stalker-gamma-linux

Install S.T.A.L.K.E.R. G.A.M.M.A. on Linux with one command — Mod Organizer 2 under Proton, your mods still enable/disable like on Windows.

The game itself (Anomaly, X-Ray Monolith engine) already runs great under Proton. Everything around it is the problem: the official launcher is .NET + PowerShell, Mod Organizer 2 needs a careful Wine/Proton setup, and the community route is a long manual checklist. Same install, before and after:

By hand (INSTALL-MANUAL.md, the spec this project automates)	With this project
8 documented steps, plus a page of known traps	curl … | bash, then one window
≈ 160 GiB of downloads to shepherd yourself	Progress, disk check and resume built in
Official launcher: .NET + PowerShell, Windows-only	Native GTK4/libadwaita launcher
Proton prefix, DLL injection, winetricks verbs by hand	Shared prefix provisioned — and repairable (prefix-doctor --repair)
MO2 gamePath and profile edited by hand in ModOrganizer.ini	Configured for you, USVFS diagnosed after launch
Interrupted mid-way? Start over	Resumable: rerun, completed steps are skipped
"works on my distro"	Exercised in CI on Fedora, Arch, Debian 12 and Ubuntu 24.04 on every push

This project is the Linux integration layer that makes GAMMA a one-command (and eventually one-click) install:

• One-shot installer: prerequisites check → Anomaly → GAMMA modpack → Proton prefix → desktop shortcut
• Mod Organizer 2 running under Proton as the primary mode — you keep full mod flexibility (enable/disable/add mods), exactly like on Windows
• Incremental updates that follow upstream GAMMA releases
• Runs on any Linux distribution — the installer is exercised in CI on Fedora, Arch, Debian 12 and Ubuntu 24.04 containers on every push; other distros are expected to work but aren't tested automatically. Steam Deck included.
• GUI on top (GTK4/libadwaita), installed natively (no Flatpak/AppImage sandbox)

How it works

We do not reimplement the modpack installation logic. The download/install engine is Mord3rca/gamma-launcher (Python, GPL-3.0), which already handles ModDB mirror resolution, the GAMMA modlist, extraction directives and MD5 verification. This project wraps it with everything Linux-specific. See docs/ARCHITECTURE.md.

Status

🚧 Phase 1 (MVP) implemented and validated on a real machine; the GTK4/ libadwaita GUI (Phase 2) is implemented and tested on a real machine too; install is native only (install.sh, no Flatpak/AppImage); CI (lint, types, tests, release tagging, daily upstream-regression watch) is wired up — see docs/ROADMAP.md, docs/CI.md and tasks/ for the work breakdown.

Usage

Install

The recommended install is one command that sets up a native environment and opens the installer GUI — the actual installation experience:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Fleorens/stalker-gamma-linux/main/install.sh | bash

No sudo, nothing written outside your home. It bootstraps a --system-site-packages venv under ~/.local/share/stalker-gamma-linux/, installs the package, adds a GAMMA Linux Launcher entry to your app menu, and launches the GUI. The window drives the rest: live prerequisite diagnostic, install target, download/install, then Play. Already have a checkout? ./install.sh does the same without cloning; --no-launch sets everything up without opening the window.

Uninstall

~/.local/share/stalker-gamma-linux/src/install.sh --uninstall   # or ./install.sh --uninstall from a checkout

Removes the venv, both commands, the menu entry, the icon, your settings and the logs. Your game install is never touched — the script tells you where it is so you can delete it yourself. To remove it too, in one step:

stalker-gamma-linux uninstall --game-data    # irreversible: Anomaly, mods, cache, prefix and saves
stalker-gamma-linux uninstall --dry-run      # shows exactly what would go, deletes nothing

umu-run is deliberately left in place: it is a general-purpose launcher that other games may rely on.

Running natively (not sandboxed) is deliberate: this tool orchestrates your system's Wine/Proton, umu, libunrar, Steam and 32-bit stack — the native GUI uses them directly, with none of the bundling/sandbox workarounds a Wine launcher would need in a container.

Prerequisites (the GUI's Diagnostic tab shows them live):

