Installing EVE on Linux

This page should be updated due to game changes.
Reason: Remove old references to solutions that are no longer relevant, update for new launcher, please add and improve, steam needs some love.

Options to run a client on Linux

New launcher

For the Steam and Lutris setup this page assumes Linux Mint 22.2. Everything might be a bit different in your specific distro, but the setups are always very similiar. You can easily play EVE on Steam. Lutris is a bit more work but doable. Both will start the EVE launcher.
Note: By default not all game files are downloaded and the client can download when it does not have the file/part. The launcher can download all files en cache them, update when needed and removes parts when no longer needed. This behaviour can be changed in the launcher and I recommend to do so to prevent any lag due to loading.

Steam (recommended)

• Install Steam through the software manager (any distro can use this guide https://www.linuxnest.com/install-steam-on-any-linux-distro-the-complete-2025-guide/)
• Open the steam app and Install EVE Online on Steam
• Right click EVE Online in steam and chose "Properties":
  • in General copy the following launcher options: PROTON_NO_ESYNC=1 PROTON_NO_FSYNC=1 LD_PRELOAD= %command%
  • in Compatibility check "Force the use of a specific Steam Play compability tool" and chose "Proton Experimental"
• Launch EVE Online in steam which then starts the EVE launcher
• Open the settings of the launcher (gear icon top right):
  • in EVE Launcher disable hardware acceleration
  • in EVE Online I suggest you chose "Download the full EVE game client"
  • in EVE Online select DirectX version "DirectX 11"

And you are all set. Easy, right?

By standard your settings will be in /home/$USER/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatadata/8500/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Local/CCP/EVE/c_ccp_eve_tq_tranquility/ and can manipulated the same as in windows.

Lutris

Lutris is a gaming platform for Linux. A setup with Lutris a bit more complex compared to steam but doable. It offers Wine builds that are pre-configured for specific games, and allows for a graphical installation of various games and applications. Those that are unable to roll their own wine prefix, or are weary on the process, may find this solution more viable.

Download eve-online-1.9.4+Setup.exe - stable EVE online excutable

Download eve-online-1.9.4-full.nupkg - EVE Online NUPKG

One should always be careful with executables but these are from ccp directly. Install Lutris via your package manager, and ProtonPlus. Start Lutris briefly so ProtonPlus knows about it and then start ProtonPlus and chose Lutris in the top left corner. Chose Proton-GE-latest as version and download it. Now back to Lutris:

Add a new game with the + sign:

• add locally installed game
• General Info
  • name the game EVE Online
  • chose runner "Wine (Runs Windows games)
• Game options
  • Game executeable: link the EVE Online executable we downloaded
  • Wine prefix: /home/$USER/Games/eve-online (where $USER is your user)
• Runner options
  • Wine version: Proton-GE-latest
  • uncheck Enable Esync
  • uncheck Enable Fsync
• System options
  • add enviroment variable with KEY: LD_PRELOAD, no value
• SAVE

Now start the newly created item in Lutris and it will start the launcher asking you where to install. CLOSE THAT INSTALLATION. DO NOT PROCEED.

Instead, after closing right click the EVE item in Lutris and chose configure.

Set a new path for the executable in game options: /home/$USER/Games/eve-online/drive_c/users/$USER/AppData/local/eve-online/eve-online.exe (where $USER is your user)

Unpack the NUPKG into a folder. Create the folder /home/$USER/Documents/EveLauncher/ and copy the content of nupkg/lib/net45 to it.

Create the following bash script as /home/$USER/Documents/eve-prelaunch.sh

#!/bin/bash
SOURCE="$HOME/Documents/EveLauncher"
TARGET="$HOME/Games/eve-online/drive_c/users/$USER/AppData/Local/eve-online"
GOODVER="app-1.9.4"
ls -d  $TARGET/app-* | xargs rm -rf
cp -R "$SOURCE" "$TARGET/$GOODVER"
cp "$SOURCE/eve-online_ExecutionStub.exe" "$TARGET/eve-online.exe"

This can be done by copying the above into any text editor and save as the filename given above. Make sure the target line in here actually points to your prefix location.

Right click the .sh file and in the properties chose

• permissions
  • check run as executable

Back to Lutris. Right click and configure the EVE item. In system options turn on advaned mode. Scroll down to the prelaunch script and enter the /home/$USER/Documents/eve-prelaunch.sh we created. Enable wait for pre-launch script completion. Save.

Pheewww. Done!

You now be able to start the EVE launcher with the Lutris item created.

