Great Battles on Linux

[Sammael]

Hi there,

after Win11 becomes more and more a kind of spyware, I decided to give linux a try. So Im a bloody noob. Nevertheless after checking protondb, BOX seems quite playable. In the old forum I found some threads about playing on linux, but not yet here in the new one. Is there any interest for this topic in the community for exchanging experiences - getting and giving advises? Maybe we can get an extra subtopic for hardware and software - like in the old forum - if there is already some comparable and i missed it - sorry for the post in general discussions 🙂 

Dont wanna get too deep at this point - just want check out the general mood. 😄 

 

kind regards - Sammael

 

[blockheadgreen_]

It functions perfectly on Linux, and in fact my performance is better on CachyOS (Arch) than Win 11 by a large margin. Installing through Lutris or the Steam version is the way to go.

[Sammael]

Very good to know - I started with Linux Mint - seems, that its recommended for people, who just switched. But I read, that the performance is weaker because of the older kernel. Is it better, to switch to a game-optimazed distro as soon as possible or are the differences not that much? I mean first of all, the hotas has been complete recognized by system (throttle, stick and pedals) without any issues, steam and proton do their jobs very well - but i fear the terminal will be faster my best friend, than i want, when i need to change distro to cachyOS and want it all got running again😄 

next step is, to get the VR-headset (Quest3) running, but I found players using ALVR for this - dont know, if steam link is already running on linux. On Win11 I used Virtual Desktop, because of the better performance of VDXR and even OpenXR-runtime was better than steams solution - maybe in near future it will change because of steam frame.

I have a highly modded IL-2 on my Windows-partition(lots of skins - some JSGME-stuff). Is it possible, to copy the data-folder in my partition, where steam installed IL-2 on Linux - including my savegames? 

 

thanks a lot and kind regards - Sammael

 

[Hanu]

Great to start this thread! I just planned to start asking questions about this as I'm getting so fed up with Win 11.

When it is possible to get IL-2 and DCS to run with all the controllers I have, I'd be ready get rid of Windows completely. But these two must be running without too much of a hassle. 

[R3animate]

19 hours ago, Sammael said:

I have a highly modded IL-2 on my Windows-partition(lots of skins - some JSGME-stuff). Is it possible, to copy the data-folder in my partition, where steam installed IL-2 on Linux - including my savegames? 

 

thanks a lot and kind regards - Sammael

 

1. Yep, Linux user here / happy to chime in. Lutris should* work for the launcher version, Steam version works great (I checked protondb for common fixes) after some tweaking.

2. (Copying your data over): Yes it is -- you can take the entire data folder from the windows side and overwrite the one in your linux folder. Your career saves are under data\career if I recall correctly, your graphics config is data\startup.ini, your input settings are all in data\input -- you can just take the whole data folder over. 

The path for mine (Steam) is like this, so yours may be similar. : /home/reanimate/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/IL-2 Sturmovik Battle of Stalingrad/data/

[Edit] 3. The only thing I haven't gotten to work is OpenTrack and it's because I haven't committed the time to figure it out; I believe there's an AUR package for it though. I will likely put more effort into this when Korea is out. 

Edited January 15 by R3animate

[Sammael]

Thanks for this - I will try it as soon as possible. Im not sure, if I should change the distro to CachyOS - Im a bit afraid of the arch-architecture as a beginner, but i saw a lot of more performance compared to LM. 

@R3animate https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/17qsa5d/i_found_out_how_to_get_opentrack_to_work_on_linux/?show=original

found this, maybe it helps 🙂 

[R3animate]

I intend to build it from source at some point, there's a guide on the github page for opentrack. Also RE: Arch/Cachy - I think the performance benefits compared to Mint are over exaggerated; stick to what you're comfortable with / play around in a VM if you want to see what the other distros are like before making the jump.

[Sammael]

Thanks a lot - next lesson to learn - VM 😄 I will try

 

@Hanu just try - set up dual boot, so you can keep Windows as full operating backup-system. YT helps me a lot these days 😄

 

kind regards

[blockheadgreen_]

There’s additionally a new fork of Linuxtrack which is greatly improved, easier to use and finally lets me use my TrackIR 5 in all of my sims - I was genuinely on the verge of selling it as before a week or so ago it was impossible to make work.

 

https://gitlab.com/fwfa123/linuxtrackx-ir

[lvdsl]

Guys, how did you get launcher worked? No matter under which version of Proton/GE-proton/Wine I started it, it just show huge error message.
BUT, it keeps working in background and download content. So, IL-2 installed with this weird way works fine. Working launcher would be nice anyway.

As for Opentrack, I just run its Windows version in the same Wine prefix along with the running IL-2.

[lvdsl]

On 1/16/2026 at 3:23 AM, blockheadgreen_ said:

There’s additionally a new fork of Linuxtrack which is greatly improved, easier to use and finally lets me use my TrackIR 5 in all of my sims - I was genuinely on the verge of selling it as before a week or so ago it was impossible to make work.

 

https://gitlab.com/fwfa123/linuxtrackx-ir

I've just gave it a fast try, under Wayland it can't see my webcam and unable to map any controller button to recenter view.