Whenever we talk about playing game, Minecraft is always on the top of the list. There are millions of people playing Minecraft every single day. It’s no different that many Linux users would like to play this game on their current system. Most of the time, Minecraft is played on Windows. However, thanks to Minecraft devs, players can easily enjoy this super-hit game right on the Linux system. Minecraft is available as Java app that can run on all the Linux distros.
Minecraft isn’t free-to-play. You have to purchase a one-time license key for enjoying the game lifelong. Buy Minecraft.
Installing JRE
Before you proceed to downloading Minecraft, you have to use Oracle JRE, not the Open JRE one. That’s because Minecraft gets some problem with Open JRE. It’s directly from the devs of Minecraft.
Mojang is the developer and maintainer of this popular game. For having a trouble-free gameplay, Mojang recommends users to use Oracle JRE. I tried running with the Open JRE, but it threw some error with the starting process.
For installing Oracle JRE, follow the instructions according to your Linux distro.
- Ubuntu
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade -y sudo apt install oracle-java9-installer
- Debian
Edit the “sources.list”
sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list
Add the following lines at the end of the file:
#Webupd8 deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/webupd8team/java/ubuntu trusty main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/webupd8team/java/ubuntu trusty main
Finally, install Oracle JRE:
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys EEA14886 sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install oracle-java9-installer sudo apt-get install oracle-java9-set-default echo oracle-java9-installer shared/accepted-oracle-license-v1-1 select true | sudo /usr/bin/debconf-set-selections
- Fedora
Download the RPM package of Oracle JRE.
Install the RPM package:
cd ~/Downloads sudo dnf install jre-8u171-linux-x64.rpm OR sudo dnf install jre-8u171-linux-i586.rpm
- OpenSUSE
Download the RPM package as before and install it:
cd ~/Downloads sudo zypper install jre-8u171-linux-x64.rpm OR sudo zypper install jre-8u171-linux-i586.rpm
- Arch Linux
Download from Arch AUR repository.
Downloading and Installing Minecraft
Now, everything is set and it’s time to start the installation of the game.
Go to the official Minecraft website and download the official Java (Linux) version of Minecraft.
Now, it’s time to setup Minecraft for easy access. Run the following commands for setting up a launch script. Note that before running these commands, move the JAR file from “~/Downloads” to “~/” directory.
mv ~/Downloads/Minecraft.jar ~/ echo '#!/bin/bash/' > ~/Minecraft/mc-launch.sh echo 'java -jar ~/Minecraft/Minecraft.jar' >> ~/Minecraft/mc-launch.sh chmod +x ~/Minecraft/mc-launch.sh
We’ll be using a nice Minecraft block icon for the shortcut icon.
cd ~/Minecraft/ wget https://i.imgur.com/6KbjiP3.png mv 6KbjiP3.png mc-icon.png
Create the shortcut:
touch ~/Desktop/minecraft.desktop sudo nano ~/Desktop/minecraft.desktop
Enter the following codes inside the shortcut:
[Desktop Entry] Name=Minecraft Exec=sh ~/Minecraft/mc-launch.sh Icon=~/Minecraft/mc-icon.png Terminal=false Type=Application
Update the shortcut file permission:
chmod +x ~/Desktop/minecraft.desktop
If you’re a Steam gamer, here’s a nice guide on taking backup of Steam games.
