opengoal-nix/README.md

OpenGOAL Launcher for NixOS

A Nix package for running OpenGOAL on NixOS — enabling native PC ports of the Jak and Daxter series through the official OpenGOAL Launcher.

Caution

This is an unsupported installation of OpenGOAL Launcher. I'm not affiliated with OpenGOAL in anyway. Wanted a way to play the series on my own machine. Use at your own risk

AI Disclosure: This project was developed with heavy assistance from Claude (Anthropic). It works on my machine with all three games launching and playable, but your mileage may vary. Bug reports and PRs welcome.

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Read More about OpenGOAL

You can read more about OpenGOAL and the OpenGOAL launcher program with the resources below:

• OpenGOAL
• OpenGOAL Launcher
• OpenGOAL Github

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Requirements

• NixOS
• nixpkgs.config.allowUnfree = true (required for steam-run)
• A PS2 ISO of a supported game

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Installation

Option A: Ad-hoc (no system changes)

git clone <your-gitea-repo-url>
cd opengoal-nix
nix-build
result/bin/opengoal-launcher

Option B: System-wide via configuration.nix

Add to /etc/nixos/configuration.nix:

nixpkgs.config.allowUnfree = true;

environment.systemPackages = [
  (pkgs.callPackage /path/to/opengoal-nix/package.nix {})
];

Then rebuild:

sudo nixos-rebuild switch
opengoal-launcher

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First Time Setup

1. Launch the launcher and set your install directory
2. Select a game and let the launcher download the game version binaries
3. Patch the downloaded files for NixOS ⚠️ This is the one NixOS-specific step. The game engine files the launcher just downloaded won't run on NixOS out of the box, so we need to patch them.

The opengoal-patch-bins script is included with this package — the same install that gave you opengoal-launcher also gives you this script.

Open a terminal and run:

opengoal-patch-bins /path/to/your/install/folder/versions/official/v0.3.1

Replace the path with wherever you told the launcher to install in Step 1, and replace v0.3.1 with whatever version the launcher downloaded. You can find the correct version number by looking inside the versions/official/ folder in your install directory.

For example, if you installed to /home/user/Games/opengoal it would be:

opengoal-patch-bins /home/user/Games/opengoal/versions/official/v0.3.1

You should see Done: gk, Done: extractor, and Done: goalc printed out. If you see "already patched" for all three, see the Troubleshooting section.

4. Point the launcher at your PS2 ISO and let it extract, decompile, and compile the game
5. Click Play

Note: You must re-run opengoal-patch-bins each time the launcher downloads a new game version.

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Updating the Launcher

When a new launcher version is released on GitHub:

1. Get the new hash:

nix-shell -p nix --run '
  nix-prefetch-url \
    https://github.com/open-goal/launcher/releases/download/vX.Y.Z/OpenGOAL-Launcher_X.Y.Z_amd64.AppImage \
    --type sha256
'

2. Convert to SRI format:

nix-shell -p nix --run '
  nix hash convert --hash-algo sha256 --to sri <hash-from-above>
'

3. Update version and hash in package.nix and rebuild:

nix-build

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Troubleshooting

Game crashes with code 134 after clicking Play Run opengoal-patch-bins on the version directory — the game binaries need to be patched for NixOS after each download.

opengoal-patch-bins says "already patched" but game still crashes Restore the originals and repatch:

cd /path/to/opengoal/versions/official/vX.Y.Z
for bin in gk extractor goalc; do
  [ -f "$bin.real" ] && mv "$bin.real" "$bin"
done
opengoal-patch-bins /path/to/opengoal/versions/official/vX.Y.Z

GPU test failed / OpenGL error Your GPU and drivers support OpenGL — this is a false positive on NixOS. Use the "Bypass error" option in the launcher.

Wrong ISO error during extraction Make sure you are using a PS2 ISO of the original game, not a PSP version. Supported game IDs are SCUS-97124 (Jak 1 NTSC-U), SCES-50456 (PAL), and SCPS-15021 (NTSC-J).

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How It Works

The OpenGOAL Launcher is distributed as a DwarFS AppImage (not the more common SquashFS). This package:

1. Fetches the AppImage and extracts it using dwarfsextract
2. Installs the self-contained sharun launcher bundle
3. Provides opengoal-patch-bins — a helper that patches downloaded game binaries (gk, extractor, goalc) with the correct NixOS dynamic linker and wraps them in steam-run for a full FHS environment

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Contributing

PRs and issues welcome. The eventual goal is to upstream this to nixpkgs.