Minecraft is a game about placing blocks and going on adventures. It’s set in infinitely-generated worlds of wide open terrain – icy mountains, swampy bayous, vast pastures and much more – filled with secrets, wonders and peril! In this article, we will explain how to install Minecraft through the official .deb package available at the Mojang website.
We have run the commands and procedures mentioned in this article on a Ubuntu 18.04 LTS system.
Note: Please note that Minecraft is a paid game; you can, however, sign up for a Mojang account and run the demo version of the game for free.
Install Minecraft on Ubuntu
We will be using the Ubuntu command line, the Terminal, in order to download and install the Minecraft .deb package.
Open the Terminal application either through the system Application Launcher search bar or by using the Ctrl+Alt+T shortcut.
Then, enter the following command in order to download the file Minecraft.deb from the Mojang website:
$ wget -o ~/Minecraft.deb https://launcher.mojang.com/download/Minecraft.deb
The package will be downloaded to the current folder; in my case the current user’s /home folder.
The most feasible way to install software from the .deb package is through the gdebi tool. If you do not have gdebi installed on your system, you can install is through the following command as sudo:
$ sudo apt install gdebi-core
Please note that only an authorized user( sudo) can add, remove and configure software on Ubuntu. Enter the password for sudo after which the installation procedure will begin and gdebi will be installed on your system.
When I listed the contents of my home folder, I could see two Minecraft.deb packages. If this happens to you too, we recommend running the gdebi command on both and see which one works for you.
Run the gdebi command as follows in order to install the Minecraft .deb package:
$ sudo gdebi ~/Minecraft.deb.1
The system might prompt you with a y/n option to continue with the installation. Please enter Y and Minecraft Launcher will be installed on your system.
Launch Minecraft
You can launch the Minecraft game through the Minecraft Launcher. This launcher can be accessed through the Application launcher search bar or directly from the Application listing.
You can also start this launcher through the command line by entering the following command:
$ minecraft-launcher
When you open the launcher for the first time, the following window will appear:
If you already have an account on Mojang, log in through this window. Otherwise, click on the Create new account link at the bottom of the Log In button. A registration window will open for you to register for a new account. Enter the required details and then click Register on the window as follows:
The following kind of view will appear for you to verify that you are indeed a real person and not a robot.
Make the required selections and click the Next button. The following window will open notifying you that Mojang has sent an email has been sent to you from where you can verify your account.
When you have verified the email from your account, you can come back and log in to the Minecraft Launcher.
At a successful login, you will be presented with the following view:
I am only given the option of playing a demo as I have not purchased the game yet. When I click on this button, a demo version of the game will be downloaded to my system.
Once the demo is downloaded, you can start it by clicking the Play Demo World button from the following view:
You can buy the game by making payment through the official website and enjoy the complete version of the Minecraft.
Remove Minecraft
You can completely remove Minecraft from your system along with all the configurations you might have made, through the following command:
$ sudo apt-get --purge remove minecraft launcher
You will be presented with a y/n option. Enter y and the Minecraft Launcher, and the downloaded game will be removed from your system.
This was all about downloading the Minecraft Launcher to your Ubuntu and using it to download and play Minecraft. Enjoy your gaming experience on Ubuntu!
