Get Minecraft Education running on Ubuntu Linux!

README.md

Minecraft Education on Ubuntu Linux

Currently, there are 2 ways you can accomplish this task:

• Waydroid (preferred method)
• Wine

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Waydroid.md

Minecraft Education on Ubuntu Linux (using Waydroid)

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What you will need

• A computer running Linux and using Wayland
  • X users can run Waydroid in Weston
• A Google Account

Steps

1. Add the Waydroid repository to your system

   sudo apt install curl ca-certificates -y
   curl https://repo.waydro.id | sudo bash

2. Install Waydroid

   sudo apt install waydroid -y

3. Install GApps build of Android

   sudo waydroid init -s GAPPS

4. Google Play Services Registration Open the Waydroid Shell by typing:

   sudo waydroid shell

   You should see a prompt that resembles :/ #. At that prompt, paste the following command:

   ANDROID_RUNTIME_ROOT=/apex/com.android.runtime ANDROID_DATA=/data ANDROID_TZDATA_ROOT=/apex/com.android.tzdata ANDROID_I18N_ROOT=/apex/com.android.i18n sqlite3 /data/data/com.google.android.gsf/databases/gservices.db "select * from main where name = \"android_id\";"

   Copy the string of numbers after android|, then type exit into the Waydroid shell.

   Paste the copied string of numbers into the textbox of the following website, and then press Register: https://www.google.com/android/uncertified Note: You will need to be logged in for this to work

   Open the terminal again, and then type:

   sudo waydroid session stop

   Then open Waydroid again.

5. Log in to Google Play Once Waydroid has booted again, open Google Play and sign in like you would on an Android phone. Ignore the on-screen keyboard for now.

6. Download and Install Minecraft Education Once you have logged in to Google Play, search for Minecraft Education or com.mojang.minecraftedu. Select the first option, and click install.

7. Open Minecraft Education Once it has installed, go to your apps launcher and find Minecraft Education. Then click it. It should open in the Waydroid environment, and ready to sign in.

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QoL Tweaks

Running apps in separate windows

If you prefer running Minecraft Education in a window instead of the Waydroid shell, you can run the following command from your terminal while Waydroid is running:

waydroid prop set persist.waydroid.multi_windows true

Disabling on-screen keyboard

If you dislike the on-screen keyboard popping up, follow the steps outlined below:

1. Open Settings in the Waydroid Shell
2. Find the System category and click it
3. Find Languages & input and click it
4. Click Physical keyboard
5. Disable the Use on-screen keyboard setting

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Thanks to

• Waydroid's docs

Wine - old.md

Minecraft Education on Ubuntu Linux (using Wine)

IMPORTANT

Microsoft decided to change the way users log in in Minecraft Education (but they didn't for Bedrock, why?), which uses the Microsoft.Identity.Client.*.dll libraries, which Wine does not support. This issue affects the following versions:

Version	Status
1.18.45	Not affected. Works as intended.
1.19.51/52	Affected. Opens to the login page, where the login window is a blank, unclosable window.
1.19.53	Affected. Window behaves the same as 1.19.51/52, but is the correct size.
1.20.12	Affected. Window behaves the same as 1.19.53, but with a close button
1.20.13	Affected. Same as 1.20.12. The login window displays 4 or 5 Chinese characters.

Please use Waydroid for later versions.

What you will need

• A 64-bit Computer running Ubuntu Bionic, Focal or Jammy (or their Linux Mint/Pop!_OS counterparts)
• Minecraft Education (Extracted from the installer)
• Visual C++ Redist 2017, x86
• Microsoft Data Access Components 2.8 SDK
• Wine Staging + winbind (See steps on how to install)

Steps

1. Add the Wine repository to your system

   Ubuntu Jammy/Noble:

   sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
   sudo mkdir -pm755 /etc/apt/keyrings
   sudo wget -O /etc/apt/keyrings/winehq-archive.key https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key
   sudo wget -NP /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/dists/jammy/winehq-jammy.sources
   sudo apt update
   

