My internet searches lead me to believe it’s possible to get the Minecraft “bedrock edition” running on Linux. Any pros here have any tips/tricks before I tell my kids that I’m a genius and it can be done? They want to play with their friends who game on consoles/mobile devices. Also, why does minecraft seem so odd with editions and launchers?!
It’s shit. Minecraft is so odd with editions and launchers because Minecraft Bedrock is Microsoft’s weaponized and monetized version and it is fucking with everyone on purpose. The Java version is the real Minecraft, and it always will be. Kids will never understand this, because they are vulnerable to Microsoft’s relentless advertising and branding that they use Minecraft Bedrock specifically as a vehicle for, which flows directly into kids’ brains through their social networks (both digital and real-world, in school, in the neighborhood) and all the other marketing efforts their vulnerable minds are constantly bombarded with. Therefore, Minecraft Bedrock is the future, and that future leads you directly and inevitably into Microsoft’s grasp. This is not an accident.
I know this knowledge probably doesn’t help you at this stage. You can probably get it working in Linux, for now, but it will always be clumsy and sort of a mess because it will always be an arms race with Microsoft’s enshittification strategies, and there’s a good chance that Microsoft will eventually win. Unless we can somehow all convince our kids, “You know what, this sucks, let’s go play with some modded Java version instead”. Good luck with that.
I had no idea this was a triggering topic! I didn’t even know what the editions were before this thread.
I’m glad I could help raise some awareness of Microsoft’s abusive money grab aimed at children. There’s perhaps not much we can realistically do about it now that all the AI techbro billionaires completely rule the world, but at least we still have the power to acknowledge it and spread the information.
I fully agree with this. My son and nephew wanted me to buy them Bedrock edition, I looked at that shit with the Marketplace and the Ads, and the Coins and was like 'No way, this is not suitable for children" and I got them the Java edition instead, and guess what. When they learned about mods and being able to go back to other versions they immediately loved the Java version.
They loved it so much that when they did finally play Bedrock with their friends they hated it because it is buggy and built poorly and asks them to buy stuff often.
You should not buy your kids games with predatory micro-transactions, just like you would not buy them violent or sexual games. I would say they damage developing minds just the same, and maybe more in some ways. You can’t keep it from them forever obviously but if you train them in the formative years you can help them help themselves later on.
You’ll need to own Minecraft on the Play Store to be able to play on Linux, so that’s one thing to keep in mind, also you’ll need a Microsoft account to play online. There’s not much else, the bedrock launcher is pretty good, and mostly keeps up with breaking changes to the android version.
As for why there are multiple Minecraft versions, blame Microsoft. When they bought Mojang they wanted a Minecraft version that worked on consoles and had better performance on lowered powered devices like phones, so they wrote a clone of the game in C++. And props to them, they got what they wanted, but the game isn’t the same as the older Java game, so the core PC community never adopted Bedrock.
Edit: to be clear, the C++ codebase existed before the Microsoft purchase, but Microsoft was the one that pushed the unified Bedrock edition brand and expansion, and never bothered with Java compatibility.
https://flathub.org/en/apps/io.mrarm.mcpelauncher is this the launcher you’re using?
That’s the one.
So when I try to log them in it just throws an error and goes back to email login. Any ideas?
I’m not super familiar with Bazzite, but I think it’s one of those that boots straight into steam, right? Try logging in and setting the game up in desktop mode.
If that doesn’t work, you’re better off searching in Bazzite/MCPELauncher dedicated forums.
It can boot into steam but that’s not how I was attempting to launch the launcher. I’ll try other places. Thanks for all the input
I heard that this does not work with realms.
I have never used realms.
does that launcher work with microsoft accounts? i think i saw that connection with xbox stuff was finnicky, but i never used it myself so idk
The launcher itself requires you to login with your Google account, where you own the game in the Play Store. Once the game is open, then you can login with your Microsoft account. I never had any problems logging in.
One thing you should know is that the launcher is effectively maintained by a single person, and new versions have historically required updates to the launcher before working. This means that you usually have to wait a couple of days or weeks before being able to play the latest version. This is not a problem when playing with others also using the launcher, but it does become grating when it comes to cross play with mobile or Windows platforms.
