You might have heard until now there were options (i.e. a lot of fiddling) to make wows work under linux, but that still left certain things either subpar or even not working.
I have tried it myself finally, with the proton layer that is built in with steam, and it works like a charm, which finally allowed me to fully delete the Spy&BloatWare that is winX.
I tried it under ubuntu mate 18.10 myself, so I expect any ubuntu (debian) derivative to go as well. [*Currently on pop!OS, an ubuntu fork which aims specifically at making linux gaming easier. I can recommend it very much, despite my initial hesitations on gnome. It's important to know that whatever of the main Desktop environments you chose, all of them have been optimized for speed hard the last few years.]
Basic steps
install Steam, goto Settings - Steam Play, enable both "Enable steam play for supported titles" and "Enable Steam Play for all other titles/ Run other titles with [proton 3.7.8]"
update drivers. I went with 3.90 nvidia proprietary myself. You will not have to download specific drivers if you have an AMD GPU, they will always be in the kernel itself. On ubuntu this would look something like this:
[This will be different if your distro has very different origins (arch/fedora) etc. Just google/duckduckgo for "how to install nvidia drivers under [my distro] and you'll be fine. This is also why I can really advice pop!OS for people with nvidia (*)]
install steam's WoWs
and there you go :)
(*) Pop!_OS is a fork ("clone with tweaks") from Ubuntu, made by an American firm called system76 that specializes in making computers that come with linux, so they try to provide a better experience for the typical user. See: https://pop.system76.com/)
find your WoWs folder. Should be something like [steam]/Steamapps/common/WoWs
the files you want to change are in its "bin" subfolder, or in one of its subfolders to be more exact, which will have the "name" of a number
go there and sort on name so the highest number is on top, mine at the moment looks like this
-
so if I had just updated, I now had to go into the "2591463" folder.
copy paste the entirety of the zip file above into that "highest number"-folder, it will ask you to overwrite certain things, that's normal, approve it
DELETE the bin64\steamapi64.dll file in that folder, or, if for some reason you are using 32 bit (is that still possible?) you delete bin32\steamapi.dll
(don't worry about deleting files, you can always restore them with right clicking on the game in your steam list - properties - local files - verify integrity)
At this point, I would already try launching the game. We all know the wonders of weegee optimization, so these "tricks" tend to not always work the same, depending on the update. But for me it has been working at this point for quite a while now.
(
if that's not enough, copy the content from the bin64 folder in the above zip file into the "clientrunner" as well (see my picture, it's also in the bin main folder)
try the game again
still doesn't work, also delete the steamapi64.dll from the clientrunner folder.
)
[begin update (02/01/2019)]
specific: I have resweeped my system and went with Manjaro. Probably because of the rolling release nature of it, the game works even smoother.
general: there seem to be general troubles with getting into the arsenal/inventory. To fix this you need to install MS core fonts.
arch/manjaro: yay ttf-ms-fonts (or whatever pacman wrapper you would use)
slow loading of the ingame browser (arsenal, clans?, inventory) etc, is helped by editing the file "/etc/systemd/system.conf". Adjust the line "#DefaultLimitNOFILE" to "DefaultLimitNOFILE=8192". This is only valid for systemD systems, but that should be most distributions these days.
[/end update] (* The problems of ingame loading of inventory/arsenal etc seem to have disappeared for quite a while now (2020))
In case you're wondering about other typical apps. Discord has linux specific editions (deb files in my case), and teamspeak can be built from github, both working. [* you can just download an "installation" file now from the website]
Just helping people to get rid of the BS MS train.
Lutris as an alternative to Steam
From the website itself: "Lutris is an Open Source gaming platform for Linux. It installs and launches games so you can start playing without the hassle of setting up your games. Get your games from GOG, Steam, Battle.net, Origin, Uplay and many other sources running on any Linux powered gaming machine."
Install lutris from your distro's software app, or command line (e.g. sudo apt install lutris) or from https://lutris.net/
Once you done that, you can from that moment on, search for games on the same website, which will trigger a script activation in the lutris program, which will do all the necessary installation and "tricks" for you
A good source how to find if your games are available to work under proton at all, is https://www.protondb.com/
Wows atm has a "gold" rating, so you know the scoring is trustworthy, cause that's exactly right (gold means: works with tweaks, although if you just install steam without a pre-existing WoWs-account you'll have to do no tweaking at all)
In case you run into trouble with WoWs or any other game, you'll often find helpful tricks to make it work on that page (e.g. https://www.protondb.com/app/552990 for WoWs)
For WoWs in particular, you can always PM me like some ppl already did, or go post your question/problem on the thread in the general part of the English speaking forum on, or ofc just here
changing servers
If you have accounts on other servers, there is no real need to install multiple clients
go to your main WoWs folder, and open the preferences.xml file, there you will find the currentRealm entry. You can change that to your alternate account (eu, na, ru (*))
(I don't know the south east Asia abbreviation (probably "sea"), but I doubt there's many ppl that interested :D )
) cause in the end it is the most watched subforum. Whether you keep it here or not, can you make it sticky somewhere as a collection of user's experiences with linux+WoWs. Recently, and especially 2018 with steam+proton, linux has made huge strides regarding gaming, so we can finally go away from the do it yourself/at your own risk approach.
[latest edit: july 2020]
You might have heard until now there were options (i.e. a lot of fiddling) to make wows work under linux, but that still left certain things either subpar or even not working.
I have tried it myself finally, with the proton layer that is built in with steam, and it works like a charm, which finally allowed me to fully delete the Spy&BloatWare that is winX.
I tried it under ubuntu mate 18.10 myself, so I expect any ubuntu (debian) derivative to go as well. [*Currently on pop!OS, an ubuntu fork which aims specifically at making linux gaming easier. I can recommend it very much, despite my initial hesitations on gnome. It's important to know that whatever of the main Desktop environments you chose, all of them have been optimized for speed hard the last few years.]
Basic steps
Making an existing account work in Steam
-
(don't worry about deleting files, you can always restore them with right clicking on the game in your steam list - properties - local files - verify integrity)
At this point, I would already try launching the game. We all know the wonders of weegee optimization, so these "tricks" tend to not always work the same, depending on the update. But for me it has been working at this point for quite a while now.
(
)
[begin update (02/01/2019)]
[/end update] (* The problems of ingame loading of inventory/arsenal etc seem to have disappeared for quite a while now (2020))
In case you're wondering about other typical apps. Discord has linux specific editions (deb files in my case), and teamspeak can be built from github, both working. [* you can just download an "installation" file now from the website]
Just helping people to get rid of the
BSMS train.Lutris as an alternative to Steam
From the website itself: "Lutris is an Open Source gaming platform for Linux. It installs and launches games so you can start playing without the hassle of setting up your games. Get your games from GOG, Steam, Battle.net, Origin, Uplay and many other sources running on any Linux powered gaming machine."
Compatibility, issues and other games
changing servers
To any mods, and/or @MrConway
I posted this under gameplay (just like e.g.
) cause in the end it is the most watched subforum. Whether you keep it here or not, can you make it sticky somewhere as a collection of user's experiences with linux+WoWs. Recently, and especially 2018 with steam+proton, linux has made huge strides regarding gaming, so we can finally go away from the do it yourself/at your own risk approach.
update
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