So, you are sick and tired of Windows 10's privacy and updates bullshit, but scared to move away, because you are not sure if The Sims works on it? Well, I am happy to report that all 4 games work perfectly, with some work. In this part, I will cover The Sims 1 and 2, and in the next, I will cover the more modern games, 3, and 4.

I will be assuming that you are using Ubuntu, or a variant of it. Ubuntu is the most common and most user-friendly Linux OS to use. If you are not using Ubuntu, don’t worry, the commands are almost the same. But you will have to do a little more research.

First, here's a guide on how to install Ubuntu. Installing Ubuntu WILL REMOVE ALL OF YOUR FILES. PLEASE BACK UP, unless you dual-boot, but Windows updates most of the time break it, so it's highly discouraged. Then, follow this guide for stuff to do after installing Ubuntu.

Okay, let’s get started!

If your GPU is Nvidia,follow this guide to install the drivers. There are already built in drivers, but they provide terrible performance, so I recommend to install the official drivers. If your GPU is AMD, however there is no need to install anything, since there are already the official drivers, built in. Don't be afraid to use the terminal, it is not scary to use, and just old-fashioned. For example. have you ever looked around on Windows, trying to find that one setting? Well, using the terminal, and copy pasting the commands, that is not a problem at all!

Second, install the stable version of Wine and Lutris respectively. Wine is a compatibility layer, making it possible to play those games on Linux, when they are coded to play on Windows. Lutris manages Wine, making the process so much easier.

Now, after this, you are pretty much set up! You don't need to know that much to play games.

For The Sims 1, go to the Sims 1 page on Lutris,located here. Pick the OpenGL version, click Install, and if everything goes right, The Sims 1 will install perfectly! It's recommended to have the complete collection, but if you only have the base game, it still work nicely.

For The Sims 2, the process is almost the same. Go to the Sims 2 page on Lutris, here. Click Install, and again, if everything goes right, TS2 will install perfectly! Now, here are some common locations for the stuff you need;

For Mods, it's under /home/YOURUSERNAME/Games/the-sims-2/drive-c/YOURUSERNAME/My Documents/EA GAMES/The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection/Downloads
For the game itself, it's under /home/YOURUSERNAME/Games/the-sims2/drive-c/Program Files/Origin Games/The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection

FAQ;

Q: Why would someone use Linux?
A: Well, people have a number of reasons for why. First, it's open source, which means all of the code is transparent, and you can go and edit it yourself. Which means it's more secure, stable, and better to use than windows, since many people are contributing to helping it and making it better. Maybe you're a developer and need it for coding, maybe you're an average user, and you're sick and tired of the bad updates and security of Windows 10, and angry that support for Windows 7 is ending.

Q: How do I customize my desktop?
A: Well, it's a little harder, but the payoff is immense! Just go to r/unixporn, and see at the beautiful stuff that people have done to make their Linux distro their own. I highly recommend getting into it, its kind of addicting and reminds me of CC Shopping.

Q: Any performance difference between Windows and this version?
A: No, there is virtually no performance difference. In fact, this might even perform better since the compatibility layer's version of Windows is very lightweight.

I am not encouraging every Sims 2 player to use Linux, but if you're like me, tired of Windows 10's snooping on your personal information, but also a newbie to how Linux works, then I hope this guide will push you to give it a try. It's very fun, and quite the rollercoaster!

Also, if you're having issue, contact me at discord at @redandvidya#2823

em... before it will roll out of control;

if you want to jump onto happy *ux train do not do this blindly. You'll be disappointed, frustrated and quickly join crowd crying "linux sucks". Try some distribution as virtual machine 1st or live USB/CD. It's not a Windows, it's not like a Windows, it never was and never will be. Get yourself a bit more comfortable with the basics, read/view some tutorials first. Then try on the metal (aka: real machine).

While Ubuntu and its flawors is OK - it's a big family with rather friendly crowd it also has some design decision which may turn the newcomer away. Other possible options for the starters:
Linux Mint: https://linuxmint.com/ (Debian->Ubuntu branch)
Manjaro: https://manjaro.org/ (Arch branch)
MX Linux: https://mxlinux.org/ (Debian->Ubuntu branch)

Mint and MX are LTS (stable Long Term Release) which means they put stability and safety before newest drivers and software - the ultranew hardware may work not very well with them. Manjaro is RS (Rolling Release) - the best performance, the newest drivers and tendency to break from time to time. All are friendly for Windows' emigrants. Usually I direct the new users to Mint 1st.

