Arch Linux User Repository

The package version is the version of the launcher bootstrap - the part that actually downloads and updates the launcher.

That means the version number of the actual launcher (2.x.xxx) is different from the version here (9xx+) on a fundamental level, and should not be compared.

The package is outdated only when the bootstrap version you get here is different from the bootstrap version you would get from minecraft.net when using the raw tarball.

Since arch is a shared lib distro, I don't particularly appreciate programs bundling libraries, especially the whole JRE. It feels unclean to me.

I know there are advantage, like easier dependency management and also that disk space is cheap(er) now but it still feels wrong to me.

I think the recent version of this launcher are on par with the Windows version when it comes to downloading a bundled JRE, which is probably what Leafeon is talking about. Personally I don't like it, but I see the convenience for users.

I like to use my system JRE and will manually use system JRE 8 if needed (not neeeded right now), would be interesting if there was a way to block the JRE download in the launcher

While it's nice that the package doesn't force you to use a specific JRE, it can be a double edged sword. Seeing as various versions of Minecraft use different Java versions - and many modded/legacy versions require specific Java versions (anything using launchwrapper needs JRE 8 specifically) - this leads to having multiple java versions installed and having to manually select the correct java executable for each instance in the launcher.

On windows, the launcher will download the appropriate JRE for the Minecraft version selected and default to using it.

How will this behave on Linux going forward? For example if a user wishes to play a legacy version, 1.12 forge, and 1.17 will they be prompted to install the required JREs? Warned if they aren't using the recommended JRE version? Will the launcher default to the recommend JRE version if one is found installed or will this require manual configuration on a per profile basis?

Since the aur package doesn't force a specific jre version, then you can use an autoupdating (though pacman) jre package

As of Minecraft 1.17 (unreleased as of this time), Minecraft: Java Edition for windows will be switching to Java 16.

Are there any plans to mirror these changes on the linux version?

IMPORTANT: IF YOUR LAUNCHER DOES NOT START AFTER THE NEW UPDATE RUN rm ~/.minecraft/launcher -rf in a terminal

@andreymal, yannl35133, same here. I also solved that by removing symlink and creating a normal folder. Turns out that new versions of the launcher do not recognize symlinks for some stupid reason, which results in this weird behaviour.

I have the same problem with ~/.minecraft symlink. Replacing it with a bind mount helps.

My ~/.minecraft is a symlink. It worked well, but now it doesn't and goes in an infinite loop.

Thank you @huantian Removing "$HOME/.minecraft/launcher/" was the solution.

Alright, now it works for some stupid reason