Quake3 Arena in Linux


This is a basic how-to to help new users get to grips with how to install Quake3 Arena in Yoper. I have placed commands in quotes (") - but leave those out in your actual work!If you already play Q3A under wine or another windows emulation program, you are missing out on the pleasure of playing it actually in Yoper.


Requirements:


To install Q3A under Yoper, you need a couple of things -


A 3d accelerated graphics card which works in Yoper - a quick test can be made with glxgears. Open a Konsole and type in "glxgears" and press enter. If you see the gears turning at a reasonable speed you should be OK!


A Quake3 Arena CD - the Windows version


The Linux binary for installing and running Q3A under Linux.What you want is the 1.32b point release binary -currently available from: http://www.fileplanet.com/61609/60000/fileinfo/Quake-III-Arena-Point-Release-v1.32b-(Linux) - but a quick Google search will locate it otherwise.



The how-to: Very easy! Simply download the point release binary first. Lets assume I downloaded the file to /home/mark/stuff. So, open a Konsole, and issue the "su" command to become root. Now, as root, cd to the location where the binary shell script has been saved and then run the script like this -


"cd /home/mark/stuff" <press enter>
 "sh linuxq3apoint-1.32b.x86.run" <press enter>


This will start an installer. Read the agreement, select or deselect the things to be installed and the binary will be installed into /usr/local/games/quake3 by default. You will be asked if you want to start the game - say no, as you haven't installed all the relevant files yet! The installer will finish. By all means have a look in the directory where the files have been installed.


Once the installer is done, copy the necessary files from your Windows Q3A CD. To do this, open a shell and, still as root, cd to the /usr/local/games/quake3 location. Now, with the CD in the drive enter -


"cp /mnt/cdrom/Quake3/baseq3/pak0.pk3 /usr/local/games/quake3/baseq3"


This will copy the files needed for the game over to your new Quake3 directory. The pak file is pretty big - around 60mb! That is Quake3 installed. Also, if you have Quake 3 installed on a different Windows partition, you can copy the pak0.pk3 file from the "baseq3" folder in Windows to the "baseq3" folder in Linux.


How to run Quake 3 - Below is how to add Quake to your menu and sort out the lack of sound which is common with Quake3 and other games based on the same engine, such as RTCW. You can try running Quake3 simply by entering the command "/usr/local/games/quake3/quake3" into a Konsole. This would start the game. Creating a start menu entry is much easier though. Here's how to create the start menu entry -
 1) Right click the start button, and select "Menu Editor".
 2) Here you will see the entries for the start menu listed as they are when you click the button. As Quake3 is a game, lets add it to the Games list. First, expand the Games List to see if there's a Quake 3 entry already existing in there for you to edit if you wish. If there is none, right click the Games entry and select New Item. Call it Quake3. You should now have a fairly boring looking entry called Quake3 under the Games heading. Click it and, on the right hand side you will see the area to fill in the entries. Name is already filled in, and a description is not needed (unless you really want one!)
 3) Now edit the "Command" box. Type in "/usr/local/games/quake3/quake3" This is the command to lauch the game. This is also the area you can edit to fix sound problems, which are described below in the troubleshooting section. 4) Before saving the result, it may be nice to add a decent Quake icon to the menu, so click the icon in the top right, next to the "Name" box, and select "Other icons" and click "Browse..." If you now navigate to /usr/local/games/quake3/ you will see a file called quake3.xpm Select that and click "Open". You now have a neat Quake icon :)
 5) You can now close the menu editor by clicking the 'x' at the top of the window. You will be asked to save your changes - select save! If you now go to your start menu, you will find an entry for Quake3, with the neat icon, in the Games section. You could now make a shortcut on your desktop easily if you wished :)


You should now be ready to frag, Linux style! Remember to tweak your settings once the game is installed. You will probably need different settings for your resolution etc!


Troubleshooting Common Errors:

So the installation didn't go as smoothly as described above, eh? Listed below are some of the common problems that people have when trying to get Quake 3 installed natively in Linux.



The Installer After the "sh linuxq3apoint-1.32b.x86.run" Command: The error message you are getting is -


................................................
 Xlib: connection to ":0.0" refused by server
 Xlib: No protocol specified
 No UI drivers available
 ./setup.sh: line 96: 2533 Aborted "$setup" "$@" 2>/dev/null
 The setup program seems to have failed on x86/glibc-2.1


There is a quick fix for this! Add the following to the end of your /etc/profile - "export _POSIX2_VERSION=199209". Once the program is installed, you can always hash out the posix version bit so you can use it again if needed by simply unhashing it ;-)


No Sound: When you start the game, you may find that you have no sound. In that case, simply adding the command "artsdsp -m" before launching Quake 3 should fix the problem, example: "artsdsp -m /usr/local/games/quake3/quake3". There is a much cleaner and more permanent fix for this though. You can edit the entry in your start entry to issue this command for you.
 1) Right click the start button, and select "Menu Editor".
 2) Here you will see the entries for the start menu listed as they are when you click the button. We need to edit the entry we put in earlier. Now, whether editing an existing Quake3 entry or continuing your new entry, edit the "Command" box. Type in "artsdsp -m /usr/local/games/quake3/quake3" This adds the cure for the lack of sound to the command to launch Quake3.


The Mouse Doesn't Move: Most of the mouse bugs were fixed with the 1.32b linux point release. Make sure you are downloading the 1.32b release. My link above should point you in the correct direction. If you wish to search for it on your own though, the file name is "linuxq3apoint-1.32b.x86.run".