Jump to content

Linux Setup Guide: Difference between revisions

From EverQuest Legends Wiki
← Older editNewer edit →
StackTrace (talk | contribs)
16 edits
VisualWikitext
X0rdave (talk | contribs)
11 edits
No edit summary
Cleaned up the Steam Deck setup section, based on my Reddit guide, and a wonderful MIDI guide by Trov
Line 36: Line 36:
# Use Discover to download an Internet Browser
# Use Discover to download an Internet Browser
## Discover has a shopping bag style icon
## Discover has a shopping bag style icon
# Use the internet browser to download the installer from https://www.everquestlegends.com/home
# Use the internet browser to download the installer from https://www.everquestlegends.com/shop, find the “Download the game” link
# Locate the downloaded '''eqlegends_setup.exe''' file.
# Locate the downloaded '''EQLegends_setup.exe''' file.
## Open up "Dolphin" to browse your files.
## Open up "Dolphin" (blue folder) to browse your files.
## Navigate to "Downloads".
## Navigate to "Downloads".
## Right click (Steam Deck: L2) and select 'Add to Steam'.
## Right click (Steam Deck: L2) and select 'Add to Steam'.
# In Steam (DO NOT RETURN TO GAMING MODE!), locate '''eqlegends_setup.exe''' in your games library
# Open Steam in desktop mode (DO NOT RETURN TO GAMING MODE!), locate '''EQLegends_setup.exe''' in your games library
## Right click (Steam Deck: L2) and select 'Properties'.
## Right click (Steam Deck: L2) and select 'Properties'.
## Locate 'Compatibility'.
## Locate 'Compatibility'.
## Check 'Force use of specific Steam Play compatibility tool.
## Check 'Force use of specific Steam Play compatibility tool.
## Choose your latest version of Proton, Proton Experimental.
## Choose Proton Experimental. You may need to select it a few times for it to work.
## Alternate: Use Discovery to find 'GE-Proton' and install, then select GE-Proton instead.
# Run '''EQLegends_setup.exe''' (the installer) from Steam.  
# Run '''eqlegends_setup.exe''' (the installer) from Steam.  
## For ease of this guide, allow the EverQuest Legends installer to use the default installation location. (advanced users may change this if you want to)
## For ease of this guide, allow the EverQuest Legends installer to use the default installation location. (advanced users may change this if you want to)
## Take note of the location, as Proton will virtualize a Windows (x86) installation, and you must follow the file path for the next step.
## Take note of the location, as Proton will virtualize a Windows (x86) installation, and you must follow the file path for the next step.
## If the launcher opens automatically, close it.
# Once installed, locate '''LaunchPad.exe''' in the installed folder, right click (Steam Deck: L2) and select 'Add to Steam'.  
# Once installed, locate '''LaunchPad.exe''' in the installed folder, right click (Steam Deck: L2) and select 'Add to Steam'.  
## Navigate (using Dolphin) to "/home/deck/.steam/steamapps/compatdata", and find the folder with the highest number (the most recent install).
## Open the dolphin file explorer (looks like a big blue folder)
## Navigate from there to "pfx/drive_c/users/Public/Daybreak Game Company/Installed Games/"
## Tap on “home” under “places”
## Example: Highest number in compatdata was "3195374958", so the Install path will be at "/home/deck/.steam/steamapps/compatdata/3195374958/pfx/drive_c/users/Public/Daybreak Game Company/Installed Games/EverQuest Legends"
## If you don’t see “.local” as a folder, then click on the hamburger icon (3 lines) in the top right and click on “show hidden files”
## Keep navigating down to /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata
## Click on the magnifying glass in the top right corner. Make sure that the option “from here (compatdata)” is selected.  
## Search for “LaunchPad.exe”
## There should only be one with the daybreak logo (Red background, yellow eye). If not, look at the path value - it should contain the word “EverQuest Legends” somewhere.
## Click on the correct LaunchPad.exe once, then right click and select “Add to Steam”
## Close the file explorer window
# In Steam, locate '''LaunchPad.exe''' in your games library.  
# In Steam, locate '''LaunchPad.exe''' in your games library.  
## Select and click 'Properties'.
## Select and click 'Properties'.
## Locate 'Compatibility'.
## Locate 'Compatibility'.
## Check 'Force use of specific Steam Play comptiibility tool.
## Check 'Force use of specific Steam Play comptiibility tool.
## Choose your latest version of Proton, Proton Experimental.
## Choose Proton Experimental. You may need to select it a few times for it to work.
## Alternate: Use Discovery to find 'GE-Proton' and install, then select GE-Proton instead
## Select “Shortcut”, change the name (the top input bar) from “LaunchPad.exe” to “EverQuest Legends”
## Close the properties window
# In your game library, search for “EQLegends_setup.exe” again.
# Click on the gear, select “manage” and select “remove non-Steam game from your library.
## Do this just so you can keep your steam library tidy - the installer won’t be needed again, since you installed the game and will open it using just the launcher.
# Run '''LaunchPad.exe''' from Steam.  
# Run '''LaunchPad.exe''' from Steam.  
# Log in and allow patcher to download files.  
# Log in and allow patcher to download files.  
# Once completed, hit 'Play'.  
# Once completed, hit 'Play'.  
# Make sure you can get to the character select screen
# Log out of the game
# At this point you may close Launchpad (Steam Deck: Hit Steam Button to change windows, and you may close Launchpad from here.)
# At this point you may close Launchpad (Steam Deck: Hit Steam Button to change windows, and you may close Launchpad from here.)
# If you don't want MIDI music, you're done and can return to Gaming mode by opening the shortcut on the desktop. If you do want MIDI music, DO NOT RETURN TO GAMING MODE and continue on to the next section


