Citizen Launcher 1.0.1

Citizen Launcher is a distro-neutral Star Citizen setup, launch, repair and maintenance application for Linux. Omarchy support is optional; the core is one static Go binary shared by Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch/Omarchy and other desktop distributions.

Product goal

Install Citizen Launcher → click setup → log into RSI → install/play Star Citizen.

The launcher owns the fragile user-space gaming stack so users do not have to pick Wine builds, copy DXVK DLLs or rebuild prefixes by hand. Kernel, GPU driver and base-distribution updates remain owned by the Linux distribution.

What 1.0 manages

• hardware/Vulkan/AVX/RAM/storage/filesystem preflight
• Linux vm.max_map_count and file-limit preparation
• newest locally compatible stable LUG Wine runner with rollback retention
• isolated Wine self-tests before runner activation
• deterministic, SHA-256-pinned Winetricks base setup
• verified portable PowerShell Core + RSI-compatible Wine wrapper (no fragile PowerShell MSI install)
• DXVK download, digest verification, installation and native DLL overrides
• RSI latest.yml, SHA-512 verified installer download and launcher repair
• Star Citizen desktop entry and stable launch path
• single-instance GUI, stack-operation locking and duplicate RSI/Star Citizen launch prevention
• automatic gaming-stack maintenance
• automatic verified Debian package self-updates
• privacy-conscious support bundle and rotating logs
• migration from older Omarchy Citizen / user-local installations

Install on Debian / Ubuntu / Mint

Install the release .deb:

sudo apt install ./citizen-launcher_1.0.1_amd64.deb

The package adds the desktop application and enables the system package-update timer. Future Citizen Launcher .deb releases can be installed automatically after release-asset digest and package metadata verification.

Generic desktop Linux install

./install.sh

or use the release tarball. Fedora/Arch/openSUSE users can use the generic build; an RPM spec is included for packaging work.

For Omarchy plus the optional bar widget:

./install-omarchy.sh

GUI

citizen-launcher gui

The GUI is embedded in the binary and served only on 127.0.0.1 behind a random per-process route. Chromium-family browsers open it as an app window; otherwise the default browser is used. A file lock guarantees a single GUI backend. Opening Citizen Launcher again reuses the existing instance.

Data locations

• ~/.config/citizen-launcher
• ~/.local/share/citizen-launcher
• ~/.local/state/citizen-launcher
• ~/.cache/citizen-launcher
• default Wine prefix: ~/Games/star-citizen

The uninstaller intentionally preserves the game prefix, game files, configuration and support logs unless the user removes them separately.

Build and verification

./tests/full-verify.sh

The full gate includes shell syntax, gofmt cleanliness, unit/regression tests, go vet, static amd64 build, Go race detector, Omarchy update integration test, Debian package build/metadata/payload verification and generic tarball verification.

Security / reliability boundaries

• no passwordless sudo rules are created
• executable release assets fail closed when their expected digest is unavailable
• RSI installer is checked against its published SHA-512 metadata
• Winetricks and the portable RSI PowerShell compatibility assets are version-pinned and checksum-verified
• Wine/DXVK archives are extracted with path/symlink traversal checks
• privileged Debian self-update accepts only the configured release repository, expected package name/version/architecture and verified SHA-256 asset digest
• maintenance never rewrites the active Wine prefix while RSI Launcher/Star Citizen is using it
• incomplete prefixes are preserved instead of blindly deleted

See ARCHITECTURE.md, DISTRO_SUPPORT.md and RELEASE_NOTES.md for details.