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PSA - As an alternative to the below, you can now install FL Studio via Wine Bottles, which is a new way to make installing WINE and software as easy as one click (well, nearly). The only drawback I can see is that there is a bit of a delay in the startup time, because you have to first start Bottles, but if you're like me, and dread upgrading WINE installations after a distro upgrade, this makes that process much easier, since Bottles keeps everything isolated. Just note that Bottles is still under development, but testing makes for better software, so if you can please test it and report your findings! I'm renaming the below "Native WINE installation". Read more about Bottles here:
https://usebottles.com/app/#flstudio
To get started with WINE Bottles, install it via Flatpack (preferred) or your package manager. Create a new "Gaming" bottle, and then go to Installers, click the FL Studio installer. Happy days!
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Quick Start - Native WINE installation
FL Studio 20.9, the latest FL at the time of writing is what we will be installing. Note: if you have issues with activation persistence across reboots, even with the offline activation, or if you just want to use something that's pretty much guaranteed to work, the best thing you can do is just stay on 20.8.4 for the time being, which you can download here: (viewtopic.php?f=1995&t=194258).
This guide will not be covering distro-specific commands, please reference your distro's documentation for how to use its package manager. This guide will link to all the particular documentation you should need, however.
This process assumes a clean installation, or at least an installation without WINE already installed. It is recommended that you do not use any WINE version shipped with your distro since it is probably woefully out of date, or any previously installed older version of WINE. This guide also recommends that you completely remove any version of WINE that is already installed, so they do not conflict. The guide uses WINE as packaged by WINE HQ (upstream) rather than your distro, so you get a newer version.
0. Download the FL Studio installer but don't run it yet
1. Install the WINE-HQ package repository, and then install the winehq-devel package by following the instructions for your distro here:
https://wiki.winehq.org/Download
The reason for this is because winehq-stable is 6.0.2, which is not quite high enough to run 20.8 or 20.9 without problems (many of us remember the drama with the string sorting patch), and the WINE packaged by your distro may be even older than that. At the time of this writing, winehq-devel will become winehq-stable in about a month (every January there's a new WINE release), so if you are reading this after January 2022, check whether winehq-stable is version 7, and if so, go ahead and use that.
2. Download the Winetricks script by following the instructions here (don't install the winetricks script packaged by your distro, it will not mix with the winehq packages):
https://wiki.winehq.org/Winetricks#Getting_winetricks
3.1 Use winetricks to install the required fonts, which are included in the winetricks corefonts package.
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./winetricks corefonts3.2 (optional)
Setup WINE to use an appropriate DPI for your display
This makes the WINE file browser, installers and other things larger and more readable.
Run:
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winecfg4. Run the FL Studio installer by double clicking it and complete the installation. Be sure to include FL Studio ASIO.
5.1 Run and Unlock FL Studio
Offline is the recommended way to unlock it, since I and other people in this forum are facing some difficulties with the online account unlock on 20.9, which used to work great up to 20.8.4. Someone should probably open a bug report on WINEHQ about this.
5.2 Follow the process to obtain your FLRegkey.Reg file then place it inside your WINE's drive_c directory, rename it FLRegkey.reg then close FL Studio.
Open a terminal in the directory you saved your FLRegkey.reg file and open the WINE Registry Editor by running:
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regeditOpen the Registry menu > Import Registry File and find your FLRegkey.reg file. You should see a success message. Close the Registry Editor.
You should now be good to go to start using the best DAW on the best OS