Arma 3 Proton Ubuntu 18.04 + Unity

Run Arma 3 on Proton on Ubuntu 18.04 with Unity
Install Arma 3 via proton
Install Arma 3 Unix Launcher ( Deprecated (will be removed from guide) - The default launcher now works in proton! )
Make changes to unity to get rid of the alt key causing your mouse to lose focus on the running Arma 3 window
Note you cant join Battle Eye servers ( Deprecated (will be removed from guide) - you can now install proton battle eye )

Intro

The Arma 3 native Linux version is never up to date with the end result that you cannot either play the latest DLCs or you cannot join majority of the servers as the Windows version is far ahead.

The alternative is to install Arma 3 via proton on Linux however the following must be noted:

• Battle Eye now works - you need to install proton battle eye via the steam tools.
  
• Arma 3 Laucher does not work - We have a work around with a Unix launcher. (Deprecated the A3 launcher now works - tested with proton experimental)
  
• I have not yet tested TeamSpeak integration but there are reported ways to get it to work if you install it in the same prefix

What works:

• Single Player content (i tested one of the campaigns)
  
• You can host coop/multiplayer games and your friends can join with battle eye disabled.
  
• Mods can be easily loaded via the Arma 3 Unix Launcher
  
• I have not really found a performance difference yet between Proton vs Windows

Why Ubuntu 18.04 with Unity and not Gnome?
i really hate Gnome and for me personally, to make so many tweaks to Gnome, to have it act in the same manner as Unity, was just displeasing. But ill revisit it at a later stage just to deter myself again from using it. Anyways, as Linux users we are spoilt with choices, so call me spoilt :-)

This guide will focus on getting Arma 3 to work they way it should in Ubuntu 18.04 (should work for 16.04 as well) with Unity (yes i said it, Unity)

Install Arma 3 via Proton

Enable Steam Play for all titles

Navigate to
Steam --> Steam Settings --> Steam Play


Set the following:
Enable Steam Play for supported titles [enabled]
Enable Steam Play for all other titles [enabled]

Run other titles with: (select the latest proton version you have)

Install Windows version of Arma 3

By default steam will try and install the native/Linux version. Before you install ensure that you follow the following steps.

Right click on Arma 3 in your Steam library and click on properties.


General Tab
Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool [enabled]
Select latest proton version


You should now be set to install the Windows version via proton once you click the play/install button on Arma 3 in your library.

Always check out the proton compatibility for Arma 3 on:
Arma 3 Proton[www.protondb.com]

Install Arma 3 Unix Launcher - Deprecated - No longer required

The Arma 3 launcher now works! - Tested in proton experimental.

I am keeping the below as some users might still prefer the unix launcher. However its no longer required. The A3 launcher now works out of the box with proton, i have however only tested this yet with proton experimental.

At the time of writing this guide, the official Arma 3 laucher does not work via Proton thus we look to the alternative the - Arma 3 Unix Launcher.

The Arma 3 Unix Launcher is made possible by Mateusz Szychowski aka Muttley. (Thanks!)
When you see him, buy him a beer!

The git repo and up to date instructions for the Arma 3 Unix Launcher can be found here:
https://github.com/muttleyxd/arma3-unix-launcher

Here is the result of hard work done by Muttley.
Below is the mods view of the Arma 3 Unix Launcher.


We would need to get our hands dirty in a terminal.
There is currently no up to date .deb package so we would need to install the Arma 3 Unix Launcher via source.

Launch your favourite terminal.

The Arma 3 Unix launcher now requires gcc 8

updated: 19-09-20

check if you have gcc-8

gcc-8 --version

if you are running the latest version of ubuntu then the above should not be an issue, thus you can skip this step

to install gcc-8 on ubuntu 18.04, this should work:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/test
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gcc-8 g++-8
gcc-8 --version

Installing

sudo apt-get  update

Install requirements:
updated 19-09-20

sudo apt-get install cmake qt5-default libqt5widgets5 libqt5svg5 libqt5svg5-dev libfmt-dev
sudo apt-get install git

make a git folder in your home directory and change to the git directory

mkdir ~/git
cd ~/git

download the Arma 3 Unix Launcher git repository

git clone https://github.com/muttleyxd/arma3-unix-launcher.git

Build the Arma 3 Unix Launcher from source
!ensure you are in the git folder per above.

cd arma3-unix-launcher
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make

Now you are ready to install the Arma 3 Unix launcher
we will install it globally (there is a option to install it locally - check the git repo)

sudo make install

Running

Running via Terminal

arma3_unix_launcher

if it does not find the exe you can execute it directly.

