How to install & play World of Warcraft : Ubuntu (5.10 / 6.06.1 / 6.10)
This one is for all you gamers out there. Did you know (I know, you probably did) that World of Warcraft will work on an Ubuntu system? You just need to add a few things to get it going but its really not hard at all. I have been playing for some time now (although I don’t get to as much as I’d sometimes like). Below are instructions for installing and running World of Warcraft on an Ubuntu system. (Thanks goes to this page for original information)
You’ll need to install the latest version of WINE for World of Warcraft to be able to function. You can do that the following ways (depending on your Ubuntu version)
deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt edgy main (Edgy Systems)
deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt dapper main (Dapper Systems)
deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt breezy main (Breezy Systems)
After you’ve installed the appropriate line to your repositories you’ll need to run the following two commands:
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install wine
The next step is to copy all files from your World of Warcraft CD’s to a directory on your hard drive (overwrite when prompted). This, of course, will take a few minutes.
When this is finished run:
ALT-F2 : wine path/to/warcraft/installation/Install.exe
(you can also optionally copy the World of Warcraft folder from a Windows installation.)
You’ve now got World of Warcraft installed and just about ready to play. You’ll want to tweak one more thing before you get going though.
World of Warcraft seems to work best using OSS audio. To set this you can do the following:
ALT-F2 : winecfg
In the resulting menu select “Audio” and then select “OSS driver”
.. and then one last thing before you get playing. You’ll need to add a few lines to a configuration file and then you should be in business.
ALT-F2 : gksudo gedit path/to/warcraft/installation/WTF/config.WTF
add the lines:
SET SoundOutputSystem "1"
SET SoundBufferSize "100"
SET gxApi "OpenGL"
Happy gaming. Ooh, I nearly forgot. To launch Warcraft you can use the following command or create a launcher with this path:
wine path/to/warcraft/installation/WoW.exe
what is the point in copying from ubuntu wiki to your website and if you could try to write your own articles that would help more people instead of copying most of the articles from ubuntu wiki,ubuntu forums and ubuntu hacks book
Roger-
And what are you doing to contribute back to the community? Just curious.
Helping more people? This blog has been Dugg a number of times, because of the tutorial offered here, and has an average daily visit of ~1000 hits.
I am wondering if you might be able to assist me in a workaround for a game I love called SpiritWars http://www.spiritwars.com Thanks
This HowTo will let you install and run the expansion too
have fun raiding
HMM, strike that.. video problems for me once in game.. No portrait of character when creating one and black world when playing.. lets see if I can figure out a soulution
I get the same problem as Jason. I haven’t been able to find a solution just yet. Sorry guys, maybe I post something on the forums if I get it working.
One more thing though, at some point in time it worked. Maybe it’s because of an update from Blizzard. Just a thought.
Cheers,
CheatMan
The Audio tip for config changed fix a problem, thanks. Note, my config.wtf was actually Config.wtf, linux is case picky.
Note, it’s probably not a bad idea to do Launcher.exe, instead.
To Jason, try “wine WoW.exe -opengl”, that should get it working for you.
Installed smoothly for me.
Hey, I just installed World of Warcraft with wine. I use KDE on my laptop. After I installed it and thought I did everything that installation process requires, I ran it and the game quits out after the opening video. I am very new to Linux and cannot figure out why this is not running correctly. If you could help me out that would be great. thanks.
i didn’t have a problem thanks to this
i didnt even bother to copy the files from the installation cd’s of warcraft onto my computer i simply opened the installer.exe from the 1st wow cd using wine and then the installer ran just like in windows, same as installing burning crusade just right clicked on the installer.exe and selected open with wine
i am in the config trying to fix the the way the game is going but the ones i need to change are not even there can someone help me get around this problem…
I am stuck at step:
ALT-F2 : wine path/to/warcraft/installation/Install.exe
I brought up the RUN COMMAND WINDOW THINGY, and put in everything past the colon. I didn’t get any confirmation if anything had been done, but I’m guessing I haven’t installed wow. Nothing thereafter works. I can bring up winecfg, and by default OSS is checked. But I can’t run:
ALT-F2 : gksudo gedit path/to/warcraft/installation/WTF/config.WTF
It won’t do anything, and I get an error. No, I’m not copying the “ALT-F2 :” into the RUN line.
