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League of Legends Linux Version (Pro's / Con's / possible Solutions)

TLb Thunder·1/12/2019, 11:48:50 AM·17 votes·8,625 views

Hello Riot-Games Community

I please you to read everything, word by word and not only some bits.

I’m a gigantic Linux-freak and more or less, I try to play my favourite Games on Linux. Most of my games run natively or via a compatibility-layer on Linux, because they are on Steam or written in Java. I managed to get another favourite game of mine running via wine on Linux. But there’s still one game missing.

Yes, it’s true. League of Legends is missing.

Ask yourself, why are there so many XP-Users playing league? These “XP-Users” are called Linux Users, that are playing via wine.

Wine seems to be working fine on newer computers, but on older hardware, league will stay unplayable. And a major problem is, that the Riot-Team is going to shutdown the XP and Vista support by May 2019.

There are many reddit posts, which discuss Linux Support for League of Legends.

Let me count up some pro’s and con’s and possible solutions:

Pro’s: Great demand amongst Linux users (petition)

Free (as in freedom) and open-source Platform, not controlled by huge companies (people have the freedom to choose distribution, desktop environment, user experience that they like…), on Windows they have to “go with the MS’s flow” if they wish to remain playing League of Legends whether they like the changes or not

People can build their PC and just put a free of charge OS on their machine, and therefore lowering the starting price of their PC setup for playing League, if they wish, the choice to install Windows 10 is still theirs

Good drivers recently from both Nvidia and AMD, with stock performances of OpenGL and Vulkan on par with their Windows counterparts

Linux has proven to be a very viable gaming platform (example: 3000+ linux-native games on Steam, GOG games free of DRMs, a lot of them having on-par performance with their Windows counterparts)

Increase in Linux users during last year according to many different OS statistics sites

Support open standards - Adobe Air is not involved with the client anymore, all the needed dependencies are already available on Linux natively (HTML, JS, CSS, OpenGL, Vulkan for the future?…)

League of Legends already works via WINE compatibility layer, but the performance varies between devices (from very good to non-playable) and both WINE and LoL updates tend to break the support regularly

Using Ubuntu as a “standard” provides good fundamentals for League of Legends Linux client, avoiding the pain of bringing the game across hundreds of different distributions. Other distributions would just repackage the files provided by Riot in their own preferred distributing format without the need for Riot to support it.

Porting itself would not require much work and resources with all the dependencies available on Linux, mostly only re-linking the libraries. Official support could be a bit more resource-heavy but we have a few solutions for Riot in that regard (refer to "SOLUTIONS" section under the Conslist)

Testing of Linux clients is FREE - the community is full of tech-savvy people willing to help on the platform specific troubleshooting in contrast to the Windows community. Open betas would be a great way to keep the League client tested and working without many resources dedicated for internal testing

People who use Linux have a lot of friends playing League of Legends and providing an official client would keep us integrated into the community, spending more time playing and less time configuring wine prefixes

With previous point said, “Linux users can just dual boot” is not a valid point from Riot employees (reference: https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/66k4oo/riot_support_on_linux_client_hopefully_in_the/dgj8f34/ Windows has the cost that is not even small and people do not like to be forced to dedicate 50 GB of their drive storage for another operating system in order to run a single game

Windows 7 and Win 8.1 support is running out in no-time (Windows 7 EOL- January 14, 2020 || Windows 8.1 EOL - January 10, 2023), Windows 10 is not a suitable alternative for all of the userbase, primarily because of the forced update system and a few other points mentioned below

Windows 10 is changing into an OS full of advertisements and bloatware, becoming more and more closed down by Microsoft which endangers the freedom and openness of the platform for the future

Microsoft and DirectX have clearly shown that they are choosing the path of exclusivity with DX12 by making it exclusive to Windows 10 and not even providing it on their “supported” Operating Systems - Windows 7, 8.1

The rise of Vulkan API (available cross-platform: Linux, Windows 7, 8.1, 10, Android) - in less than half a year, the number of games supporting the API went from 4 to 20. Considering how new the API is and that it is implemented across game engines, it shows that it is getting adopted pretty well, in contrast to DX12, which has been out for a few years already and while there are a few DX12 games, only Microsoft Studios’ games are DX12 exclusives.

Apple is going to end support for openGL. Perfect opportunity to use the mighty VulkanSDK. Due it's cross-platform-compatibility, a Linux-port from the Mac-Client is easier to handle than replacing DirectX of the Windows-Client with Vulkan or openGL.

Con’s Some resources from Riot Games would need to be dedicated to the support of the client

Possible Solutions: A mid-way solution would be from Riot Games to release a “beta” client which would not need active official support and would remain in that phase as long as Riot Games would be comfortable enough to make it official

An official wine wrapper that would free us from the pain of updates breaking the game on pre-configured WINE prefixes

The Game might work on Linux, because the launcher nowadays is based on the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) and not on Adobe Air anymore.

The CEF is coming natively on Linux so there’s a problem less.

One plus point is, the Mac launcher is running with openGL. This is a possible way too for us Linux users.

League is currently the most played game. And to stay the most played game, you have to enable the Support for different Os’s next to MacOS and Windows.

