How to Launch Roblox on Linux

Roblox is among (don’t even try) one of the fastest growing game platforms on the World Wide Web, pandering to players of almost all mainstream platforms. Xbox, Play Store, you name it! In 2010, Roblox considered designing a Linux-native version of Roblox, however, this plan clearly never materialized - as of today, it still lacks any support for Linux. That changes with Wine 7.0 and Grapejuice.

This guide will focus on Ubuntu-based systems.

Step 0: Enable 32-bit architecture

Roblox uses some 32-bit code, so we’re going to need to enable this with:

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 

Step 1: Install Wine 7.0 (or higher)

Wine allow Windows applications to run. Its name is a recursive acronym standing for “WINE is not an emulator” - Wine is indeed not an emulator. Rather, it mimics the APIs present to the Windows system and maps them to Linux equivalents.

The package repositories on Linux distributions tend to be outdated. For example, my distribution installs the 5.0.3 version by default. We specifically need, at minimum, Wine 7.0 as it fixes a bug that kicked the player after 10 seconds. So we’ll be adding Wine’s apt repositories.

You can follow along with Wine’s official guide here.

Retrieve Wine’s public key

To verify the signatures for the repository and its packages, we’re going to need to grab Wine’s public key using this command:

sudo wget -nc -O /usr/share/keyrings/winehq-archive.key https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key

Add the correct Wine repository

Depending on your Ubuntu version, you’re going to need to add its associated repository. For example, Ubuntu 20.04 is nicknamed Focal Fossa. It’s associated repository is obtained with:

sudo wget -NP /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/dists/focal/winehq-focal.sources

Refer to Wine’s offical guide for information on other Ubuntu versions.

Install wine-stable package

After adding the correct repository, we need to update our package list.

sudo apt update

Then, we can finally install Wine.

sudo apt install --install-recommends winehq-stable

Step 2: Install Grapejuice

When you try to launch Roblox from the browser, it won’t detect the installation on Wine and asks you to install Roblox again. This is where Grapejuice comes in - allowing you to launch Roblox from the browser.

You can follow along with Grapejuice’s official guide here.

Retrieve Grapejuices’s public key

Like Wine, we’ll be adding Grapejuice’s repository,

sudo wget -nc -O /usr/share/keyrings/winehq-archive.key https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key

Add Grapejuice’s apt repository

Now we can add Grapejuice’s apt repository:

sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/grapejuice.list <<< 'deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/grapejuice-archive-keyring.gpg] https://brinkervii.gitlab.io/grapejuice/repositories/debian/ universal main'

Install grapejuice package

After adding the correct repository, we need to update our package list once more.

sudo apt update

Then, we can install Grapejuice.

sudo apt install grapejuice

Step 3: Install Roblox

Now, we can, at last, install Roblox. All we need to do is download the Roblox installer from the Roblox website and run it.

Get the Roblox installer

Now you can go directly to the Roblox website and download it… or do it all in terminal-land!

Using wget without the “-O” flag here will give it the name “client.1” for some reason. So, for aesthetics, we’ll rename it to what it would normally download from the website via browser.

wget -c -O RobloxPlayerLauncher.exe https://www.roblox.com/download/client

Install the Roblox launcher

Now, navigate to wherever you downloaded the Roblox launcher exe and run:

wine RobloxPlayerLauncher.exe

Then, wait for Roblox to install. Once that green button appears, you’re good to go!

Happy gaming fellow Linux Robloxians!