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!

Access Desktop Mode
1. Press the Steam Button
2. Navigate to "Power"
3. Select "Switch to Desktop"
Use Discover to download an Internet Browser
1. Discover has a shopping bag style icon
Use the internet browser to download the installer from https://www.everquestlegends.com/home
Locate the downloaded eqlegends_setup.exe file.
1. Open up "Dolphin" to browse your files.
2. Navigate to "Downloads".
3. 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
1. Right click (Steam Deck: L2) and select 'Properties'.
2. Locate 'Compatibility'.
3. Check 'Force use of specific Steam Play compatibility tool.
4. Choose your latest version of Proton, Proton Experimental.
5. Alternate: Use Discovery to find 'GE-Proton' and install, then select GE-Proton instead.
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.
Once installed, locate LaunchPad.exe in the installed folder, right click (Steam Deck: L2) and select 'Add to Steam'.
1. Navigate (using Dolphin) to "/home/deck/.steam/steamapps/compatdata", and find the folder with the highest number (the most recent install).
2. Navigate from there to "pfx/drive_c/users/Public/Daybreak Game Company/Installed Games/"
3. 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"
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 your latest version of Proton, Proton Experimental.
5. Alternate: Use Discovery to find 'GE-Proton' and install, then select GE-Proton instead
Run LaunchPad.exe from Steam.
Log in and allow patcher to download files.
Once completed, hit 'Play'.
At this point you may close Launchpad (Steam Deck: Hit Steam Button to change windows, and you may close Launchpad from here.)

Enjoy! On Steam Deck you may now return to Gaming Mode and run the game outside of Desktop Mode!

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

Create a directory to store related files and configurations for EQL
1. mkdir ~/wine
2. mkdir ~/wine/EverQuest-Legends
Use winecfg to initialize the directory
1. WINEPREFIX=~/wine/EverQuest-Legends/ winecfg
Download the EverQuest Legends installer executable. For this walkthrough, we'll say it was saved at /home/user1/EQLegends_setup.exe
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
Run the EQL installer in our Wine directory
1. WINEPREFIX=~/wine/EverQuest-Legends/ wine /home/user1/EQLegends_setup.exe
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
(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

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
Use Fluidsynth to load the MIDI pack
1. /usr/bin/fluidsynth -is -a pipewire "/path/to/downloaded/file/SC-55 Roland SOUNDCanvas Up.sf2"
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.