City of Heroes on Linux

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See also: City of Heroes on Mac and City of Heroes on Steam Deck
Editor's Note:

Homecoming Developers do not support any client bugs on Linux. If an issue cannot be reproduced in a Windows client, Linux specific bugs will be given a form response and closed without resolution. Please use the Homecoming Forums for Linux client support from other users.

Overview

It is possible to run City of Heroes on Linux through a technology called WINE (WINE Is Not an Emulator). By porting the Windows API libraries that City of Heroes uses to Linux, WINE effectively "fools" City of Heroes into thinking that it is actually running on Windows.

Instructions (Homecoming Launcher)

If you can only see Desktop, Images, Documents and similar folders in your home folder, make sure "Show hidden files" is checked in your File Manager first. ".wine" should appear normally.
NVidia users: higher numbers will support newer features, lower and older numbers are more stable if the higher numbered ones have problems. Don't use server drivers or "Nouveau", they won't allow City of Heroes to launch.

For sake of brevity, we'll assume you have a working Linux installation that is fully patched. The distro does not matter. Also assuming a 64-bit system and you can replace "usernameGoesHere" below with your Linux username where needed.

Using a Steam Deck? An install script is available on City of Heroes on Steam Deck.

  • Install Wine Stable using this download page -- https://wiki.winehq.org/Download
  • Once installed the default Wine Prefix (/home/usernameGoesHere/.wine) will be made. It will prompt to install Gecko and Mono. Note that NEITHER library is necessary to run Homecoming: City of Heroes (although Mono will be useful if you wish to use Mids Reborn or other .NET apps later.) Another note worthy of mention -- it is not prompted during setup but you do NOT need to install Visual C++ Runtime at all. Wine handles this requirement automatically.
  • Run the Homecoming Installer. Choose your location on Drive Z the same as you would on Drive C in Windows (Z:\Games\Homecoming).

It is also important to note this procedure is sufficient for a single-user Linux system alone. For a multiuser system, either you need to repeat the procedure for each user (and sufficient disk space is required: 6-12GB per user), or configure permissions to allow multiple users access to the same WinePrefix.

System Requirements

Linux has different system requirements than Windows. When NVidia, AMD, or Intel drop Linux driver support for a video card and the kernel fails to compile with the legacy driver in-place, you can no longer play City of Heroes on that system. There is no specific date when this support ends; it will not be announced publicly when a software upgrade fails. The day that the video driver fails to recompile kernel modules for your current OS is when you need to decide. Possible fixes include:

  • Run COH on an older OS instead of on the bleeding edge (ex. choosing Ubuntu LTS over the twice-a-year update distro) so older drivers continue to compile normally,
  • Upgrade your hardware (baselines provided below to help in replacement), or
  • set up your system to dual-boot to Windows and move your game files to Windows to continue play.

Must Meet Game System Requirements

System Requirements are the same for a Linux system as they would be for a Windows system: 1 GHz Dual Core processor, 2GB of RAM, a video card capable of OpenGL 2.0/3.0, and 6-12GB free hard drive space. As a generality, if a system would not be able to play City of Heroes using Windows because of the hardware in use there's a good chance Linux won't work either.

Unsupported Linux Hardware

The following Linux systems will not have the resources to play City of Heroes.

ARM Linux

Homecoming Launcher (and more importantly the City of Heroes client) is not compiled for ARM. Wine will not run HCLauncher on an ARM system without a Software Emulator for X86 apps. Single-Board Computers (Raspberry Pi and variants) will not run City of Heroes with Wine alone.

Chromebooks

As any Chromebook with an ARM chip is a non starter (see "ARM Linux" above this section), Chromebooks generally cannot run City of Heroes. The few exceptions out there either are discontinued models no longer supported, or cost more than a Windows Laptop which can run it far easier.

Codeweavers

The main sponsor of the Wine Project, Codeweavers, maintains a paid license of Crossover as a Prosumer Wine distribution offering tech support for use. It is important to note two things:

  1. Paying for Crossover is not required to play Homecoming if you can install Wine on your own, however, it will work if you require paid Tech Support assistance instead of a Community-led forum.
  2. Crossover's main customer base is business-class users. (They will support gaming, but a lot of what Cedega did in the past to simplify gaming use is not built into the application.)

How It Works

External Links