mods/addons on Linux [No wine, using VPKEdit]

This guide helps you install mods for Left 4 Dead on Linux systems using native VPKEdit instead of GCFScape in Wine.

Requirements

• VPKEdit (Download standalone GUI): VPKEdit on GitHub[github.com], the program is currently also in the AUR if you use Arch Linux
  
• you will extract ~2Gb of files, so that disk space is required

Procedure

Search Left 4 Dead Files

Right-click the game in your Steam Library and select "Browse local files." If that option isn't available, you can manually navigate to the game directory. It's usually located at:

~/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Left 4 Dead/

Inside that folder, open the left4dead directory.
Look for the file named pak01_dir.vpk — this is the file you'll need. You may want to bookmark it for faster access when browsing files in VPKEdit.

Open Files

Launch VPKEdit, then open pak01_dir.vpk by navigating to: File → Open…

💡 Tip:

If you installed VPKEdit using a package manager, you may be able to open .vpk files by simply right-clicking on them.

Extract Files

Select the three folders in the left pane. If click-and-drag doesn't work, try clicking the first folder, holding Shift, and then clicking the third to select all three.
Set the extraction target to the left4dead1 folder.

⚠️ Warning:

VPKEdit may appear to freeze — don't worry! Wait 2–5 minutes (depending on your storage speed) and it will respond again.
To verify that the extraction was successful, you check the modification date of any file in the particles folder.
Finally, rename the original pak01_dir.vpk file. You can delete it if you prefer, but it's safer to keep it as a fallback.

Repeat for left4dead_dlc3

Some mods require files from the left4dead_dlc3 folder. Repeat the same process:

• Open the pak01_dir.vpk located in the left4dead_dlc3 directory.
  
• Set the target to left4dead_dlc3.
  
• Rename or delete the pak01_dir.vpk inside left4dead_dlc3 file after extraction.

Installing mods

Just copy the vpk files inside left4dead/addons, if you downloaded something from gamemaps, you need to extract the compressed file and put the vpk or in some cases vdf file inside left4dead/addons

That's all! If you did everything right (and very importantly, you renamed the pak01_dir.vpk), your mods should work.