Note: this topic discusses ways to run the 32-bit build of World of Goo (version 1.40) on 64-bit Linux. Since version 1.41 the Linux packages contain native support for 64-bit Linux, so these suggestions should be no longer needed! If you want to run World of Goo on 64-bit Linux, your best bet is to download and install version 1.41 of the game (which you can get through the download link you received when you ordered the game).

Outdated information follows:

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World of Goo is distributed only for Linux distributions based on the IA-32 architecture. Fortunately, the 64-bit variant (x86-64) is backward compatible, so you should be able to run World of Goo on a 64-bit Linux distribution too, but you will need to install 32-bit versions of the required libraries: the C library, X libraries, sound driver libraries, and OpenGL libraries suitable for your graphics card. I will try to give specific instructions for some popular distributions in this topic.

Ubuntu Desktop Edition (64-bit):
 1. Download the Debian package of the game and save it to the desktop.
 2. Open a terminal window (from the Applications menu).
 3. Enter: sudo apt-get install ia32-libs to install 32-bit compatibility libraries.
 4. Enter: sudo dpkg -i --force-architecture Desktop/WorldOfGooSetup.1.40.deb to install the package.

Arch Linux (64-bit):
 1. As root, run: pacman -S lib32-glibc lib32-mesa to pull in the necessary compatibility libraries.
 2a. Run: pacman -S lib32-nvidia-utils to install NVIDIA graphics drivers, or
 2b. Run: pacman -S lib32-catalyst-utils to install AMD/ATI graphics drivers.
Now you can download the .tar.gz version of the game and extract it to the desired location (e.g. /opt for a system-wide install); you can then run it by executing /opt/WorldOfGoo/WorldOfGoo.

(A recent version of the lib32-libxcb package has a bug, which causes it not to work with this game (and many others). If this applies to you, downgrade to an earlier version. See this topic on the Arch Linux forms for details. For more information on running 32-bit applications on a 64-bit Arch Linux distribution, read this article on the Arch Linux wiki.)

OpenSUSE 11.1 (64-bit)
1. If you don't have the proper video drivers installed yet, install them now. 1-Click installation is available for NVIDIA and ATI drivers. (After installing new drivers, you will need to reboot!)
2. Through the Software Manager, install the Mesa-32bit package.
Now you should be able to download and install the RPM package of the game.

Fedora (64-bit)
deadlycheese posted instructions for Fedora here (which I won't quote here because of its length).

Common problems specific to 64-bit distributions:
If the game doesn't run, try to run it from the command line. (e.g. with /opt/WorldOfGoo/WorldOfGoo).
 - You will need to install 32-bit OpenGL drivers that match the (proprietary) drivers you use in the 64-bit environment to get decent performance (otherwise, software rendering through Mesa may be used, which is usually not what you want).
 - If you get a message like WorldOfGoo.bin: No such file or directory this usually means you do not have 32-bit compatibility libraries installed.
 - If the game aborts on startup, have a look at /opt/WorldOfGoo/WorldOfGoo.log. Common problems may be that your graphics display or sound system are not accessible to 32-bit binaries. To check, you can set the SDL_AUDIODRIVER variable in /opt/WorldOfGoo/properties/config.txt to dummy; if the game runs (but without sound) then you must either select the appropriate sound system manually (in config.txt) or install the necessary compatibility libraries.

If you happen to know how to install World of Goo on 64-bit versions of other popular Linux distributions, let me know and I will add the explanation to here.

Maybe putting a note somewhere which dependencies exactly are needed to get World of Goo running would already help. That way people with a 64bit system could try to get it run on their system by themselves and post their solution later here.

I'm running Arch 64 as well. The demo was working yesterday, but not today. I don't even get an error.
This morning i removed some lib32 packages, but installed them again when I saw that I needed it. But its not working now.
Also did a kernel-upgrade.

If i run "exec ./WorldOfGoo.bin $@" in the terminal, the terminal quits.

Okay, problem solved. Its now running on Arch Linux 64-bit as well.

Problem was a corrupted lib32-libx11. Downgrading did the trick. Now everything 's fine.