/usr/local/bin/arma3-unix-launcher

Launch via an icon

Create a launcher with a flashy icon to launch the game
Download a Arma 3 icon to your Downloads folder or Pictures folder, search for one via google or use one of the preexisting
https://www.deviantart.com/troublem4ker/art/Arma-3-Icon-608275566

convert to appropriate dimension

convert arma-3-downloaded-image.png -resize 128x128 arma-3-icon.png
sudo mv arma-3-icon.png /usr/share/icons/hicolor/128x128/apps/arma-3-icon.png

Create the laucher

sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/arma3-unix-launcher.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=ArmA 3 Unix Launcher
Comment=Advanced launcher for ArmA 3 on Linux and Mac
Exec=arma3-unix-launcher
#full path of executable binary - if you want to use this instead
#Exec=/usr/local/bin/arma3-unix-launcher
Categories=Game;
Icon=/usr/share/icons/hicolor/128x128/apps/arma-3-icon.png
StartupNotify=true

This is what mine looks like:

Other Notes

The Arma 3 Unix Launcher mod presets are stored in:
~/.config/a3unixlauncher/

What i suggest is that you create a mod list with no mods, to simplify loading no mods (instead of unselecting all selected mods when you want to play with no mods)
and then creating all your other mod presets.

Arma 3 does not launch after update

This applies to the Arma 3 Unix launcher.

The Arma 3 Unix launcher creates a symlink for arma3launcher.exe that points to arma3_x64.exe.
It then creates a backup of the original to arma3launcher.exe.backup.
I suspect that when Arma 3 does a update that touches anything todo with the arma3launcher that it breaks it, in which you would not be able to launch Arma 3.

The easiest thing that works for me is just to remove the arma3launcher.exe and then verify your game files via steam.

What i have done was:
1) close the Arma 3 Unix launcher

2) move the following files to a temp backup folder somewhere else:
arma3battleye.exe
arma3launcher.exe
arma3launcher.exe.backup

3) I then went ahead to verify the integrity of the Arma 3 files in which it re-downloaded the missing exe files that i moved to the temp backup folder. (was something like less than 20mb)

To verify the integrity of the game files do the following:
Right click on Arma 3 in your library and click "Properties"



Go to the "Local Files" tab and click on "Verify Integrity of game files"


It will now download the missing exe files. Wait for it to complete.

4) Once it has verified the files and re-downloaded the exe files, launch the Arma 3 launcher again which will then recreate the sym link. You should now be good to go and can now launch Arma 3 again.

I removed the temp backup folder with the old exes as it was no longer required, after confirming that Arma 3 worked again.

Suggested Tweaks

Arma 3 Tweaks

There is an issue (as with many wine games) that if you alt tab to another window that your Arma 3 will minimise display a large black window with a tiny square within it.

A common fix to this is to set a game to run in full screen windowed mode.

Full Screen Windowed Mode

Options --> Video --> Display --> Full Screen Window

Pulse Audio Tweaks

If you experience a delay in sound when firing a gun etc then you might need to set the buffer sizes for pulse audio.

backup your pulse audio daemon.conf file.

sudo cp /etc/pulse/daemon.conf /etc/pulse/daemon.conf.bak

edit the /etc/pulse/daemon.conf and edit it to reflect the following for the corresponding lines

sudo gedit /etc/pulse/daemon.conf

default-fragments = 5
default-fragment-size-msec = 2

you can restart pulse audio but i suggest rather just to do a system reboot.

A full copy of the pulse audio daemon.conf file

If the previous section to fix the sound delay worked, SKIP THIS SECTION.

As a reference, this is what my /etc/pulse/daemon.conf looks like.
It is based off of a guide that i can no longer access due to SSL certificate issues - if the section above did not help with the delays, it might be worth looking at this config, else skip it.

Compare the options below with what you have in your daemon.conf and adjust accordingly.

 sudo gedit  /etc/pulse/daemon.conf 

 # Start as daemon
 daemonize = yes
 allow-module-loading = yes

 # Realtime optimization
 high-priority = yes
 realtime-scheduling = yes
 realtime-priority = 9

 # Script file management
 load-default-script-file = yes
 default-script-file = /etc/pulse/default.pa

 # Scales the device-volume with the volume of the "loudest" application
flat-volumes = no

 # Sample rate
 resample-method = speex-float-5
 default-sample-format = float32le
 default-sample-rate = 48000
 alternate-sample-rate = 44100
 exit-idle-time = -1

 # Optimized fragements for steam
 default-fragments = 5
 default-fragment-size-msec = 2

Once done, you can restart pulse audio but i suggest rather just to do a system reboot.

Ubuntu Tweaks

Fixes loss of focus of mouse for independent head movement within Arma.

I found that the alt key causes the mouse to move beyond the window that Arma runs in when you try and use the alt key for independent head movement which is a MUST (same for Squad). (and this is actually why i wrote the whole guide). It causes the focus to be lost from the current window when you press alt.

