Gaming on Linux [howtos / hints and tips]

[volsung]

Yes, Wine is precisely why I started using it. It gave me much better results if I activate it right after installing, as opposed to sometime down the road when I have many packages. In these circumstances I have reached an unsolvable inconsistency where apt cannot determine, for instance, which libc6 to use, since there are two options available (i386 & amd64). If done since the beginning, it seems to work pretty well.

On a different note, I just noticed the DVD I downloaded earlier was still Wheezy even though it said "Testing". I suppose it is not yet an official release? In any case, I will have to dist-upgrade another day.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

For installation I mostly use the live USB image from http://live.debian.net
I.e. for example: http://live.debian.net/cdimage/release/stable+nonfree/amd64/iso-hybrid/debian-live-7.0.0-amd64-kde-desktop+nonfree.iso

Then you can repoint repositories to testing and then

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

and that would do it.

For example /etc/apt/sources.list can look like (pick the mirror which is closer to you):

# Debian testing
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ testing main contrib non-free

deb http://security.debian.org testing/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org testing/updates main contrib non-free

If you need to watch DVDs (which are afflicted with the DRM as known ) you might want to add deb multimedia repo as: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/deb-multimedia.list (note that it's not official but maintained by Debian developers).

# Debian Multimedia community repository
deb http://deb-multimedia.org testing main non-free

Then:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2

The reason this package is not in the main repo is the nasty DMCA 1201.

Ah, another good thing to install is apt-listbugs package. It will inform you during the upgrade (if you use apt-get) if some package introduces known critical bugs with brief info about them, and will prompt whether you want to continue.

 

[volsung]

OK I got a multi arch amd64/i386 Debian Jessie/Sid up and running!

I'll try to run some Steam games and report.

Some Steam tips on Debian amd64:

1. Download and install python-xkit and jockey-common from the Ubuntu repos. These should install without issues in an up to date Debian.

2. Download Steam from their website and install.

3. Run Steam. It will alert you if you're missing 32-bit libraries. In my case: libgl1-mesa-dri:i386 libgl1-mesa-glx:i386 libc6:i386

3.1 Install missing libraries.

4. Run Steam! It is currently downloading 152,8 MB of *something*. I'm guessing it's the Source engine and the main application. After all the Steam deb is only 2.5 MB.

** Update

Got fed up with a library issue last night and stopped. So I fixed it today. It was simple: Steam could not find my 32-bit DRI libraries and games weren't displaying properly. Since I installed the required 32-bit mesa libraries after I installed Nvidia's proprietary drivers, I simply reinstalled their drivers to override whatever mess the first did. And so the new error Steam showed me was simply "cannot find libGL.so". Apparently Nvidia installs its 32-bit compatibility libraries somewhere weird, so I just set that route in LD_LIBRARY_PATH and voila, Steam for Linux works on Debian Testing amd64!

I tried Osmos and Galcon Fusion and both play well. Now I will try And yet it moves. I also have Trine 2, Stacking and Portal available, plus all the Humble Bundle Steam keys I never redeemed />

Wonder how much attention will this think bring to the Linux gaming scene?

Edit: I experienced some sound glitches and distortion in most Steam games, even when their DRM-free counterparts from the Humble Bundle didn't. I found a solution that might work in most cases. Apparently it has something to do with OpenAL and PulseAudio (I always suspect PulseAudio). Simply create a file called .alsoftrc in your home directory and add the line:

drivers = alsa

to use ALSA instead of Pulse. This solved it for me, and now games sound perfectly. I recently tried Anomaly Warzone Earth (from the Bundle) and it runs fast, fluidly and is different and fun.

 

[volsung]

To download latest Play on Debian (and probably LMDE):

a) Update to the latest repositories of you distribution and install using apt.

Download play on linux from http://www.playonlinux.com/script_files/PlayOnLinux/4.2.1/PlayOnLinux_4.2.1.deb
1) Open a terminal
2) Change to a directory of your liking, for example

$cd Downloads

3) Download the deb file:

$wget -c http://www.playonlinux.com/script_files/PlayOnLinux/4.2.1/PlayOnLinux_4.2.1.deb

4) Install with dpkg

$sudo dpkg -i PlayOnLinux_4.2.1.deb

You might have unresolved dependencies (missing packages). Fix these with:

$sudo apt-get -f install

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Pangaea: Careful with the last command, if it for example attempts to pull nvidia drivers from the distro repository, since you used "Nvidia" way of installing the driver with sgfxi.

You can check dependencies as:

apt-cache depends playonlinux

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Strange though, that you need a manual installation. I have PlayOnLinux 4.2.1 in my Debian testing repos (in contrib). May be LMDE has less repos available?

 

[Pangaea666]

Cheers. Apart from the last line, that is what I did. Don't think the last command did anything:

pangaea@rocker ~/Downloads $ sudo apt-get -f install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libxnvctrl0 libxv1:i386
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
[B]0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.[/B]

In any case, I'm still getting an error message when starting up PlayOnLinux (which is 4.2.1 now).

