Zwift on Linux?

Is anybody running Zwift on Linux, and can find me the dummies guide of how to, and does it run OK?

I have a pc that is unable to run win11, but should fly on Linux.

No idea personally but Google turned this up first:

No interest in zwift but my first thought is to see if it available on Steam. Many Windows titles run perfectly in Steam in Linux through Steam’s development/fork of Wine. I haven’t bothered with the agro of Wine for years, Steam just takes care of it for you.

Edit: I would fire up steam and have a look but my kid is currently playing Sonic Mania on my Linux desktop.

I would fire up steam and have a look

I’m not seeing it on Steam for Windows.

https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=17923

I tried a while ago and did not get very far but maybe it’s better now.

No.  The killer appears to be video, the necessary support is not there in Wine or VirtualBox.  It may have been once.

Zwift claim it will run on Windows 10, have you tried it?

Also luetooth iirc

What’s preventing a W11 upgrade? There is a simple workaround if just CPU.

I wonder if the Android version runs in Waydroid!

I forgot about this project https://github.com/netbrain/zwift

I was in the same situation. I installed Linux on my old garage PC, installed the Zwift app on my phone, and then used scrcpy to mirror my phone to the PC (connected via USB cable).

If your phone is capable of running the app, this solution avoids all the complications of trying to get Zwift running in Linux and getting everything to connect. scrcpy also allows you to interact with the mirrored app using your PC mouse and keyboard.

You may find the default graphics quality is a bit lower, but you can tweak scrcpy to improve this.

This solution replaced my existing W10 setup with no problems. It also makes it very easy to deal with upgrades or try different apps. I binned Zwift after the price rise, and all I had to do was install IndieVelo on my phone and carry on mirroring.

When I tried Linux in the past, I always gave up because it was too frustrating dealing with the all the wee tweaks to get everything running properly. I used Linux Mint this time and was very impressed with how easy it was to install it and get a running system, without any fiddling. Very close to Windows ease of use.

^^^ that remindes me, if you have a Samsung phone, you can run Samsung DeX on a Windows PC to get the same effect.  It is still available for older versions of Windows, but not 7 I believe, might be worth a go.

Android phone

Google Chromecast

Cheap HDMI monitor/telly of your preferred size

Thanks for all the replies,

@GlennQuagmire

Can you share the CPU workaround please? All other specs are ok for an update.

I’m just trying to run a supported OS on a dedicated zwift PC, and don’t ideally want to buy anything new.

TBF I’m just running it on W10 on my own Garage PC (old i5/8gb/256gb-SSD), AFAIK Zwift doesn’t demand a W11 install (yet), in fact it should still run under W7 (anyone know?)

The whole point of Zwift is that it’s not very demanding in terms of minimum system specs.

There are some Linux related install links in the comments here I noticed:

https://zwiftinsider.com/zwift-pc-guide-2/#:~:text=Memory%3A%208GB%20of%20DDR4%20(or,than%203GB%20during%20a%20ride.

and here:

https://forums.zwift.com/t/how-to-zwift-on-debian-linux/591025/4

This was the article I followed, be sure to read it carefully.

I choose Option 1 which was just a simple registry change to bypass the CPU check as that was the only thing preventing the upgrade.  All seems fine since and receive the security updates, etc as normal.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-upgrade-your-incompatible-windows-10-pc-to-windows-11-two-ways/

Cheers Glenn, I’ll take a look.

No problem @jwt, you are very welcome!

Zwift runs fine on W10. I switched  to Linux because I was looking ahead to W10 end of support and my PC won’t support W11. I looked at the bypass for old PCs without TPM but decided the initial workaround and potential update/maintenance issues in the future meant it was wasn’t worth pursuing. Linux will do everything I need on my garage PC so I don’t need Windows on that machine.

My 2p here,

I would be treading around “with this simple hack you can…” with caution. If the W11 installer fails because your PC is out of spec then it is presumably with good reason, and that isn’t “sell more hardware” because Microsoft doesn’t sell PCs. If anything the opposite is true, they’ve been trying to ditch legacy millstones and get everyone onto a unified platform for years.

We saw this in the days of Vista, the Internet was awash with “simple hacks” to disable UAC (the annoying “are you sure?” dialog which popped up continually) with scant consideration for what you might be breaking in the process which was, as it eventually turned out, a lot.

Zwift themselves say they support W10. https://support.zwift.com/en_us/supported-devices-to-run-zwift-H1Cj9QbeB I’d be doing that and then considering options when MS drop support. Does it need Internet access?

You say you’re not buying hardware but a great way to run Zwift is on an AppleTV. They’re £149 new from Apple – and available refurbished/second-hand for less than that. If you’ve got a spare screen or can pick up a cheap one – you’re up and going and fully supported / no hacking needed.

It works well. Graphics aren’t as good as you’ll get on a gaming PC with a 40×0 graphics card or anything but it works well and is a very tidy solution. No faff screen casting etc.

So many ways to skin this cat.

You are indeed correct Cougar, but the “hack” only loosens the quite strict CPU requirements. I wouldn’t want to loosen the other security requirements.

The article is quite thorough and ZD Net are usually a good source of information.

But yes, always proceed with caution.

Yeah.

That article does seem to be on the better side of well thought out. But if I didn’t know exactly what the ramifications were of circumventing checks made by the installer then I wouldn’t like to trust anything important to it. A fitness app where it doesn’t matter if it explodes tomorrow, sure, why not. As a daily driver I depended on, it would make me very nervous.

As an example: I’ve had the taskbar at the top of the screen since the days of the Atari ST. W11 forces it to the bottom. There is a “simple registry hack” to put it back to the top. But the W11 taskbar pops up little thumbnail preview windows, if you hack the taskbar to the top then it still pops upwards, off into screenspace which doesn’t exist. Net result, the simple hack made things worse.

I went to a conference one time, the speaker was taking about registry hacks and suchlike. He said something profound, “Microsoft knows more about the registry than you or I ever will, leave it alone.”

You say you’re not buying hardware but a great way to run Zwift is on an AppleTV. They’re £149 new from Apple – and available refurbished/second-hand for less than that.

you can get a 2nd hand gen 1 ATV 4k for £50-60. It’s the simplest/easiest/best solution IMO (bar the crappy gen 1 remote, although Zwift have improved the UI slightly now!)

Agree 100% Cougar, changing the registry should be done with extreme caution.

I upgraded my laptop to Windows 11 which isn’t my daily driver so is essentially just a guinea pig.  If all remains stable over the coming months I may consider upgrading my main PC.