LinuxWorld: Gaming in the third dimension

"Loki is known among Linux gamers for cool 3D games. But there is a certain amount you must know to properly install and configure those games. Read on and learn the tricks the painless way -- by watching someone else's mistakes."

"It began simply enough. I was a little bit ahead on my deadlines, so I took the opportunity to do a little "research." I visited several sites I knew to be reservoirs of mission-critical Linux applications and decided to sample one: a demo of a 3D game called Soldier of Fortune that I found at Loki Games. Little did I know this was to be my first step on the Path of the Thrice Doomed."

"Installation was a snap. Following the long download (the demo is a 90 MB tarball wrapped in self-installing shell script), I typed sh sof-demo-xf86.run from an xterm in my home directory. The install script verified the integrity of the compressed data, created an sof-demo subdirectory, and placed the decompressed bits within it. I entered the directory and found a README, a few libraries, and the executable itself. The README hinted at a few problems I might encounter, but oh, my dweebs, it did not tell me of the tortuous path or the endless blind alleys that lay ahead!"

Complete Story

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