(Note: This is a massive cleanup from my initial post and subsequent edits!)Got BAT 3.7.2 and VP Mod (16 parts, 2 patches) up and running on Arch Linux (kernel 5.3.x, WINE 4.18-1, native NVidia drivers version 435.21) after a bit of a struggle.
In case anbody needs some tips to get going:
1. Make sure you've got all WINE-related 32 bit packages installed.
2. All the installers, i.e. GOG's 4.10m installer and those from the later BAT updates worked flawlessly for me.
3. Create a 32bit wineprefix (replace "user" here and in all following commands with your usename;
credit to Phoenix)
WINEPREFIX="/home/user/.wine_32" WINEARCH=win32 wine wineboot
4. Start winecfg in the new prefix
WINEPREFIX="/home/user/.wine_32" WINEARCH=win32 winecfg
and add your local drives or at least the one you've installed IL-2 BAT/VP on, then select a virtual desktop with your screen resolution for the "default settings"(!!) entry ("Graphics" tab), then add an il2fb.exe to the list of applications and set its Windows version to "WindowsXP".
Select "Automatically capture mouse" in the "Graphics" tab and add these library overrides:
dinput (native, builtin)
dinput8 (native, builtin)
msvcp71 (native)
msvcr71 (native)
5. In a terminal, enter (reminder to change "user" to your username; also change the path to your il2fb.exe)
env WINEPREFIX="/home/user/.wine_32" wine start "e:/IL-2 1946 BAT/il2fb.exe"
6. IL-2 with BAT (or VP) should now start and load correctly. You're on the right track if you see the Selector's splash screen before the regular one.
Additional tips:
In case somebody uses a Linux native
Opentrack, it has to be launched with
env WINEPREFIX="/home/user/.wine_32" /opt/opentrack/bin/opentrack
in order to make it recognize the 32bit Wineprefix. (Username and path will of course differ.)
(Build instructions for Arch are
here.)
Reshade also works!
https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,46936.msg689339.html#msg689339DCG 3.49 also works.
So far, I'm really happy how this turned out. Thanks for the hard work, SAS Team and VPmedia!