(This actually had me thinking if i should try Gnome again but instead i decided to spend quite allot of my time to avoid that.)

To get past this i had to, in a sense remap and disable some features of alt (whilst keeping the Ubuntu hud which i actually use):

All of the below can be achieved via multiple ways (like dconf and command line wizardry)

Install Compiz Config Settings Manager

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

In the Ubuntu menu search for compiz


Disable Menu bar while alt is pressed

Compiz Config Settings Manager → Ubuntu Unity Plugin → Key to show the menu bar while pressed



Disable alt click window dragging

Compiz Config Settings Manager → Window Management → Move Window → Initiate Window Move
NOTE!!: Do not entirely disable it, if you do, weird window glitches etc will appear.
You need to remap it to a valid key binding combo that you wont easily press.

<Shift><Control><Alt><Super>Button1

Change hud key to right control (as hud pops up when you hit alt)

Compiz Config Settings Manager → Ubuntu Unity Plugin → Key to show the HUD when tapped

<Mod2>Control_R

Conclusion

There you have it and hopefully you are up and running and your Arma 3 on Steam Proton is running smoothly.

I really hope this guide saves someone some time as all of this (especially gnome) bothered me quite allot in which i spent a few days trying things out and testing to get everything working in my aim to get rid of my Windows partition.

If you feel you have something to contribute to improve this guide, you are welcome to contact/comment on the guide.

Hopefully soon none of this effort will be required to get Arma or any other "befokte" games to work on Linux, because thats whats keeping us having to dual boot.



Cheers

[7helastlonewolf]

Hi! This tutorial was extremely helpful for me, however, I was wondering where would I be able to change the path where it would find steam. As I keep encountering this error because I have steam in a different file path:

Steam path: /home/usr/.local/share/Steam
env: ‘steam’: No such file or directory

Help would be greatly appreciated.

[Osaris]

no problem at all. The error states that it cant find the file you are trying to convert. it could be that you are executing the convert command in the wrong path (directory) or that the file does not exist.

download the file to your Downloads folder.
then rename the file like you did to arma-3-downloaded-image.png
then open up a terminal and try the following

cd ~/Downloads
convert arma-3-downloaded-image.png -resize 128x128 arma-3-icon.png

[jopk_]

Thank you!! I was able to fully install the launcher and the convert command (because somehow it wasnt in the base files) for the icon/desktop app, but when I try to put in the :

convert arma-3-downloaded-image.png -resize 128x128 arma-3-icon.png

it gives me :


convert-im6.q16: unable to open image `arma-3-downloaded-image.png': No such file or directory @ error/blob.c/OpenBlob/2924.
convert-im6.q16: no images defined `arma-3-icon.png' @ error/convert.c/ConvertImageCommand/3229.

I renamed the image to the exact name there, but it still doesn't work...
Any clues?

[Osaris]

heya @jopk_

I am still on the good old 18.04 so i did not have that issue. I assume you have a newer version of ubuntu or debian.

If you are on Ubuntu 21.04 or debian 11 (bullseye) this might help: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/67373586/install-qt5-on-ubuntu-21-04


sudo apt-get install qtbase5-dev qtchooser qt5-qmake qtbase5-dev-tools

[jopk_]

Hello! So I tried your tutorial but when I tried to run the cmake command it put this message:
-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
See also "/home/jopk_/git/arma3-unix-launcher/build/CMakeFiles/CMakeOutput.log".
See also "/home/jopk_/git/arma3-unix-launcher/build/CMakeFiles/CMakeError.log".

I had problems installing qt5, since it gave me the : Package "qt5" has no installation candidate

Any suggestions?

[Osaris]

Tested on 18-04-2021
Proton 6.3-2
arm3-unix-launcher build 16-03-2021 51dbf12b2a98a45badcfd72e8959097609217bfe

Muttley now has packages for the Arma 3 Unix Launcher that can be used instead of building the launcher from source, for Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04, mac and Archlinux.

The packages can be found on:
https://github.com/muttleyxd/arma3-unix-launcher/releases

[The Walking Warcrime]

Update! I found my user profiles location in my /home/username/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/107410/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/My Documents/Arma 3 - Other Profiles. I hope this helps future Arma Linux players!

[The Walking Warcrime]

Great guide, there may not be many Arma Linux players these days but your guide is the best that we have. I'm running the Arma Unix launcher from an appimage on my Fedora desktop and I've been trying to find where the equivalent of the user profiles location is. I've made many missions in Eden editor and many loadouts from back when I used to play Arma on Windows, so if you know where to find it, I would like to know! Maybe you can add this information to the guide.

[Roman]

No sir, ty.

[Osaris]

@Roman are you still getting the issue?