One True Linux Thread™

[SIGSTKFLT]

This thread for getting KSA to run on linux. More general discussion here.
Post reports for configurations you tried.

UPDATE: i got carpel tunnel, ooops. so i'll be updating less

"V" column is GPU Vendor; A=AMD, I=Intel, N=Nvidia

Distro	V	GPU	DE	Runner	Config	Report
Arch	A	9070	Wayland, Plasma	Bottles		Launches, but with horrible flicker
Arch	A	RX 9070	Wayland	Bottles	change runner to sys-wine	Launches, but earth appears to be the wrong color
Arch	N	1070	Wayland	Heroic	add game, run installer then change path to game binary	flickering in fullscreen
Void	A	7900XT	Wayland, Niri	Lutris	use system-wine; `winetricks dotnet`; gamescope	works
Ubuntu	I	A7770	?	?		game crashes after loading screen
Mint	A	7900XT	?	Wine		works
Bazzite	A	3060	Wayland, Plasma	Steam	Proton 9.0-4	works, have to use potato mode
Arch	N	950	X11	Heroic	GE-Proton-latest; `winetricks dotnet9`	launches; crashes in spherical billboarding
SteamOS	A	Deck	Deck	Lutris	`winetricks dotnet9`	flickering in fullscreen; hangs on loading complete
Arch	A	6950	Wayland, Hyprland	Wine	`winetricks dotnet9`	fails to load on low but works on high
Arch	A	780M	Wayland,?	Steam	Proton-GE 10-25; `winetricks dotnetdesktop9`	Briefly opens a blank window, then crashes
Arch	A	780M	Wayland,?	Wine	`winetricks dotnetdesktop9`	works
Ultramarine	N	5070	Wayland, Plasma	Steam	Proton 10	video
Ubuntu	A	5080	Wayland	Lutris	wine-ge-8-26-x86_64; `winetricks dotnetdesktop9`	works
Ubuntu	N	5080	Wayland	Lutris	GE-Proton10-25; `winetricks dotnetdesktop9`	works
Void	I	i5-4200m (igpu)		Wine		45 seconds/frame but works
Fedora 43	A	7800XT	Wayland, Gnome	Bottles	"gaming" preset; install dotnet9 when prompted	works. no terrain
Fedora 43	A	7800XT	Wayland, Gnome	Heroic	GE-Proton10-10	launches, but much worse than bottles above
Bazzite	A	7900XT		Lutris	install dotnet3 through lutris gui	cloud flickering
Mint	N	4070 mobile	?	Lutris	winetricks dotnet9	works with lower graphics
Endeavor	A	6600XT	Wayland. ?	Bottles	sys-wine; dotnetdesktop9	runs, no terrain
Arch	N	"ampere"	?	Wine	see post	runs, turn down graphics if it crashes
CachyOS	N	4070	Wayland, ?	Wine	dotnet9	runs
Arch	A	7800XT	Wayland, ?	Heroic	Proton-GE-10-25	fullscreen flickering after camera rotation. borderless wrong resolution. earth has no terrain, only water
Arch	A	7900XTX	Wayland, ?	Heroic	GE-Proton10-25; dotnetdesktop9	Game runs. clouds flicker. no terrain. game crashes on applying settings
Cachyos	N	5060ti mobile	Wayland, ?	Lutris	proton-cachyos; install dotnet runtime when prompted	runs
Mint	N	2060	?	Steam	GE-Proton10-25; protontricks dotnet9;	runs. mangohud causes no issue.
Manjaro	A	7600	Wayland, ?	PlayOnLinux	manually install dotnet9	runs
NixOS	N	1070	Wayland, Plasma	Bottles	caffe-9.7; install dotnetcoredesktop9 via bottles gui	works
Manjaro	A	9070XT	?	Protontricks (?)		flicker in fullscreen
Mint	N	3060	X11, ?	Lutris	winetricks dotnet9	works

dear staff: WTB vim keybinds in bbcode editor

 

[SIGSTKFLT]

reserved

 

[EpicPuppy613]

Intel i7 8th Gen
NVIDIA GTX 1070

Running Arch Linux w/ KDE Plasma

Using heroic launcher w/ add game, although I'm guessing it will probably work using steam as well
Ran installer first, then set game executable to install location (KSA.exe)
Used protontricks to install dotnet9

Game works fine except for severe flickering when using fullscreen display mode.

 

[mkalte]

Ryzen 7950x
64GB Ram
AMD Radeon RX 7900XT
Distro is: void linux with wayland/niri

Running in Lutris with system-wine (10.16). Requires dotnet: winetricks dotnet9 works just fine though. Also running in gamescope (i be a wayland session with a fucked up WM so that is likely needed, i didn't even try otherwise).

I maxed out the settings a saw and its running fine!

Mouse is a bit wonkey though.

 

[Lettuce]

Okay - Unable to load the game on my ubuntu machine. Specs:
CPU - Ryzen 9700x
Ram - 64gb
GPU - Arc A770 16gb
OS - Ubuntu 25.10

I get to the main menu just fine but trying to load into the game crashes after the loading screen. Tried lowering to the graphics to minimum and it didn't change anything.

