DCS on linux
DCS can be made to run on linux. You will need to use either wine or proton to make it work, as there is no native client. Overall it does work reasonably well. Compared to running DCS on Windows, the performance is slightly reduced, but decent. It doesn't matter if you use Gnome or KDE, but please be aware that there are many hotkeys in Gnome which use modifiers that collide with DCS default key assignments. DCS is known to run well on Ubuntu, OpenSUSE and Fedora and is likely to run well on many other distributions also. See the FAQ and external references for more info on known problems and how to fix them.
Contents
Setting Up DCS
Using Wine
You can check out https://github.com/TheZoq2/dcs_on_linux for tips and tricks for running DCS Standalone on linux.
You can also try to use Lutris to make installation easier. See: https://lutris.net/games/dcs-world/ Please note that scripts tend to get out of date over time.
Using Proton
This option requires that you have bought your DCS modules on Steam. This guide assumes an installation of Steam using the native package manager for your distribution. This option is available for most distributions. Alternatively you can use the Flatpak version of steam, but it is known to cause problems when using extra software like SRS or opentrack due to how security is managed in Flatpak.
At the time of writing (february 2024) the following steps are confirmed to be working on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed while using KDE and on Kubuntu 22.04.3. You might notice here that the description is basically about linux with KDE. The reason is that this is what you'll probably want to use this anyway, as there are a lot of keystrokes in DCS which interfere with Gnome's global hotkeys.
Install steps:
1. Enable compatibility mode for DCS: Go to your library, right click on DCS and select the properties menu item from the context menu. Then open the compatibility tab and enable the tick-box for enabling the compatibility mode in the settings. Setting the proton version to "Proton Experimental" as the version usually works best.
2. Install the game via steam, now that this has become possible.
3. If you get an error with compiling the shaders during startup, you'll need to install the proper d3d compiler into the Proton prefix for the game. (this applies for 99% of users) You will need to install "protontricks"[1] so you can install extra libraries into the Proton prefix for DCS. This is available for most linux distributions, but is not always part of the distribution's own packages. It's best to first check the package manager to see if it is available. If it is not, then look for alternative ways to install it for your specific distribution by using your favourite search engine. The version required changes from time to time. At the time of writing, the version to use is "d3dcompiler_47". You can use following protontricks command to fix the compiler problem:protontricks 223750 d3dcompiler_474. Sometimes proton doesn't load properly or seems to hang during loading, resulting in a borked startup. You can try to set up the following launch options in the "General" of the properties in steam:
WINEDLLOVERRIDES='wbemprox=n' %command%. Note: this step doesn't seem to be necessary any longer for many, but some still need to have it in their launch options.
DCS should now start up normally.
FAQ / troubleshooting
Q: I have my Proton version set to 'Experimental', as was recommended. Now my DCS install refuses to work after installing a Proton update. What should I do?
A: Sometimes a newer version of Proton, which gets installed automatically if you have the version selection set to experimental, causes things to break. If you find all of a sudden that you can't get DCS running, and you have recently installed an update for Proton while having Experimental selected as the version to use, then consider running one of the fixed versions of Proton available in the drop-down list under the compatibility options.
Q: I get the error "Authorization error. Error code is: 500" while starting up DCS and I don´t have access to my modules now?
A: This is a general issue with DCS, but it is more prevalent on linux. DCS checks if your clock matches the reported time zone for your IP address. On linux the clock might be skewed because it handles time settings a little differently than windows does. Make sure you have your clock set up correctly before starting DCS. [2] If you dual boot, then make sure that your bios uses UTC and that windows is set up to use an offset to UTC instead of setting the time in the bios clock. (search for "How to Fix Windows and Linux Showing Different Times" if you don't know how to)
Q: There are textures which are not shown properly while in the game.
A: Yes, this happens with certain modules. For instance, in the Ka-50 III the Skval is not usable because of this problem. The RWR in the F-16C is also affected. A re-export of the image file with an image editor in the same file format might fix this. [3] Unfortunately this fix breaks the integrity check for multiplayer.
Q: The contrails are puffy?
