How to play Wordle on the Linux desktop

Wordle is a viral puzzle game created by an independent developer. It was soon purchased by the New York Times and continued to grow in popularity. If you want a way to play Wordle on the Linux desktop, check our Warble.

Warble is a native Linux clone of Wordle, developed by Avojak. This guide will show you how to play Wordle on your Linux desktop.

Installing Warble on Linux

Warble is a native Linux app nearly identical to the New York Times game “Wordle.” It is well supported on Linux via Flatpak, the Arch Linux AUR, and the source code. However, to play the game on your Linux desktop, you must first install it using one of these methods.

You will need a terminal window to get Warble working on your Linux PC. Open a terminal window by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T on the keyboard. Alternatively, you can open up a terminal window by searching for “Terminal” in the app menu.

The terminal window is open so installation can begin. Follow the installation instructions corresponding to the platform you are installing Warble on.

Flatpak

The easiest way to get the Warble game installed on your Linux PC is via Flatpak. However, before installing the Warble app, you must set up the Flatpak runtime on your computer. To set up the Flatpak runtime, do the following.

First, install the “flatpak” package onto your computer. You can set up this package using the package manager in your terminal. For more in-depth instructions on setting up the Flatpak runtime, please check out our Flatpak setup guide.

With the Flatpak runtime set up and enabled, it is time to install the Warble application. Using the flatpak install command, set up the app on your computer.

flatpak install https://flatpak.elementary.io/repo/appstream/com.github.avojak.warble.flatpakref

When you run the installation command above, the Flatpak package management tool will ask you if you wish to add “https://flatpak.elementary.io/repo” for future Flatpak installations. Press the Y button if you want to access Elementary OS packages. Otherwise, press N to reject adding the repo.

Arch Linux

The Warble game is available to all Arch Linux users via the Arch Linux User Repository. To install it on your system, do the following. First, install the “git” and “base-devel” packages on your computer using the pacman -S command.

sudo pacman -S git base-devel

With the two packages installed, use the git clone command to download the latest release of the Trizen AUR helper tool. This tool will make installing software from the AUR easier and faster.

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/trizen.git

Install the Trizen AUR helper tool on your Arch Linux system.

cd trizen/

makepkg -sri

Finally, install the Warble video game to your Arch Linux system using the following trizen -S command.

trizen -S warble

From source

The source code for Warble is available on the developer’s Github page. To install it on your system, you’ll first need to set up the required dependencies. There are eight dependencies in total, listed below.

granite (>= 0.6.0)
debhelper (>= 10.5.1)
gettext
libgtk-3-dev (>= 3.10)
libgee-0.8-dev
meson
valac (>= 0.28.0)
libhandy-1-dev (>=1.0.0)

Once you’ve downloaded and installed the dependencies on your computer, you’ll need to download the source code from the official Warble Github page using the git clone command.

git clone https://github.com/avojak/warble.git

After downloading the code to your computer, use the cd command to enter the “warble” folder. Once inside the folder, run the meson build –prefix=/usr command. This command will generate a build profile.

meson build --prefix=/usr

Following the meson command, you’ll be able to compile and build the Warble application on your computer by using the ninja command.

sudo ninja -C build install

When the compilation process is complete, you’ll be able to run the software on your computer by executing the following command.

com.github.avojak.warble

Flatpak source

While it is generally encouraged to install the release version of the Warble Flatpak, it is also possible to compile it. If you’d like to compile the Warble Flatpak, ensure that you have Flatpak Builder installed.

With Flatpak Builder up and running, use the three commands to build and compile the software.

git clone https://github.com/avojak/warble.git

cd warble/
flatpak-builder build com.github.avojak.warble.yml --user --install --force-clean

flatpak run --env=G_MESSAGES_DEBUG=all com.github.avojak.warble

Playing Warble

To play Warble, start by launching the “Warble” app. Once it is open, you’ll see a “How to Play” pop-up. Read the pop-up to understand the rules. Once you understand the rules, click on the “Close” button.

Using your keyboard, guess the words in the grid. Press the Enter key to confirm your word. If a letter is correct, it will be green. If the letter is wrong, it will be gray, and if a letter is in the answer, it will be yellow.