<p><aname="install">Linux Quake III Arena is using a graphical installer
(based on Loki software's </a><ahref="http://www.icculus.org/loki_setup/">Setup Graphic Installer
</a>). However, since it's a Point Release, you need a retail CD-ROM of Quake
III Arena to perform a complete installation (and optionally your Quake III:
Team Arena CD-ROM). This process is documented in the <ahref="http://zerowing.idsoftware.com/linux/q3a/INSTALL">INSTALL</a>file
(this file is also in the setups, it's default location is /usr/local/games/quake3/INSTALL
.. you can run the PR setup and read it to finish the installation afterwards).</p>
<fontsize="+1"><aname="setupfiles"><b>What do I do with a .x86.run file?</b></a></font>
<aname="setupfiles"><br>
</a>
<p>Those are setup files, meant to be executed. They
come with graphical installation UI or console installation, depending on
what's available on your system. You may need to <i>chmod +x file.x86.run</i>
to make them executable.</p>
<fontsize="+1"><aname="glibc"><b>The setup crashes with <i>Segmentation fault "$setup" "$@" 2>/dev/null</i></b></a></font>
<p>This is happening on glibc 2.3 systems such as RedHat 9 and Suze. The text mode installer will crash. If you can do a graphical installation, make sure you have Gtk1 installed and avoid the text installer altogether.
If you are doing a remote installation (such as a dedicated server through ssh), you need to use a newer text mode installer. Run the installer with <i>--keep</i> to extract the files
(look for a <i>setup*</i> directory in the current directory for the extracted setup).
Then replace <i>setup.data/bin/Linux/x86/setup</i> by <ahref="http://zerowing.idsoftware.com/linux/setup-RH9/setup">this newer version</a>. Run <i>setup.sh</i> at top level and things should work fine.</p>
<p>
<b>Update</b>: Turns out this solution is working for RTCW and ET, but not for Q3 (because the last q3 setup uses an older version of the installer). Will update a specific solution for Q3 'soon'.
</p>
<fontsize="+1"><aname="bsd"><b>Installation on
BSD</b></a></font><aname="bsd"><br>
</a>
<p><aname="bsd">The linux binaries will run fine on the BSD family (FreeBSD,
NetBSD and OpenBSD) with the linux binary compatibility software. However
if you are getting the error message <i>ELF binary type "0" not known</i>
while installing or trying to run the binaries, that means you need to run
<i>brandelf</i> on the files.</a></p>
<p><aname="bsd">If it's a setup problem, proceed with the following steps:
</a></p>
<pre><aname="bsd">./linuxq3apoint-1.31.x86.run --keep<br>brandelf -t Linux setup.tmp/setup.data/bin/FreeBSD/x86/setup<br>cd setup.tmp<br>sh ./setup.sh<br></a></pre>
<p><aname="bsd">The --keep option will extract the files and leave them
somewhere below your current directory. Depending on the game (Q3 or RTCW)
and the setup version, your mileage may vary (setup.tmp or another directory).</a></p>
<p><aname="bsd">The game binaries might need to be brandelf'ed too, with
a command such as</a></p>
<pre><aname="bsd">brandelf -t Linux /usr/local/games/quake3/quake3.x86<br></a></pre>
<p><aname="auth">Graeme Devine recently updated his <i>.plan</i> with very
complete </a><ahref="http://www.webdog.org/cgi-bin/finger.plm?id=279&time=20011210020942"target="_new">information about CLIENT_UNKNOWN_TO_AUTH errors</a>.</p>
<p>
See some additional information from the <ahref="http://www.gameadmins.com/modules.php?name=Mail_List">gameadmins.com mailing list</a>:
</p>
<pre>If the server you are playing on and the auth server don't see you as the
same IP (for instance you are trying to play on a public internet server
that's on your LAN, and your internet access is using NAT), then it won't
work.