Now - in regard to the game.
Origin tends to breaks itself in Linux, well in Windows too. Have that in mind. You deal with EA, which means you deal with serious level of incompetence. Like revoking rights to write into its own directory (yeah... Origin in full glory).

Lutris is very convenient wrapper, especially for the better performance, because of lot of options for DXVK/Gallium, prebuilt wine sets, and its "installer" scripts especially if you have games on Steam or Origin etc., but not always the best choice, there's also PlayOnLinux (another wrapper). POL is better for certain older games.
The games themselves works perfectly fine (aside normal mess with not recognized GPUs), even with mediocre hardware. Because of (in general) superior memory and CPU management they may work even better than in Windows as long as they're (like Sims 3) mostly CPU-bond.

Important note:
for the games in general and especially wine games *make a new user* install and play as that user. Wine works with users' right, which means that if something goes bad, like you run some rogue code, the potential damage can be dealt only to that particular user data. There are no "viruses"* on Linux but with wine you *can* execute Windows code, including any malicious one. So keep you working user safe.


*there're trojans and other funny stuff but theirs attack vectors are servers not desktops in general.

Regarding Linux distros: as a lifelong Windows user beforehand, I tried Ubuntu first, for quite a while (had a secondary laptop with only Ubuntu installed for a few years). Never felt comfortable with it, and I mean never, even though I learned some basics about using the command line and could get basic system-maintenance/management stuff done graphically or in Terminal. Then later I heard that Ubuntu is actually much more like Mac OS, which explains that; I had never seriously used a Mac. In my case, my experience with Linux Mint has been a stark and welcome contrast---it felt familiar from day one, and I've never once looked back. Now I far prefer my Linux (Mint) system to any of my Windows ones, even actually enjoy it in a way I can't say I ever enjoyed Windows.



I'm really glad you made mention of that here. I have no plans to install Wine on my Linux systems, solely because doing so introduces Windows' vulnerabilities that a Linux user without Wine never has to worry about. So I think this guide is good for folks who have no other choice for simming but to install the game on a Linux system, but I personally am happy to keep my Windows-only games off of my Linux machines, out of an abundance of caution. (I do hear what you're saying about the rogue code only affecting that one account's user data, but I don't think even that would make me comfortable---because my primary reason for going to Linux was to get completely away from Windows-based problems).

Thanks also for mentioning Play on Linux; I wondered how it compared to Lutris and what the reasons were for picking Lutris over PoL for Sims 2 on Linux.

Don't get me wrong: for the sake of everyone who does want to play Sims 2 on Linux, I'd love to see this guide continue. However, I think it's important that it be clear and open about why it's advocating some choices over others (Ubuntu vs. Mint, Lutris vs. Play on Linux, Wine vs. more total system security) and maybe most important, that it lets readers know that those choices exist.

Manjaro? Sure? I'm running Manjaro XFCE rn (planning to switch to Arch though) and it did eventually break after a few weeks. Manjaro is probably good for the mid-tier linux user, not really a beginner. Linux Mint is fantastic, should've recommended that too xD

It mentions that some features may be broken... which features?

@redandvidya
Manjaro is (AFAIK) most friendly member of the Arch lineage, mostly no brainer - I have VM with it for my students. It's RR, so it breaks from time to time obviously. With Timeshift (just like Mint) it's not a big problem, no more than typical Windows update disaster. On the other hand, if you have really new hardware and you're not particularly friendly with hunting PPAs or kernel streams, Manjaro offers often compatibility out of the box. Something which LTS won't give you by definition. I would not recommend it for the workhorse machine, though (or any rolling release in general).
At the end of the day the distro does not matter. The familiarity with distro idioms, and community does.

@JDacapo
Some visuals in Lutris scripted installation, it's better with different wine builds. Nothing which simple mods cannot handle. Problems are there because of incomplete DX9 compatibility in Wine. For example wine lower than 4.01 tends to break particular kinds of transparency - you either have "pixel explosion", mess or no transparency. It's getting better, but it's a process.

