Hello all, I'm a new chromebook user and I am fed up with not being able to play the games on this site. I have already turned on Linux on my laptop and donwloaded the firefox extension, and I get as far as downloading the game onto my laptop, but when I get into the game files, I don't see any ".deb" file that you're supposed to be able to open using linux. Can someone help me with this please? I've tried like 10 different games that have a linux download option, but none of them have this special file type.
New chromebook user
- Thread starter Nejifan
- Start date
- Apr 14, 2018
- 607
- 827
There is a few issues with what you're trying to do here. First of all, Cromebooks are not designed for downloading
& playing games. They are intended to be essentially web/cloud service focused machines. That's why they usually have very little storage space. They are essentially designed for apps & uses that are over the internet, not from downloaded files or programs.
Secondly Chrome OS isn't linux. Sure, it is derived from linux just like android is, however it has been heavily reworked & modified by google into it's own OS. So just like Android applications use APK files instead of common linux ones like .deb, .rpm, .tar, etc... The same applies to Chrome OS.
So if you want to play the games here on a linux machine, this is what you need to do.
1. Get an actual conventional desktop or laptop computer, not one like a chromebook where the hardware is customized to the specific OS.
2. Go to distrowatch.org & download an actual linux distro. I suggest something newbie friendly like Ubuntu, Mint, lubuntu, etc... You can get adventurous & try some of the other distros like Arch, Gentoo or Mandriva if you like, but I strongly advise sticking with Ubuntu forks if you don't already know what you're doing in Linux. I personally use Linux xubuntu Voyager.
3. Make a bootable usb image of the linux distro of your choice or a bootable DVD if the computer you are installing it onto has a DVD drive.
4. After installing linux, make sure you install all the proprietary packages you may need such as adobe flash, Wine compatibility layer or wine windows program loader. With most Ubuntu forks, this is easy. Just open terminal & type "sudo apt-get install flashplayer plugin" "sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras", Some linux distros may already have wine windows program loader installed, others you may need to load the built in software center & install wine compatibility layer.
5. Download & extract the game files. I recommend creating the desired game folders & extracting them there to keep things neat & tidy. I also recommend downloading the windows versions too as this works best.
6. open the game folders & find the game application. If it's a .deb, it should open without issue, if it's a .tar of any sort, you'll need to google how to install & run .tar files as that's more intermediate level stuff that I'm not going to get into & running the windows .exe would be the better option. If the application is a .exe, simply right click it, click properties, check the box for running it as an executable in the permissions tab, then right click the application again & run with wine windows program loader, or if you have wine compatibility layer installed, just double click it to run it.
That's how you play these games on linux. If you're hell bent on continuing to do it on your chromebook, good luck, though if I were to venture a guess, I think that ChromeOS would use the .apk files like Android does. Personally I wouldn't waste the time or effort especially since most chromebooks only have 8 to 16 gb of storage at max anyway.
& playing games. They are intended to be essentially web/cloud service focused machines. That's why they usually have very little storage space. They are essentially designed for apps & uses that are over the internet, not from downloaded files or programs.
Secondly Chrome OS isn't linux. Sure, it is derived from linux just like android is, however it has been heavily reworked & modified by google into it's own OS. So just like Android applications use APK files instead of common linux ones like .deb, .rpm, .tar, etc... The same applies to Chrome OS.
So if you want to play the games here on a linux machine, this is what you need to do.
1. Get an actual conventional desktop or laptop computer, not one like a chromebook where the hardware is customized to the specific OS.
2. Go to distrowatch.org & download an actual linux distro. I suggest something newbie friendly like Ubuntu, Mint, lubuntu, etc... You can get adventurous & try some of the other distros like Arch, Gentoo or Mandriva if you like, but I strongly advise sticking with Ubuntu forks if you don't already know what you're doing in Linux. I personally use Linux xubuntu Voyager.
3. Make a bootable usb image of the linux distro of your choice or a bootable DVD if the computer you are installing it onto has a DVD drive.
4. After installing linux, make sure you install all the proprietary packages you may need such as adobe flash, Wine compatibility layer or wine windows program loader. With most Ubuntu forks, this is easy. Just open terminal & type "sudo apt-get install flashplayer plugin" "sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras", Some linux distros may already have wine windows program loader installed, others you may need to load the built in software center & install wine compatibility layer.
5. Download & extract the game files. I recommend creating the desired game folders & extracting them there to keep things neat & tidy. I also recommend downloading the windows versions too as this works best.
6. open the game folders & find the game application. If it's a .deb, it should open without issue, if it's a .tar of any sort, you'll need to google how to install & run .tar files as that's more intermediate level stuff that I'm not going to get into & running the windows .exe would be the better option. If the application is a .exe, simply right click it, click properties, check the box for running it as an executable in the permissions tab, then right click the application again & run with wine windows program loader, or if you have wine compatibility layer installed, just double click it to run it.
That's how you play these games on linux. If you're hell bent on continuing to do it on your chromebook, good luck, though if I were to venture a guess, I think that ChromeOS would use the .apk files like Android does. Personally I wouldn't waste the time or effort especially since most chromebooks only have 8 to 16 gb of storage at max anyway.
Last edited:
- Jan 12, 2019
- 2,340
- 2,428
You won't find many .deb files here. They are for installing software on Debian and derived distros (Ubuntu): but most games on F95 don't need to be installed, you just extract the archive and launch an executable file (provided that the permissions are set right). As for the Ren'py visual novels for instance, you run the .sh file (see
Also, what model is your chromebook? Ren'py games are shipped with libraries for x86 and x64 processors: but if your device is ARM-powered, I guess you should download and play the Android version (.apk).
Eta: if you want to try a full Linux distro, there is GalliumOS which is derived from Xubuntu and made expressly for chromebooks (Intel processors only).
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).Also, what model is your chromebook? Ren'py games are shipped with libraries for x86 and x64 processors: but if your device is ARM-powered, I guess you should download and play the Android version (.apk).
Eta: if you want to try a full Linux distro, there is GalliumOS which is derived from Xubuntu and made expressly for chromebooks (Intel processors only).