   Ubuntu Focal:

   sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
   sudo mkdir -pm755 /etc/apt/keyrings
   sudo wget -O /etc/apt/keyrings/winehq-archive.key https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key
   sudo wget -NP /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/dists/focal/winehq-focal.sources
   sudo apt update
   

   Ubuntu Bionic:

   sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
   sudo mkdir -pm755 /etc/apt/keyrings
   sudo wget -O /etc/apt/keyrings/winehq-archive.key https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key
   sudo wget -NP /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/dists/bionic/winehq-bionic.sources
   sudo apt update
   

2. Install Wine Staging + winbind

   Install Wine Staging using the following command

   sudo apt install winehq-staging wine-staging wine-staging-i386 wine-staging-amd64 winbind
   

3. Open Wine Configuration

   Type winecfg to open Wine's configuration. If any dialogs pop up saying that something needs installing, press 'Install'. Once winecfg has opened, select the drop down box labeled 'Windows Version: ' and select Windows 7.

4. Extract Minecraft Education

   Type unzip ME-1.18.45-Extracted.zip to extract the files.

5. Install MDAC 2.8 SDK and Visual C++ Redist 2017

   Open your file manager and right click on each executable and open it with Wine Windows Program Loader

6. Launch Minecraft Education

   Navigate to the 'ME-1.18.45-Extracted' directory using cd ME-1.18.45-Extracted

   Then launch Minecraft Education using wine Minecraft.Windows.exe

Thanks to

• WineHQ Community
• Unix StackExchange

Is there any future plans for support on GNU+Linux

Is there any future plans for support on GNU+Linux

@TheLizardMarkZuckerberg Sadly, no, unless any of these happens:

• Microsoft decides to revert the login system changes back to the one used in 1.18.
• Wine starts including the libraries (a stub would probably work fine)
• Someone can somehow modify MCPELauncher to run MCEE
• Or (extremely unlikely), MCEE will start supporting Linux

(Honestly, the last option will never probably happen, but how hard is it to port an app from macOS, which is another UNIX-like operating system)

Porting command-line apps from macOS to Linux is relatively easy as they share common libraries, however macOS graphics are completely different and proprietary.

Porting command-line apps from macOS to Linux is relatively easy as they share common libraries, however macOS graphics are completely different and proprietary.

MCEE uses OpenGL (through RenderDragon) on non-Windows devices to display graphics. It also uses .NET, which can run on Linux (albeit without the "cool" stuff).

The problem here is, not that a port is possible, but that Microsoft (probably) thinks a Linux port would be useless and unnecessary, due to the smaller user base and not many people using it. The whole problem could be solved just by switching back to the pre-1.19 login system, which the Minecraft Launcher AND standard Bedrock edition use.

@TheLizardMarkZuckerberg @CyrilSLi I can confirm Minecraft Education works in Waydroid (although it's annoying to get working)!

I was able to get MCEE 1.14.70 (I needed that specific version) running on Fedora with wine-staging. I used the latest version of Visual C++ as it is backwards compatible. I also had to install dxvk for graphics to work properly (note that on Fedora it needs to be installed from source as the repo version expects regular wine). Follow the readme to set it up in winecfg. I had gotten an "out of storage" error in MC when I loaded many chunks, may test this further if I have time.

I was able to get MCEE 1.14.70 (I needed that specific version) running on Fedora with wine-staging. I used the latest version of Visual C++ as it is backwards compatible. I also had to install dxvk for graphics to work properly (note that on Fedora it needs to be installed from source as the repo version expects regular wine). Follow the readme to set it up in winecfg. I had gotten an "out of storage" error in MC when I loaded many chunks, may test this further if I have time.

I am aware that MCEE prior to the login system change in 1.19* work in Wine. For some reason, 1.18.45 used to work, but now it doesn't. 1.21.* have become full UWP apps, and no window launches in Wine anymore.