Linux Support

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Revision as of 09:59, 14 February 2023 by Maoijoon (talk | contribs) (Add NSS to dependency table; not pre-installed on ChromeOS terminal, and current launcher needs it to open)
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Linux support in Flashpoint is currently experimental due to a lack of maintainers. This page describes the current state of our Linux support. If you need assistance with installing or playing, visit us at #flashpoint-mac-linux-help.

As it stands, the Docker version of Flashpoint for Linux supports Flash, HTML5, Shockwave, Unity and Java. The exceptions are content that uses the Chromium browser, and Shockwave content that plays in-browser. If you want support for the other platforms that are Windows-exclusive, there are a few options to get the Windows version of Flashpoint running on Linux:

  • Download the Windows version of Flashpoint and run it in a Windows virtual machine. This is the recommended non-native option.
  • Run the Windows version of Flashpoint with Wine. This works well on some computers, but does not work consistently.

Otherwise, download the latest Docker Flashpoint package and install it.

Manual Installation

Dependencies

First, install Flashpoint's dependencies.

Dependency package names on various distros
Library/command name Docker PulseAudio* X11** XHost NSS PHP bash
Debian-likea (see this page) pulseaudio xserver-xorg-core x11-xserver-utils libnss3 php bash
Ubuntu-likeb (see this page) pulseaudio xserver-xorg-core x11-xserver-utils libnss3 php bash
Fedora-like (see this page) pulseaudio xorg-x11-server-Xorg xhost nss php bash
Arch-likec docker pulseaudio xorg-server xorg-xhost nss php bash

a : E.g. ChromeOS Terminal, MX Linux | b : E.g. Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, Zorin OS | c : E.g. Manjaro, SteamOS >=3.0

Note: Chances are that Docker and PHP will be the only packages that you'll need to install, as most distributions come with the rest of the packages already pre-installed.

* : PipeWire can also be used in place of PulseAudio by installing the pipewire-pulse package on Ubuntu-like and Arch-like distros, or pipewire-pulseaudio on Fedora-like distros. For Debian-like distros, see this link.

** : X11 can also be used within Wayland by installing the xwayland package on Debian-like and Ubuntu-like distros, xorg-x11-server-Xwayland on Fedora-like distros, or xorg-xwayland on Arch-like distros.


To install them, use your distro's package manager:

Distro Package manager install command
Debian-like sudo apt-get install {PACKAGE}
Ubuntu-like sudo apt-get install {PACKAGE}
Fedora-like sudo dnf install {PACKAGE}
Fedora-like (old) sudo yum install {PACKAGE}
Arch-like sudo pacman -S {PACKAGE}

Installation

Before you start, you need to configure Docker to be managed by a non-root user, then reboot your computer.

If you have an Nvidia GPU and use a distro that isn't Arch-like, you will need to add Nvidia's repository and install the nvidia-docker2 package. Follow the "Setting up NVIDIA Container Toolkit" instructions under the heading corresponding to your distro here. If you use an Arch-like distro, install either nvidia-container-toolkit or nvidia-docker from the AUR if you did or didn't already install Docker respectively.

Then, download the latest Docker Flashpoint package if you haven't already and extract it somewhere.

Go to the place where you extracted it, and pull the docker images by running ./pull.sh. They'll take ~3.5 GB.

Finally, run the ./flashpoint executable script to start the launcher.


Config files can be found in ./LinuxConf/ and ./FPSoftware/FSPConfigs/.

Save data is stored in ./SaveData. Java save data isn't persistent, because there's no standardized location for it.

Troubleshooting

proxy.sh: "Permission denied" error

Depending on your system's permissions, the proxy.sh script may throw a "permission denied" error in the launcher logs when launching a game, causing it to fail to start. To fix this, follow these steps:

  1. Close the Flashpoint launcher.
  2. Open ./LinuxConf/proxy.sh in a text editor.
  3. Change /var/lock/flashpoint-networking.lock to /tmp/flashpoint-networking.lock and save the file.
  4. Relaunch Flashpoint.

cgroup subsystem devices not found: unknown

This error occurs most frequently on Pop!_OS 22.04, due to an outdated version of the Nvidia container runtime being packaged in the default repositories. If this applies to you, follow these steps:

  1. Close the Flashpoint launcher and stop the Docker service.
  2. Remove your current nvidia-docker2 package, then remove its dependencies and configuration files by typing sudo apt-get autoremove --purge in the terminal.
  3. Create a text file in /etc/apt/preferences.d with the following contents:
Package: *
Pin: origin nvidia.github.io
Pin-Priority: 1002

Then save the file, reinstall the package, start the Docker service again, and relaunch Flashpoint.

Technologies

Flashpoint Infinity, like its Windows counterpart, uses router.php as a proxy server. But unlike Windows, Linux provides native ways to set per-application proxy settings, so no equivalent to the Flashpoint Proxy library is used. On Linux, each application is simply told via environment variables to use localhost:22500 as a proxy server. For example, before Flashpoint Launcher opens the Flash projector, it sets the http_proxy environment variable to http://localhost:22500/ in the docker container.

The Flashpoint FAQ contains a list of all web game technologies ("Platforms") supported in the Windows version of Flashpoint. The Linux version currently supports a subset of these platforms. This is explained in detail below.

Supported Platforms

  • Flash: Supported through Wine by default. Although a Linux Flash Projector exists, it suffers from graphical glitches on many systems. If you'd like to try your luck with the native projector, then tick it as a 'Native Platform' on the Config page.
  • Shockwave: Supported through Wine.
  • HTML5: Supported natively through the Basilisk browser.
  • Java Applets: Supported natively using the Oracle JDK.
  • Unity Web Player: Supported through Pipelight.