

java version "13.0.1" 2019-10-15
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 13.0.1+9)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 13.0.1+9, mixed mode, sharing)

Create an Application Launcher

Start by creating a .desktop file for Hero Designer:

sudo touch /usr/share/applications/hero-designer.desktop

Make the launcher executable:

sudo chmod +x /usr/share/applications/hero-designer.desktop

Cut and paste the following text into the desktop launcher file you just created:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Hero Designer
Comment=Create characters for the HERO System
GenericName=Hero Designer
Path=/home/YOUR_USERNAME/Hero\ Designer
Exec=sommelier -X --scale=0.8 java -Xms32m -Xmx64m -Dsun.java2d.opengl=true -jar HD6.jar
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Icon=/home/YOUR_USERNAME/Hero\ Designer/hdlogo.png
Categories=Utility;

Please note that you MUST replace the YOUR_USERNAME text with your actual username... very important!

 

That's it, after the desktop launcher has been created you should be able to launch it like you would any other app.

 

[sentry0]

I should point out that I was never able to get the application Icon to work.  

 

If anyone has any luck with it please post here and let us know what you did.

[JohnBear]

I just copied a stand alone picture

 

Also, Here's a simpler variation:

#!/bin/bash
# A simple script to run HD
# Need to work within the terminal

echo "Run Herodesigner"
cd /home/USERNAME/Apps/Hero/HD
java -jar HD6.jar 16

the 16 on the end tells java what font size to use

 

Then you can just make a link to the script

 

 

...Running Linux Mint

[Ashura]

So, you must have Debian Stretch 1st? How do you download the right 1?

[sentry0]

22 hours ago, Ashura said:

So, you must have Debian Stretch 1st? How do you download the right 1?

 

It should work on any Debian version... Stretch was just the version that was used in ChromeOS 78.

[sentry0]

Updated the OP based on some work today to get HD up and running on the latest ChromeOS running Buster.  The good news is it's more simple than before