Many Reddit users just say, that we could dual boot with Windows. Why should we? Here’s an example why not.

If there is a fully 100% Linux User, who has never heard about Windows, why should he pay 110$ for a 50GB OS just to play League of Legends? If he could play League on Linux, he has 110$, that he could spend for League.

I know, this post is a little chaotic, but please, just read it and respond to me with reasons why not or why yes.

The Pro’s and con’s list is copied from here: https://www.change.org/p/riot-games-petition-to-support-league-of-legends-linux-client?utm_medium=email&utm_source=welcome_new_user&utm_campaign=triggered&j=381670&sfmc_sub=1157359351&l=32_HTML&u=64662218&mid=7233052&jb=135604

Yours Sincerely LinuxSquare a.k.a TLb Thunder

15 Comments

ShadyHippo4/10/2019, 3:24:05 PM6 votes

I'm a CS major currently looking to make the switch to full Linux. This is literally the only thing currently holding me back from doing so. Please add Linux support. I know many Windows haters who might try the game if you support it or make an official wine rapper, or offer an open source one the community can (AND WE ALL KNOW WILL) maintain for you if you give us the tools to. Literally we are willing to maintain the wrapper for you if you make it open source. It's what we do for fun. We like making things work. Please make it so we can play from Linux. You'll make a lot of people happy.

TheJackiMonster1/30/2019, 4:29:13 PM5 votes

I have made this post ( https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/de/c/general-discussion/Gvcuqrtm-community-on-linux-based-systems ) when they released their anticheat-patch. I guess you know about that.. ^^'

You can probably add to your pro's, that Apple declared last year to stop supporting OpenGL. So Riot needs a solution for the Mac-client anyway. I guess their could use Metal for that problem, but using Vulkan would be far superior. I mean, you could put developers for Mac and Windows together ( because Vulkan is cross-compatible ), get performance which is comparable to DirectX on Windows and you can publish a client for linux as a sideeffect if your developers are professional.

I mean the whole problem about the missing client is just bizarre. We are talking about the linux-community.. just publish a diagram or piece of code of the network-traffic from league, start a repository and you will get some linux-programmer who starts building an open-source-client which is more stable in a year than the Windows-client ever has been. [sg-ahri-3]

UnDispelled4/26/2019, 1:49:55 AM4 votes

I would also love to see a Linux version. In fact, if Riot announces a Linux version in the next 2 weeks, I will immediately spend $100 on riot points

Uforek5/12/2019, 6:12:08 PM4 votes

Found this thread - I'd like a Linux client too.

On a side note, Dota 2 has Linux support. I guess I'll give it a try. Anything to feed the MOBA itch.

Pickii4/2/2019, 4:14:44 PM3 votes

Your market will grow by HUGE percentages with a linux version.

Seraf3/10/2019, 7:07:21 PM3 votes

Honestly, I bet many people will try out Linux for the first time if League of Legends supports it.

It will be League of Legend's way to contribute to Linux :)

[slayer-jinx-wink]

Soul Inferno7/18/2019, 12:09:15 AM2 votes

Linux is freedom for the users and now also for the companies. Make it finally happen please Riot ! Do not stop to discuss this in your team sessions. You could start an internal alpha client with a small engineer base and try it yourself. Linux is so amazing and especially it's sick fast with the newest kernel. The graphics and sound is often faster delivered through any bus as with proprietary software nowadays - less lagg - less leavers/afk's. I also like Mac but i don't like the fact that i am forced to build a very hardly modified Hackintosh to be able to play League on a computer of my choice. -No choice yet until apple opens up for custom build pc's which won't happen anytime soon as then they have to support universal and custom drivers for custom builds. And windows is at least for me after windows 7 dead. If you started to enjoy linux you will not go back as the stability and smartness the system has reached nowadays mass public availability. Talk in your team rounds about it, order some engineers to build an internal alpha and test it yourself.

CadhlaKai2/12/2020, 2:53:25 PM2 votes

This is the main reason I play DOTA 2 instead of LoL; DOTA 2 is supported on Linux.

Gimme my Cigar5/17/2019, 5:37:29 PM1 votes

does riot released an new anticheat on this last version "9.10 patch " ? is their any fix or solution for it or is it the end of league of legends on linux ? [cass-cry]

OtakuBurrito1/30/2019, 5:12:44 PM1 votes

I need an Ubuntu distro. I love Linux because it's light weight and productive and helps me learn more about computers in a fun way.

But I still keep Windows on my main PC for league and other games :c

raihanthelegend9/20/2019, 11:33:56 AM1 votes

plz rito

Infernape1/30/2019, 5:21:54 PM1 votes

You don't need to pay for Windows. Windows 10 will actually run for free. You just can't customise your desktop and you have an "activate windows" watermark (There's a way to remove both of them). And even then there's actually a Powershell script that disables all the bloatware/tracking that comes with Windows 10 and can shut off Windows Update for good so you only update as and when you need to.

Random Elephant2/16/2020, 9:46:21 AM1 votes

After reading a decent amount of threads regarding this and the hostile approach Riot decided to take against not cheaters, but users (Linux ones especially) in general, with their kernel anti-cheat and other things, I finally decided to switch to DotA 2.