Translation(s): English - Français - Português (Brasil)

./play.it logo

./play.it is a libre software that automates the build of native packages for multiple distributions, including Debian and its derivatives, from DRM-free installers for commercial games. The generated packages are then installed using the standard tools provided by the distribution, like APT (or dpkg).

Native Linux games are supported, as well as games developed for other systems thanks to tools like Wine, DOSBox and ScummVM.

Contents

  1. Installation
    1. Debian repositories
    2. Git repository
  2. Usage
  3. Common issues
    1. Install i386 packages on a amd64 system
    2. Available innoextract version is too old
    3. Depends: libfaudio0 but it is not installable
  4. Contact
    1. IRC channel
    2. E-mail
    3. Fediverse
  5. Links

Installation

Debian repositories

play.it is provided in the contrib section of Debian repositories. This package is required to use the core features of ./play.it.

play.it-community is provided in the contrib section of Debian repositories. This package adds support for a collection of games, collectively supported by several ./play.it contributors.

play.it-vv221 is provided in the contrib section of Debian repositories. This package adds support for a small curated collection of games, supported by ./play.it author.

Git repository

When installing from git, running make install as the current user installs ./play.it only for the current user, while running it as root installs it system-wide.

You can provide an alternative installation prefix with make -e prefix=/opt/play.it install, default prefix is /usr/local if the command is run as root, $XDG_DATA_HOME otherwise (defaults to $HOME/.local/share if $XDG_DATA_HOME is not set).

Starting with ./play.it 2.16 release, game scripts are no longer provided in the main repository. You need to install a collection of game scripts in addition to the core library and wrapper to add support for some game installers.

Library and wrapper (required)

git clone --branch 2.27.1 --depth 1 https://forge.dotslashplay.it/play.it/scripts.git play.it.git
cd play.it.git
make
make install

Core game scripts collection

git clone --depth 1 https://forge.dotslashplay.it/play.it/games.git play.it-games.git
cd play.it-games.git
make install

Usage

Assuming your game installer is called setup.exe, using ./play.it to install a game is a two-steps process:

  1. Run ./play.it by giving it the path to the game installer: 

    play.it ~/Downloads/setup.exe

  2. Run the apt command provided at the end of the process as root (or dpkg command on old Debian versions), it should be something similar to: 

    apt install /home/user/Downloads/game.deb /home/user/Downloads/game-data.deb

Common issues

The following issues are copied from the upstream documentation, and as such the list might be incomplete or outdated. The up-to-date list of common issues for Debian is available on ./play.it forge: Common issues on Debian

Install i386 packages on a amd64 system

On a default amd64 setup, i386 packages can not be installed.

The following commands, that need to be run with the root account, allow the installation of i386 packages with their dependencies: 

dpkg --add-architecture i386
apt update
apt install libc6:i386

This needs to be done only once per system, after that all i386 packages should be installable.

source

Available innoextract version is too old

When calling ./play.it on a Windows installer, you could get an error similar to this one: 

Error: Available innoextract version is too old to extract data from the following archive: setup_heroes_of_might_and_magic_3_complete_4.0_(28740).exe

This happens when the installer you are trying to convert to native packages is an ?InnoSetup installer that is not supported by the version of innoextract currently available on your Debian. There is a package available from openSUSE Build Service to get an up-to-date version of innoextract: innoextract from home:dscharrer project

source

Depends: libfaudio0 but it is not installable

When installing some packages generated by ./play.it on a Debian Buster (or some derivative), the installation might fail with a message similar to this one: 

Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 owlboy : Depends: libfaudio0 but it is not installable
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

This is because the libfaudio0 package is only available starting with Debian Bullseye, so you need to enable the buster-backports repo, see Backports#Adding_the_repository.

Once backports are enabled, you can run again the command to install your game packages. apt should no longer complain about some not installable libfaudio0 package.

source

Contact

IRC channel

Some ./play.it developers and users can be reached on IRC, channel is #play.it on network irc.oftc.net. The main language on this IRC channel is English, but most of us can speak French too.

E-mail

A contact e-mail for feedback can usually be found in each ./play.it script, as well as the library. Open one of these files with any text editor to see the contact e-mail.

Fediverse

You can follow ./play.it activity as well as send us messages on the Fediverse, via the account @playit@fediverse.dotslashplay.it.

CategoryGame