I have played it for an hour or so, but got stuck in a whole. The whole Minecraft craze has passed me by, so forgive the lack of block-based puns in this post. The Minecraft game that the launcher downloads, installs and configures for you continues to run on its own (isolated) Java runtime that is maintained by Mojang. To be clear: the new Minecraft launcher no longer requires Java. What’s more, the new launcher for Linux can be installed natively meaning, just like a regular package, it’s able to pull in its dependencies and whatnot. Work on a new Minecraft launcher for Linux has been underway for a while - but it’s now ready to test.įor those who missed the memo earlier last year, Mojang, makers of Minecraft, have been working on a new Minecraft launcher that no longer uses Java.