There is quite a lot of guides on this forum and elsewhere on how to make the native client provided by Bioware work on modern linux systems. In this post I want to centralize what I learned trying to make the game work on my laptop running Archlinux. Maybe it woud be useful to others to make it a sticky ?
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So, how do I play Neverwinter Nights on Linux?

Depending on your distribution, you have several options:

Ubuntu/Debian/Mint

I recomment using the scripts provided by the fine folks at dotslashplay.it: http://wiki.dotslashplay.it/en/games/neverwinter-nights

Archlinux

There is an AUR package that I just updated to make it work with the newest installer: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/nwn-gog/

You will need to provide the GOG installer files, of course.

What if I don't use Ubuntu or Arch?

I wrote a guide that aim to be as distribution-agnostic as possible. You can find it here: https://gist.github.com/ubervison/1fa64659975ab37c0afca0bedaf5ad2d

I used information from these websites:

https://linuxgamecast.com/2015/11/l-g-c-how-to-installing-neverwinter-nights-linux-native/
https://robotbutler.org/article/13

As well as the original and outdated AUR package.

You can also use the Lutris platform, which supports the GOG version of Neverwinter Nights.

Other posts and resources on GOG about the linux client:

Ganni1987 created a patch of the native client for linux systems: Modern patch for Neverwinter Nights native Linux version
vv221 on the dotslashplay.it scripts: Install Neverwinter Nights on Debian/Ubuntu/Mint/etc.

Tjänare Tmaranivel,
your installation works with the play.it scripts? I guess you do not have a Nvida GFX layer? Anyway, I think the new place for portraits, hakpaks and custom pryl lies in your home directory either under .config/neverwinter or .local/share/Neverwinter (mind the dot at the start of the directory name). There you should try to put your files in.

BR /Christian

Oops, I missed your post, sorry for that. We actually have a thread about ./play.it support for Neverwinter Nights here on GOG forums.
Caliban72 gave good pointers, you can put extra files in ~/.local/share/games/neverwinter-nights

Here are the directories you are looking for, if some are missing you can create them:
- portraits → ~/.local/share/games/neverwinter-nights/portraits
- override → ~/.local/share/games/neverwinter-nights/override
- haks → ~/.local/share/games/neverwinter-nights/hak
- saves → ~/.local/share/games/neverwinter-nights/saves

Thanks guys!

I actually re-did the whole installation, partly because I couldn't find where to place the folders mentioned earlier and partly because I don't feel keen on having game-stuff installed as root.

Instead I used this method (also mentioned in vaalc4r's post):
linuxgamecast.com/2015/11/l-g-c-how-to-installing-neverwinter-nights-linux-native/

I got the game (with the haks and modules) up and running, but the movies don't play and there is no sound...at all.
If anyone feel they have the time and the energy to help me out it would be highly appreciated.

It is a bit difficult to run but here are detailed instructions to help you:

https://neverwintervault.org/forums/neverwinter-nights-1/nwn1-tutorials/linux-tutorials-installation-trouble-shooting?page=0

For the sound to work here is a ".tar.xz" file containing updated 32bit sound libraries from my own game folder that I found in my root folder and just copied over to the "lib" and "miles" folders after a lot of trial and error to make the game work in Ubuntu 18.04. Hopefully, even if the ubuntu libraries are updated in the future, the game will still run:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1b9VkcEFNffO__0ub-rDfn2yLmOfc9kd2

For the movies:
Download and extract nwmovies-master.zip from https://github.com/nwnlinux/nwmovies into the NWN directory.

Download the Linux BinkPlayer (the 32bit version even if linux is 64 bit) and extract it into the nwmovies folder.

If you get this error:
ERROR: NWMovies: (cookie) dlopen of libdisasm.so failed: lib/libdisasm.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory.

Look for " libdisasm.so" inside nwmovies/libdis/ and copy it into the "/lib" directory in your NeverwinterNights folder. (Not needed if using my ".tar.xz" from the above link)

Hope you get it to run!

I loaded the native linux version using Lutris by using their install link on the Lutris web page for Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition

It fetches your GOG files from your library and installs the game without any input, assuming you already have the Lutris app installed. I was getting ready to roll up my sleeves when Lutris just showed a launch icon.

