Dependency on default-jre in debian package breaks pre 1.13 minecraft installations

Yes, you will need java 8 installed, but that will likely already be there since it was needed until this was broken. If it's not, just do sudo apt install -f to fixup the installation after you do the dpkg install.

I'm sorry for the lack of my technical knowledge. What is deb (as far as I understand it's a .deb file) and what does it mean to change the dependency? The instructions you provided in this site are very helpful but I still don't understand what .deb file I should change and If I have the dpkg installed. Despite that thank you for your help. You already explained me this issue more than anyone else on the internet!

Never apologise for lack of knowledge. I'll explain what I mean, if it's at too much detail please excuse that.

Yes, "deb" means a dot-deb file. The dependencies are a list of packages that a package needs in order to work correctly. In this case, the Minecraft launcher package needs to have a Java installation in order to work (among other things), previously the version of Java that was specified was Java 8. Recently, the package maintainer changed the java dependency to the default Java version for ubuntu (this makes sense except that the default Java version on ubuntu is now Java 11 - which does not work with a whole swathe of things, including any Minecraft version prior to 1.13).

(Instruction note: all monospaced text in the instructions below are things tho type into the terminal).

OK, so much for the theoretical details. The dependencies are specified in the deb file (which as the stack exchange answer says is actually an archive in ar format). You can see this by opening the deb with file-roller (in a terminal try running file-roller Minecraft-2.1.9618.deb - or whichever version you have there); you'll see three files in the archive: "debian-binary", "data.tar.xz" and "control.tar.gz", the last being the one we want to change, but can't unfortunately with file-roller, though if you double click on it, you'll see its contents which look like the following:

Package: minecraft-launcher
Version: 2.1.9618
Architecture: amd64
Maintainer: Petr Mrázek <[email protected]>
Description: Official Minecraft Launcher
Homepage: https://minecraft.net/
Pre-Depends: dpkg (>= 1.14.0), wget | curl, ca-certificates
Depends: default-jre, gconf-service, libasound2 (>= 1.0.23), libatk1.0-0 (>= 1.12.4), libc6 (>= 2.11), libcairo2 (>= 1.6.0), libcups2 (>= 1.4.0), libdbus-1-3 (>= 1.1.4), libexpat1 (>= 1.95.8), libfontconfig1 (>= 2.8.0), libgcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1), libgconf-2-4 (>= 2.31.1), libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 (>= 2.22.0), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.26.0), libgtk2.0-0, libgtk-3-0 (>= 3.18.9), libnspr4 (>= 1.8.0.10), libnss3 (>= 3.17.2), libpango1.0-0 (>= 1.14.0), libstdc++6 (>= 4.8.0), libx11-6 (>= 2:1.4.99.1), libxcomposite1 (>= 1:0.3-1), libxcursor1 (>> 1.1.2), libxdamage1 (>= 1:1.1), libxext6, libxfixes3, libxi6 (>= 2:1.2.99.4), libxrandr2 (>= 2:1.2.99.3), libxrender1, libxss1, libxtst6, libx11-xcb1, libxcb1, libbz2-1.0, lsb-base (>= 4.1), xdg-utils (>= 1.0.2), wget, libcurl3 | libcurl4
Copyright: All rights reserved

This is what should be edited in the process that's described in the instruction from stack exchange. In our case we want to change the text that says "default-jre" in the "Depends:" line to say "oracle-java8-installer | openjdk-8-jre". So after editing it will look like this:

Package: minecraft-launcher
Version: 2.1.9618
Architecture: amd64
Maintainer: Petr Mrázek <[email protected]>
Description: Official Minecraft Launcher
Homepage: https://minecraft.net/
Pre-Depends: dpkg (>= 1.14.0), wget | curl, ca-certificates
Depends: oracle-java8-installer | openjdk-8-jre, gconf-service, libasound2 (>= 1.0.23), libatk1.0-0 (>= 1.12.4), libc6 (>= 2.11), libcairo2 (>= 1.6.0), libcups2 (>= 1.4.0), libdbus-1-3 (>= 1.1.4), libexpat1 (>= 1.95.8), libfontconfig1 (>= 2.8.0), libgcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1), libgconf-2-4 (>= 2.31.1), libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 (>= 2.22.0), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.26.0), libgtk2.0-0, libgtk-3-0 (>= 3.18.9), libnspr4 (>= 1.8.0.10), libnss3 (>= 3.17.2), libpango1.0-0 (>= 1.14.0), libstdc++6 (>= 4.8.0), libx11-6 (>= 2:1.4.99.1), libxcomposite1 (>= 1:0.3-1), libxcursor1 (>> 1.1.2), libxdamage1 (>= 1:1.1), libxext6, libxfixes3, libxi6 (>= 2:1.2.99.4), libxrandr2 (>= 2:1.2.99.3), libxrender1, libxss1, libxtst6, libx11-xcb1, libxcb1, libbz2-1.0, lsb-base (>= 4.1), xdg-utils (>= 1.0.2), wget, libcurl3 | libcurl4
Copyright: All rights reserved

After that's the case you continue the instruction from stack exchange. The instructions say that you should change the "Version:" line to something like (in your case) "Version: 2.1.9618~jz1", but in practice in this case that won't be necessary.

