Open Source Linux Emulators
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Emulators for Linux
View 284 business solutionsBrowse free open source Emulators and projects for Linux below. Use the toggles on the left to filter open source Emulators by OS, license, language, programming language, and project status.
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GNS3
An advanced network simulator to design and configure virtual networks
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VICE
Versatile Commodore Emulator
VICE is an emulator collection which emulates the C64, the C64-DTV, the C128, the VIC20, practically all PET models, the PLUS4 and the CBM-II (aka C610). It runs on Unix, MS-DOS, Win32, OS/2, Acorn RISC OS, BeOS, QNX 6.x, Amiga, GP2X or Mac OS X machines. -
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NetherSX2 Classic
Continuation of NetherSX2 based on AetherSX2 3668
NetherSX2-classic is a companion and variant of NetherSX2 that targets a specific older base version of the AetherSX2 emulator (based on the 3668 branch), applying similar custom patches to provide a stable and performant PS2 emulation environment on Android devices. The project stitches in anti-tampering modifications, RetroAchievements notification fixes, and controller and GameDB updates while maintaining the legacy behavior of the classic build for compatibility with titles that might perform better on the older codebase. Because this classic branch starts from a slightly different upstream version than NetherSX2-patch, users often choose it for performance reasons on lower-power devices or for games with known regressions in newer builds. As with the patch variant, the repository includes configuration changes, fixes for widescreen and deinterlacing behavior, and updated game and controller support developed by the community. -
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DeSmuME
DeSmuME is a Nintendo DS emulator
DeSmuME is the most seasoned open source Nintendo DS emulator. It sports tools designed for hackers, speedrunners, youtubers, and casual gamers. Homebrew programs are supported and can even be debugged through GDB. The Windows and OSX versions are both relatively feature rich, and there is a small universe of forks and mods that add even more features for casual gaming. DeSmuME is the origin of RetroArch and OpenEmu Nintendo DS support and is used by several mobile Nintendo DS emulators, with the notable exception of DraStic. DeSmuME's source code is now hosted at https://github.com/TASVideos/desmume/ win32 autobuilds @ https://ci.appveyor.com/project/zeromus/desmume/build/artifacts -
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Bochs is a portable x86 PC emulation software package that emulates enough of the x86 CPU, related AT hardware, and BIOS to run Windows, Linux, *BSD, Minix, and other OS's, all on your workstation.
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Citra
A Nintendo 3DS Emulator
Citra is an experimental open-source Nintendo 3DS emulator/debugger written in C++. It is written with portability in mind, with builds actively maintained for Windows, Linux and macOS. Citra emulates a subset of 3DS hardware and therefore is useful for running/debugging homebrew applications, and it is also able to run many commercial games! Some of these do not run at a playable state, but we are working every day to advance the project forward. (Playable here means compatibility of at least "Okay" on our game compatibility list.) Citra is licensed under the GPLv2 (or any later version). Refer to the license.txt file included. Please read the FAQ before getting started with the project. If you want to contribute please take a look at the Contributor's Guide and Developer Information. You should also contact any of the developers in the forum in order to know about the current state of the emulator because the TODO list isn't maintained anymore. -
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box64
Linux Userspace x86_64 Emulator with a twist, targeted at ARM64 Linux
Box86 lets you run x86 Linux programs (such as games) on non-x86 Linux systems, like ARM (the host system needs to be 32bit little-endian). Because box86 uses the native versions of some “system” libraries, like libc, libm, SDL, and OpenGL, it’s easy to integrate and use with most applications, and performance can be surprisingly high in some cases. Many games already work without much tweaking, for example: WorldOfGoo, Airline Tycoon Deluxe, and FTL. Many of the GameMaker Linux games also run fine. (There’s a long list, among them are Undertale, A Risk of Rain, or Cook Serve Delicious.) Box64 is the 64bits version of Box86. It is used to run x86_64 binaries on ARM64 (i.e. aarch64) Linux. There are some YouTube channels where you can see box86 and box64 in action: MicroLinux, PILabs, and The Byteman at least. -
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Wine
Run Windows applications on Linux, BSD, Solaris, and Mac OS X
Wine is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API on top of X and Unix. Wine provides both a development toolkit for porting Windows sources to Unix and a program loader, allowing many unmodified Windows binaries to run on x86-based Unixes. -
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PPSSPP
A cross-platform PSP emulator
PPSSPP is an open source, cross-platform PSP emulator which allows you to play your PSP games on Android, Windows, Mac or Linux. With PPSSPP you can play your PSP games on your PC in full HD resolution, or play on your tablet for a big-screen mobile gaming experience. PPSSPP enhances the gaming experience in more ways than one. It even upscales some textures that would otherwise be too blurry due to the fact that they were originally made for the small screen. Even on modern Android phones and tablets you can enjoy double the original resolution. Get a whole new and better PSP gaming experience with PPSSPP now! -
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ZSNES is a SNES/Super Famicom emulator for x86 computers. It runs on Windows, MS-DOS and Linux/FreeBSD and supports mode 7, sound, Super FX, and a lot more.
