Over the past seven years, Ubuntu has grown to become perhaps the most popular Linux distribution in the world. Now available in more than 55 different languages, it has proven to be popular among both casual users and serious computer professionals, and estimates now put the total number of Ubuntu users at over 20 million. Best of all, Ubuntu is completely free of charge.

Given the massive popularity of Ubuntu, many users have begun to wonder whether they could use their Ubuntu systems to play online poker. We have good news on that front: while online poker operators aren’t exactly going ahead and creating software specifically for Linux or Ubuntu users, there are plenty of options you can use to access these sites through your Ubuntu machine. First, let’s look at the best poker sites that you can on Ubuntu.

Top Ranked Ubuntu Poker Sites in United States:

Can I Play Online Poker on Ubuntu?

Absolutely! Ubuntu users can play online poker at all major rooms, just as Windows and Mac users can. While there aren’t really any software clients designed specifically for use with Ubuntu or other Linux distributions, there are plenty of ways to work around this. You don’t have to be worried about any difficult technical processes or needing advanced computer knowledge, either; most of the time, you’ll be able to sign up and play for real money at on online poker room without running into any trouble at all.

Options for Ubuntu Poker Players

There are two major options for playing online poker on an Ubuntu system. If you’d like the full range of online poker rooms available to you, you’ll probably want to use emulation software in order to run a downloadable client on your computer. While these programs are almost always designed for Windows, emulation software can create an environment that allows you to run these clients on a Linux system. We’ll talk more about this process below.

On the other hand, if you’d like the quickest and easiest solution to playing online poker on Ubuntu, we recommend playing at a browser-based poker room. These “instant play” poker sites allow you to play directly in your web browser; as long as your browser is up to date and can handle Flash and/or Java, chances are you’ll be all set to play.

In order to use an instant play poker room, you merely need to navigate your way to the poker room site, and then click on the “instant play” or “no download” button. This will grant you instant access to the poker room, though you’ll need to sign up for an account before you’ll be able to play (you can usually do this right from the instant play client). It’s as simple as that, and the poker room will always be there for you with a few clicks no matter where you are or what computer you’re accessing it from.

Using Emulation Software

Though other software programs exist that can help you run poker software, the most popular choice for Ubuntu users is definitely Wine, which is estimated to have more users than all other virtualization and emulations combined.. Technically, Wine is not actually a pure emulator; it works instead by adding a compatibility layer that can reproduce the functions of a Windows computer. The upshot of this is that by running Wine, you’ll be able to run most Windows programs on your Ubuntu machine – including downloadable poker software.

Wine is free and open source, so putting it on your computer is as simple as downloading the program and installing it. Once Wine is up and running, you’ll be able to create a shell within which you can install and run your Windows programs of choice.

This doesn’t automatically mean that all software will run flawlessly. Windows programs run at many different levels in Wine, from being flawless right out of the gate to having no functionality whatsoever. However, the vast majority of online poker programs will either work just fine, require only minimal tweaking to work, or will at most have only minor issues but otherwise work well. In addition, since Wine is constantly being updated, compatibility with Windows programs is always improving.

Alternative Linux Distributions and Online Poker

There are numerous different Linux distributions that are capable of running online poker software. It’s hard to say that one is better than another, as programs such as Wine will work in all major distributions, and any good web browser will allow you to run instant play online poker rooms. It’s probably easiest to use one of the most popular distributions (Ubuntu or Fedora, for instance), only because there will be more people who have also used that distribution and can then help you with any issues you might have – but in the end, whatever distribution is best for you in terms of general use will likely get the job done when it comes to online poker.