We’ll need to run this in Wine, of course, as there is not (yet?) a native release for Linux. To install Wine we can use the following command (or click the package name link below):

sudo aptitude install wine

Once you have Wine installed you can download and install Guild Wars using the network installation method. This will require you download a small executable which will download the required game peices.

wget http://www.guildwars.com/downloads/gwsetup.zip
unzip gwsetup.zip
wine GwSetup.exe

This will download the game requirements and eventually put you at a login screen. You’ll need to login with your Guild Wars username and password. This process will also create a listing in your Applications Menu and a Desktop icon to start the game.

After you’re logged in and all the files are downloaded you’ll be ready to start playing. I’ve been playing the last few days on Ubuntu 9.04 and everything is running smoothly.

Enjoy

Installing the 1.15.2 “no CD” patch

One thing we quickly realized after installing was that it was a bit annoying to require the CD to play. After some quick searching we found that Blizzard had released a patch that would allow the game to play minus the CD. To install that patch you’ll need to follow a few more steps.

You’ll need to copy some of the CD contents into your StarCraft installation directory. Each CD (StarCraft original and / or the BroodWar expansion) has a file called “install.exe”. This file needs to be copied into your StarCraft installation directory. The file also needs to be renamed according to which it is. This means if you are copying the contents from the StarCraft original game CD the resulting file needs to be renamed “StarCraft.mpq”.  If you are copying the install.exe from the BroodWar expansion disk you’ll need to rename that file “BroodWar.mpq”.

The following two commands will properly copy and rename the files on both CDs. If you only have the original and not the BroodWar expansion you only need the first command.

Copy the install.exe file from the StarCraft original installation CD:

cp /media/cdrom/install.exe ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Starcraft/StarCraft.mpq

Copy the install.exe file from the StarCraft BroodWar expansion CD:

cp /media/cdrom/install.exe ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Starcraft/BroodWar.mpq

One last step is to install the patch itself available from Blizzard. Download the appropriate .exe file for your Starcraft installation (ie; original or BroodWar), run it via wine and you’re done. You can now enjoy playing StarCraft on Ubuntu 8.04 without requiring the CD.

Yes, StarCraft is non-free software in both senses of the phrase, but if you’ve got an old copy lying around you’ll be able to play it just fine on your Ubuntu 8.04 installation.

Install StarCraft on Ubuntu 8.04

To install StarCraft (and, yes, this also applies to the BroodWar expansion), you’ll first need Wine.  Wine can be installed using this command:

sudo aptitude install wine

Once you have wine installed you’re ready to get going.  I did not have to tweak anything in my wine configuration to get StarCraft working.  If, however, you find any wine tweaks that make game play more enjoyable please comment.

At this point simply pop in your StarCraft CD and nautilus should open the CD folder contents for you.  Get the installation started by opening the “install.exe” file with wine.  If your “right-click > Open With” does not offer or suggest wine you can do it manually with this command:

wine /media/cdrom/install.exe

If you have the BroodWar expansion repeat the above step for that CD as well.

Tomorrow I’ll outline how to install a patch that will allow playback without requiring the game CD.  With or without the patch you should now have StarCraft available in your menu in:

Applications > Wine > Programs > StarCraft

Enjoy some old-school gaming fun with StarCraft on Ubuntu 8.04!

For those that currently use SecondLife maybe you can comment on places to hang out and things to go see for anyone just joining in.

Requirements for SecondLife 1.19.1.4

The first requirement is that your machine passes the minimum system requirements.  On Linux this generally means 3D rendering ability.  Here are the official requirements, for your information:

• Internet Connection: Cable or DSL
• 800MHz Pentium III or Athlon or better (recommended: 1.5GHz or more)
• 512MB (recommended: 768MB or more)
• nVidia GeForce 2, GeForce 4mx, or better (recommend one of the following: 6700, 6800, 7600, 7800, 7900, 8400, 8500, 8600, 8800, Go 7400, Go 7600, Go 7800, Go 7900)
• ATI Radeon 8500, 9250, or better

I should note that SecondLife seems to run just fine on my onboard intel 915 video card.  As long as you can run Compiz effects you should probably be OK.

The following commands will walk you through installing SecondLife system-wide.  This will make it available for any user on the machine, and may be different than other methods you may have seen.

Installing SecondLife 1.19.1.4

First off we’ll need to manually download the archive, which we’ll unpack into /opt.

wget -c http://download-secondlife-com.s3.amazonaws.com/SecondLife_i686_1_19_1_4.tar.bz2
sudo tar -C /opt/ -xf ~/Desktop/SecondLife_i686_1_19_1_4.tar.bz2
sudo ln -s /opt/SecondLife_i686_1_19_1_4/secondlife /usr/local/bin/

You’ll now be able to launch SecondLife with:

secondlife

Well, I hope you’re reading this Taylor because I have detailed below how to setup the DOS emulator and install just about any game you want. I hope this doesn’t hurt your grades in school. I’m sure some of these games made me dumber growing up and, once you start playing some of these, you’ll definitely see why!

First we’ve got to install the DOS emulator, DOSBox. You can do that using your favorite method (Synaptic or command line), example:

sudo aptitude install dosbox

Once DOSBox is installed you’ve got the emulator, you just need to create a folder to store your totally RAD games and play them. First you’ll want to create a directory to store your games. Perhaps in your home/ folder. Open a terminal and use:

mkdir dosgames

You’re already 2/3 of the way there. (What did I tell you about Linux being easy!) At this point you’ll need to install your games and you’re ready to go.

A great place I found to download a TON of old-school games is at Abandonia. They’ve got a lot of old titles that I remember playing when I was a kid. From Tetris to Double Dragon, Prince of Persia, Rampart and a LOT more. Take a look through those and see what you’d like to play. When you’ve found something simply click the “Get it” button and download the .zip file. You’ll want to extract this .zip file into your newly created dosgames folder. (note: look for the little icon that says “DOS BOX” to make sure its completely compatible. If its got that icon you are SET! A few games I found are “protected” by the ESA. If you see this, unfortunately, they aren’t available for free download.)

After you’ve installed the games you want to play it’s just two quicks steps to actually launching them. First you’ll need to start DOSBox, which is done simply by running the command.

dosbox

This will load a DOSBox window that looks like the old-school DOS command line. You’ll then need to mount your local dosgames folder so that it knows where to find the games.

mount c /home/username/dosgames (replace username with your own, or substitute the path with your local dosgames path)

At this point use the good ‘ol DOS navigation to find the folder, look for the executable and get playing. Remember, use cd to move to a new directory and dir to list the contents. Look for a .exe, .com, or .bat file to launch the game. For example, with Prince of Persia you would do the following after downloading and unzipping to the dosgames folder:

dosbox

mount c /home/username/dosgames

c:

cd PRINCE

prince.bat

That should be all. …and if you’ve got other games you’d like to play that perhaps you still have copies of for whatever reason, simply copy the appropriate files to your dosgames folder and play away! Let me know if you have any trouble with this. Between DOSBox and Abandonia you should have hours of wasted gaming in front of you!

You’ll need to install the latest version of WINE for World of Warcraft to be able to function. You can do that the following ways (depending on your Ubuntu version)

deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt edgy main (Edgy Systems)
deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt dapper main (Dapper Systems)
deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt breezy main (Breezy Systems)

After you’ve installed the appropriate line to your repositories you’ll need to run the following two commands:

sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install wine

The next step is to copy all files from your World of Warcraft CD’s to a directory on your hard drive (overwrite when prompted). This, of course, will take a few minutes.

When this is finished run: