Playonlinux: Windows games on Linux

To be honest, we know that a weak point in Linux is games. This weakness has been constantly working. Because of this, several alternatives have emerged to improve this area. Especially for the fact that the incredible games that we can run on Windows, for the most part are not available for Linux. Among those alternatives, PlayOnLinux stands out, an application that allows us to install games designed for Windows, on Linux.

What is PlayOnLinux?

As I mentioned before, it is an application that allows us to easily install and use Games created for Windows on Linux. It is based on Wine, but gives the user a much friendlier experience for its operation.

Main features

• It is not necessary to have a Windows 10 license to use PlayOnLinux. Its graphical interface is extremely intuitive, you do not need to be an expert to use it. It is free software. If you are a more advanced user, you could even collaborate in their development community, use Bash and Python.

However, not everything can be pink. It has certain disadvantages. In some cases, it may cause decreased performance. Causing the image to be less fluid or the graphics not to be so detailed. Not all games are supported (as in Wine), but we can try using the manual installation instructions provided.

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Installation

The application is available in the repositories of many distributions. However, it is not always up to date. The fact of installing it from the repository guarantees that it is a version approved by the distribution, so it will be more integrated into our operating system. But, each user is recommended to always keep the latest version.

Now, remember that I told you that PlayOnLinux is derived from Wine, so we need to have it installed. Our system must have a 32-bit version, along with the required dependencies.

Surely you will also wonder if this will bring any consequence or interference with the operation of the Wine itself. The answer is no, not at all. Both applications can coexist without problems.

Making this clear, we proceed to the installation process.

In the case of Debian we use:

wget -q "http://deb.playonlinux.com/public.gpg" -OR- | 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

If we are Ubuntu or Mint users, we do the following:

wget -q "http://deb.playonlinux.com/public.gpg" -OR- | apt-key add - wget http://deb.playonlinux.com/playonlinux_trusty.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/playonlinux.list apt-get update apt-get install playonlinux $ echo "export WINEARCH = win32 ">> /home/your-user/.bashrc

On the official page you will find lots of information about the application, a section for frequently asked questions and solutions to problems. Also a section if you want to contribute to its development. Now it only remains to take advantage of it. Remember to go through our Tutorials section, where you will find applications and a lot of content for your help.