Are you typing in “path/to/warcraft/installation/”?
cause that shouldn’t be those words it should be the actual path.
hi my name is desirwee and i was wondering if any of you no where i can play world of warcraft for free by installing it.
hi
does any one of you no how to play world of warcraft for free by installing or downloading the game for free
You can download a Free 10-Day trial of WoW. It is pretty big at a couple of Gigabytes. Installed, it is around 3.7-Gb, then you have some more downloading, to get all the patches since January’07.
After your 10-days are finished, you will have to start paying about $15/month.
Or, you can Try FLYFF or Rappelz, which are free, and free to play. FLYFF is very cartoonish & Rappelz looks a lot like Guild Wars.
Don’t forget Silkroad Online.
hi.
im still having a hard time installing WOW.. what should I do.. Is there any problem with my pc? Actually, it is already installed but when I click the WOW icon for me to play the game.. it says.. “Failed to find a suitable display device. Exiting program.” ugh.. im not good at computers.. i just want to play.. help?
what do you mean by
“After you’ve installed the appropriate line to your repositories you’ll need to run the following two commands:
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install wine”
need to run? how and were do you go to run something or add commands?
don’t understand that..
Thanks
how in do i get to my directory?
i got wow and everything working but the vidio is just horrible? how do i fix it?
i can`not down load cd on to hard drive windows plus 98 can you help me please
wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
it alway exitin out an it is have somthing bout shock wave it is say u need to in somthing
i jus need to play it do something
Hey guys, I followed the instructions and got it installed w/o any probs. It does not seem to want to load the game to play. I get the loading app icon on the task bar and then it goes away after about 15 secs. I am running Kubuntu w/ the newest version of wine.
Here is my command for the shortcut:
wine /home/randy/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/World of Warcraft/WoW.exe
and the working path:
wine /home/randy/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/World of Warcraft/WoW.exe
Any suggestions would be great.
UPDATE: about 5 mins after posting this I got a Blizzard popup saying that WOW crashed.
I installed Crossover Standard and got WOW running 1st time. Using Kubuntu (64bit) and getting about 20fps better than windows xp (32bit) was. Another reason I’ll never go back to windows.
how do I play the actuall game
anyone else getting 131 errors when using Ubuntu Gutsy? Ive tried all the tips and tricks and nothing is working….
forgot to add that Ive tried Wine 46 and 45….since I have crossover and cedega accounts, gonna try them too.
Crossover has the same problem….
“Hey guys, I followed the instructions and got it installed w/o any probs. It does not seem to want to load the game to play. I get the loading app icon on the task bar and then it goes away after about 15 secs.”
Getting the same issue here, not using Kubuntu though.
after instaling wine and asking for winecfg, i got this message:
root@emod:~# winecfg
Warning: the specified System directory L”c:\\windows\\system32″ is not accessible.
is an error message or not, because when i made the next step and giving the path for my instaler i got the same message and a pop-up message with: “Sorry, the installer was unable to start up. You may be out of hard drive space.” But i have a lot of space (>20GB). how can i fix this?
i want to mention i tried to manualy create the “system32″ folder in the windows dierctory, but it didn’t helped me.
thank you for any advise.
regards
Nice page.. had a few problems, and this page had a few more hints that i didnt know.
Didnt solve my problem though..
Problem being that the game loads ok, even though i cant see portrait or anything when i have logged in, but pressing “enter world” starts the game, and it sort of runs for a minute and then crashes.
I expect its problems with the driver.
Currently using ATI’s driver for my radeon 9800 card.
regards
hi i need to install world of warcraft online can you help me?
I ran War craft ||| , but the graphics suck …. plus its too slow :S … i have ATI radeon
VGA card … any clue ?
I am trying to install WOW on my Laptop. I already installed the latest version of wine unto my pc. However when i put in the WOW DVD and copy all the files over to my desktop i do not see the installer.exe file. In fact even when i mount the DVD and browse into the folder and turn on “show hidden files”, there is no installer.exe file listed. What am i supposed to do? WOW is the only reason why i have not yet switched over fully from microsoft to linux. Please help.
