Ubuntu: Up and Running

PlayOnLinux

The PlayOnLinux program is an implementation of the Wine Windows interface (see Chapter 16 for more on Wine). With it you can play a wide range of free, shareware, open source, and commercial Windows games.

To get the program installed, you will need to add information to the Ubuntu repository, so open the Terminal program and enter the following command. Although it takes up two lines here, it must be entered as a single command, with a space on either side of the -O. Enter your password when prompted.

sudo wget http://deb.playonlinux.com/playonlinux_karmic.list -O
 /etc/apt/sources.list.d/playonlinux.list

Note

If you are running a version of Ubuntu newer than Karmic Koala, such as Lucid Lynx, replace the word karmic with lucid, or whatever the release name is.

Once the command has completed, you should then enter the two following lines to perform the installation:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install playonlinux

Upon completion, there will be a new entry in the Applications → Games menu called PlayOnLinux that you can select to call up the program, which will look like Figure 13-8.

Figure 13-8. The PlayOnLinux main window

To get started adding games (and other programs) to Ubuntu, click the Install button to bring up the new window shown in Figure 13-9, in which the Games category has been selected and the program Crayon Physics highlighted.

Figure 13-9. Installing a PlayOnLinux ...