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RPCS3
PlayStation 3 emulator and debugger
RPCS3 is an open-source PlayStation 3 emulator and debugger, allowing users to run PS3 games and software on Windows, Linux, and macOS platforms. It aims to preserve the legacy of the PlayStation 3 by enabling gameplay and software testing beyond the original hardware's lifespan. The project has made significant progress in compatibility and performance, supporting a wide range of PS3 titles. -
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Xenia Canary
Xbox 360 Emulator Research Project
Xenia Canary is an experimental fork of the Xenia Xbox 360 emulator that moves faster than the mainline project to trial bleeding-edge improvements. It focuses on game compatibility and performance by iterating quickly on GPU and CPU emulation paths, shader translation, and timing correctness. Canary builds are where risky optimizations, new backends, and rewrites land first so they can be tested by a wider community before stabilizing. The project emphasizes pragmatism: make more titles boot and run with fewer glitches, even if it means carrying experiments that later get refined or rolled back. It also prioritizes developer ergonomics with logging options, debug overlays, and issue templates that help narrow down regressions. While aimed at enthusiasts and testers, it remains a valuable way for end users to play otherwise inaccessible 360 titles on PC when the mainline is lagging behind those fixes. -
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PCSX2
The Playstation 2 emulator
PCSX2 is a free and open-source PlayStation 2 (PS2) emulator. Its purpose is to emulate the PS2's hardware, using a combination of MIPS CPU Interpreters, Recompilers and a Virtual Machine that manages hardware states and PS2 system memory. This allows you to play PS2 games on your PC, with many additional features and benefits. The PCSX2 project has been running for more than ten years. Past versions could only run a few public domain game demos, but newer versions can run most games at full speed, including popular titles such as Final Fantasy X and Devil May Cry 3. Visit the PCSX2 compatibility list to check the latest compatibility status of games (with more than 2500 titles tested), or ask for help in the official forums. The latest officially released stable version is version 1.6.0. Installers and binaries for both Windows and Linux are available from our website. -
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VirtualBox
Virtualization software for x86_64 hardware
VirtualBox is a powerful open-source full virtualization software that allows a user to run one or more “guest” operating systems simultaneously inside “virtual machines” on a single physical “host” machine. It supports a wide variety of host platforms (Linux, Windows, macOS, Solaris, etc.) and guest OSes, enabling, for example, running Linux on a Windows PC, running Windows Server on a Linux host, or even legacy OSes in a controlled environment. This flexibility makes VirtualBox ideal for developers, testers, sysadmins, or hobbyists who need different OS environments, want to test software across systems, or need isolation for development, sandboxing, or security experiments. VirtualBox offers both a user-friendly GUI as well as a command-line interface and headless mode, making it useful for desktop usage as well as server or automated environments. -
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NetherSX2
Continuation of NetherSX2 based on AetherSX2 4248
NetherSX2-patch is a community-driven continuation and enhancement of the NetherSX2 Android PlayStation 2 emulator, itself a modded fork of the open-source AetherSX2 project originally based on PCSX2. It focuses on providing a more complete and feature-rich experience by applying patches to the upstream emulator build and removing ad-related bloat, fixing notification issues, and exposing many internal settings so users have finer control over performance and compatibility on mobile devices. The project maintains an up-to-date GameDB (game compatibility database), improves controller support, and includes widescreen and no-interlace patches that make many games look and run better on modern screens. Developers also include additional fixes specific to AetherSX2 and NetherSX2 builds, along with tools to resign APKs to avoid Play Protect warnings, which makes installation smoother on Android hardware. -
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VisualBoyAdvance
An emulator for Gameboy and GameboyAdvance systems
An emulator for Gameboy and GameboyAdvance systems. -
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The Free Unix Spectrum Emulator (Fuse): an emulator of the 1980s home computer and various clones for Unix, Mac OS X and Windows.
