Install and Play World of Warcraft on Ubuntu

This article teaches you how to install, run and play Wow – World of Warcraft on Ubuntu.

World of Warcraft Logo

Before you begin the installation you need to run this simple command, that checks if your video card driver has proper functions enabled so it can run WoW:
glxinfo | grep rendering

Which should return a line similar to this:
direct rendering: Yes

Make sure you have Wine installed.

Installing WoW

Original WoW

If you have access to the installation discs, the best method to install is to copy the contents to your hard disk and run them from there. This probably will not work with the new installation DVDs – use one of the alternative methods below if you purchased the DVDs.

1. Create a convenient directory (‘wow_installation’ on your Desktop for example)
2. Copy all of the files from the first WoW CD to this new directory.
3. For each of the remaining WoW CD’s, copy just the ‘Installer Tome #.mpq’ files. In the end, you should have the ‘DirectX’ directory, and the ‘autorun.inf’, ‘installer.ico’, ‘Installer Tome.mpq’, and ‘Installer.exe’ files from disc 1, and ‘Installer Tome 2.mpq’, ‘Installer Tome 3.mpq’, ‘Installer Tome 4.mpq’, and ‘Installer Tome 5.mpq’ from the remaining discs. Note that the ‘Installer.exe’ file on the first disc is different from the files of the same name on the subsequent discs; if you get the wrong one the install will fail with
   Unrecognized key "options". (AttributeParser::Parse)

Note that on some WoW DVD’s the installer executable is hidden and you need to mount the disc with the ‘unhide’ option. To do this type in a terminal:

sudo mount -t iso9660 -o ro,unhide /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom0/

Start the installation by opening a terminal and running these commands:
cd / /
wine Installer.exe

Replace with the right path to the directory where you copied all the files above.

During installation, some dialogs may appear blank or garbled, and the installer may even hang for up to 5 minutes at 100% CPU, while appearing to be doing nothing. Simply wait and click next when possible.

Note: If you have not already done so, you may want to install Microsoft’s proprietary fonts, because they can solve some text related graphical glitches during installation.

Burning Crusade

The BC install is more or less the same as the base game install.

1. Create a new directory separate from the directory where you copied the original game discs.
2. Copy the ‘Autorun.inf’, ‘Installer.exe’, ‘Installer.ico’, and ‘Installer Tome.mpq’ files from the first Burning Crusade disc to this new directory.
3. Copy just ‘Installer Tome 2.mpq’, ‘Installer Tome 3.mpq’, and ‘Installer Tome 4.mpq’ from the remaining install discs.
4. Run the installer by opening a terminal and executing these commands:cd / /
wine Installer.exe

   Replace with the right path to the directory where you copied all the files (the BC files, not the original WoW files).

Alternate Installation Methods

If the above isn’t possible for some reason (you don’t have the discs for example, or a working media drive), here’s some alternate ways to install the game.

Alternative 1 (Copy from Windows):
You can also just install WoW in Windows and then copy the entire World of Warcraft folder over from your Windows installation.

Alternative 2 (Download the Entire Game):
If you have lost a CD, do not have access to a CD drive or simply would not like to bother with patching and messing with the CD’s, you can download and run the install of the trial version, which is in fact the full game almost fully patched, from the blizzard torrentlike downloader. They work very nicely with Wine.

Installer Downloads: Original WoW – US Version Burning Crusade – US Version (requires a valid account for log in) WoW – European clients, in all languages

In order to use the Blizzard Downloader effectively, you must 1) open certain ports on your computer and 2) enable port forwarding on your router.

Firewall Configuration for Blizzard Downloader

The easiest way to open these ports is to use the firewall program Firestarter.

1. From the command line, install Firestarter with this command: sudo apt-get install firestarter.
2. When it is running, select the “Policy” tab, right-click in the Allow Service area, and select Add Rule.
3. Under port, type 6112 and make sure that the “Anyone” radio button is selected. Make a note in the comments field that this port relates to Blizzard.
4. Repeat these steps for ports 3724 and for the range 6881-6999 (which will be recognized as BitTorrent ports).

Router Configuration for Blizzard Downloader

Next, configure your router to forward those ports on the router to your computer only. The steps are similar to the above, but vary slighly from router to router and may be found on Blizzard’s website: http://www.blizzard.com/support/wow/?id=aww01199p

Once the firewall is configured and the network port forwarding is working, run the downloader with (Burning Crusade US Version example):

wine WoW-BurningCrusade-enUS-Installer-downloader.exe

Play WoW

Double click the icon you find on your Desktop titled World of Warcraft, this will start the launcher. If you have never used something requires HTML rendering with Wine you will be prompted to download and install the Gecko rendering engine, you should do this as it will enable the WoW Launcher to display news.