Setup PIA VPN on Cooker or ROME Plasma6

[ben79 (Ben Bullard)]

Edit: Updated 21 April, 2025

This procedure updated for Plasma6 has changed, getting much simpler.

To do this you will need an account at PIA VPN and there is a fee for that.

Install these packages:

sudo dnf in lib64gthread2.0_0 lib64nl-idiag3_200 lib64nl-xfrm3_200 iptables lib64nsl-static-devel

Select “Download VPN for Linux” here .

In the folder where you downloaded these you need to make the .run you downloaded pia-linux-3.6.1-08339.run executable like this:

$ sudo chmod +x pia-linux-3.6.1-08339.run

Next install the .run file as user like this:

$ ./pia-linux-3.6.1-08339.run

During the install you will be asked for the admin password for your OMLx system, enter that. When installation is complete you will see a window where you can login, enter the username and password you created with PIA-VPN.

Now to check if this is working open a browser and go to whatismyip.com .

In the upper left corner of the Private Internet Access window the 3 dots will open settings menu, logout, and quit. Under General window you will find settings to set PIA-VPN to launch on startup of desktop. If you do select to startup automatically you will want to go to the Automation window and add your connection there. There are of course other settings you may use as you see fit. It will be interesting to see what other users do with this. I tend to keep it simple.

Test system for this was Vivobook ASUS Laptop M1605Y AMD Ryzen 5 7530U with Radeon Graphics. OMLx system was ROME znver1 (for AMD CPU (newer than 2017).

[Paul (Paolo)]

On my notebook ROME P6 24.11 i have the following error:

$ ./pia-linux-3.6.1-08339.run 
Verifying archive integrity...  100%   MD5 checksums are OK. All good.
Uncompressing Private Internet Access  100%  

=================================
Private Internet Access Installer
=================================

Installing PIA for x86_64, system is x86_64
✘ Build is not compatible with this system.
/tmp/selfgz2846831067/piafiles/bin/piactl --version
/tmp/selfgz2846831067/piafiles/bin/piactl: error while loading shared libraries: libgthread-2.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

This upgrade does not appear to be compatible with this system.
If this is an older distribution, it may no longer be supported.

The PIA installation will not be modified.
You can stop receiving update notifications if this distribution is out of support.
Stop receiving update notifications? [y/N]

[ben79 (Ben Bullard)]

Thanks for reporting @Paul . The error tells you what is wrong:

@Paul

✘ Build is not compatible with this system.
/tmp/selfgz2846831067/piafiles/bin/piactl --version
/tmp/selfgz2846831067/piafiles/bin/piactl: error while loading shared libraries: libgthread-2.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

You probalby need to install lib64gthread2.

Edit: Added lib64gthread2 to the install list in the first post.

[Paul (Paolo)]

Thanks! I solved the problem.

[ben79 (Ben Bullard)]

21 April, 2025 just did this in Rock 6.0 (Plasma6) and it works. Should work in Cooker or ROME also. At this moment Cooker, ROME, and Rock/6.0 are all about the same packages. ROME and 6.0 are the same.