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Ubuntu Linux 64bit SK Client without Steam asks to be reinstalled, directly after reinstall or doesnt know AggressiveOpts

8 replies [Last post]
Wed, 02/18/2026 - 14:17
Zosu's picture
Zosu

I reinstalled with the *.bin installer from the downloads page. (edit: but it reinstalled the old version.)
I have these JVMs installed and tried each:
temurin-8-jdk-amd64 (now asks for reinstall after reinstall; reinstalls old version; used to run fine with old version)
java-11-openjdk-amd64 (asks for reinstall after reinstall; reinstalls old version)
temurin-17-jdk-amd64 (doesn't start: Unrecognized VM option 'AggressiveOpts' in launcher.log)
java-21-openjdk-amd64 (doesn't start: Unrecognized VM option 'AggressiveOpts' in launcher.log)
AggressiveOpts is a CLI param btw.. AFAIK it was removed in Java 12.

I'll go to sleep now, but would be nice to get some feedback on what else to try or what JVM works.

// edit: Turns out the installer installs the old version and I changed this post accordingly a bit.

Wed, 02/18/2026 - 14:29
#1
Nitronicx
Old version

That's because it downloads the old version, at least in my case. Open "Options" in game and check the "About" tab. My version is 20260209004019, Bechamel's Expansion.

Thu, 02/19/2026 - 02:19
#2
Zosu's picture
Zosu
Can confirm. The non-Steam downloader installs the old version

I have the exact same old version 20260209004019 Bechamel's Expansion.
@GH can you make it download the new version?
You can also just give us a ZIP file or so. It's not rocket science to change the Java symlink on Linux, if that's still a thing.

Thu, 02/19/2026 - 12:06
#3
Zosu's picture
Zosu
Workaround

This is not a good solution, but I downloaded the game with Steam to see if it runs like that on my PC.
Then I found the game was installed on my SSD in a Steam dirctory and quit Steam, figured out how to launch it by looking at the old way to launch it and launched it. Then logged in, using my non-steam account.

Obviously this is horrible, because one needs Steam, even tho one doesn't use it, except as a fancy, slow downloader.
Would be nice to just have the files as a *.zip as a download linked on the homepage instead.

Fri, 02/20/2026 - 19:59
#4
Lesuita
Download link broken?

Going through the normal download process eventually links me to spiral-install.bin which gives me an 403 Access Denied error.

It would be nice if GH would at least confirm if the standalone linux installer is supposed to be working.

Tue, 02/24/2026 - 12:04
#5
Zosu's picture
Zosu
Another Workaround from Jerko, which doesn't need Steam

Jerko doesn't like using the Forums, so here it is:

cd into your botched SK folder.

curl http://gamemedia2.spiralknights.com/spiral/client/getdown.txt > getdown.txt

Then run the launcher. This will pull the first half of the game, including a "broken" Java Virtual Machine: Java 1.8

Delete the "spiral/java_vm" folder and link something newer from your system in its place, e.g.:
ln -s /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.17.0-openjdk-amd64 java

After that, start the client and get stuck witth downloading assets. This won't finish -> close the client, restart and let getdown do its magic.

Tue, 02/24/2026 - 12:26
#6
Zosu's picture
Zosu
Workaround using Wine from Jerko, which doesn't use Steam

(0. Move your broken SK folder out of the way)
1. Download the Windows installer. This is basically an executable ZIP, containing getdown.
2. run the windows installer in wine. Chances are it will not launch properly, but that's fine as long as it extracts the two files "getdown.txt" and getdown.jar
3. Copy those two to whereever you want to install the game.
4. Make sure, getdown.txt contains exactly this one line:
appbase = https://gamemedia2.spiralknights.com/spiral/latest/
5. make sure to have at least java 10 installed
6. Run getdown:
java -jar getdown-pro.jar

Note from Zosu: 7z can extract spiral-install.exe , but it can't preserve the file names. You'll get a mess of files like file035a07c4d963304887d5d42c099eadd7 . Idk how to fix that, but if someone knows, this would even work without wine.

Tue, 02/24/2026 - 12:40
#7
Zosu's picture
Zosu
Workaround without Steam and Wine

Jerko found out, unzipping the Mac installer preserves the filenames like so:
7z x spiral-installer.dmg
So you can download and do that instead of step 1 and 2 of the above workaround and then you don't need Wine nor Steam.

Tue, 02/24/2026 - 13:19
#8
Zosu's picture
Zosu
Launcher shell script for the above workarounds (example)

In case you need a launcher shell script (which was just called spiral in the old version), this is a short one that assumes your game dir is ~/spiral-knights (so maybe change that):

#! /bin/bash
# ln -s ~/snap/steam/common/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/Spiral\ Knights/ ~/spiral-knights
cd ~/spiral-knights || exit 1;
INSTDIR="$HOME/spiral-knights";
JAVA=java_vm/bin/java;
"$JAVA" -jar "$INSTDIR/getdown-pro.jar" "$INSTDIR"

It doesn't need to be in the game dir (like the "ln" comment for the steam workaround suggests), but the old one was in the game dir.
Jerko mentioned it's not in the spiral-installer.dmg and I remembered it's also not in the Steam install.

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