Luna Translator Walkthrough Guide (Linux Edition)

Basic Setup for Luna Translator 

1. Downloading Required Software Lutris, Proton-Up-QT & Flatseal (depends)

Unlike windows most stuff in Linux is not plug & play. To run windows application in Linux, we will need a translation layer (aka Wine). Lutris is the easiest way to manage windows application and which version of the translation layer to run on it.

Proton-Up-QT provide a easy way to download ProtonGE and other translation layers to Steam and Lutris. This session, it covers where you can download the application.

However, due to the nature of immutable OS like SteamOS and bazzite. You might face file permission issues. To solve this, you will also need to install Flatseal. But installation of FlatSeal is not necessary, unless you need to access a non-OS drive.

SteamOS: In desktop mode  Open discover store  search Lutris + Proton-Up-QT and click install.

Bazzite: Open “Bazzar” store  search proton-up-QT + flatseal

Note: Lutris is pre-installed in Bazzite 43 or later

Fedora: 

Step A: Installing Lutris -> Open terminal and type the command

sudo dnf install lutris
#Type in your admin password
#After that it will show the the package/depency that needed to install -> then type "y" to confirm the installation

Step B: Installing ProtonUp-Qt (flatpak)  open discovery & search the app name

2. Download Luna translator 

Since this is not a Windows environment, you don’t need to worry about Luna translator getting tagged as a virus, like in Windows.

Step 1: Download Luna Translator “here” 

3. Setup ProtonUp-Qt (Optional)

The main function of the ProtonUp-Qt is to simplify the process of installing the community version of Proton, aka ProtonGE. Sometimes, the visual novel may have issues playing the in-game video with the default Proton from Valve.

Step 1: Open the app  check install location and make sure it is in Lutris

Step 2: Install the compatibility tool that you want

Step 1: Open the add games panel

Step 2: Set up the game info

Note: exe file type is used for Windows 

Step 3: Set up game options

Note: wine prefix is like simulating a Windows file system in Linux

Step 4: Set up runner options 

Note: Recommend setting up a separate wine version for Luna translator, one for GE-Proton, and the other one for “wine-ge-8”. As the game and the translator needed to run on the same runner for it work. Moreover, some VN may work better on a specific wine version.

Step 5: enable gamescope (optional)

Note: Gamescope is more like forcing a VN in window mode to go to full screen. However, it is recommended you disable it if you want to use Luna translator while reading VN, as the translator windows won’t stay on top of the VN in full-screen mode.

Step 6: Change system Locale to Japanese

Note: If you don’t want to repeat some of these steps every single time you add a game. You can change the default setting for all games using wine shown below.

Step 7: Done

Step 1: Start the app in Lutris

Note: 1st time launch will be very long, so be patient as it is creating the fold needed for the wine prefix.

5.2 Basic settings required for using Luna Translator

Step 1: Click the settings icon

Step 2: Check the core setting  make sure the red circle setting is on 

Step 3: Go to Translation settings  In the traditional session, select the translator of your choice (e.g., Google Translate, DeepL, etc.)

Note 1: An internet connection is required to use the traditional translation option

Note 2: If you are interested in offline translation, you can use LLM to do so, which I will cover in another article “here (Linux)”

5.3 Launching games to Luna Translator

Unlike Windows, there is only one easy way to link the game to Luna Translator.

Step 1: While having Luna translator Launched &, start the VN you want to play

5.4 Selecting the text for translation

Step 1: Click on the text select icon

Step 2: Start the game and select the text that you want to be translated

Note: No text can be selected to be shown if there is no dialogue to be hooked, so just start the game, and you should be able to see similar things to those shown in the above picture.

Step 3: Enjoy

5.5 Embedded translation (optional + game dependent)

Instead of showing the translated text in a text box, the Japanese text in the game can be replaced by English or the language of your choice. However, this option is only available in some game and you may experience game crashes. Therefore, use it at your own risk.

Step 1: Just turn on the embedded option and enjoy

Step 1: Open the settings -> Translation setting -> Text setting 

Note: Red circle -> text size Green circle -> text style

Example 1: My personal setting

Example 2: Comparison between default and my own settings

2. Having hiragana shown on top of Kanji

I guess some of you out there are trying to use a translator to learn Japanese and Kanji as well. But the default setting from Luna Translator doesn’t show the hiragana from the Kanji. The detailed setup steps are shown below.

Step 1: Open setting -> Go to translation session -> download the resources that are circled in red

Step 2: Enjoy 

Optional: If you found the shown hiragana above the Kanji is too small  Adjust the size by the green circle setting