How to manually set up FINAL FANTASY XI on Linux

Foreword

Greetings, adventurer.

I tried to make this as Linux-beginner friendly as I could.
Nevertheless it will help to be comfortable with how file paths and package management works on a Linux system.

This guide will not cover the Steam version of FFXI. If you bought the game there, consider playing via the standalone client linked in this guide.
It will also focus on using regular Wine Staging, instead of Proton or similar patched Wine builds.
This is because some of these modified Wines from prefix managers, such as Lutris and Bottles, will auto-configure certain things that may conflict with FINAL FANTASY XI.

Please do not use a Lutris install script to install the game, as they may sometimes cause issues that make it trickier to troubleshoot when things go wrong.

Why do things manually?

Lumoria, a GUI for Windower users on Linux

Glossary

Goals

By following this guide, you will do the following:

• Install FINAL FANTASY XI.
• Optionally, install D7VK to make PlayOnline Viewer smoother.
• Optionally, download and configure the Ashita v4 mod framework.
  • Set up dgVoodoo2.
  • Patch FFXI so it can use up to 4GB RAM.
• Run a script to create an application launcher shortcut to the game.

Prerequisites

Download the FFXI setup files for your region:
EUR installer (Link)
USA installer (Link)
JPN installer (Link)
If you already have FFXI installed in a Wine prefix, you can of course skip the actual install process. You may opt to only install what you're missing instead.

Download my FFXI Shortcut Creation script:
Right-click here and "save as"

These are optional, but recommended especially if modding:
dgVoodoo2 2.8.2 (Link)
Thorny's large address aware patcher (Link)

Make sure the following packages are installed on your system:

• wine-staging (Why staging?)
• winetricks
• git
• wget
• sed

Preparing to install

Before doing anything at all, make sure you've loaded into the bash shell.

In order to save some time, you're going to export the path you want to install FINAL FANTASY XI to.
Fill in the placeholders, and run these commands individually. Do not close your terminal after running them.

export XIPATH=(Path to FFXI install location here)

export XIREGION=(EU, US, or JP)

export XIPATH=/home/username/games/ffxi

export XIREGION=EU

When you do that, your terminal will fill in certain placeholders for you throughout this guide, until the terminal itself is closed.
That means it's not permanent. If you close and re-open the terminal, it will forget that, and you'll need to export it again.
Always remember to re-run this if you close your terminal at any point!

Set up the Wine prefix

Warning

On this step, if you're asked to install Gecko, that's fine to do.
But do not install Mono!

Run:

WINEPREFIX=$XIPATH winetricks --unattended corefonts gdiplus dotnet48 vcrun2022 dxvk win11

This can take a while to finish. Just be patient and let it do its thing.

Moving the required files to your Wine prefix

Two reminders before moving on:

• Your Wine prefix refers to what you chose as "XIPATH" earlier.
• For the rest of this guide, do not close the terminal.
  • If you do, re-run the export commands, then cd $XIPATH/drive_c.

Once the Wine prefix is set up, put all five parts of the FINAL FANTASY XI installer inside the drive_c folder in your Wine prefix.
Additionally, put xiMakeShortcut.sh in there for later use.

Installing FINAL FANTASY XI

Time to actually install the game!

• Run these commands in order:

cd $XIPATH/drive_c

This navigates to the correct folder.

WINEPREFIX=$XIPATH wine FFXIFullSetup_$XIREGION.part1.exe /S && sleep 5 && clear && echo "FINAL FANTASY XI setup files extracted."

Then, the installation files are extracted.

WINEPREFIX=$XIPATH wine msiexec /i $XIPATH/drive_c/FFXIFullSetup_$XIREGION/PlayOnline/PlayOnlineViewer.msi /quiet && sleep 5 && clear && echo "Installed PlayOnline Viewer."

This installs PlayOnline Viewer.

WINEPREFIX=$XIPATH wine msiexec /i $XIPATH/drive_c/FFXIFullSetup_$XIREGION/FINAL_FANTASY_XI/FINAL_FANTASY_XI.msi /quiet && sleep 5 && clear && echo "Installed FINAL FANTASY XI."

And finally, this installs the game.
It might look like it's frozen, but don't worry! There's no progress bar. Just let it finish.

Go grab a beverage, this will take a LONG time. Be very patient and wait for the terminal to tell you it has finished.
At this point, PlayOnline Viewer and FINAL FANTASY XI should both be installed in your Wine prefix. You can find them in drive_c/Program Files (x86)/.