PlayOnLinux is unable to find the 32bit OpenGL libraries.

You may encounter problems with your games.

Frustrating that you guys have no problems, and I can't get anywhere.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Well, apparently you already run 32 bit games using OpenGL, so it's something wrong with this PlayOnLinux detecting it correctly. May be it's not built for multiarch system? Pulling some standalone deb is not the best idea in general.

I could tell you to install straight Debian testing instead of LMDE, but then it's a burden of reinstalling the whole thing again

 

[Pangaea666]

That wouldn't really be a problem. Everything is basically clean anyway. But isn't LMDE supposed to be easier for green boys like me?

I'd have to burn it to a DVD first since I don't have a working USB device, but not a big issue.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

OK, I found which programs perform these checks. They are found in: /usr/share/playonlinux/bin

These are: check_dd_amd64.bz2.dpkg-new check_dd_x86.bz2.dpkg-new

You can unpack them with bunzip2. These are binaries which check for OpenGL support. In my case they produce:

64bits direct rendering is enabled

32bits direct rendering is enabled

So try running these and see what they are saying. These must be faulty in your case.

 

[Pangaea666]

How do I run that thing? Managed to unpack it via GUI to Downloads, but monkey stuck now.

 

[volsung]

Pangaea, it says it doesn't find your 32 bit OpenGL libs. You installed 32-bit support with the Nvidia installer right?

In my case, a lot of programs can't find them because Nvidia installed them in a weird location. In order to find yours, do this:

$sudo updatedb

$locate libGL.so

it should give you a few results. In my case,

/emul/ia32-linux/usr/lib/libGL.so
/emul/ia32-linux/usr/lib/libGL.so.1
/emul/ia32-linux/usr/lib/libGL.so.319.23
(...)
/usr/lib/libGL.so
/usr/lib/libGL.so.1
/usr/lib/libGL.so.319.23
/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libGL.so

the ones in /usr/lib are system libs, i.e. 64-bit. But Nvidia installed the 32-bit compatibility libs in /emul/ia32-linux/usr/lib

Therefore, all I have to do is:

$export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/emul/ia32-linux/usr/lib

and 32-bit OpenGL games run wonderfully.

Edit: I am using Nvidia drivers 319.23. Maybe the path is different in older driver versions.

 

[Pangaea666]

I only have one set in that case:

/usr/lib/libGL.so
/usr/lib/libGL.so.1
/usr/lib/libGL.so.304.88

 

[volsung]

I only have one set in that case:

/usr/lib/libGL.so
/usr/lib/libGL.so.1
/usr/lib/libGL.so.304.88

Maybe you didn't install the 32-bit compatibility libraries when you installed Nvidia's drivers? It usually asks you whether you want to or not.

 

[Pangaea666]

Maybe you didn't install the 32-bit compatibility libraries when you installed Nvidia's drivers? It usually asks you whether you want to or not.

Just ran smxi again, and I still get the same result. Sigh.

Didn't like the menu layout of Debian's applications (unnecessary mouseclicks), but would I be better off with the normal Debian distro? I'm quite fed up of this gaming malarky now. Other than that I like the distro though.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

I get this:

find / -name 'libGL.so*' 2>/dev/null
/usr/lib/libGL.so.319.23
/usr/lib/libGL.so.1
/usr/lib/libGL.so
/usr/lib32/libGL.so.1
/usr/lib32/libGL.so.319.23
/usr/lib32/libGL.so

I guess Nvidia installer is not aware of multiarch yet, but this still works.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Just ran smxi again, and I still get the same result. Sigh.

Didn't like the menu layout of Debian's applications (unnecessary mouseclicks), but would I be better off with the normal Debian distro? I'm quite fed up of this gaming malarky now. Other than that I like the distro though.

You should better run sgfxi (not smxi). smxi is a more complex script, you don't need it. In my instructions before I was referencing sgfxi.

sgfxi does install 32 bit driver.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

/emul/ia32-linux/usr/lib/libGL.so
/emul/ia32-linux/usr/lib/libGL.so.1
/emul/ia32-linux/usr/lib/libGL.so.319.23
(...)
/usr/lib/libGL.so
/usr/lib/libGL.so.1
/usr/lib/libGL.so.319.23
/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libGL.so

Why do you have them in 2 locations? /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libGL.so is just a symlink?

 

[Pangaea666]

Sorry, I was looking at the install link as I had forgotten the command, and smxi was on the top. Ran sgfxi now, but I still only see the three lines, so still nothing about lib32.

Maybe I just have to resign to logging into Windows when wanting to play a game. Everything else seem to work well thankfully, not that I do anything fancy. Well, streaming with sopcast will be another tricky task I reckon.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Can you run this also?

find / -name 'libGL.so*' 2>/dev/null

May be LD cache doesn't get updated properly.

Streaming you mean some DRMed services like Netflix? This is reported to work with Wine, but I'm not using it, so I have no idea.