Installing Foxit Reader 2.3 in Ubuntu via Wine

Just a few days after lamenting the lack of a good PDF reader application in Linux, I happened to check the Wine AppDB and saw that Foxit Reader was actually supported. And with the release of Foxit Reader 2.3, it was a good time to see if I could get it running on my Ubuntu 8.04 install.

After some tinkering, here’s how I did it:

• Install Wine. I suggest not using the latest 0.9.60 release since my Foxit (and Office 2003) install crashed when being started after upgrading from 0.9.59. This means you’ll have to install using the .deb packages, as detailed below. If you want to downgrade from an existing install, you’ll have to use the command line dpkg to install 0.9.59.
  1. Download the Wine 0.9.59 .deb package for your processor type from the WineHQ archive.
  2. Just double-click the file to install it using the GDebi Package Installer.
  3. You might face a dependency problem if you’re using Ubuntu Hardy since the libldap2 package has been superceded. Just download the necessary file from here as described by post #16 in an Ubuntu thread. It’s also a .deb file, so install it as per the above. Then repeat the Wine installation.
  4. You’ll need to configure Wine now, but I’ll leave you to the expert hands of the Ubuntu documentation for that. Once you’re done, move down for the remaining instructions to install Foxit Reader.
• Install Foxit Reader 2.3.
  1. Download a copy of Foxit Reader 2.3.
  2. Just double-click the setup file and install as per the usual Windows application, i.e. Next… Next… Finish. If the double-clicking doesn’t work, use the console and enter wine FoxitReader23_setup.exe after entering the directory you saved your setup file in.
  3. Now, to make sure you can use Foxit as the default PDF reader application by using the guide at SODEVE.

Hope that works for you, as it did for (happy) me. Yay for commenting features and tabs. What else would you need anyway? EDIT: I forgot that the commenting features are part of the Pro Pack. But you can easily get a free copy by completing an offer for other services. Just make sure you don’t overstay the offer’s welcome.