How to install PlayonLinux on SteamOS

[soulafein83]

Hi! I need PlayonLinux. I'v downloaded deb file from POL site and tried to install. But it didn't work. What should I do??

[Harlaus]

Yeah, I tried to install it too, but it said that some packages couldn't be installed.

[TinMan1325]

POL is dependant on WINE, is it not? Try installing WINE first. I think POL is just a GUI for WINE

Wheezy users : You must install the package wine:i386 to get PlayOnLinux working


With the Wheezy repository

Type the following commands:
wget -q "http://deb.playonlinux.com/public.gpg" -O- | apt-key add -
wget http://deb.playonlinux.com/playonlinux_wheezy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/playonlinux.list
apt-get update
apt-get install playonlinux

[XÆЯO_Vince]

I recommend downloading a newer Wine within PlayOnLinux's Wine manager. Wheezy's Wine is v1.4.1 and is very old but you can grab 1.7.35 in POL and use that instead--just make sure when you install apps that you DONT use "System" Wine. PlayOnLinux also lets you download and use multiple Wine versions, so if you happen to run across a game that worked in an older or a special POL patched Wine but doesn't with the latest one, you're taken care of. PlayOnLinux also backports upstream patch fixes for most of their Wine releases when a rare change in Windows Steam breaks support in Wine, except the very old ones.

[Harlaus]

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamuniverse/discussions/1/648814396114274132/

This post helped me install those packages

[XÆЯO_Vince]

Oh BTW, PlayOnLinux also has Command Stream and Gallium Nine versons of Wine too!

Let me explain real quick what these are...

Command Stream or CSMT is a special verson of Wine designed to offload Direct3D work in seperate worker threads. The result of this is most DirectX games will run at much higher FPS performance than normal Wine. It works for most games, although with rare games it may have to be disabled or it will cause problems. You have to enable this feature in the Wine registry within PlayOnLinux.

You add this string registry key to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Wine > Direct3D

CSMT

in it type:

enabled

This will work on all Linux graphics drivers, both FOSS and Proprietary Fglrx and Nvidia.

If interested, check out:

1.7.34-CSMT-cf92569 in POL's Wine versions manager.

Gallium Nine is a new feature. Mesa 10.4 and newer now includes a native Direct3D 9 implementation in Gallium. That's right... Linux also has native Direct3D 9 not just OpenGL! There is a special patched version of Wine that allows you to use the native Linux DirectX rather than Wine's Direct3D to OpenGL translator. The result is much faster game performance just like CMST.

However, Gallium Nine requires Mesa 10.4 or newer git versions as well as an AMD or Nvidia GPU running the open source r600, RadeonSI, or Nouveau drivers. Sadly it will not work with Intel GPUs (since Intel doesn't have a Gallium driver) nor does it support the proprietary drivers yet.

Gallium Nine will NOT work on SteamOS because it uses an old version of Mesa (10.1) that doesn't include Direct3D 9 support.

If you're using another bleeding-edge distro, such as Archlinux, you can check it out: 1.7.34-gallium-nine.

[TinMan1325]

@Xaero
Do you know if mods for Windows based games work with WINE/POL?

[XÆЯO_Vince]

Originally posted by TinMan1325:

@Xaero
Do you know if mods for Windows based games work with WINE/POL?

For the games that work in Wine, that is usually possible. If it's a MOD with an installer, you just install it into the same prefix that holds the game and if i requires copying and pasting files that is also possible because obviously Wine prefixes have their own Program Files directory.

Just don't expect any games or mods that require DirectX 10 or 11 as a minimum requirement to work as Wine doesn't yet support that but at least work has begun implementing support. In the mean time, anyone with a semi-decent second computer with a DX10/11 GPU, running Windows Vista or newer can use In-Home Streaming to fill in this gap.

On a completely opposite tangent, there is also a way of making some Android apps and games run on SteamOS as well--for people who like to play mobile games like Fruit Ninja and Candy Crush.

[TinMan1325]

Yeah, I kind of figured mods would work but wasn't 100% certain
Thanks