Xecuter, sounds like you have the same problem like me (and a few others). There is also a thread concerning this problem at the Arch Linux Forums: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=498579#p498579 

Try downgrading lib32-libx11.

I think the dependencies are more or less I described:"the C library, X libraries, sound driver libraries, and OpenGL libraries". It's hard to be more specific, as which sound driver libraries you need depends on which sound system you want to use, and X libraries may come bundled in one big package or several smaller ones.

If you happen to know what packages are necessary (and what steps should be taken to install those) for a particular distribution, just let me know and I'll add it to the summary!

If you need to run the game manually,you should probably do it as (from the game directory): LD_LIBRARY_PATH=libs ./WorldOfGoo.bin (this assumes you use Bash). Using exec means the shell will be replaced, so you won't see any errors if the game doesn't start.

Oh ok.

Anyways, downgrading libx11 did it! Thanks!

Okay. For Arch Linux 64-bit all you need is to install lib32-glibc (the very basic to execute 32-bit programs), lib32-mesa (3D graphics library), which will also resolve a lot of dependencies (all connected to the X Window System), and if you are a nVidia user like me, lib32-nvidia-utils.

So a simple pacman -S lib32-glibc lib32-mesa lib32-nvidia-utils should do the trick.

Thanks! I've added it to the summary.

Just wanted to note that the game works flawlessly on my Gentoo amd64 system. Which is great, because I run around forgetting that I've made the switch all the time. ;-) I've done nothing special to get it going. It even works fine despite the warning in the readme about running compiz-fusion.

There are various 32-bit compatibility libraries that Gentoo pulls in, but I haven't paid much attention to them. They've gotten installed automagically to support things like Flash and Java (I think). However, in case you haven't got them installed for some reason, here are the ones installed in my system. Just `emerge' them.

app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-baselibs
app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-compat
app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-gtklibs
app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-medialibs
app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-sdl
app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-soundlibs
app-emulation/emul-linux-x86-xlibs

Thanks for a -great- Linux port!
dk

P.S. I already had the Wii version. My son wanted it for his PC as well, but I didn't want to rebuy it for Windows. When I saw this had become available, I immediately bought it again, and I'm happy to have done it.

As the 32bit version works in on 64bit versions of Linux will you be providing amd64 deb packages of the 32bit version with the ia32-libs dependency, as installing anything with force-architecture option means it's not visible in Synaptic or aptitude to uninstall.

I'm on 64-bit Ubuntu, any idea why I just get "Aborted" when I try and run from terminal?

This is my ~/.WorldOfGoo/WorldOfGoo.log:

[t=0.00] Failed to read persistent data from "/home/luckygerbils/.WorldOfGoo/pers2.dat"!
[t=0.00] Locale en_US.UTF-8 matched to language en.
[t=0.00] Primary language: en
[t=0.00] Created 800x600 (32 bpp) graphics surface.
[t=0.00] Created virtual viewport of size 800(+0)x600(+0)
[t=0.00] Using audio driver: alsa

For a while if I ran /opt/WorldOfGoo/WorldOfGoo.bin directly I got messages about missing libraries, but I installed everything it told me I was missing and now just does this.

The problem may be with your audio drivers. Could you try setting the SDL_AUDIODRIVER to "dummy" in /opt/WorldOfGoo/properties/config.txt? If that makes the game run, that confirms the problem is audio-related.

Also, you shouldn't run WorldOfGoo.bin directly, but if you must, you should be able to do it like this: cd /opt/WorldOfGoo && LD_LIBRARY_PATH=libs ./WorldOfGoo.bin.

Yep, that makes it run.  Any idea how I can get sound too though?  Out of curiosity I already tried all the combinations in config.txt and System > Preferences > Sound and nothing got me any sound (with ALSA of course it fails to start).

I'm not sure... what version of Ubuntu are you using? Have you installed the latest versions of the required libraries?

There are plenty of people running the game on Ubuntu 64-bit without problems, but those seem to be using PulseAudio instead.

I'm on 8.10 Intrepid with kernel 2.6.27-11-generic and my pulseaudio version is 0.9.14. Pretty sure that's the most recent version.  I've had sound issues with this laptop before, sound capture has never worked.

I guess I can still play the Windows version in wine, that worked okay before. Thanks for your help.