 

[Konkladonk]

Looks like it's running fine although I might have some issues with controls
CPU- Ryzen 7700x
Ram - 32GB
GPU- Radeon 7900XT
OS- Linux Mint 22.2

Using wine v9.0

 

[SIGSTKFLT]

Okay - Unable to load the game on my ubuntu machine. Specs:
CPU - Ryzen 9700x
Ram - 64gb
GPU - Arc A770 16gb
OS - Ubuntu 25.10

I get to the main menu just fine but trying to load into the game crashes after the loading screen. Tried lowering to the graphics to minimum and it didn't change anything.

what translator did you use? (lutris, bottles, steam, wine-on-its-own etc)

 

[Toony Weem]

Specs:
Proton: 9-0-4
CPU - i7-12700KF
RAM - 32 GB
GPU - RTX 3060ti (8GB)
OS - Bazzite (KDE Plasma, Wayland)
Launcher - Steam
Notes:
Steam's overlay is saying that it is locked at 60fps while the in game fps says it's higher
If I am just viewing the Moon and Earth (2K works)
Otherwise for the full solar system I have to dump it to the lowest (VRAM hungry)

 

[sievertslushie]

System information:

OS: Arch Linux, kernel version 6.17.7-arch1-1
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600
GPU: NVIDIA GTX 950 (2GB VRAM)
Memory: 16 GB
OS and KSA install path is on an SSD.

Tried in FVWM3 and LXQT+Openbox environments (X11).

Install process:

Using Heroic launcher and GE-Proton-latest, added a new game and ran the installer with no issue, then selected KSA.exe in the new wineprefix.
But the game only launched without error after installing dotnet9 using winetricks (through the Heroic settings menu).

Issues:

The game launches fine, but consistently crashes in the spherical billboarding loading section even on minimum texture settings and "Earth Only", being able to finish everything but "Earthscale 8" or "Earthscale 1". It sometimes crashes earlier than this, especially on higher texture settings, and instantly crashes when the Sol system is selected.

Seems like a VRAM issue. GPU usage spikes just before crashing. However, there's no system stuttering or lockups, the game crashes gracefully.

 

[NateSaxo]

steam deck
lutris, dotnet9 winetrick
flickering in fullscreen, hangs on loading complete or instant crash even with lowest settings

 

[Michael Bradley]

Managed to get it working on my machine for a while after a few attempts:
CPU: Intel i7-12700KF
GPU: Radeon RX 6950 XT
RAM: 32GB
OS: Arch
Display: Hyprland

Not very familiar with Wine but I just used my default Wine installation (wasn't able to get it working using Bottles or Lutris), used winetricks to install the dotnet9 (and the desktop runtime and verifier too - not sure if that was what made the difference), and then installed KSA for "all users".

Interestingly it failed to load on lowest settings and then did work on highest settings, not sure if that's a coincidence. Crashed after about 5 minutes of working pretty much perfectly, not sure if this was a Wine issue or KSA issue. Did see one or two minor graphics issues but again, unclear who's to blame.

 

[arthomnix]

Distro	GPU	Display	Runner	Config	Report
Arch	Radeon 780M	Wayland	Steam (Proton GE 10-25)	install dotnetdesktop9 using protontricks	Briefly opens a blank window, then crashes
Arch	Radeon 780M	Wayland	Wine (manual)	install dotnetdesktop9 using winetricks	Works fine

 

[arthomnix]

Not entirely sure why plain Wine works but Proton doesn't

 

[Isynack]

Ultramarine Linux, NVIDIA 5070, Proton 10 on Steam, Wayland; Works great! Does max out graphics and VRAM (can't load the entire solar system) but otherwise works as intended

Got it setup quickly with this tutorial:

(thank you!!!)

 

[SIGSTKFLT]

bedtime for me. @Isynack is the last one i'll do today.

 

[RedEight]

Distro	GPU	Display	Runner	Config	Report
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS	Nvidia RTX 5080	Wayland	Lutris (wine-ge-8-26-x86_64)	install dotnetdesktop9 using winetricks	Appears to work just fine.
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS	Nvidia RTX 5080	Wayland	Lutris (GE-Proton10-25)	install dotnetdesktop9 using winetricks (this is the same install as the row above, I just switched the runner to GE-Proton10-25 and it worked.	Appears to work just fine.

 

[Lettuce]

what translator did you use? (lutris, bottles, steam, wine-on-its-own etc)

Lutris with latest proton ge

also I was able to get the game running on my laptop (framework 16) which is all AMD, so I suspect the problem is my GPU.

 

[SSDeveloper]

See also the old One True Linux Thread™

Also it works on Void Linux with the stock Wine from the repos, .NET installed with the Windows installer through Wine, and the Lavapipe software Vulkan implementation.

System details:
CPU: Intel Core i5-4200m
GPU: Intel HD 4600 graphics (irrelevant because I'm rendering on the CPU)
RAM: 2x8GB DDR3 (one stick at 1,333MHz and the other at 1,600MHz)
OS: Void Linux (glibc)
Runner: Wine

I get about 45 seconds per frame.

 

[iaidoka]

I'm on Fedora Workstation 43, using Gnome / Wayland. Ryzen 5 5600X, 64GB RAM, with a Radeon RX 7800 XT 16GB. First I tried installing through Steam / Proton 9.4, but couldn't get the game to launch. Second attempt was with Bottles. I set up a new "Gaming" preset bottle (soda-9.0-1), installed the game, then ran the dotnet9 installer the game wanted me to download.

With that, it seems to work using the "Solar System" option and default graphics settings. Nice!

It seems I'm not seeing any terrain, though. Only clouds and oceans.

As an experiment, I also tried installing it through Heroic using GE-Proton10-10. It ran, but much worse than with Bottles as described above, with the rendering being what I can describe only as a pixelated mess.

 

[Ludo]

Worked for me on Bazzite with Lutris. Just installed the game and then manually selected the executable location. Then I had to "Winetricks>Install a windows DLL or component>dotnet3". After that the game works very smoothly even with everything maxed out. I had a flickering issue with the clouds, just had to deactivate them, made the game crash, then relaunched and reactivated them and now looks good.

CPU: 7950X3D
GPU: RX 7900XT

EDIT: after some test, I see there are still a lot of visual glitch (seing stars trought the earth, etc...)