TL;DR

Problem: Minecraft Launcher install fails in Debian 13 due to missing libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 dependency

$ sudo dpkg --install ./Minecraft.deb
Preparing to unpack Minecraft.deb ...
Unpacking minecraft-launcher (2.1.3) over (2.1.3) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of minecraft-launcher:
 minecraft-launcher depends on libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 (>= 2.22.0); however:
  Package libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 is not installed.

Solution: Manually update the GDK Pixbuf package to libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0

dpkg-deb --raw-extract ./Minecraft.deb Minecraft
sed -i 's/libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0/libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0/' Minecraft/DEBIAN/control
dpkg-deb --root-owner-group --build Minecraft/ Minecraft-modified.deb
sudo dpkg --install ./Minecraft-modified.deb

Minecraft on ThinkPads Running Debian 13

My family has a bunch of old Lenovo ThinkPad laptops that my kids use to play Minecraft. I’ve recently been updating them to use Debian 13 but am not able to install the Minecraft launcher due to the libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 dependency. Luckily, this problem is easy to fix.

Normal Installation

Installing the Minecraft Launcher in Debian 13 should be very simple:

  1. Go to the Minecraft downloads web page and click “Debian + Debian Based” to download the Minecraft.deb package file.

  2. Install the Minecraft.deb package file using the Debian Package Manager CLI tool, dpgk:

    sudo dpkg --install ./Minecraft.deb

  3. Run minecraft-launcher and enjoy!

Dependency Problem!

Unfortunately, the install fails because it can’t resolve the libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 dependency:

jay@debian13:~/Downloads$ sudo dpkg --install ./Minecraft.deb
Selecting previously unselected package minecraft-launcher.
(Reading database ... 104616 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack ./Minecraft.deb ...
Unpacking minecraft-launcher (2.1.3) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of minecraft-launcher:
 minecraft-launcher depends on libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 (>= 2.22.0); however:
  Package libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 is not installed.

dpkg: error processing package minecraft-launcher (--install):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Processing triggers for mailcap (3.74) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.28-1) ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme (0.18-2) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 minecraft-launcher

You can find information about Debian packages at https://packages.debian.org

In fact, the libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 info page says the following:

This transitional package depends on the main library libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0 and the deprecated Xlib integration library libgdk-pixbuf-xlib-2.0-0.

Packages that only require the main library should depend on libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0.

So the Minecraft.deb package should be using libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0 instead of libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 (notice the extra -!).

It even looks like libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0 is automatically installed:

jay@debian13:~/Downloads$ apt list libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0
jay@debian13:~/Downloads$ apt list libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0
libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0/stable,now 2.42.12+dfsg-4 amd64 [installed,automatic]

Clean up

jay@debian13:~/Downloads$ sudo apt --fix-broken install
Correcting dependencies... Done
REMOVING:
  minecraft-launcher

Summary:
  Upgrading: 0, Installing: 0, Removing: 1, Not Upgrading: 0
  1 not fully installed or removed.
  Space needed: 0 B / 14.3 GB available

Continue? [Y/n] Y
(Reading database ... 104619 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing minecraft-launcher (2.1.3) ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme (0.18-2) ...
Processing triggers for mailcap (3.74) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.28-1) ...

Modifying Minecraft.deb to Use the Correct GDK Pixbuf Library

  1. Use the Debian package archive manipulation tool dpkg-deb to extract the files contained in Minecraft.deb into Minecraft/:

    dpkg-deb --raw-extract ./Minecraft.deb Minecraft

    The following files will be extracted:

    jay@debian13:~/Downloads$ tree Minecraft/
Minecraft/
├── DEBIAN
│   └── control
└── usr
    ├── bin
    │   └── minecraft-launcher
    └── share
        ├── applications
        │   └── minecraft-launcher.desktop
        └── icons
            └── hicolor
                └── symbolic
                    └── apps
                        └── minecraft-launcher.svg

10 directories, 4 files

    The GDK Pixbuf library is listed in the DEBIAN/control file:

    jay@debian13:~/Downloads$ grep ^Depends: Minecraft/DEBIAN/control
Depends: default-jre, libasound2 (>= 1.0.23), libatk-bridge2.0-0 (>= 2.5.3), libatk1.0-0 (>= 2.2.0), libatspi2.0-0 (>= 2.9.90), libc6 (>= 2.16), libcairo2 (>= 1.6.0), libcups2 (>= 1.4.0), libdbus-1-3 (>= 1.5.12), libdrm2 (>= 2.4.38), libexpat1 (>= 2.0.1), libgbm1 (>= 8.1~0), libfontconfig1 (>= 2.8.0), libgcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1), libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 (>= 2.22.0), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.39.4), libgtk-3-0 (>= 3.18.9), libnspr4 (>= 2:4.9-2~), libnss3 (>= 2:3.22), libpango1.0-0 (>= 1.14.0) | libpango-1.0-0 (>= 1.14.0), libpangocairo-1.0-0 (>= 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, libxcb-dri3-0, libxcb1 (>= 1.9.2), libbz2-1.0, lsb-base (>= 4.1), xdg-utils (>= 1.0.2), wget, libcurl3 | libcurl4, libuuid1

  2. Modify the GDK Pixbuf library package name in DEBIAN/control. I like using sed to edit files in-place as a simple one line command.

    sed -i 's/libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0/libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0/' Minecraft/DEBIAN/control

  3. Create a new Debian package archive from the modified files

    dpkg-deb --root-owner-group --build Minecraft/ Minecraft-modified.deb

    For more information about the --root-owner-group argument check out this Debian wiki page on Rootless Builds

  4. Install the newly created Minecraft-modified.deb package

    sudo dpkg --install ./Minecraft-modified.deb

  5. Run minecraft-launcher and enjoy!