Enjoy! On Steam Deck you may now return to Gaming Mode and run the game outside of Desktop Mode!
=== MIDI Music (Optional) ===
EverQuest has some great MIDI music that a lot of us have nostalgia for. In order to get the music working on Steam Deck, you will need to do some additional steps
# Download the SC-55 Roland SOUNDCanvas Up MIDI pack from the 500 SOundfonts General MIDI set on Archive.org.
## Link to the full MIDI set: https://archive.org/details/500-soundfonts-full-gm-sets
## Direct link to the specific file: https://archive.org/download/500-soundfonts-full-gm-sets/500_Soundfonts_Full_GM_Sets.zip/SC-55%20Roland%20SOUNDCanvas%20Up.sf2
## Note the path where you saved the file "SC-55 Roland SOUNDCanvas Up.sf2", it will be used in the next step
# Download QSynth through Dolphin
## Note it might take a long time to download - be patient!
# Open QSynth. In the far left, set the Master Gain Input to "20"
# Click "Setup" in the bottom right. Go to the Audio tab, and change "Audio Driver" to "alsa"
# Go to "Soundfonts" tab. Click "open". Browse to the soundfont "SC-55 Roland SOUNDCanvas Up.sf2" you downloaded. Click on it and select "Open".
# Click "Ok". It will ask you to restart the engine - click "Yes"
# Click on "Options" button on the far right of the QSynth panel
# Check "Enable system tray icon" and "Start minimized to system tray"
# Click "Ok"
# Do a quick test. Leave QSynth running, and open steam, and then play EQL in desktop mode
## Note that if your game opens in a smaller window and you're having trouble clicking things, right click the EQL application in the task bar, select more > full screen
# If you hear that sweet, sweet EQL loading screen music, you'll know it worked.
# Exit out of EQL
# Close QSynth. Right click the orange drop on the far right of your task bar, and select "Quit" and then "Ok"
# Return to Steam. Navigate to EverQuest Legends
# Click on the gear icon, and click "Properties"
# In the "Launch Options" input box, put the following: <code>LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libcurl.so.4 flatpak run org.rncbc.qsynth & %command% ; killall -9 qsynth</code>
# Close the properties window
# Exit out of desktop mode, and return to gaming mode.
# Navigate to EverQuest Legends, and run it. If you hear that sweet loading music again, you're all set!
 