@natboopsie
*buntu has many flavors, and like any other distribution it may be as "macish" (MacOS is just appropriated and spoiled BSD, under the hood it's still POSIX-compliant system anyway) or as "windows-ish" as you wish. Many users likes Kubuntu (KDE flavor). ElementaryOS AFAIK gives the most Mac-like experience out of the box, or it was just my feelings about it. The problems with Ubuntu itself are the decisions Canonical made along the way, theirs stubbornes to keep Unity as "the Desktop", Gnome 3, and other things. But it's a Linux world, you don't like - you go another way. I like Mint and I use it, because I'm lazy and I have real work to do, too.

Wine - in general - poses a security risk, obviously. Any installed package is, because it enlarge possible attack area. That's why the wine-reliant applications should be isolated in another user space and - as general rule: the less packages are installed: the better. If you run WannaCry through wine (don't try it at home ) it *will* work, and will happily encrypt everything in said user-space. Namely: everything in /home/$user and @temp, and of course any disk-shares where that user has access to. And that's it. The rest of the data, as a system, will be safe (if that user is not root) because that funny code has no rights to access it.

Windows code without wine obviously won't work in Linux directly, even if put through wine - most exploits/viruses/trojans/malware etc. won't work as expected because of lack of real Windows structure, while wine pretends "being a Windows" good enough to run many programs, it lacks WIndows structure like its elaborated services model, kernel levels, execution layers, absurdly sophisticated privileges model etc. In most cases it just destroy particular wine prefix and data in accessible directories (like "Documents"). Until someone is really (like *really*) stupid or likes exact brain-breaking challenges (like experimenting with infected software just for fun), the wine does not poses greater risk than most browsers.

In fact, because they're used more frequently (and with more frivolous ways) - browsers are much more dangerous as arbitrary code executors. On this very webpage you have 12 arbitrary scripts at last 2 blobs (google's api, popular bad practice, thanks guys)+ads script which is as trustworthy as burglar saying "hello". Java, Mono or Adobe shenanigans are much more dangerous. Running games on Linux through wine is as dangerous as running them on Windows. Mostly: much less.

So: being careful is OK and being vigilant is advised, the best cure for paranoia is a regular backup, javascript disabler (it unfortunately often breaks webpages functionalities) and common sense.

POL is better for older games, when you need better control over particular wineprefix and its configuration and you do not need new shiny features like DXVK. It's works also often better if you have games on disks. Lutris is a great solutions for a crowd of users with newer games, it's friendly - have user-made installation scripts, a lot of additional features and options including newest solutions greatly improving performance. These are exactly the features which makes sometimes problems in Lutris with older, less popular titles: lack of installation script, errors in it (it happens) etc.
And there's ofc the Steam. Besides native titles, many works through Proton just fine.

Pixel explosion mess or no transparency? Like for the HUD or for the FX? Either way, it's a big step up from what I've seen in videos where the sims were stuck in the blind pose.

yeah, these are minor FX annoyances, most of them disappear with mods corrections. Original Lutris scripts sets up 32b wine tkg-3.26 devel wineprefix, in my installation (manual) I use 4.01 stable and most of these problems are gone. Except messed up default families' images on load screens and mini-images in bin/map. This still needs a bit of tinkering. It depends of the gpu, mod correction and settings. As like in Windows there's a shadow problem but there's also fix for it (SimNopke).
The game should works great, including beautifications with D9VK (DirectX9-compatible port of DXVK) if you have the gpu compatible with Vulkan/Proton. Gallium should help too. I don't have such GPU (it's installed on ThinkPad with HD 5500) so I did not tested that.

As from reviews Sims 3 is working right out of the box - and there should be a better performance than in Windows. Sims 4 (64b implementation) works definitely better as I've heard. No surprises there. Ofc as long as another Origin update won't f*ck things up again (it's happening constantly). I did not tested these games because I didn't swallow poison pill with freebie S4, and HD5500 is not really enough to play Sims 3 comfortably. Maybe I will make experiment some day, later.

Shoot, I've been using the internet on Windows for twenty years and have never had a virus. I'd have no problem with running WINE on Linux if that's what it takes to get certain things to work. I've never used Linux because I've always had Windows but it's something I started considering about fifteen years ago and quite possibly a move I will make in the near future since Windows 7 is reaching the end of its support life (either that or I'll take other precautions). My son has used various Linux distros for years, lately mainly Arch. He loves it and has been hell-bent for years to get his old mom to switch.