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Lakka
Linux distribution that transforms a computers into game consoles
Lakka is a lightweight Linux distribution that transforms a small computer into a full-blown emulation console. Built on top of the famous RetroArch emulator, Lakka is able to emulate a large range of hardware and has some useful features such as Braid-like rewinding, joypad hotplug, and video streaming. Lakka is easy to set up and use. Once installed on your SD card, you just have to put your ROM on the card, plug your joypad, and enjoy your favorite old games. We also support PS3 and XBox360 controllers so you don't have to buy new ones. We try our best to keep the hardware required to run Lakka as cheap as possible. The software is optimized to run fast even on low-end computers. The power can be supplied by any micro USB adapter like the one for your smartphone. -
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emuiibo
Virtual amiibo (amiibo emulation) system for Nintendo Switch
Virtual amiibo (amiibo emulation) system for Nintendo Switch. A virtual amiibo is detected by emuiibo based on two aspects: a amiibo.json and a amiibo.flag file must exist inside the virtual amiibo's folder mentioned above. If (for whatever reason) you would like to disable a virtual amiibo from being recognised by emuiibo, just remove the flag file, and create it again to enable it. While old emuiibo formats are supported and converted to the current format (see above), it is strongly suggested to, unless bin dumps might be indispensable, emuiigen be used, our PC utility designed to create and edit virtual amiibos. -
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86Box
Emulator of x86-based machines based on PCem
86Box is a low level x86 emulator that runs older operating systems and software designed for IBM PC systems and compatibles from 1981 through fairly recent system designs based on the PCI bus. Easy to use interface inspired by mainstream hypervisor software. Low level emulation of 8086-based processors up to the Pentium with focus on accuracy. Great range of customizability of virtual machines. Many available systems, such as the very first IBM PC 5150 from 1981, or the more obscure IBM PS/2 line of systems based on the Micro Channel Architecture. Lots of supported peripherals including video adapters, sound cards, network adapters, hard disk controllers, and SCSI adapters. MIDI output to Windows built-in MIDI support, FluidSynth, or emulated Roland synthesizers. Supports running MS-DOS, older Windows versions, OS/2, many Linux distributions, or vintage systems such as BeOS or NEXTSTEP, and applications for these systems. -
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CDemu - a virtual CD/DVD drive for Linux. Project includes Linux kernel module & userspace utilities.
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MAME
MAME is a multi-purpose emulation framework
MAME's purpose is to preserve decades of software history. As electronic technology continues to rush forward, MAME prevents this important "vintage" software from being lost and forgotten. This is achieved by documenting the hardware and how it functions. The source code to MAME serves as this documentation. The fact that the software is usable serves primarily to validate the accuracy of the documentation (how else can you prove that you have recreated the hardware faithfully?). Over time, MAME (originally stood for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) absorbed the sister-project MESS (Multi Emulator Super System), so MAME now documents a wide variety of (mostly vintage) computers, video game consoles and calculators, in addition to the arcade video games that were its initial focus. The MAME project as a whole is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, 2 (GPL-2.0), since it contains code made available under multiple GPL-compatible licenses. -
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Denise
C64/Amiga emulator with shader and runAhead
Denise is a cycle accurate and platform independant C64 / Amiga 500/1000 emulator. My motivation for this project is understanding how it works and write clean and easy readable code. RetroArch SLANG shaders are supported by Denise. Features already known from the C64 emulation, such as runAhead, savestates, drive sounds, PAL encoding, dynamic rate control, G-Sync/FreeSync, Warp, just in time polling are also available for the Amiga. Denise supports SuperCPU, Final Chesscard, REU, GeoRam, EasyFlash, EasyFlash³, Gmod2, Retro Replay, Action Replay, Final Cartridge, Light Guns/Pens, GunStick, Mouse 1351, Mouse Neos, Paddles, fast loaders such as ProfDOS, PrologicDOS, DolphinDOS, ProSpeed 1571, Turbo Trans, 1571, 1581, drag'n'drop and command line support. GIT repo: https://bitbucket.org/piciji/denise/src/master -
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DuckStation
Fast PlayStation 1 emulator for x86-64/AArch32/AArch64
DuckStation is an simulator/emulator of the Sony PlayStation(TM) console, focusing on playability, speed, and long-term maintainability. The goal is to be as accurate as possible while maintaining performance suitable for low-end devices. "Hack" options are discouraged, the default configuration should support all playable games with only some of the enhancements having compatibility issues. A "BIOS" ROM image is required to to start the emulator and to play games. You can use an image from any hardware version or region, although mismatching game regions and BIOS regions may have compatibility issues. A ROM image is not provided with the emulator for legal reasons, you should dump this from your own console using Caetla or other means. DuckStation features a fully-featured frontend built using Qt, as well as a fullscreen/TV UI based on Dear ImGui.
