Ubuntu User needing some help

[Mushie]

I'm brand new to this message board but congrats to all of you for your time put into this. If anyone wants help with coding something, I'll be willing to try to help. I'm currently a CIS major at Mansfield Unv. and I'm looking for some help with the homebrew work. I can get everything done through ubuntu except one thing. I cannot get the Main_0.ark file to open because to GHex is written as a .msi file. There is nothing in my hours of searching that'll allow me to open that kind of file. If anyone knows of a way to do this through Linux at all, it'd be greatly appreciated.

I also tried the program that allows me to open .ark files from MSDOS but it claims the file to be too big to explore. Any help or suggestions (other than switch back to windows)

[Mushie]

I'm brand new to this message board but congrats to all of you for your time put into this. If anyone wants help with coding something, I'll be willing to try to help. I'm currently a CIS major at Mansfield Unv. and I'm looking for some help with the homebrew work. I can get everything done through ubuntu except one thing. I cannot get the Main_0.ark file to open because to GHex is written as a .msi file. There is nothing in my hours of searching that'll allow me to open that kind of file. If anyone knows of a way to do this through Linux at all, it'd be greatly appreciated.

I also tried the program that allows me to open .ark files from MSDOS but it claims the file to be too big to explore. Any help or suggestions (other than switch back to windows)

[Riz]

Well, you're pretty much welcome to play in linux land, but you're pretty much going to be on your own (that's where the fun is anyway, you wouldn't be using linux seriously if you weren't prepared for that).

GHex is a windows only application. It is written to the .Net 2.0 libraries, and the installer file (.msi) is MS Installer format. Most of the rest of the tools, as you've already discovered, are Java, so they are platform independent. The missing piece, for you, is something to read ARK files, which you can get with Game Extractor, which is also Java. The problem with that, however, is that it's a read-only tool... it isn't capable of putting new things into the ark, or replacing the contents of existing files within the ark.

The Guitar Hero MIDI and VGS Details thread contains some info on the format of the header file, which you might make use of in order to roll your own ark handling utility, and that may well be the best approach, in terms of having the functionality you want and knowing how it works, since you wrote it. Alternatively, perhaps kata will share some of his ARK handling classes with you, although I have no idea how married they may be to .Net 2.0, and therefore how useful they'd be. As a reference, at least, it could probably only help.

The other place you may get into some problems are getting the ISO properly rebuilt from the unpacked files after your mods. I have no idea how much of an issue that is, and perhaps someone else can speak to it.

That's about all I got. Some of the other coders can chime in.

Riz.
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[Riz]

Well, you're pretty much welcome to play in linux land, but you're pretty much going to be on your own (that's where the fun is anyway, you wouldn't be using linux seriously if you weren't prepared for that).

GHex is a windows only application. It is written to the .Net 2.0 libraries, and the installer file (.msi) is MS Installer format. Most of the rest of the tools, as you've already discovered, are Java, so they are platform independent. The missing piece, for you, is something to read ARK files, which you can get with Game Extractor, which is also Java. The problem with that, however, is that it's a read-only tool... it isn't capable of putting new things into the ark, or replacing the contents of existing files within the ark.

The Guitar Hero MIDI and VGS Details thread contains some info on the format of the header file, which you might make use of in order to roll your own ark handling utility, and that may well be the best approach, in terms of having the functionality you want and knowing how it works, since you wrote it. Alternatively, perhaps kata will share some of his ARK handling classes with you, although I have no idea how married they may be to .Net 2.0, and therefore how useful they'd be. As a reference, at least, it could probably only help.

The other place you may get into some problems are getting the ISO properly rebuilt from the unpacked files after your mods. I have no idea how much of an issue that is, and perhaps someone else can speak to it.

That's about all I got. Some of the other coders can chime in.

Riz.
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[katamakel]

Yeah, Riff's post about the ARK file format is basically all you need.
You can also get the Java source code for Game Extractor if you want to look at working code.
I'll be happy to help with any questions you have, just post them here..
I've been fooling around with the thought of trying out Mono for my C# stuff, but I think they're still having some performance issues, so it doesn't feel like the right time right now..
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[katamakel]

Yeah, Riff's post about the ARK file format is basically all you need.
You can also get the Java source code for Game Extractor if you want to look at working code.
I'll be happy to help with any questions you have, just post them here..
I've been fooling around with the thought of trying out Mono for my C# stuff, but I think they're still having some performance issues, so it doesn't feel like the right time right now..
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