Movies appear to be working without a hitch.

I may be stuck on installing the CEP, though. I have CEP 2.65 loaded into the `/.local/share/Neverwinter Nights/hak folder but can't join cep servers, getting tossed with a message saying that it cannot open the mod because a hak file is missing.

nwn on linux used to have a shell script that you ran called fixinstall, when you made changes, but I don't see the equivalent with this install.

I have fond memories of this game, but I am confused by the posts here:

Does this (NWN Enhanced) run under Linux 64bit (Debian) without any additional installs, scripts, windows emulation layers, or do I have to install additional scripts, libraries, etc. apart from downloading the game and installing it in my home directory ?

Iow, is play.it or any other 3rd party tools necessary or not ?

A short answer would be appreciated, thanks everyone.

./play.it is never required to play any game, it is only a convenience tool ;)
So if you see a game supported by ./play.it, it means it can run on Linux in some way.

About additional layers, it depends on the game. Neverwinter Nights Diamond for example requires an native client to be played natively on Linux, while Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition is supposed to work "out-of-the-box" (but I never tried it without ./play.it).

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By the way, keep in mind that this forum thread has been opened before the release of Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition, it is originally only about Neverwinter Nights Diamond.

I see, thanks. was confused because the intro says "how to make the native client work on linux" which suggests that it doesn't work right away. Maybe I should have checked the dates of the posts and compared them to release dates of the subversions (sarcasm :-)). Thanks for the clarification.

I know NVN Diamond is a windows executable.

Anyway, I just realized that NVN Enhanced aparently is a 32 bit elf which means it doesn't run on a modern 64bit system without installing 32bit libraries and the necessary bookkeeping for later cleanup.

They switched to a 64-bit binary a little while ago (around early 2020), current versions no longer have support for 32-bit systems.

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By the way, avoiding bookkeeping and need for clean-up is the main purpose of ./play.it, by relying on package managers dependencies system so you do not have to track what you needed to install for each game. You should give it a try if you like nice, tidy systems with each program in its intended place ;)

It's not a game client or anything adding a new layer between you and your game, only a native packages generator. Less is more!

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this doesnt work. after building the .deb packages from the gog installer of nwn diamond, the installer cries for missing dependencies, which of course cant be installed and the reason remains hidden (it says cant find the file while the file is there, great transparency... was thix linux?)

these are he packages with unsatisfied dependencies:
libc6:i386
libstdc++6:i386
libglu1-mesa:i386

Hello, IMHO the main problem is that these command do work well on a i386 system while nowadays most of the systems are 64-bit.

In particular, I tried to resolve the dipendecies adding the i386 architecture with

dpkg --add-architecture i386

But having also an NVIDIA video card with the non free drivers, I stopped since I was very unsure to let the system install the nouveau i386 driver.

Probably it is possible to make it work but I don't want to risk and end up having my machine unusable.

Thanks.

I second ever_eve.

As a remark, I installed libjson-c5:i386 and libssl1.1:i386. The game starts to the main-menu, but I haven't gone further yet. Later tonight I will, because I have fond memories of this game :-)

As a lucky owner of a brandnew RX6700XT I do not get into trouble with undocumented third party drivers *sticktongue*. I think (but I am unsure) even with the closed source driver you don't have to install a whole new 32bit graphics driver, just the 32bit libraries that come with libx11 and the libxcb, that is the mesa-stack with opengl and even vulkan support in 32bit.

tl:dr: It should work after you installed libx11 and libxcb in 32 bit, no whole new driver.

Edit: This is debian bookworm, an amd rx6700xt and the open source driver. I did NOT install any clients or ran any scripts, I just added i386 architecture and installed the libraries mentioned on the gog page of the game. I am into the first adventure and it runs perfectly.

I have this error when doing "sh play-neverwinter-nights-1.sh setup_nwn_diamond_2.1.0.21.exe":

Argument "file" as provided to function "archive_integrity_check_md5" can not be empty.

It looks like I missed your message, I am no longer following GOG forums closely.
For problems when using ./play.it, please post your reports on our forge to be sure we do not miss them: https://forge.dotslashplay.it/play.it/games/-/issues