A: This is a known and persistent problem. Unfortunately there is no fix available. Hopefully this will be fixed with the introduction of Vulkan to DCS.
Q: One of my input devices is not showing up in DCS, even though I can see it in the game controller application in KDE?
A: This is a problem with how the udev subsystem in linux scans for usb devices and categorises them in "/dev/input/by-id/" and then in turn how wine/proton scans for devices based on their names in that same directory. You will need to add a rule which tells udev to categorise the device properly, so that wine/proton knows it is a joystick device and which properties it has. This is done by adding a file to "/etc/udev/rules.d/". The file needs to have a name starting with a number, and this number actually means something, as it denotes the priority of the file in the udev loading sequence. This can be different from system to system, but somewhere in the 30 to 50 range seems to work well. Each line in the file describes what attributes of a device that you want to modify.
As an example for the Saitek Pro Flight Rudder Pedals, you can use the following: Create a file called "51-rudder-pedals.rules" as the root user, and inside the file, use the following line:
SUBSYSTEMS=="input", ATTRS{name}=="Saitek Saitek Pro Flight Rudder Pedals", ENV{ID_INPUT_JOYSTICK}="1"
Save the file and reload the udev rules after creating and editing this file. If you don't know how to, you can also restart the computer to get it to work. In this example we changed the name for "Saitek Saitek Pro Flight Rudder Pedals" so that the device id ends with the "-joystick" suffix. You can also add calibration data and other options. For a more elaborate explanations or help, try searching the web or ask around.
Q: Where can I get help with installing DCS on linux?
A: You can get help/support for running DCS on linux on https://old.reddit.com/r/hoggit and on the matrix channel linked below. Please note that this is on a best effort basis. In the end you still have to fix it yourself, but others might come up with suggestions you had not thought of.(..yet)
Q: I have The F-4E module, but it Jester seems to be borked
A: This is a known problem, but there is a fix (for X11 users). You have to add the following to your launch parametersWINE_SIMULATE_WRITECOPY=1 %command%
VR
This can be made to work, but it depends on the HMD support for linux. The requirement is that your HMD can run with OpenXR. The Valve Index and some standalone HMDs with linux support are your best bet. Certain WMR HMDs can be made to run trough Monado[4], but often support for controllers is lacking. Ask around if you need help.
Head Tracking
Head tracking has transformed flight simming ever since its first appearance about 20 years ago. Using DCS without it is almost inconceivable nowadays.
opentrack
The most widely used program to do head tracking is opentrack. Opentrack can de made to run under Proton using the Opentrack-launcher script[5]. This script downloads the latest version of opentrack at the time of first launch. This will opentrack run by adding a commandline option to the steam launcher. It works great for most users.
If somehow the opentrack-launcher script doesn´t work you can also try to use a double installation. One inside the wine or proton prefix, and one outside the prefix. You then use the local loop network connection for data transfer.
Another possible option is to use a tool called SteamTinkerLaunch[6] to run multiple programs inside the same prefix.
linuxtrack
If for some reason you can't get opentrack to run, or you have another reason that you don't like to run opentrack, you can check out linuxtrack[7]
SRS
Some have reported that SRS can work if installed via wine or proton, but there are no good guides on this which are current. Ask around to find out more.
Useful resources:
https://github.com/TheZoq2/dcs_on_linux : Git documentation for running DCS using Wine.
https://www.protondb.com/app/223750 : ProtonDB page for DCS.
https://matrix.to/#/#dcs-on-linux:matrix.org : A matrix space to discuss running DCS on linux. Matrix is kind of a counterpart to Discord that does respect your privacy.
https://github.com/stoertebecker/electron_glasscockpit : cockpit for exported MFDs for the F/A-18C (related hoggit comment thread)
Final remarks:
1. This article is updated from time to time, but not very frequently, not very regularly. Please contact the author(s) via their contact pages for feedback.
2. This article describes steps to install DCS on linux mainly for Proton/steam users and refers to external sources for installation via a Wine prefix. Please consider adding to this article if you have experience installing DCS standalone with Wine. See the discussion page for discussions about the content of this article.