I have a new laptop and want to get WoW working. It is a Dell Latitude D630 with Intel 965 express chipset video. I have loaded Ubuntu Hardy Heron. The standard Ubuntu screens look great. The WoW opening screen is mostly dark and I can’t see the toons in the character select screen. In the game there is no color, just gray ghosts of my characters and mountains. Anyone have an idea of the problem other than the driver is not working? Anyone have a fix?
It worked, then blizzard patched now it doesn’t, ubuntu has issues with the 3d acceleration with wow causing the graphics to run poorly, not load, ect…
To YankeeFan, don’t know if you figrued this out yet but to see the files on the DVD you have to ummount the DVD and then run this command from a terminal:
$ mount -t auto -o loop,unhide /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom
changing your mount points as appropriate.
Great post!
umm, i have installed WOW on my computer perfectly and when i go to start it, it gives me a WoW critical error. Anyone know how to fix this?
can i play wow on a old pc
can you tell me fast i relly dont wunt to buy it if i cant play it is a warst of money
Do i need to install WoW? Cause i have it
installed already.Tried to run it,it ran but
with 10 fps (and i had 50-60 on XP) and with
flashing screen.
@Dylan depending on ur pc configuration,tell me what u have and i will tell u if u can run WoW(and WoW:TBC).
Then press alt+f2 and try to open installer.exe.
Show this:
-Sorry, the installer was unable to start up-
No installer data could be found. If this problem persists, please contact Blizzard Technical Support.
sorry for my english
Okay, so, I did everything in this tutorial without a problem until I came to the part with the configuration file.
I’m sorry, but I just don’t get it!
When I open up the file, there’s nothing in it, and if I add the lines and try to save, I get an error message.
Please help me! I’m running 8.04 Ubuntu Hardy Heron, so it should be a pretty simple fix. I hope.
Okay, nevermind. I just realized this tutorial is for Ubuntu 5.10 / 6.06.1 / 6.10
Wow. I’m sorry.
:]
Ok my problem is: When i want to start WoW It Says Critical Error ……
In xubuntu it worked but now i have ubuntu and it dont work
Pls For what it doing? i want play WoW
deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt edgy main (Edgy Systems)
deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt dapper main (Dapper Systems)
deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt breezy main (Breezy Systems)
I dont give this to console can be it by this?
I already have Wine but i get it from synaptic and no from console commands
i would like to play the game
I made it work but no sound and low fps, I guess opengl is causing that.
There is no way to run it in Direct3D?
yeah well i’m not done installin and i’m no tech man myself but a good way to find your “path/to/warcraft/installation/destination” is to find your Installer file wherever it may be…. **go to (Places & search files) to find your “Installer file” when you find it right click on it go to properties and under Name it says Type: .. .. . Type is your file destination or your path/to/warcraft/installation .. and no disrespect to the tech support guys i know that shit can be overwhelming after telling the 4th person in one day that you cant use your feet to control the mouse…you just might wanna shoot somebody….n’ways PEACE!!
oh yeah i meant ( Installer exe. ) file
NOT your Installer file…
word!
Or you can just transfer WoW from a computer that already has the client installed and put on your machine. It’ll work fine because its not installed on the registry and go from there.
,
Hope that helps all you lazy people
Teh1337Feet
my friend has treid installing it but when he gets to about 98 or 99% it says
the file c:\program files\world of warcraft\data\common.mpq:creature\pitlord\pitlord_mat_a.blp could not be written. if this problem persists, please contact blizzard technical support. (mpqtarget:: dompqcopy)
does anyone what this means and how to fix it
the graphic “error” here its the only reason i have not to quit windows xp…. if i have the priority ubunto drivers, the game will run at 5fps… with the EnvyNG driver the graphics come all fuzzy … why? is it cause i got an ATI? i read somewhere that ATI is not that good for linux sistems…
using:
kubunto
a9550 ATI with envy drivers
(also tried wow and ET on ubunto on both ways, with and without envyng and wow was always giving that fuzzy error, and ET was really really crappy…. in kubunto ET is working ok…)
hope it works
@ joe, you probably have a scratched disk, the only reason you would get this error is faulty installation media.
alright folks for some of you i have the fix for the others im still getting the error message once i get past the video but the fix for alot of the problems is on wowwiki.com/troubleshooting_wine i had it up and running perfectly one time and it was only for a day so yeah still working on this will update once i do.
