Games

With Microsoft’s hold over the PC market, gaming is going to be a weak point for any rival format until the situation is reversed.  Fortunately, its not all work work work on a linux desktop.  ID software have been porting their games to linux for a while now and basing most of their first-person shooters in OpenGL to aid the transition.  Enemy Territory Quakewars has a downloadable installer for Linux, as does Doom3 and Quake4, Wolfenstein Enemy Territory has its own linux client too.

Given my status as “relative novice”, I’ll stick to the games that are easy to install for the time being.

Pingus

This little gem is a shameless clone of Lemmings, but with tiny suicidal penguins instead of lemmings and a whole new level set.  There are also additional level sets from 3rd parties and a level editor.

The game is available via the repository once you’ve added the Medibuntu repository to the list of software sources, as described in one of my earlier posts.

Its a very enjoyable game, especially for a freebie, although it is a little short “out of the box”.  There are 3rd party levels to download though, should you wish to Google them.  Enjoy!

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars

One of the few major releases that can be run natively on Linux, Quake Wars is an objective-based multi-player game like the previous Enemy Territory, but instead of battling German Forces, you’re fighting the Strogg from the Quake series.  Its a pretty good blast, has persistent stats and the ability to play offline against Bots at a range of difficulty settings.

There’s a 500mb installer for Linux to download here

You also need the retail game disc and code – available from Tesco or Amazon for under a tenner now…

Create a folder in your Home folder called etqw or something, put the installer in there when it is downloaded. Ensure the disc is in your DVD drive. Open a terminal and type:

cd etqw (or the directory name you’ve used)

./filenameoftheinstaller

You’ll be asked where you want the files installed to.  To get the exact location, open up another terminal and type

cd etqw (or the directory name you’ve used)
pwd
(this will give you your Present Working Directory)

Type the result into the installer when prompted.

For more information, consult the Ubuntu Gamers page.  You will need to install the ia32-libs if you haven’t already.