=== Acknowlegements ===
This guide was made with the help of the following sources:
 
* https://www.reddit.com/r/EQLegends/comments/1ujh3ae/steam_deck_install_guide_need_some_testers_before/
* https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2809933598


== Wine ==
== Wine ==

Revision as of 01:02, 2 July 2026

DISCLAIMER: Linux is not officially supported by the Developer of EverQuest Legends (EQL). Any modifications related to your Linux environment to get EQL working properly should be taken at your own risk. This guide is simply here to help document what is known to have worked for other EQL players. Results may vary wildly based on differing hardware, Linux Distribution and Version, and middleware used to run EQL.

Introduction

Linux gaming support has come an extremely long way in the past 5 years thanks to the Proton compatibility layer. Due to this, a lot of gamers are moving over to Linux for gaming, especially as Windows starts adding features that slow down the gaming experience or make it worse or more frustrating. Whatever your reason may be, getting Windows games such as EverQuest Legends running on Linux has never been easier! It still requires more steps that it would on Windows, but this is increasingly becoming easier.

The guidance here is a work in progress!

If you are encountering any issues, please check the Common Issues section near the bottom of this article for a potential fix.

If you get EQL working on Linux via a different method not currently documented, please consider contributing!

Bottles

Bottles is a graphical application intended to simplify Wine setup by automating installation of Wine runners, dependencies, and compatibility layers.

TO DO: This section needs additional details regarding how to get EQL working with Bottles.

Lutris

Lutris is an open source video game preservation platform providing emulators, compatibility layers, and game engine re-implementations, targeting support for Linux.

Lutris Install Scripts are typically maintained on the Lutris website. As of July 1st, 2026 there is a script available on the EverQuest game listing here: https://lutris.net/games/everquest/ Here is a direct link to the install script source code: https://lutris.net/games/install/39924/view


SteamOS / Steam Deck

NOTE: Steam Deck users must access Desktop Mode through use of the Steam Button to follow these steps. As EverQuest has official Proton support, this method is the same method used to originally install EverQuest before the simplified Steam version was released.

All steps can be performed via touch screen, virtual mouse, and virtual keyboard (Steam Button + X by default). Use of a mouse and keyboard is suggested but not required.

Do not be intimidated by the number of steps, these have been broken down into very small steps!

  1. Access Desktop Mode
    1. Press the Steam Button
    2. Navigate to "Power"
    3. Select "Switch to Desktop"
  2. Use Discover to download an Internet Browser
    1. Discover has a shopping bag style icon
  3. Use the internet browser to download the installer from https://www.everquestlegends.com/shop, find the “Download the game” link
  4. Locate the downloaded EQLegends_setup.exe file.
    1. Open up "Dolphin" (blue folder) to browse your files.
    2. Navigate to "Downloads".
    3. Right click (Steam Deck: L2) and select 'Add to Steam'.
  5. Open Steam in desktop mode (DO NOT RETURN TO GAMING MODE!), locate EQLegends_setup.exe in your games library
    1. Right click (Steam Deck: L2) and select 'Properties'.
    2. Locate 'Compatibility'.
    3. Check 'Force use of specific Steam Play compatibility tool.
    4. Choose Proton Experimental. You may need to select it a few times for it to work.
  6. Run EQLegends_setup.exe (the installer) from Steam.
    1. For ease of this guide, allow the EverQuest Legends installer to use the default installation location. (advanced users may change this if you want to)
    2. Take note of the location, as Proton will virtualize a Windows (x86) installation, and you must follow the file path for the next step.
    3. If the launcher opens automatically, close it.
  7. Once installed, locate LaunchPad.exe in the installed folder, right click (Steam Deck: L2) and select 'Add to Steam'.
    1. Open the dolphin file explorer (looks like a big blue folder)
    2. Tap on “home” under “places”
    3. If you don’t see “.local” as a folder, then click on the hamburger icon (3 lines) in the top right and click on “show hidden files”
    4. Keep navigating down to /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata
    5. Click on the magnifying glass in the top right corner. Make sure that the option “from here (compatdata)” is selected.
    6. Search for “LaunchPad.exe”
    7. There should only be one with the daybreak logo (Red background, yellow eye). If not, look at the path value - it should contain the word “EverQuest Legends” somewhere.
    8. Click on the correct LaunchPad.exe once, then right click and select “Add to Steam”
    9. Close the file explorer window
  8. In Steam, locate LaunchPad.exe in your games library.
    1. Select and click 'Properties'.
    2. Locate 'Compatibility'.
    3. Check 'Force use of specific Steam Play comptiibility tool.
    4. Choose Proton Experimental. You may need to select it a few times for it to work.
    5. Select “Shortcut”, change the name (the top input bar) from “LaunchPad.exe” to “EverQuest Legends”
    6. Close the properties window
  9. In your game library, search for “EQLegends_setup.exe” again.
  10. Click on the gear, select “manage” and select “remove non-Steam game from your library.
    1. Do this just so you can keep your steam library tidy - the installer won’t be needed again, since you installed the game and will open it using just the launcher.
  11. Run LaunchPad.exe from Steam.
  12. Log in and allow patcher to download files.
  13. Once completed, hit 'Play'.
  14. Make sure you can get to the character select screen
  15. Log out of the game
  16. At this point you may close Launchpad (Steam Deck: Hit Steam Button to change windows, and you may close Launchpad from here.)
  17. If you don't want MIDI music, you're done and can return to Gaming mode by opening the shortcut on the desktop. If you do want MIDI music, DO NOT RETURN TO GAMING MODE and continue on to the next section

