winepak [Official Site] is another interesting Wine-related project. One that aims to package up an assortment of Windows-only games that work in Wine using the power of Flatpak packages.
I'm not going to get into the politics of Snap vs Flatpak, mostly because I don't care for the arguments surrounding it and end-users shouldn't care as long as they work and work well.
Much like today's previous post about Track Mania Nations Forever having an easy to use Snap package, winepak seems to aim a bit higher and offer a repository of games. The advantage of using such packages (Snaps or Flatpaks), is that it should come with everything you need to get the Windows game running on Linux, without having to mess around with configurations. It's a new project though, so there's likely a fair amount of kinks to work out.
Their listed goals are simple:
- Package wine applications via flatpak
- Make installing and running applications Just Work
Currently it seems to offer: League of Legends, Path of Exile, Blizzard's BattleNet client along with, Overwatch, Starcraft II and World of Warcraft, World of Tanks and more. The full list can be found on GitHub here, although some don't work like Fortnite. Obviously, it does depend on Wine and what Wine build they include with each game.
Testing it myself, it seems that both League of Legends and World of Tanks had no issues with their launchers downloading, logging in and updating using this Flatpak method.
For those wondering how legal this is, well, it doesn't have to include any of the installers itself. It will just download them for you, so it's not actually redistributing stuff it's not supposed to.
Curiously, it seems the mind behind winepak, Julian Richen, is the same developer who we chucked some bucks some time ago to help re-design our website (which turned into our current theme). Always nice to see more from someone you've worked with before.
Will be fun to see how far this project goes, as I said it's early days yet. If projects like this can help bridge the gap, for people moving over to Linux so they don't lose access to some of their favourite games and have an easy way to play them—I'm all for it. It can help ease the transition until they become fully fledged Linux gamers. A lot of potential here.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: Ray54...
A flatpack of wine version 1.6 sounds much easier, but would it work as I expect?
Probably. I'm assuming a known to work wine version gets bundled with each game in the winepaks
Last edited by Liothe on 13 June 2018 at 9:30 pm UTC
Quoting: ShmerlI don't mind tinkering with Wine. One problem with "just works" approach that was also used for example in PlayOnLinux installation scripts for games, is that it grew huge and no one was maintaining those scripts. So they quickly became obsolete. It's safer just to install something yourself using newest submissions in Wine AppDB.Pretty much my feelings when it comes to WINE wrappers as well; I would much rather just do the heavy lifting myself and get things working just the way I want them than rely on third party packages and scripts. Of course given that I am an Arch Linux user that idea kind of comes with the territory anyway.
Not everyone is going to be both as patient and anal as I am.
Quoting: ShmerlI don't mind tinkering with Wine. One problem with "just works" approach that was also used for example in PlayOnLinux installation scripts for games, is that it grew huge and no one was maintaining those scripts. So they quickly became obsolete. It's safer just to install something yourself using newest submissions in Wine AppDB.But "just works" is a necessity if Linux is to attract more gamers.
The vast majority don't have the skillset or patience like you or me (or many others here) to fiddle around with anything. Hell, for some, having to install Wine to install their game is already too much.
Of course, that says more about the quality of the people than that of the OS, but it is what it is.
"just works" is the most important bit for the spread of any OS and its software.
PlayOnLinux could have worked if it had maintained its maintainers (pun? intended).
Lutris seems to gain more traction, and is definitely more promising than PoL ever was. However, only time will tell if that leads anywhere.
Nothing of this will amount to much, IMO, if it doesn't become officially endorsed. As in, every Ubuntu comes with the most recent Lutris right away, no questions asked.
PS: Here we see the fragmentation problem, again. Now we have PoL (which is minimally maintained, still), Lutris and this winepak (and possibly others, too). All kinda similar in their purpose. It would be better for everyone if they all worked together.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 14 June 2018 at 6:59 am UTC
lucifertdark Jun 14, 2018
Pompesdesky Jun 14, 2018
Quoting: lucifertdarkWine Is No Excuse not to port your games/applications to Linux properly.
We're going in circles with this one. As already expressed by others most of the current Windows users will never switch to Linux if they have to lose access to their Windows only catalog of games and if they must spend 3 hours on Linux support websites to figure out how to install any of their game.
Once we get maximum playability for Windows games with an install process that is a simple double click away then we should have a lot more users. Then when the Linux playerbase starts to really represent a good fraction of all gamers, developers will have to start thinking about what they're doing.
I've been trying to make my brother in law switch for over 2 years without success, but now that he sees me starting to easily play games that he likes with Lutris (like SupCom Forged Alliance or Bad Company 2) he's beginning to seriously consider making at least a dual boot to try. If it's simple enough, the low barrier to learn how to use a new OS should outweight Windows 10 pissing him off.
Last edited by Pompesdesky on 14 June 2018 at 9:16 am UTC
I was searching for something just like this app so I can also have League of Legends or Starcraft in case I wanted to play, so for me this is great news :D
And for the
QuoteWine Is No Excuse not to port your games/applications to Linux properly.
I think if enough games are supported or Linux via wine, Linux will become a viable platform for gaming, and then ports will surely follow. For now it's a must to get Linux to became a good enough solution.
buenaventura Jun 14, 2018
Quoting: devnulllotsa stuff
What is the political angle? Just bad security for people or? I am interested. Who is behind flatpak and snap, and what are the differences etc?
lucifertdark Jun 14, 2018
Quoting: PompesdeskyWe're going in circles with this one. As already expressed by others most of the current Windows users will never switch to Linux if they have to lose access to their Windows only catalog of games and if they must spend 3 hours on Linux support websites to figure out how to install any of their game.PlayOnLinux & Lutris are a step in the right direction but technical support for Wine when things go badly tits-up is practically non-existent. Search for any given bug & you'll find 30+ pages filled with people asking for advice on the bug & getting nowhere fast, you might get lucky every now & then & find the answer but you're far more likely to be as stuck as I was last year when Wine died & I couldn't even uninstall it to get rid of it.
Once we get maximum playability for Windows games with an install process that is a simple double click away then we should have a lot more users. Then when the Linux playerbase starts to really represent a good fraction of all gamers, developers will have to start thinking about what they're doing.
I've been trying to make my brother in law switch for over 2 years without success, but now that he sees me starting to easily play games that he likes with Lutris (like SupCom Forged Alliance or Bad Company 2) he's beginning to seriously consider making at least a dual boot to try. If it's simple enough, the low barrier to learn how to use a new OS should outweight Windows 10 pissing him off.
Micromegas Jun 14, 2018
You can just and only use the different Wine versions you can download directly via the PlayOnLinux client itself which get only "installed" (= copied) in prefixes in your /home not system-wide. You have to start Windows programs after that via the PlayOnLinux client of course but with the advantage that if you close PlayOnLinux all Windows programs are closed too and no other Windows programs can be running while PlayOnLinux is closed. This mitigates some problems with a system-wide installed Wine like security problems or installed Windows programs interfering with your Linux programs.
Last edited by Micromegas on 14 June 2018 at 10:53 am UTC
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