How to play old Linux games

Games have been written for Linux since the 90s, first as ports of big titles, then by a wide free software scene. These games are not emulated: they are programs for your computer, and the trouble comes from the system around them, which has moved on.

We have about 120 Linux games on My Abandonware, from small free games of the 2000s to Linux versions of older commercial titles.

What our downloads look like

A Linux game comes as a package, and the way to run it depends on its type. Most of ours are a zip or a .tar.gz you unpack in your home folder.

• .zip, .tar.gz, .tar.bz2: unpack the file, look inside for a program with the name of the game or a .sh script, then start it from a terminal: ./gamename. If the system refuses, make it runnable first: chmod +x gamename.
• .deb (Debian, Ubuntu) and .rpm (Fedora, openSUSE): install them with your package manager. An old package often asks for libraries your system no longer has: in that case, unpack it instead of installing it, with dpkg -x game.deb folder or rpm2cpio.
• .run, .sh: an installer, common for commercial games. Run chmod +x file.run, then ./file.run. Many of them are 32-bit, see below.
• .AppImage: the easiest. Make it runnable and start it: everything it needs is inside.

The usual problems

Most failures come from three things: a 32-bit program on a 64-bit system, an old graphics or sound library, and file paths that changed. Each has a simple fix.

• "No such file or directory" on a program that is clearly there: it is a 32-bit program. Install the 32-bit libraries of your distribution (multiarch on Debian and Ubuntu, lib32-* packages elsewhere).
• A missing library, like libSDL-1.2.so.0: old games use SDL 1.2, which distributions replaced with SDL 2. Install sdl12-compat, which answers for the old one, or the old library itself if your distribution still ships it.
• No sound: these games often speak to OSS, the sound system before ALSA and PulseAudio. Start the game with padsp ./gamename to send its sound to PulseAudio, or aoss for ALSA.
• The game starts and quits at once: start it from a terminal to read what it says. Many old games want to write in their own folder, so keep them in your home folder rather than a system one.

When the system is too new

Sometimes the fastest way is not to fight your distribution. Run the game in a container or a virtual machine with an old distribution inside, or use a version made for today.

A container (Distrobox, Toolbx, or a plain Docker image of an old Debian) gives you the old libraries beside your own system, without touching it. It is less work than it sounds, and it keeps your machine clean.

Better still, look for a source port: many games of that time were released with their code, and people have kept them running ever since. A port built this year needs no old library at all, and often adds higher resolutions and a better controller.

Windows and DOS games on Linux

Many games in our catalog are not Linux games at all. Windows games run well through Wine, and DOS games run in DOSBox, which exists for Linux too.

Our Wine page explains how to run Windows games, with Lutris, Bottles or Steam Proton. For DOS games, see our DOS guide: DOSBox Staging and DOSBox-X both run on Linux, and ScummVM does too.

I need help!

We do not provide support for running abandonware games. Linux users have a habit of writing things down, which helps here.

The forums of your distribution answer most library questions. For a game with a source port, its own page is the right place: those projects usually keep a list of what to install.

Checked in October 2026 against each emulator's own documentation and, where it exists, its source code. Game counts and file sizes come from our own catalogue. These guides were drafted with the help of an AI assistant and checked by hand before publishing. If something here is out of date, tell us.