KeeperFX Launcher — Tux Edition

This is a Linux-native fork of the KeeperFX team's settings launcher (dkfans/keeperfx-launcher-qt), patched to drive the native Linux engine (no Wine) and to install and update KeeperFX Tux Edition.

Browse and install the whole keeperfx.net workshop without leaving the launcher, manage your mods, install the Unearth map editor, and update the game in place — all on native Linux.

⚠️ Unofficial — not affiliated with the KeeperFX team. The launcher is their work; this fork only adds the Linux-native changes below. The official launcher (and the official game) live at dkfans/keeperfx-launcher-qt and dkfans/keeperfx.

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🎮 Players: you don't need this repo

Just want to play? Don't build anything here. Grab the single self-contained AppImage from the game repo:

→ github.com/ForkedInTime/keeperfx-linux-alpha → Releases

Download one file, run it, and the only thing it ever asks for is your own Dungeon Keeper files. The launcher (this project) is bundled inside it — engine, libraries, game data and all. No apt install, nothing to set up. It works on any current 64-bit Linux distro (Ubuntu 24.04+/26.x, Fedora, Arch, Steam Deck).

A Flatpak and Arch AUR packages are also published from the game repo — see its README for those.

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What this fork changes

Native-Linux plumbing

The team's launcher compiles cross-platform, but it was written Windows-first — it launched the game through Wine and read the version from a Windows .exe. This fork makes it drive the native engine:

• game.cpp — launch the native keeperfx ELF directly (no Wine) when present
• helper.h — detect the native binary (not just keeperfx.exe) as "installed", and open external links in a way that survives the AppImage's sandboxed environment
• kfxversion.cpp — read the engine version from version.txt (a native ELF has no PE resources)
• apiclient.cpp — install and self-update from this fork's GitHub releases, and show this fork's release notes in the news panel (the stock panel only knows about the Windows project)
• CMakeLists.txt — the -static link flag is Windows-only (Linux links Qt dynamically)

Features added on top

The fork has grown well past the porting patches. Everything below is ours, not upstream's:

• Workshop browser (workshopbrowserdialog.cpp) — browse the full keeperfx.net catalogue in-launcher with thumbnails, categories, search and ratings; install with one click. Thumbnails and the catalogue are cached on disk (stale-while-revalidate), and downloads fall back to the website when the API publishes no file.
• Installed manager — a second tab listing what you actually have across campgns/, levels/, personal/ and mods/, distinguishing stock content from your own, with a reversible Uninstall → Restore backed by a recycle bin.
• Mod Manager (modmanager*.cpp) — list mods, enable/disable them, persist mods/load_order.cfg.
• Universal installer (addoninstaller.cpp) — one code path that installs mods, campaigns, map packs and loose maps from a .7z/.zip, coping with the several archive layouts the workshop actually ships.
• Map Editor (downloadmapeditordialog.cpp) — install and launch Unearth from the launcher, and get offered an update when a newer Unearth appears.
• Log viewer (logviewerdialog.cpp) — read the engine and launcher logs without hunting for the files.
• Music recovery — detect an installation whose music/ folder is empty, partial or non-standard and offer the download, instead of silently playing nothing.
• Update check — compare the installed engine against this fork's latest release and update in place.
• Single-instance lock (main.cpp) — one launcher at a time; --allow-multiple overrides it.
• UI scale — a Comfortable (110%) step between Normal and Large.

Tests

tests/run.sh builds and runs the standalone logic tests (version parsing, archive-shape detection, tree copying, workshop URL handling) straight from source — no launcher build required. It exits non-zero on failure.

CI

The release AppImage and Flatpak are built by build-appimage.yml and build-flatpak.yml in the game repo, which clone this repo's alpha branch. They live there because a workflow can only be triggered by, and attach assets to, a release in its own repository. This repo keeps a manual-dispatch copy of build-appimage.yml for launcher-side debugging: it builds a working AppImage from the current branch without touching any release.

Push launcher work to both alpha and master — alpha is what the release build clones.

🛠️ Advanced: build from source

You need a C++17 toolchain, CMake 3.24+, Ninja, and Qt 6.7+ (the launcher uses QNetworkRequestFactory). Ubuntu 24.04 ships Qt 6.4, so install a newer Qt (e.g. via aqtinstall) — the CI workflow shows the exact steps, and pins 6.8.3. CPM fetches zlib/bit7z/LIEF automatically.

cmake -S . -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build -j"$(nproc)"

This produces build/keeperfx-launcher-qt. The launcher expects to live in the game's install directory (it reads/writes config and finds the engine there); the AppImage's AppRun handles that by running it from a writable install dir.

⚠️ Do not drop a locally built binary into an AppImage install. The AppImage bundles Qt 6.8.3, so a binary built against a newer distro Qt dies with libQt6Core.so.6: version 'Qt_6.x' not found. Run your local build directly against your system Qt instead, and let CI produce the binary that ships.

Credits & License

The launcher is the work of the KeeperFX team and the Keeper Klan community (dkfans/keeperfx-launcher-qt), based on ImpLauncher. This fork adds the Linux-native patches and the features above.

GNU General Public License v2.0 — same as upstream.