The product FAQ explains that in addition to the CD key contained in the retail package -- required to play the game -- you'll need to copy a bunch of files from the CDs as part of the installation process. You'll also need to download the Linux installer -- quake4-linux-1.0.2147.12.x86.run -- from id Software or a mirror site. Hardware requirements include a 2GHz or better processor with 512MB of memory, an ATI Radeon or Nvidia GeForce video card, and a sound card supported by OSS or ALSA. You must be running version 2.2.4 or later glibc, and a kernel version of at least the 2.4 level is recommended.
Getting the Linux installer was a little frustrating. I found it impossible to download from id Software. Every time I tried I got a "421 Too many users - please try again later" response. Of course, there are other sites to get it from. At some sites, you can get a free download after clicking past a seemingly endless number of pages designed to do nothing but ring up their ad sales, and then find the free download is throttled all the way down and allows only two simultaneous free downloads -- but they will gladly sell you a download. I eventually had success at 3Ddownloads, which puts in a queue and shows ads as you wait your turn. You can't turn around and ignore the ads, as that same window is where eventually you see a "Click here to begin download" message.
Installation and tweaking
I installed Quake 4 on my homebrew AMD64 Sempron 3000+ CPU with 512MB memory, sitting on an MSI K8N mainboard, running Ubuntu Breezy. It has a PNY Verto G-Force 6600 with 256MB of memory sitting in a PCI Express slot and an SB Live! Audigy 2 sound card. Due to issues with Breezy and the Audigy 2, I am using the 5.1 channel AC97 2.3-compliant sound card on the mainboard.
Before you copy the needed files from the retail CDs prior to running the installer, create the directories needed for Quake 4 by executing the following command as root:
mkdir -p /usr/local/games/quake4/q4base
Each of the four CDs contains a directory named /Setup/Data/q4base. You'll need to insert each of the four CDs and -- as root -- copy the needed files to your hard drive. Depending on what the mount point is for your CD -- /cdrom works on mine -- the following command should do it.
cp /cdrom/Setup/Data/q4base/*.pk4 /usr/local/games/quake4/q4base
After you've copied all the files, copy the installer to /usr/local/games/quake4. Then, still as root, change to that directory and enter:
sh quake4-linux-1.0.2147.12.x86.run
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Make sure the paths and options are as you want them, then click on Begin Install. If all goes well, it takes only a couple of seconds to finish the install from that point. But in my case, I found had a couple of issues to resolve before proceeding.
First, I found that I could run Quake4 only as root. I noticed while copying files off the CDs that the permissions are different on the first CD than they are on the others. On those three, only root had any permissions at all; user and group were not even allowed read permission. I fixed the problem by going into /usr/local/games/quake4/q4base as root and entering chmod 755 *.pk4. Afterward, I could start the game as a normal user.
Second, I had no sound. For the answer to this problem, I turned to the Doom 3 FAQ, since Quake 4 is built on the Doom 3 engine, and the FAQ said it would not repeat suggestions/problems outlined there. The solution it suggests for people having problems when using the ALSA sound system is to use OSS instead. That was as easy as getting to the Quake 4 console -- by typing Ctrl-Alt-~ instead of simply ~ as you do in Quake 3 -- and entering set s_driver oss. The next time I started the game, I had sound.
Next: Playing the game
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Joe Barr
Probably just a matter of all resources being used on the Windows version and the Linux version being worked on only as they have time.
Joe Barr
Quake 4
Posted by: Fletch on November 09, 2005 09:09 PM#