How to play The Forest on Linux
The Forest is a survival horror game developed and published by Endnight Games. The game was released for both PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Windows. However, it is possible to get the game working on Linux.
Getting The Forest working on Linux
The Forest is a Windows video game. However, it has a Gold rating on ProtonDB and thus can run decently on Linux. First, however, the Steam Linux client must be installed. To start the installation process, open up a terminal window.
Unsure about how to launch a terminal window on Linux? Press Ctrl + Alt + T on the keyboard. Or, search for “Terminal” in the app menu and launch it that way.
With the terminal window open, the installation process is ready to begin. Use the installation instructions below that correspond with the Linux OS you currently use.
Ubuntu
To get Steam working on Ubuntu Linux, run the following apt install command below.
sudo apt install steam
Debian
On Debian, the Steam application is available in the official software sources. However, it is locked behind the “Non-free” software repository. A much faster way of setting up Steam is by downloading the DEB package directly from Valve.
To get your hands on the latest release of Steam from the internet, use the wget download command down below.
wget https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/client/installer/steam.deb
When the download process is complete, you can install the Steam application on your computer using the dpkg command.
sudo dpkg -i steam.deb
Now that the Steam package is installed on your system, you may need to correct dependency issues that happened during the installation process. To fix these issues, run the apt-get install -f command. This command collects everything missing and fixes it.
sudo apt-get install -f
Arch Linux
On Arch Linux, the Steam application is available through the “multilib” software repository. However, this software repository is not enabled by default. To set it up on your computer, open up the /etc/pacman.conf file in a text editor (as root).
Once the text editor is open, find the “multilib” software repository line and remove the # symbol. Then, remove the # symbol from the lines directly below. Finally, save the editing, close the editor and run pacman -Syy.
sudo pacman -Syy
With the “multilib” software repository enabled on your system, install the latest Steam version to your computer with the pacman -S command.
sudo pacman -S steam
Fedora/OpenSUSE
On Fedora Linux and OpenSUSE Linux, the Steam app is available in the official software repositories. That said, the Flatpak release of Steam tends to work better on these operating systems, so we suggest following those instructions instead.
Flatpak
The Steam app is available as a Flatpak, but the Flatpak runtime must be set up before you can install it. Follow our setup guide to get the Flatpak runtime working on your computer.
With the Flatpak runtime up and running, install the Steam application using the two flatpak commands below.
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
flatpak install flathub com.valvesoftware.Steam
With the Steam app installed, open it up and log into your account using your user credentials. Then, follow the step-by-step instructions below to get The Forest working on your Linux PC.
Step 1: Inside of the Steam app, click on the “Steam” menu. Then, click on the “Settings” button to access the Steam settings. Then, find the “Steam Play” section, and check both boxes available on the page.
Click on the “OK” button to confirm your choice.
Step 2: Find the “Store” button and select it to access the Steam store. Once on the Steam store, click on the search box, and type in “The Forest.” Next, press the Enter key to view the search results.
Look through the Steam search results for “The Forest.” Once you’ve found it, select it with the mouse to access The Forest’s Steam games page.
Step 3: On The Forest Steam games page, look for the green “Add to cart” button, and click on it with the mouse. Upon selecting this button, you’ll add the game to your Steam cart. Select the Steam cart icon to access your Steam cart.
Once in your Steam cart, purchase the game.
Step 4: After purchasing the game, select the “Library” button to access your games library. Inside the games library, locate “The Forest”. When you’ve found the game, click on the blue “INSTALL” button to download and install The Forest to your Linux PC.
Step 5: When the installation of The Forest is complete, the blue “INSTALL” button will become a green “PLAY” button. Select this button to start up The Forest on your Linux computer.
