How I got BOCW to work on my Linux Distro PC
Buckle up! I'm going to sound like an insane person!
So, the linux distribution (distro for short) that I'm using is called Pop OS. All linux versions come from the baseline Operating System, that being the original Linux Kernels. So, it's a good general assumption that if something works with one linux system it works with another.
Pop os was made with Ubuntu OS's source code, and that source code comes from Debian OS. (it's where .deb comes from!)
I have a whole post journaling my process of realizing that I couldn't play BOCW on my computer. Long story short, it took basically two days to realize that I actually can not play the game because Black Ops Cold War is a fat fuck of a game. It's 137 Gigabytes, easily one of the biggest games in my catalog.
That means that it took four hours to install. It was no different this year. Verifying the integrity of the game to make it reinstall a new proton version also takes 30 minutes, sometimes an hour.
So, read through that journal post of me figuring out what the fuck certain programs are because with Linux, they don't have an instruction manual and some guides are very scattered. SO that means that it is an absolute nightmare figuring out what certain things are, how you can use them, and so on.
I think a large portion of the first and second days were spent figuring how the fuck to get proton GE, and Proton Up, and Bottles. Then I played wackamole trying to get one of these to work.
For bottles I tried using multiple drivers (proton, soda, etc.) to run windows 8 on what's basically a virtual machine. Because of how long it takes to install BOCW, and for it to launch (longest I've waited is an hour), I was taking shots in the dark to see if anything I tried work. In 2025, the answer was no.
The day wasn't completely wasted though, I got to cook a strip steak in the oven, and it was pretty damn good. I also learned how all this bullshit works, so playing cod games later became less of a problem. Tops, I've spent 20 minutes.
But here we are in the modern day. February 8th was something. So I was talking to @ilovemen7 about how shitty Activision was, and how bad the optimization for the games were because they ate half of my storage, and I had to fix that, but then the conversation turned to how I couldn't play BOCW.
I bemoaned this, I was pissed as usual, but this time I checked the proton database... And I was met with a shock!
A massive shock actually, it made my jaw drop, and I exclaimed "what the fuck" out loud. Instead of being classified as "borked" aka "broken" aka "FUCKED", it said Bronze. I couldn't look away, I HAD to see this. I went fucking wild when I saw that people were consistently able to get it to run because Proton's bleeding edge updated.
I got another drive mounted in my computer (it was an extra I had never used), and installed BOCW onto that drive, if I didn't do that then my memory would be cooked.
Me and Loverboy were talking at 1 pm MST that day, and I started installing at 1:50 pm (1350). At 4:40 pm (1640), it finally installed. I launched it with Proton GE 10-29.
>Try it with 10-29
FUCK. It doesn't launch.
>Okay then lets try Proton Bleeding Edge
Wait fuck how to I get that. (Read an article on it)
>Install Proton Bleeding Edge and try it on BOCW
MOTHER FUCKER. It doesn't launch.
>Proton GE 10-24?
NOPE.
At this point I was talking to another friend, @venusnobivac, and I was reinstalling the game. He got to see me go insane when I tried to launch it one more time, and... FUCK it doesn't launch.
Eventually we get this zinger of a quote from me when I returned to talking to Loverboy. (That time stamp does not deceive you, it was 9:24 in the evening when I was getting closer to launching.)
That's because I was checking operating systems of the people who got to play via the Proton Database. I stopped hopscotching, and got to this entry.
>What the fuck is Pachyproton
I had to do some research, but I figured it out. Pachyproton is based on proton bleeding edge experimental. It's a custom version of Proton, and it's actually easy to install because it's in Proton Up already.
Okay.
>Launch with Pachy Proton OS 10 slr x86_64
At 10:30 pm (2230), I get it to launch.
>You need an activision account to play
OH FUCK YOU! YOU FUCKING CUNT
I made the activision account and I got to the title screen. I used slr pachy proton, so I think I might not encounter the issue that this guy was having.
___
Is there a moral to this story?
FUCK ACTIVISION
FUCK EM FUCK EM FUCK EM
The people in charge of how this game gets distributed are ASSHOLESSSSSSSS
