Setup Bolt Pup (Puppy Linux 22.04) for gaming on PS4 and personalise it!

A detailed tutorial to setup Bolt Pup for PS4 (Puppy Linux) for gaming including installing essentials (gaming libraries, Steam, DXVK, VKD3D, Proton).

Recently while launching Puppy Linux 22.04 (Bolt) for PS4, I had shown you gameplay of Prince of Persia 2008 on the distro. I did mention in the video that Bolt Pup for PS4 could very well turn into a lightweight gaming distro for PS4, especially with the impressively low RAM consumption (<300MB). But, I also did warn that in the current state, we do have certain limitations. That being said, currently, Bolt Pup is suitable for some light gaming, including retro gaming. This article is a detailed tutorial that explains steps to setup Bolt Pup for PS4 for gaming.

Making this distro capable of gaming obviously requires you to install a few more applications. This article, as said, contains, both the links to download these applications, and detailed instructions to install and set them up.

So, without further ado, let us quickly look into the requirements.

Requirements: Gaming Applications for Bolt Pup (Puppy Linux) for PS4

Video Tutorial: Setup Bolt Pup for PS4 (Puppy Linux 22.04) for gaming

But, if you prefer the textual tutorial, keep reading.

How to setup Bolt Pup for PS4 (Puppy Linux 22.04) for gaming?

Assuming you have all the files and applications listed in the requirements above downloaded, we can move to the installation and setup part. To make Puppy Linux for PS4 a gaming distro, you need to install these applications one-by-one. To get the best results, I recommend installing these in the same order as mentioned in this article. Else, you might have different results than what I have. Let’s get started then!

Step 1. Install Gaming libraries for Bolt Pup on PS4

Note that, without the gaming libraries, you won’t be able to install the other applications starting with Wine. So, make sure you have this installed before doing anything else.

  1. Click on ps4-puppy-bolt-gaming-ps4linux-com.sfs.
  2. Click on Install SFS.
  3. In the next popup, click on OK.
  4. It will take some time and after successful installation, a notification popup will appear informing you of the same.

Step 2. Download, install and setup Wine for Puppy Linux

Some of you might be confused when downloading Wine from the link I provided above. So, in this step, I will cover the steps to download, install and setup Wine on Bolt Pup for PS4. Let us check them out one-by-one.

Step 2.1. Download Wine for Puppy Linux

  1. Go to version2013’s website.
  2. Click on your preferred version of Wine, for example, wine-7.20.
  3. Click on the version’s mirror link, for example, wine-7.20 mirrors.
  4. Click on the hyperlinked right arrow (>).
  5. Download the .pet file of your choice, for example, wine-7.20_v3.2.pet.

You may also opt to download the Development versions of Wine to experiment with. I won’t recommend downloading the files starting with wine64 though. But, feel free to experiment with them too.

Step 2.2. Install Wine on Puppy Linux for PS4

  1. Click on the downloaded file, for example, wine-7.20_v3.2.pet.
  2. Click on Yes and wait for the success message to popup.

Step 2.3. Setup Wine on Puppy Linux for PS4

In this step, we will verify the Wine installation while simultaneously setting it up.

  1. Open a terminal, type winecfg and press Enter.
  2. Click on Install in the popup titled, ‘Wine Mono Installer.’
  3. Wait for the Wine Configuration window to open.

This would confirm the installation was fine. You may close any open windows.

Now, let us move onto the next step.

Step 3. Install DXVK on Bolt Pup for PS4

  1. Extract the DXVK archive (tar.gz) downloaded earlier into a suitable folder.
  2. Go into the extracted folder, click on a blank space and press F4 on your keyboard. This will open a terminal in the folder.
  3. On the terminal, type ./setup_dxvk.sh install.

Wait for the installation to complete and move to the next step.

Step 4. Install VKD3D on Bolt Pup for PS4

  1. Extract the VKD3D archive (tar.zst) downloaded earlier into a suitable folder.
  2. Go into the extracted folder, click on a blank space and press F4 on your keyboard. This will open a terminal in the folder.
  3. On the terminal, type ./setup_vkd3d_proton.sh install.

This again will be completed quickly. When done, you can install the next package.

Step 5. Install Visual C++ Redistributable packages on Puppy Linux for PS4

Most Windows applications and games require Visual C++ Redist packages. But, the unfortunate thing is that each app or game might require a different version of the package. So, let us install all the versions beforehand.

Thanks to the AIO package prepared by Techpowerup, you can now install all Visual C++ Redist packages, starting from version 2005 to 2022 very easily. Just follow these simple steps to install it within a few minutes.

  1. Extract the Visual C++ AIO package (zip) downloaded earlier into a suitable folder.
  2. Go into the extracted folder, click on a blank space and press F4 on your keyboard. This will open a terminal in the folder.
  3. On the terminal, type wine install_all.bat.

As mentioned earlier, this will automatically install all the packages required. Once done, the terminal will say, “Installation completed successfully.”

Step 6. Install Steam on Bolt Pup for PS4

Steam is available on Puppy Package Manager. But, that version will not work properly with Puppy Linux. So, you will have to download the .pet file linked above. Then, follow these instructions to install it.

  1. Click on steam-jammy-bolt.pet.
  2. Click on Yes and wait for the success message to popup.

Step 7. Extract and use GE-Proton on Bolt Pup for PS4

You might have issues running many games on this distro with the system Wine. So, I recommend using GE-Proton in such cases. First, we will talk about the extraction part. Then, I will explain how it is to be used to launch games.

  1. Extract the GE-Proton archive (tar.gz) downloaded earlier into a suitable folder.
  2. To run a game or application with GE-Proton, open a terminal and replace wine with the location of GE-Proton’s wine file. And then, suffix the location to your .exe file. After that, press Enter to launch.

As an example, let’s say you want to launch Prince of Persia with GE-Proton, as I did in the video, then open a terminal, and type DXVK_HUD=1 /root/Downloads/GE-Proton7-50/files/bin/wine "/root/Prince of Persia/Prince of Persia.exe".

I am sure you notice two things in the command. First, DXVK_HUD=1. This enables DXVK’s FPS counter and is optional. Secondly, you see how I have enclosed the exe‘s location in quotes. This is because the full location has white spaces in the name. This is applicable for almost anything that you run via the terminal.

Conclusion

That’s it! That’s how you get started with gaming on Bolt Pup (Puppy Linux 22.04) for PS4. There might be a few hurdles when you run some games. Please know that our Forums and Discord server are full of helpful members. Let us know if you face any issues.

14 Comments

  1. No, you wrote it is not possible yet. I Install on my USB SSD.
    I did this so often now. I’ll give it in more try later. School now.

  2. No aiola Kernel Work Here except saya 5.15.15. but this Kernel dont let you Install sfs. So aiola not possible.

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