Linux and Stronghold

[Daerandin 16]

I just wanted to share my experience with running these games on Linux just in case someone might be curious. I have not tried all Stronghold games on Linux, but I quite a lot of them. So first off, I will just list those that I can confirm will run on Linux based on my own experience:

Stronghold
Stronghold Crusader
Stronghold 2
Stronghold Legends
Stronghold 3
Stronghold Crusader 2

I have not had any issues running any of these on Linux. Personally, I only rely on the command line for Linux, so I create my own little launcher scripts for each game, and then have them in my PATH so I can launch them directly. I just use regular Wine for running games in most cases. For those who are not comfortable with the command line, there are other graphical tools available to make it easier to use Wine to play games. One such project is called PlayOnLinux, and I have used it myself many years ago. There is also a newer project called Lutris, but I have never tried it.

If you have the games on Steam, then it is highly likely that you can run the games directly from Steam as long as you go to Settings, and then Steam Play settings, and ensure you enable Steam Play for all titles. You generally want to use the newest version of Proton that is available. However, on my wife's computer she could not launch Stronghold Legends with Steam Play, so she just used regular Wine set up manually.

It is my hope that this could help someone take a chance with Linux if they are curious. I am able to run every game I want to Linux when I'm using either Wine or Steam's Proton. And if anyone is having issues or questions about Linux then I'd be more than happy to try and help.

[EaglePrince 252]

That's great to hear about Linux and Stronghold games. Even though I expect one could also have Windows OS on another partition, and have all possible games installed there too. I mean, that might be a solution for somebody not as enthusiastic as you are, though many laptops come with only 256GB SSD's... So what you're telling is definitely something necessary.

I remember myself being enthusiastic about Windows Phone and Windows mobile. That was a great time, until Microsoft have up on it. Everything is much easier to do with the OS that had the monopoly. Buuut, that could only boost you even more in doing what you want the way you want.

Sent from my Mi A2 Lite using Tapatalk

[Daerandin 16]

Yes of course, dual booting between Windows and Linux is also an option. This would probably feel safer for most people, as you still have your Windows in case you are unhappy with Linux.

The whole Linux ecosystem is very different from Windows. For instance, drivers and such is something you should not go looking for yourself. Most drivers are already in the Linux kernel, so they will be present and working without you doing anything. The big exception here would be the Nvidia graphics driver. If you use Intel or AMD, they have excellent open source drivers included in the Linux kernel. But for Nvidia you need their proprietary driver, most Linux distributions already package it so it can be easily installed from the package manager.

Still, I'm not going to try and pretend like Linux is the OS for everyone. Even though you have distributions like Ubuntu and Linux Mint that are super easy to use, it would still be a big adjustment coming from Windows. And just about everything is made specifically for Windows. If you want to run WIndows software on Linux, you need to run it via Wine, and hope that it works. In my case, the only Windows specific software I try to run is games, and just about every game I have tried runs well with Wine. Ten years ago it was a lot more hassle, but these days Wine seem to be able to handle almost everything.

[EaglePrince 252]

Indeed, it's great that things with Linux are getting better, easier to do, and more user-friendly.🙂

[Korsfarer Mogens 6]

I think it's worth noting, that Steams Proton (their version of wine) work right out the box with most MS Win-games, including Stronghold. You don't have to do anything special, except let your steam-account know you will be using Proton. You do so by going to Steams settings and choose "Steam play".

[Lord_Chris 282]

I was going to suggest Wine actually when I first saw the title of this topic 😄 I haven't used it on SH2 personally, but I have heard it's very compatible with it. Offhand I think all Stronghold games are.

I'm surprised and impressed at the amount of games that Wine will run, even very obscure ones, with hardly no issues.

The problem is that Microsoft is a (shady) Corporation and has commercialised everything when everything Microsoft provides has been done better and in a more powerful, open, secure way previously. Just like the drivers for instance. Microsoft want a monopoly on the drivers because it forces people to comply with them and forces everyone to work around Microsoft. Hence increasing revenue etc because everyone always has to upgrade.

There is actually an argument that Microsoft and Windows never should have taken off. It's built wrongly, it's not secure, hogs resources and it was deliberately done differently from perfectly acceptable existing solutions. It's interesting how all other major operating systems are based on Unix, even Apple Macs, and they are commercialised. The only reason Windows is as big as it is today, is because they did a deal with IBM to get Windows in as a default operating system on machines. To be honest it's so shady as to whether that was even legal it's unbelievable. The same is true with most Microsoft products to be honest, but that's probably for another thread 😅