Modding

If you just want to play the game normally without mods, you can of course just skip this part.
In that case, skip ahead to "Creating a shortcut".

Installing Ashita

• Run:

git clone https://github.com/AshitaXI/Ashita-v4beta.git $XIPATH/drive_c/Ashita-v4beta

• Run:

cp -vp $XIPATH/drive_c/Ashita-v4beta/config/boot/{example-retail.ini,$USER.ini} && cp -vp $XIPATH/drive_c/Ashita-v4beta/scripts/{default.txt,$USER.txt}

• Now configure Ashita v4 as per its documentation, click here to open it.
  • I know that's very "Now draw the rest of the owl" to say, but it's best that you learn for yourself what the configuration files do.
  • It's fine to leave most things as default. You mostly just want to look over your .ini file in Ashita-v4beta/config/boot/(username).ini
  • To make it easier to update Ashita later, the second command above made copies of the boot and script files for you.

Important

When configuring your boot .ini file, make sure you change the default.txt script to (your username).txt

Patching pol.exe to be large address aware.

Recommended, as it lets the game use up to 4GB RAM instead of 2. This prevents crashes where the game runs out of memory.
It can especially happen if you use high-res texture mods, such as Remapster.

• Move LargeAddressAwarePatcher.exe to drive_c in your prefix.
• Run:

cp -vp $XIPATH/drive_c/Program\ Files\ \(x86\)/PlayOnline/SquareEnix/PlayOnlineViewer/{pol.exe,pol-unpatched.exe~}

This makes a backup of pol.exe, just in case something goes wrong.

• Run:

WINEPREFIX=$XIPATH wine $XIPATH/drive_c/LargeAddressAwarePatcher.exe

• Select pol.exe and click patch.

Installing dgVoodoo2 2.8.2

On some configurations, the game will crash without dgVoodoo2. It's recommended to install it if using Ashita.

• Extract dgvoodoo-2.8.2.tar.gz to the PlayOnlineViewer folder (where pol.exe is, NOT the FINAL FANTASY XI folder).
• Run this to register a DLL override for dgVoodoo2:

WINEPREFIX=$XIPATH wine reg add "HKCU\Software\Wine\DllOverrides" /v *d3dimm /t REG_SZ /d "native,builtin"

Experimental: Installing D7VK

PlayOnline Viewer uses DirectX 7, or, DirectDraw to be precise. It's unsupported, decrepit, and slow. Even on Windows.
D7VK, being based on DXVK, translates DirectX 7 to Vulkan and makes PlayOnline Viewer slightly smoother to use.

While not strictly necessary, D7VK does make the login process a bit nicer. However, be warned that this is strictly experimental. D7VK is not really intended for fully 2D applications such as this.

Caution

You must launch PlayOnline Viewer at least once WITHOUT D7VK, or else PlayOnline Viewer will become corrupted and require a re-install.
As long as you have gone through the first time setup, you should be able to safely use D7VK with PlayOnline Viewer.

WINEPREFIX=$XIPATH wine reg add "HKCU\Software\Wine\DllOverrides" /v *ddraw /t REG_SZ /d "native,builtin"

Creating a shortcut

In order to run the game without having to run an obnoxiously long command every time, you should make a shortcut to the game.
How this is done varies based on desktop environment, so this is where the shortcut builder script comes in.

First make the script executable:

chmod u+x xiMakeShortcut.sh

Then run it:

./xiMakeShortcut.sh

Follow the instructions displayed by the script. The script should recognise the XIPATH and XIREGION values you set with export earlier.
If not, that's ok, it'll prompt you for any missing information.

Finished!

Once that's done, that should be it! The game should appear in your application launcher, and be ready to play.
If you right-click the shortcut, it should also include shortcuts to configuration for the game, PlayOnline Viewer, and launching without mods if you opted to include Ashita.

I hope everything worked out smoothly for you, and that you perhaps learned something new along the way.
Again, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out. You can find my contact info at the beginning of the guide.

Enjoy your stay in Vana'diel 🌱

Thanks

Thank you to:

• daffodilian for supplying Chinese translations in the .desktop file.
• Clyde, for testing the guide and script.
• guillemets, for proofreading.
• slimekat, for testing & valuable feedback.

Disclaimer

This guide is not affiliated with any other project mentioned within this guide, including but not limited to Ashita, Lumoria, and Windower.
It is entirely my own work.

If you need help or otherwise want to contact me, feel free to open an issue or use either of these channels:

Fluxer: ridge#7478
ActivityPub: ridge@tilde.zone

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License

ff11-on-linux guide © 2026 by Chip is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/