MIDI Music (Optional)

EverQuest has some great MIDI music that a lot of us have nostalgia for. In order to get the music working on Steam Deck, you will need to do some additional steps

  1. Download the SC-55 Roland SOUNDCanvas Up MIDI pack from the 500 SOundfonts General MIDI set on Archive.org.
    1. Link to the full MIDI set: https://archive.org/details/500-soundfonts-full-gm-sets
    2. Direct link to the specific file: https://archive.org/download/500-soundfonts-full-gm-sets/500_Soundfonts_Full_GM_Sets.zip/SC-55%20Roland%20SOUNDCanvas%20Up.sf2
    3. Note the path where you saved the file "SC-55 Roland SOUNDCanvas Up.sf2", it will be used in the next step
  2. Download QSynth through Dolphin
    1. Note it might take a long time to download - be patient!
  3. Open QSynth. In the far left, set the Master Gain Input to "20"
  4. Click "Setup" in the bottom right. Go to the Audio tab, and change "Audio Driver" to "alsa"
  5. Go to "Soundfonts" tab. Click "open". Browse to the soundfont "SC-55 Roland SOUNDCanvas Up.sf2" you downloaded. Click on it and select "Open".
  6. Click "Ok". It will ask you to restart the engine - click "Yes"
  7. Click on "Options" button on the far right of the QSynth panel
  8. Check "Enable system tray icon" and "Start minimized to system tray"
  9. Click "Ok"
  10. Do a quick test. Leave QSynth running, and open steam, and then play EQL in desktop mode
    1. Note that if your game opens in a smaller window and you're having trouble clicking things, right click the EQL application in the task bar, select more > full screen
  11. If you hear that sweet, sweet EQL loading screen music, you'll know it worked.
  12. Exit out of EQL
  13. Close QSynth. Right click the orange drop on the far right of your task bar, and select "Quit" and then "Ok"
  14. Return to Steam. Navigate to EverQuest Legends
  15. Click on the gear icon, and click "Properties"
  16. In the "Launch Options" input box, put the following: LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libcurl.so.4 flatpak run org.rncbc.qsynth & %command% ; killall -9 qsynth
  17. Close the properties window
  18. Exit out of desktop mode, and return to gaming mode.
  19. Navigate to EverQuest Legends, and run it. If you hear that sweet loading music again, you're all set!