Thank you, ElaineNualla, for the explanation about exactly what vulnerabilities will/won't happen when using wine in Linux. It's a good point that most browsers will tend to be even less safe than that use case; I agree with the use of a javascript blocker and have one I use faithfully, plus have installed Firejail to sandbox all Internet-access apps (on my Linux system) as well. Appreciate the further details about Lutris and Play on Linux too---I figured they must each have their pros and cons!

My implementation is probably already beyond what a typical user will bother with, so for really fair context I suppose I can mention that my simming Windows machine is never allowed online any longer---it's permanently in airplane mode, with WiFi and even Bluetooth turned off manually under that...and no passwords stored for any WiFi network around, lol. Most Windows patches seem to be all about security anyway, so if the machine gets no Internet access and I use it for nothing else, there's no reason it ever needs any patch urgently either (plus of course, I no longer have any tolerance for Windows thinking it should decide by itself on update timing!).

And so yes, I even only download simming cc on a Linux system and transfer it using a flashdrive or external hard drive to the Windows system; the simming machine never even goes online for that.

Definitely paranoid---I know that what I'm willing to do there isn't even practical for most simmers or, for that matter, most typical computer users!

Misty, it sounds like you'll get ready tech support if you make the switch. I certainly feel that with a distro that suits you, Linux is a much better choice for normal computing as well than Windows, and though I don't sim on Linux, I've also really enjoyed playing other games on my Linux system. Since Linux also tends to be faster and lighter on system resources than Windows, I suspect every game I run on my Linux machine probably runs better than it would if I were using Windows to run it (assuming the same machine). So I think if you do make the jump, including simming on Linux, you'll have a lot to like.

@Misty, If you're running Windows you do not need more Malicious Software than you already have
You have believer and support service at hand, what are you waiting for?
https://media1.tenor.com/images/191...?itemid=5103506
@natboopsie
if you're behind the NAT (as most users) the most dangerous software you're running is always the browser.* Jailing it levels up security but it's not a silver bullet. The javascript precompiler may escape, though most of analyses are testing/academic, and actual breaches in real life happened like... twice? The java itself is much more risky and that's why it's recommended to purge it (or not install in the 1st place). As long as someone does not behaves in very risky way (or is completely stupid) it's really hard to breach even very "nooby" distro behind the NAT.

*assuming the 2 most dangerous on the enterprise level security vulnerabilities are not present; namely: stupidity of the higher staff (management especially) and outsiders peeking and poking around (like some Cleaning Company personnel wandering around unchecked).

I have been using Linux for as long as I can remember. So I asked my family about it: they were on a forum discussing the end of Windows 98 support many years ago when another user suggested trying Linux on a Live CD. They felt that they had paid good money to own a computer and shouldn't be forced to either buy a new one or buy a new version of Windows just because Microsoft said so! Linux was and is free to use. Any amount of time spent learning how to use Linux helps learn more about how computers work as well. I've just assumed for the longest time that despite running on the same hardware that I wouldn't be able to play Windows games 'because Windows', or that I should be happy that DosBox works.

(Also, yes I did see the reply to my post back in March where I asked a similar question, this guide is even better than that answer because I intend to play Sims 2 from CD and not connected to the Internet. Also, I came across Zorin OS, https://zorinos.com/, that says it has Wine on the install/live CD. I've tried the OS from the live CD and might be going with this.)

Hello, thought I'd bump the thread to report back that today I finally had the time to install the LTS (long-term support) version of Lubuntu (a version of Ubuntu that requires less system resources so more resources available for other things), Wine, and Lutris, and got Sims 2 up and running! I have the DVD version of Double Deluxe and it did involve some poking around, but no more than I've done before for other reasons.

I did run into the shader problem where the thumbnails generated wrong and character models (and some other items, mainly plants) were blinking red, but that was fixed through adding the startup configuration file from the Github page (actually just a "userstartup.cheat" file) linked from the Sims 2 page on the Lutris site. I tried opening up a neighborhood I didn't open before adding the file, and all the thumbnails then appeared correctly.

I haven't tried anything major yet due to some other commitments today, but it's great to get the Sims 2 just running on an operating system that won't insist I have to upgrade it to a newer version, or won't work long-term because activation is no longer possible.