After you've finished all that and put the changes back into the deb file with ar r ../Minecraft-2.1.9618~jz1.deb control.tar.gz you can then do sudo dpkg -i ../Minecraft-2.1.9618~jz1.deb. This will re-install the launcher without marking Java 11 as a dependency.

Now, if dpkg complained that it can't install the launcher because of unsatisfied dependencies (this is unlikely if you had the launcher installed with a version prior to this bug), then you can do sudo apt-get install -f, which will install all the things that it needs to satisfy the deps.

At this point I would also then do sudo apt-get --purge autoremove, which will remove any packages that were automatically installed as dependencies but are no longer required. This will remove Java 11, which may cause other java-dependent programs from working because java dependency management is a nightmare.

I hope this helps. Please feel free to response here if you get stuck.

Also, to Mojang, the amount of work that it would require for you to fix this is vastly less than the amount of work that I've just put into helping one of your paying users. I think you should be feeling some form of shame for this.

Ok, I still have one issue. I tried to run the command "file-roller Minecraft-2.1.9618.deb --" in the terminal. It opened two archive manager windows, the first saying "/home/zilberholts/---: no such file or directory" and the second window saying the same but for Minecraft-2.1.9618.deb. I also tried deleting the space between "Minecraft-2.1.9618.deb" and "--" and the same thing happened. My launcher version is 2.1.9618, I checked it in the about tab in my minecraft launcher.

Edit: I'm sorry for the strikethrough. When I try to delete it the symbol - gets deleted too

Use the file name for the launcher that you have. I rename mine so that they match the version they are since Mojang for some unfathomable reason gives every version the same file name, "Minecraft.deb". So you can repeat the instructions above with file-roller Minecraft.deb and so on. You'll need to do that in the directory where the file is.

Hi, how to locate the "Minecraft.deb" file? I tried doing this for the Minecraft.deb file I found in my downloads folder that I downloaded when installing the game. I followed instructions step by step but ar r ../Minecraft-2.1.9618~jz1.deb control.tar.gz didn't work and every command after that too. I'm stuck now because there is literally nothing about it on the internet.

Edit: I ran ar r ../Minecraft-2.1.9618~jz1.deb control.tar.gz after saving changes and closing the control.tar.gz and when I gave it another try and reopened the control.tar.gz the changes were not saved

The following will do the whole thing, including the download (first line) and install (last line - if it complains at the end, do sudo apt-get install -f).

wget https://launcher.mojang.com/download/Minecraft.deb
mkdir tmp
cd tmp
ar p ../Minecraft.deb control.tar.gz | tar -xz
sed -i 's/default-jre/oracle-java8-installer | openjdk-8-jre/' control # This edits the control file.
cp ../Minecraft.deb ../Minecraft~jzfixed.deb
tar czf control.tar.gz *[!z]
ar r ../Minecraft~jzfixed.deb control.tar.gz
cd ..
rm -rf tmp
sudo dpkg -i Minecraft~jzfixed.deb

I executed every command here one after another very smoothly. There were no errors. I have even done "sudo apt-get --purge autoremove" at the end (it didn't remove anything though) But the game still crushes and is unable to launch.

Can you try sudo apt remove minecraft-launcher and then do sudo dpkg -i Minecraft~jzfixed.deb again.

Also, before you do that (just for my information), can you paste the output of dpkg -s minecraft-launcher.

Here is the output of {color:#505f79}dpkg -s minecraft-launcher{color}. {color:#172b4d}Still doesn't work.{color}

Package: minecraft-launcher
Status: install ok installed
Maintainer: Petr Mrázek <[email protected]>
Architecture: amd64
Version: 2.1.9618
Depends: oracle-java8-installer | openjdk-8-jre, gconf-service, libasound2 (>= 1.0.23), libatk1.0-0 (>= 1.12.4), libc6 (>= 2.11), libcairo2 (>= 1.6.0), libcups2 (>= 1.4.0), libdbus-1-3 (>= 1.1.4), libexpat1 (>= 1.95.8), libfontconfig1 (>= 2.8.0), libgcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1), libgconf-2-4 (>= 2.31.1), libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 (>= 2.22.0), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.26.0), libgtk2.0-0, libgtk-3-0 (>= 3.18.9), libnspr4 (>= 1.8.0.10), libnss3 (>= 3.17.2), libpango1.0-0 (>= 1.14.0), libstdc++6 (>= 4.8.0), libx11-6 (>= 2:1.4.99.1), libxcomposite1 (>= 1:0.3-1), libxcursor1 (>> 1.1.2), libxdamage1 (>= 1:1.1), libxext6, libxfixes3, libxi6 (>= 2:1.2.99.4), libxrandr2 (>= 2:1.2.99.3), libxrender1, libxss1, libxtst6, libx11-xcb1, libxcb1, libbz2-1.0, lsb-base (>= 4.1), xdg-utils (>= 1.0.2), wget, libcurl3 | libcurl4
Pre-Depends: dpkg (>= 1.14.0), wget | curl, ca-certificates
Description: Official Minecraft Launcher
Homepage: https://minecraft.net/
Copyright: All rights reserved

It's a bit different from the content of control.tar.gz you sent in previous comments

Looks like it's still picking up openjdk-11's java then. Run sudo apt purge openjdk-11-*.

Will I be able to launch new minecraft versions if I do that?