Acknowlegements

This guide was made with the help of the following sources:

Wine

This section is hopefully a catchall for running EQL via Wine. Please consider documenting known working linux flavors / release to add to the body of knowledge here. You can find your release with "cat /etc/os-release/" and your wine version by running "wine --version"

Known Working Environments
Flavor Release / Version Wine Version Added / Updated
Kubuntu 26.04 LTS wine-10.0 (Ubuntu 10.0~repack-12ubuntu1) July 1st, 2026

The following steps were used to setup EverQuest Legends with Wine in Kubuntu

  1. Create a directory to store related files and configurations for EQL
    1. mkdir ~/wine
    2. mkdir ~/wine/EverQuest-Legends
  2. Use winecfg to initialize the directory
    1. WINEPREFIX=~/wine/EverQuest-Legends/ winecfg
  3. Download the EverQuest Legends installer executable. For this walkthrough, we'll say it was saved at /home/user1/EQLegends_setup.exe
  4. Use winetricks to add a few supporting packages. Note, these were suggested from some threads on regular EverQuest.
    1. WINEPREFIX=~/wine/EverQuest-Legends/ winetricks d3dx9
    2. WINEPREFIX=~/wine/EverQuest-Legends/ winetricks vcrun2022
    3. WINEPREFIX=~/wine/EverQuest-Legends/ winetricks d3dx11_43
  5. Run the EQL installer in our Wine directory
    1. WINEPREFIX=~/wine/EverQuest-Legends/ wine /home/user1/EQLegends_setup.exe
  6. Once it's done installing, you can run the LaunchPad directly. Feel free to cancel and test this.
    1. WINEPREFIX=~/wine/EverQuest-Legends/ wine-stable C:\\\\users\\\\Public\\\\Daybreak\\ Game\\ Company\\\\Installed\\ Games\\\\EverQuest\\ Legends\\\\LaunchPad.exe
  7. (Optional) Create a Desktop Shortcut to make launching easier
    1. nano ~/.local/share/applications/EverQuest-Legends.desktop
    2. Use the following config
      1. [Desktop Entry]
      2. Name=EverQuest Legends
      3. Exec=env WINEPREFIX="/home/user1/wine/EverQuest-Legends" wine-stable C:\\\\users\\\\Public\\\\Daybreak\\ Game\\ Company\\\\Installed\\ Games\\\\EverQuest\\ Legends\\\\LaunchPad.exe
      4. Type=Application
      5. StartupNotify=true
      6. Path=/home/user1/wine/EverQuest-Legends/dosdevices/c:/users/Public/Daybreak Game Company/Installed Games/EverQuest Legends
      7. Icon=FF36_LaunchPad.0
      8. StartupWMClass=launchpad.exe

Common Issues

This section is meant to document common issues people have encountered when trying to get EQL running on Linux, and the fixes they found to resolve those issues.

No Audio / No Combat Music

When running EQL via Proton and not hearing sounds like Combat Music, a potential fix is to manually download a MIDI pack and use the Fluidsynth MIDI synthesizer to load the sounds for EQL to use

  1. Download the SC-55 Roland SOUNDCanvas Up MIDI pack from the 500 SOundfonts General MIDI set on Archive.org.
    1. Link to the full MIDI set: https://archive.org/details/500-soundfonts-full-gm-sets
    2. Direct link to the specific file: https://archive.org/download/500-soundfonts-full-gm-sets/500_Soundfonts_Full_GM_Sets.zip/SC-55%20Roland%20SOUNDCanvas%20Up.sf2
    3. Note the path where you saved the file "SC-55 Roland SOUNDCanvas Up.sf2", it will be used in the next step
  2. Use Fluidsynth to load the MIDI pack
    1. /usr/bin/fluidsynth -is -a pipewire "/path/to/downloaded/file/SC-55 Roland SOUNDCanvas Up.sf2"
  3. Launch EQL

Character Models Are White / Not Rendering

  • Lutris: This issue was noted when running via Lutris. So far the known resolution is to remove and re-run the Lutris script. This appears to be an issue during install.
  • Bottles: This issue was noted when running via Bottles. The noted fix was to switch the runner to ge-proton9-20.
Retrieved from "https://eqlwiki.com/index.php?title=Linux_Setup_Guide&oldid=153651"