DoD:S on a Linux Client

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Proteos.Fleshleaves

Poster
I dual boot between XP and Ubuntu Linux. The main reason I haven't been in Ubuntu much are issues executing MSI scripts in Linux (which is how Steam installs). I have looked around a little and have found ways to install Steam apps on a Linux client and plan on doing that this afternoon when I get home. If it all works fine, I'll let people know how easy it was (or not), and how I did it.

These are the basics:
1. Make sure Wine is at the most current version (basically because of a control needed, that's a real hassle to get and download by itself).
2. Execute the Wine application by itself first, so that it sets up default directories mimicing Windows directories.
3. Copy the Tahoma.tff font from Windows over to the mimiced Windows directory (Steam uses this font and without it, everything is blank).
4. There's a couple of command lines to run the installer. When it's done, hopefully, it'll bring up the Steam interface and a login. I should then be able to download the DoD:S game and run it as normal.

Note: Do NOT minimize Steam. Close it instead. If you minimize it, you'll have to etiher find and stop the steam.exe process or have to reboot.

Luck to me!
 
Godspeed Proteos, hopefully Ubuntu won't crash on you like it did for me :(

I tried this a month ago and it exploded over and over.
 
Well... Getting the Tahoma.tff font was a real hassle. Documentation claims it's part of a certain MS package that is downloadable. It turns out that's not the case. However, I did find it eventually by Googling it. Installing it entirely non-intuitive. Eventually I found a forum entry where I guy said to Ctrl-L once inside the Home Directory. I did that and was able to paste the Tahoma.tff font inside of it.

The SteamInstall.exe did execute after I installed Wine, though I had to do some fancy command line calls to enable downloading of the latest Wine version. However, after it seems to be installed, I executed it and it times out when I try to log in. It suggests I am not connected to the Internet... though as you can see by my post now, I am (yes, I'm updating this from Linux).

There's also issues with getting the resolution better than 1024x768. I have a 22" LCD and things are hardly ideal-looking. Installing the Nvidia drivers is also anything but intuitive.

I haven't given up yet, but anyone that claims Linux is ready for the masses is sniffing some cheap glue. None of it is intuitive. It takes a ton of reading just to do some basic stuff. Sure, out of the box it can connect to the Internet and sure the package installers are very clean and work well (usually without having to reboot the OS), but default video drivers are limiting and getting new ones are a real hassle (still trying to work on it). Add to that a directory structure that confuses the bezeejus out of me (well, for Wine anyway), and it does make the whole experience rather steep in the learning curve department. If I weren't interested in playing DoD:S in Linux it wouldn't be so bad. I can do the rest, but that finicky Steam jazz...
 
Well, I usually do use XP, but there are other aspects of using Linux that I like. XP has issues with my network connections sometimes and I like how Linux doesn't.

That said, I had to send an email to nVidia. Looking at their hardware compatability list for Linux, it appears that the 8600 cards are not listed.... boo! So, unless they add support or otherwise allow them to, I'm out of luck and will have to forego Linux when playing DOD:S. The hightest resolution currently allowed in my configuration in Linux is 1024x768, and this doesn't look so good on the 22" monitor I have.
 
[quote1181828684=OutbreaK]
ugh man i hate linux. i had it on my computer for like a week and got it off!
[/quote1181828684]

I understand the sentiment. I'm just a tinkerer sometimes and since I just built up a new computer, I thought it a good time to play around with a bunch of operating systems.

Here's my opinions of it so far, good and bad:
Bad:
1.Video driver updates/installation - always been bad and still is. Way to cryptic and complex and unintuitive for someone not well-familair with Linux. I still can't get the latest nVidia driver to install correctly without XWindows crashing.
2. Working with many things requires knowing Terminal (command line) commands well.
3. The directory structure isn't familiar and takes some time to understand where things are and how files and directories work.
4. Installation - Many distributions ask for manual mount points entered, the file system is not familiar (not ntfs or fat32), and the whole swap partitions thing can be confusing.

Good:
1. Installation of software is generally a breeze 'out of the box'. You default to 1024x768 resolution instead of the 800x600 of Windows, it recognizes and installs hardware devices that work as soon as you boot up, networking doesn't require anything fancy to do after you're first up as you do in Windows, and boot up time is faster.
2. Network connections are established when executing Internet-based applications faster, like a web browser, for instance. You can get to websites much faster.
3. Applications tend to come up much faster than in Windows.
4. Basically no viruses (different reasons why, including people recognizing them and getting a fix out within a few hours).
5. Automatic updating of software when you log in.
6. No need to reboot after software updates.
7. General system stability and memory management better than Windows.
8. Free software.
9. If I try to get to something that doesn't have a codec or application that can handle it, Linux will tell me what will and will offer to get it for me and install it. I tell it to do that, it goes out, installs in, and I'm good to go. I like that a lot.

Ultimately, I'm trying to get DoD:S to work in Linux because I'm tired of the way Windows is so slow in retrieving web pages in IE, I'm tired of the way applications hang because memory management is implemented so poorly. I'm an impatient person and i'm willing to play around wtih something a little if when it's up it's 'rock-solid stable', and it's quick to get into and out of applications. That's why I'm willing to play a little with Linux.

That said, I still can't get that dang nVidia driver to work, and that's a pain. I'm downloading DoD:S in Steam (under Wine), so I'll see how that works when I get home. Really, DoD:S is the last software piece of the puzzle I'm missing. Between that and the video card and I'm good to go.
 
Okay, got it to work.

Ultimately, I had to get a script called Envy. It went out and saw the nVidia card I had, went to nVidia, downloaded and installed the driver and then I rebooted. Now, I'm at 1920x1024 (or something like that... 22" LCD monitor). I went into DoD:S on the Kalt server and after changnig the resolution to match, seemed to work fine. There are a few glitchy lag-like symptons, but I think I saw a Wine forum topic that addressed this. I'll check it out. Overall, very pleased.
 
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