Installing PlayOnLinux

PlayOnLinux is available in the repositories of a lot of distributions, but with the exception of pacman, the versions found in these repositories are rarely the latest versions available. We genuinely encourage every use to use the latest version possible, as many things can change between releases.

You will find below the three methods that you are offered to install PlayOnLinux on your machine.

Distribution Repository

This method is probably the one that most users will use first. It has the advantage that it will provide generally a package approved by your distribution and thus generally better integrated with your OS.

Unfortunately, this method is not guaranteed to have the most updated version of the software. As for that, the updates on the repositories are not maintained by the PlayOnLinux team. It is because of this that distribution repository version are delayed by one or two revision. This may have the negative effect of not being able to properly use the tools that interact with the site (eg uploading of error reporting).

We urge you to follow instead the following method that guarantees you always use an updated software.

Following the guide on the site

You will find on the site a "Download" section. This section explains how to install PlayOnLinux on your machine while ensuring that you always use the software to its latest stable version.

Users using pacman will still have the latest version available. However, for other distributions, it is recommended to add the repo for PlayOnLinux in your repository list. To do this, just follow the information for your distribution.

Support for 32-bit architecture

Starting with Debian wheezy and Ubuntu Precise, users will need to install the 32-bit version of Wine if they want to install 32-bit programs with Playonlinux.

For Ubuntu, you need to add 32-bit support manually and the package "wine32" in order to install 32-bit programs. The package "wine32-preloader", may be added, as suggested.

32-bit support for Ubuntu 20.04

The easiest way is to run the following command in a terminal:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install wine32 wine32-preloader

The following two sections are fairly outdated:

On Debian wheezy

To install wine:i386 Debian, you must first enable support for this architecture (with dpkg). You can then update the repository and install wine:i386

sudo dpkg --add-i386
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wine:i386

On Ubuntu Precise (and some higher versions)

To install wine:i386 on Ubuntu, you must first enable support for this architecture (with dpkg configuration file). You can then update the repository and install wine:i386

sudo echo "foreign-i386 architecture"> /etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d/multiarch
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wine:i386

Using GIT Version

The git version can always have the updated program. It is only recommended for advanced users and programmers. It has the advantage of providing automatic update button, unlike other version of the program. To install it on your computer, you must install and configure git. Once this is done, you can download PlayOnLinux using the following command:

git clone https://github.com/PlayOnLinux/POL-POM-4

This command will download the program to your current folder. Consider making use of 'cd' before running the command to get to where you want the files to be downloaded to.

Unlike package installations, this method won't install PlayOnLinux system-wide; To run the development version you'll have to run the "playonlinux" script found in the root directory of the cloned repository.

Next?

Now that you have installed on your computer PlayOnLinux, I suggest you to read our guide for first use of the software who will explain the basics to know to install and uninstall Windows programs with PlayOnLinux.