It used to work in 1.31, and it doesn't in 1.32. PunkBuster requires
reliable auth of the players. What you can do:
- run a server with sv_strictauth 0 and you'll be able to join your
server. This will be the same behaviour as 1.31
- connect to a server on the internet before you connect to your local
server (this will trigger your IP into the cache of the auth server for
15mn and let you in to your local server).
- setup two NATs, one for your client one for your server and make sure
your server and Id's auth see the same IP. (this one ain't for network
<p><aname="aureal">It seems that some versions of the Aureal sound drivers
don't work right with Q3. Last I heard, a kernel upgrade to 2.4.17 + Aureal
1.1.3, and/or using the old 1.1.1 drivers from </a><ahref="http://aureal.sourceforge.net/"target="_new">Aureal's website</a>fixed
the problem.</p>
<p>If you need to know more about this, have a look at this <ahref="http://www.quake3world.com/ubb/Forum15/HTML/001348.html"target="_new">Q3W forum thread</a>.</p>
<fontsize="+1"><aname="nosound"><b>The sound doesn't work / sound crashes</b></a></font><br>
<p>The first thing to check is that it is actually a sound related. Run
the game with <i>+set s_initsound 0</i> and see what happens. All problems
reported so far about sound turned out to be OS/drivers. Listed below:</p>
<p>On some Mandrake distributions:<br>
Check if you are running the enlightenment sound daemon (esd). With <i>ps
aux | grep esd</i>for instance. It is a multiplexer for /dev/dsp, and might
block use of /dev/dsp by Quake III Arena. You can disable esd with <i>esdctl
have been reported to crash with Q3. Non-beta ones are fine.</p>
<p>VIA chipset and AC97 driver:<br>
This combination is known to have various issues. They have been fixed in
recent drivers (thanks to Arne Schmitz for the heads up):<br>
</p>
<pre>http://sourceforge.net/projects/gkernel has got the up to date version of <br>the AC97 kernel driver. The current version can be found here:<br><br>http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/gkernel/via82cxxx-1.1.15.tar.gz<br><br>It has working mmap sound, so Q3 shouldn't be a problem any more.<br></pre>
(thanks to Arne Schmitz for the heads up)<p></p>
<fontsize="+1"><aname="discuss"><b>Where can I report bugs and discuss about linux Quake III
Arena?</b></a></font><aname="discuss"><br>
</a>
<p><aname="discuss">Reports bugs to </a><ahref="mailto:bugs@idsoftware.com">bugs@idsoftware.com</a>. If you are pretty
sure this is a linux-only issue, you can shorten the loop by emailing <ahref="mailto:ttimo@idsoftware.com">ttimo@idsoftware.com</a> directly.</p>
<p>You will find the discussion forums for linux Quake III Arena on <ahref="http://www.quake3world.com/cgi-bin/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum=*nix+Discussion&number=15&DaysPrune=30&LastLogin=">
Quake3World forums</a>. There is for sure a lot of other places to talk about
linux Quake III Arena, but this is the one we read regularly to track bugs
and common issues.</p>
<fontsize="+1"><aname="gameso"><b>The *.so files are not in the setups?
The equivalent <ahref="http://www.bsdchicks.com/patches/">patch for FreeBSD</a>
is available too.<br>
</p>
<fontsize="+1"><aname="64bits"><b>Setup and execution on 64 bits CPUs</b></a></font><br>
<p>If you are running Linux on a 64 bit CPU (such as AMD's Opteron), and if your system is backwards compatible so that it can execute 32 bits x86 binaries, then the regular Quake III Arena binaries should work (your mileage may vary).</p>
<p>It's likely that the installer scripts will get confused though, and will refuse to install giving you an error: "This installation doesn't support glibc-2.1 on Linux / unknown". You will have to extract the game files manually by passing --keep on the command line when running the setup script. Once the files are unpacked, you will need to copy them manually to /usr/local/games. You probably want to have a working installation to refer to while doing this. This also applies to RTCW and ET</p>