Open the settings of the launcher (gear icon top right):

• in EVE Launcher disable hardware acceleration
• in EVE Online I suggest you chose "Download the full EVE game client"
• in EVE Online select DirectX version "DirectX 11"

Credit to cloroken who also made a very recent video guide

Discord Server: EVE on Linux

Join the growing community that plays on Linux. You can find specific help there easily.

https://discord.com/invite/eKMEVeC7SQ

Roll your own

It is certainly doable and fun to get an installer, launcher & client to run with just the parts and get it to run, if you are so inclined please link your experience here.

Play EVE Online on Arch Linux with WineHQ

Common issues and solutions

Depending on the hardware used changing from/to Direct3D 11/12 can have a positive or negative effect on the quality and/or performance of the game client, this also depends on the in-game graphics setting. Your mileage may vary, since you use Linux it is expected that you have more than average computer knowledge and are able to figure out what works in your specific situation.

We recommend to use DirectX 11 in the launcher options, this might be different on your maschine or change int the future (current Sep 2025.

Client slowing down / high CPU usage

• Behavior like lagging is reported, a solution for this behavior is to disable Esync & Fsync. In the steps above we took care of that.

Steam: Start the launcher with a custom command source

Lutris: In the runner options disable Esync & Fsync

Disk usage

Through steam, the launcher can run the updater normally.

On Lutris the stable, recommended version (1.9.4+ on Sep 2025) given in the installation process might change. The updater is unable to update the launcher due to a missing component in wine. `unimplemented function msdelta.dll.ApplyDeltaW, aborting` This results in a ever growing squirreltemp directory. Manually cleaning is required at this point in time (January 2024). A fix for this behavior is being worked on: make the updater detect wine and do a full update.

Note: on the wine bugtracker

---

This article should be cleaned up or improved.
The reason is: Content below should be reviewed & updated

Whey back when we had a native launcher & other problems

While Linux is not officially supported by CCP, a side project by CCP Snorlax has yielded a native Linux application that downloads a prebundled version of Wine (also built by CCP Snorlax) which allows Linux to run the EVE launcher more easily. The launcher requires a 64-bit installation of Linux, but should work with most distributions.

Alternatively, for a more visual installation and cleaner management of multiple WINEPATHs, you can use Lutris.

Native Linux launcher has been retired. Recommended solution for running EVE on Linux is Steam/Proton

Much of this guide is adapted from the official forum post by CCP Snorlax, which can be found here. Questions about the information found in this article are best asked on the official EVE forums.

Custom Launcher Shortcut

(The following additional steps are not strictly necessary, but can make running the launcher more convenient through the use of a custom launcher shortcut. See the Troubleshooting section below if you encounter any issues.)

Launcher icon

1. Create a symbolic link (symlink) to the script in the user binaries folder

   sudo ln -s /Path/To/evelauncher.sh /usr/bin/evelauncher

2. And make it executable

   sudo chmod u+x /usr/bin/evelauncher

3. Download the icon file

   wget https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/images/a/af/Evelauncher.png

4. Move the icon file to the correct directory

   sudo mv Evelauncher.png /usr/share/pixmaps/

5. Create the launcher file with your preferred editor

   sudo edit /usr/share/applications/eve.desktop

6. Insert the following text and then save it:

   [Desktop Entry] Name=EVE Online Comment=EVE Online by CCP Games Exec=/usr/bin/evelauncher Icon=Evelauncher Terminal=false Type=Application Categories=Game;

7. Run the game through the newly-created launcher shortcut!

Using a Custom Wine Version

The copy of wine bundled with the launcher is quite outdated, but thankfully you can use your distribution's own wine runtime instead which gives access to things like DirectX11 support.

Note: Make sure to untick 'Run clients with DX9' if you want to use DX11.

1. Open the launcher settings with the small "E" symbol in the top right, tick "Use custom Wine", and in the box below it enter the path of your wine executable, e.g.

   /usr/bin/wine

2. Remove EVE's existing wine and wineenv folder

   rm -Rd ~/.eve/wineenv ~/.eve/wine

3. Reopen the launcher and start the game as normal.
4. EVE's wine prefix should rebuild itself with the custom version.

Troubleshooting

Incompatible OpenSSL library

The EVE launcher requires the 1.0.x version of the openssl library in order to function, however, some newer versions of Linux distributions and those that use rolling releases include the 1.1.x version by default (this will be evident by the launcher simply not appearing at all when the script is run), so some extra steps to install the older compatibility library may be necessary.

Note: The following example is for Ubuntu - paths and package names will likely be different on other distributions.

1. Download the older library from your distribution's repos

   sudo apt-get install libssl1.0.0

2. Add symbolic links to the libraries in the launcher's folder

   sudo ln -s /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libssl.so.1.0.0 /Path/To/evelauncher/libssl.so

   sudo ln -s /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcrypto.so.1.0.0 /Path/To/evelauncher/libcrypto.so

This should correct the issue temporarily, but the symlinks will be removed when the launcher is updated. A solution to this is to make your own script which checks for the existence of the symlinks, remakes them if they are missing and then triggers the launcher's script.

1. Create the wrapper script in your preferred editor

Note: The wrapper script cannot be located in the launcher's own folder, or it will be deleted when the launcher updates.

1. $EDITOR /Path/To/Wrapper/evewrapper.sh

2. Insert the following text and then save it:

   dirname=/Path/To/evelauncher/ if [ ! -e $dirname/libssl.so.1.0.0 ]; then ln -s /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libssl.so.1.0.0 $dirname/libssl.so fi if [ ! -e $dirname/libcrypto.so.1.0.0 ]; then ln -s /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcrypto.so.1.0.0 $dirname/libcrypto.so fi exec $dirname/evelauncher.sh

3. If you made a custom launcher file as above, you will need to change the path of the symlink in step 1

   sudo ln -s /Path/To/Wrapper/evewrapper.sh /usr/bin/evelauncher

Qt dependencies

In some rare instances on Ubuntu, you may be lacking the required Qt dependencies for the launcher, This will manifest as some QT files not be located and the launcher window opening but not displaying anything.

Instructions for this install are taken from here: https://wiki.qt.io/Install_Qt_5_on_Ubuntu

1. Download the installer

   Note: These can be put wherever the user prefers, but the home directory ~/ is recommended.

   wget http://download.qt.io/official_releases/qt/5.7/5.7.0/qt-opensource-linux-x64-5.7.0.run

2. Adjust permissions

   chmod +x qt-opensource-linux-x64-5.7.0.run

3. Install QT

   ./qt-opensource-linux-x64-5.7.0.run

4. Install g++

   sudo apt-get install build-essential

5. Install generic fonts

   sudo apt-get install libfontconfig1

Libxcb dependencies

Evelauncher comes with its own libxcb. In some instances it fails to find xcb in its launch directory as well as to find libxcb installed in the system. This is indicated by message in console:
This application failed to start because it could not find or load the Qt platform plugin "xcb" in ""

To solve this problem just delete all files located in the directory of EVE launcher, that have "libxcb" as part of their names.

rm libxcb*

Launcher Shortcut Issues

Your EVE launcher shortcut may fail with the following message:

/bin/sh: warning: shell level (1000) too high, resetting to 1

This, and other errors, are likely due to the fact that the 'dirname' and 'pwd' commands will return the location of the soft link, not of the shell script itself. Hence, we need to use readlink to follow every symlink in the path. Make the following changes to /path/to/evelauncher/evelauncher.sh:

#!/bin/sh appname="evelauncher" dirname=$(dirname "$(readlink -f "$BASH_SOURCE")") tmp="${dirname#?}" if [ "${dirname%$tmp}" != "/" ]; then dirname="$PWD/$dirname" fi LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$dirname:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" export LD_LIBRARY_PATH export QTDIR=$dirname export QT_PLUGIN_PATH=$dirname/plugins "$dirname/$appname" "$@"

Note: The first change is necessary only if you choose to give your soft link a different name.

X Server

If Eve Online fails to launch, try running it from the terminal. Check for the following error message:

user@localhost > ./evelauncher.sh ... Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1

As explained here, an X program needs (1) the address of the display (typically ":0") and (2) the password for the display. The second requirement is known as the "Magic Cookie". One workaround to sidestep this access problem is to use xhost, which is an X server access control program. Make the following changes to /path/to/evelauncher/evelauncher.sh:

#!/bin/sh appname="evelauncher" dirname=$(dirname "$(readlink -f "$BASH_SOURCE")") tmp="${dirname#?}" if [ "${dirname%$tmp}" != "/" ]; then dirname="$PWD/$dirname" fi xhost +local: LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$dirname:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" export LD_LIBRARY_PATH export QTDIR=$dirname export QT_PLUGIN_PATH=$dirname/plugins "$dirname/$appname" "$@"

Note: xhost here is granting temporary access to any local application running as the current user. It is not allowing any kind of remote access.