HI! You know how I can install the CAW? I have Sims 3 installed in ZorinOs ( basicaly is Ubuntu) with Wine

@rivit This is the Sims 2 board, try help on the Sims 3 boards.

Glad to hear TS2 can be played - gaming support's all that's holding me back from switching to Linux. Do its related programs (Body Shop, SimPE, Hood Checker, 4 GB patch stuff...) function all right? On WineHQ SimPE's rated as garbage, but the test results are apparently pretty outdated.

welcome on the happy tux wagon @jaytee95

I do not use any of mentioned tools anymore (and sadly I have rarely time to play anyway now ), if the necessary libraries will be present (proper dlls for VB *not* mono! in either wine or native windows version), they should work. "Should" is the keyword.
Elaborate "4GB patch" is just header LLA bit setting, I used to do this manually, since the "patch" just sets the bit and backups original file within the same user context, there's no reason why this simple program would not work.

in regard to the S3 question (I know, it's wrong forum, just do not crucify... ) - it may be or may be not; CAW happens to be finicky in the normal Windows installations (it's officially the beta state anyway; which means really: in outdated now terminology from early '90 "alpha revision", just like most current commercial software nowadays).

Try and tell us about your adventures

//minor editions with additional infos

I used Body Shop to create my recent CC, so I can confirm with 100% certainty, that you can use BodyShop to make and import custom content to your game. The files obviously also completely work with other Windows systems as well.

I'm using the Lutris version, and to further answer everyone's concerns, I personally ran into no graphical issues whatsoever, just used the Lutris script to install the Origin version and works fine. They may have added a couple fixes in the back-end of the script but I didn't need to make any changes for me to work. It doesn't even have the infamous square-shadow bug.

To launch Body Shop, simply click The Sims 2 in your Lutris library, then on the sidebar select Run EXE inside wine prefix, then look for the Body Shop exe in your sims installation folder.

Looked at those pages again and it looks like a lot has changed.

mostly everything become simpler, kind of Fire&Forget (installation) and minor tweaking which the game needs on any system with barely modern hardware anyway.

Happy to see a thread about Linux on here!
So, today in a fit of nostalgia I decided to download the UC on my Ubuntu MATE 20.04 to see if I can play a bit. I tried to install the game through the Lutris script, which ended up only downloading the Origin client. After, I installed the game through the Origin client, as if I were on Windows. So far so good, everything seemed to run smoothly and the game launched. However, I found out that all the sim models don't show up, unless there is an overlay window on screen. E.g in Create-a-Sim, I can see the sim I'm making only if I click on exit and the exit dialog window pops up. Same when playing in a lot. Has anyone here had an issue like this? Or an idea what may cause it and where to look for a solution? I'm on Intel HD5500 graphics, have the latest drivers, all wine packages installed, as well as vulkan and dxvk support.

On a side note, when I look through the game's wine prefix, I can't for the life of me find any .exe file... Except for the ones that are origin related. Is this normal?

Never heard of that one, (the one caused by people not disabling Origin in-game overlay is far more drastic.) Also, unless they got massively better in that regard Canonical is actually kinda bad at keeping video drivers up to date... What it says is the best and latest Intel driver and what it actually is can be quite different things.

As for no exes... I don't really remember, but I think Origin installed all the TS2 engine games in some weird place like "/users/<you>/Application Data/" and then the actual exe is in the /TSBin sub-directory of the install directory...

I'm bookmarking this!

My laptop is giving me some trouble; so far restoring Windows has worked, but if it keeps failing I'm ready to move onto Ubuntu.
I haven't used Linux in ages, but I'm pretty positive it won't be harder now than 15 years ago :D
If that also means extending my TS2 life, that's awesome. So thanks for sharing!

Hope this doesn't count as a necro, but has anyone else tried Sims 2 on Ubuntu lately? How is it working now, and what kinds of problems does it have, and how simple has it become? I'm saving up for a new computer and if I can't get it to run on Windows 10, I'd like to at least try running it on Ubuntu. With the Budgie shell of course.

I can't believe that people are still discovering this thread, haha! TS2 works perfectly on Linux, if you're looking for a distro, I highly recommend Xubuntu as it's the easiest and best to use. Lutris takes care of most if not all of what needs to be done :b