I got still that "you may be out of space…"
I had problems with the audio and WoW started but it was all black so what i did was. i have installed ubuntu on just 15
gigabit of space and wow is to big for it so what i did to get wow working was using my REAL local hard drive instead of
copying the wow dics.
1. in terminal i write : wine /media/disk/program/worldofwarcraft/WoW.exe -opengl
try renaming the folder and use the opengl function happy gaming!
my folder for wow is now worldofwarcraft becouse when i used spaces ubuntu didnt find it
2. changed the audio driver as above and it works fine
Gay post lol! If you really want to play wow that's cool and all. But play in on mac or windows. Linux is a very stable OS. BUT it's not meant for gaming. Anyway…Wine is really sucky. Had alot of issues with it.
Anyway…if it works…see you on the battlegrounds….
I downloaded the 10 day trial for WoW, and have done a bit of online research but still doesn’t work. I have enabled it to ply through wine in properties menu, but when you get that screen with the torch light type deal(just like on normaql windows for Wow), there is a giant black box on the cscreen. occasionally, when starting wow, I lose all controll of the moyse, it doesnt appear and no menu comes up with right click).Another thibg that might help, I used the official website to donload trial, but no icon appeared on desktop. where i ACCESS IT IS ; APPLICATIONS – wINE – BROWSE c DRIVE, THEN “PROGRAM FILES”,{THE FILE ADDRESS IS /archi/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/World of Warcraft Trial> THEN wORLD OF WARCRAFT TRIAL, THEN A BUNCH OF FOLDEERS AND SUCH APPEAR /home/archi/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/World of Warcraft Trial/Data
/home/archi/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/World of Warcraft Trial/Errors
/home/archi/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/World of Warcraft Trial/Logs
/home/archi/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/World of Warcraft Trial/WDB
/home/archi/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/World of Warcraft Trial/WTF
/home/archi/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/World of Warcraft Trial/BackgroundDownloader.exe
/home/archi/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/World of Warcraft Trial/Battle.net.dll
/home/archi/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/World of Warcraft Trial/dbghelp.dll
/home/archi/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/World of Warcraft Trial/DivxDecoder.dll
/home/archi/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/World of Warcraft Trial/ijl15.dll
/home/archi/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/World of Warcraft Trial/Launcher.exe
/home/archi/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/World of Warcraft Trial/Microsoft.VC80.CRT.manifest
/home/archi/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/World of Warcraft Trial/msvcr80.dll
/home/archi/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/World of Warcraft Trial/unicows.dll
/home/archi/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/World of Warcraft Trial/WoW.exe
/home/archi/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/World of Warcraft Trial/WoW.mfil
/home/archi/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files/World of Warcraft Trial/WowError.exe</home
HAVE TRIED wOW.EXE AND LAUNCHER.EXE SCREEN COMES UP. i THEN AM ABLE TO CLICK PLAY, WHICH THEN GIVES ME AFOREMENTIONED SCREEN WITH BLACK OX, iT SHOULD BE CHARACTER CREATION BUT
WITH wOW.EXE , THE BLUE WINE SCREEN COMES UP AND i LOSE THE MOUSE. i GET IT BACK BY HOLDING ECS AND CLICKING THE :"X" BUTTON.
WITH LAUNCHER EXE THE BLUE WINE WINDOW COMES UP AND THEN AN ERROR MESSAGE ABOUT INVALID PARAMETERS, WHICH APPEARS AGAIN WITHIN 5 SECS, LEAVING TWO OF THE SAME ERROR MESSAGES. WITHIN 10 SECS, THE WOW
wine path/to/warcraft/installation/WoW.exe