• GTK4 + libadwaita 1.5+ + PyGObject — for the GUI itself, the one thing the script can't set up without sudo (PyGObject has no pip wheel; it comes from your distro). Debian 12 ships libadwaita 1.2 and cannot run the graphical launcher — the CLI works fine there; the GUI needs Debian 13, Ubuntu 24.04+, Fedora or Arch. doctor tells you which case you're in. Fedora: sudo dnf install gtk4 libadwaita python3-gobject · Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install gir1.2-gtk-4.0 gir1.2-adw-1 python3-gi · Arch: sudo pacman -S gtk4 libadwaita python-gobject. If they're missing the script prints the exact command for your distro.
• umu-launcher — installed automatically, nothing to do. It is the one prerequisite with no PyPI package (pipx install umu-launcher 404s) and no package in the Fedora/Debian/Ubuntu repos, so the tool handles it itself: install.sh (and the Install button in the GUI's Diagnostic view, and stalker-gamma-linux install-umu) downloads the official ~420 KiB zipapp release and drops umu-run into ~/.local/bin — no sudo. Prefer a real package? Arch: sudo pacman -S umu-launcher; Fedora/Debian: upstream publishes .rpm/.deb files on the same releases page.
• 7z and libunrar are needed for the install itself (shown in the Diagnostic with the exact command for your distro). Steam, protontricks and Vulkan drivers are optional: the pipeline runs everything through umu (own runtime, Proton-GE fetched from GitHub) — Steam only matters for Steam Input / Gaming Mode on the Deck, Vulkan only to actually play.
• GameMode is optional too, and used automatically when present: play wraps the launch in gamemoderun, which is what actually requests the mode (the daemon is D-Bus-activated, so gamemoded -s saying « inactive » between sessions is normal, not a bug to fix with systemctl enable). Opt out with play --no-gamemode or the switch in the GUI's Preferences. On Fedora and Arch the CPU-governor part is reserved to members of the gamemode group by a polkit rule, and fails silently otherwise — doctor detects that and gives you the one-time usermod command (effective on the next launch: polkit reads the group from the system database, so no re-login needed).

Once installed (or with the venv activated), the CLI is stalker-gamma-linux:

stalker-gamma-linux doctor                       # system prerequisites + prefix + install state
stalker-gamma-linux install                      # anomaly → GAMMA → prefix → MO2 → (default target: ~/Games/stalker-gamma)
stalker-gamma-linux install --target /mnt/disk --shortcut   # custom disk, + desktop entry
stalker-gamma-linux play                         # launch Anomaly through MO2 (USVFS, mods active, GameMode if installed)
stalker-gamma-linux mo2                          # open Mod Organizer 2 itself (enable/disable mods)
stalker-gamma-linux update                       # update the modpack, re-verify, remove ReShade again if needed
stalker-gamma-linux shortcut                     # (re)create the .desktop menu entry
stalker-gamma-linux prefix-doctor --repair        # repair the shared Proton prefix in place
stalker-gamma-linux uninstall                    # remove shortcuts/settings/logs (keeps the game)
stalker-gamma-linux doctor --report              # write a report to attach to an issue

Reporting a problem? Run stalker-gamma-linux doctor --report (or click the save icon in the GUI's Diagnostic view). It writes a single file with your prerequisites, prefix state, installed Proton builds and the end of the log, with paths anonymized to ~ — attach that to the issue and skip the back-and-forth. stalker-gamma-linux --version alone prints the version plus the exact revision installed, which is what pins down which code you're on between releases.

Every command has --help. install is resumable: interrupt it (Ctrl-C) and rerun the same command — steps already completed (tracked in ~/.config/stalker-gamma-linux/install-state.toml) are skipped. Pass --verbose (before the subcommand, e.g. stalker-gamma-linux --verbose play) for debug output on the console; a full rotating log is always kept under ~/.local/state/stalker-gamma-linux/.

GUI

The GUI (stalker-gamma-linux-gui) is a real launcher, not a generic settings window: procedurally generated Zone artwork, the GAMMA logo, a big PLAY/INSTALL button, and everything you need to know at a glance — install target, free disk space on that volume, and a live "system ready / N prerequisites missing" chip that opens the full Diagnostic view.

• Guided install — before anything is downloaded, a dialog shows the target directory, the free space on that volume with a colored verdict (enough / tight / insufficient — installation is blocked under 160 GiB, ~250 GiB recommended), and lets you pick another disk.
• Real progress — the install pipeline is rendered as a phase timeline (done / already done / running with live engine detail / pending), a real progress fraction (no fake pulsing bar), elapsed time, and an embedded console with the full engine log. Cancelling is clean and resuming skips validated steps.
• Diagnostic — same data as doctor, one glance verdict on top, copy-paste remediation commands per distro.

It needs GTK4 + libadwaita + PyGObject from your distribution (not pip-installable — no manylinux wheel exists for PyGObject); running the command without them prints the install command for your distro instead of a raw traceback. It calls the exact same orchestrator/mo2 code as the CLI — no duplicated install logic — and never blocks the UI thread during a download. The CLI remains fully independent and usable on its own.

The background artwork is generated deterministically by scripts/generate_background.py (numpy + Pillow, fixed seed) — no external asset, reproducible at any time.

Language

The CLI and GUI are in English by default, regardless of your system locale. To switch language, set LANGUAGE explicitly, e.g. LANGUAGE=fr stalker-gamma-linux doctor. French is fully translated today; contributing another language is a normal gettext workflow, see "Internationalisation" in docs/ARCHITECTURE.md.

Legal

This repository contains code and documentation only. It never rehosts the game, Anomaly, or any mod: everything is downloaded client-side from ModDB / GitHub, exactly like the official GAMMA launcher does. All credit for GAMMA goes to Grokitach and the modders listed at stalker-gamma.com.

License: GPL-3.0.