Greetings Linux friends! I was glancing at this thread and saw all these games that could be played ...even on my linux box. Question is...how do I install these games such as C&C Tiberian Sun, StarCraft, Renegade, etc on here? Please oh please tell me this.

well, it works and it doesnt. what you do is emulate these games through a utility called wine. although it has been worked on for several years, it is still very buggy and it wont run everything and things that it does run wont run very well. we do, however, have native ports of quake3, rtcw, and that sort of thing. there is also a type of wine called winex that has better support for games by emulating directx as well as windoze. i havent gotten a single thing working in it, but some ppl get better performance when running games under winex in linux then in windoze!

ok..I think I may be lost. Wine? Is that the same thing as X? Does RH 9 have it?

no, it's an application used to 'install' windows in it so you can install other win apps...and no, red hat doesn't have it, it's an indipenedent app, you'll have to download the binary (or rpm)
it doesn't work allways, nor with all the applications...check out thier documentation for the complete list...

oh Nechos forgot the site link for Wine

here it is http://www.winehq.com/

there's documentary on there and links to the files

Wine isn't an emulator, it's an implementation of the Windows API.
Huge difference, an emulator uses the original software and emulates a CPU that it runs on (like.. VMware)
Wine is a rewrite of the windows function calls.

As for the games, don't use the current wine verson, use the previous one. The current one has had some serious regression. You'll see they are numbered by yearmonthday. Current is 200310*something*, use 20039*something*

Starcraft runs for sure

i know its no an emulator (wine is not an emulator) but its just easier to call it such.

Ok...cool advice and link, folks! Now one more question...can I get it as an RPM?

Yes, it's available both as rpm and source package @ www.winehq.org

The WineX site is at www.transgaming.com. I really think its a great product if you want to run windows games. Well worth the 5 US dollars a month. They should be due for another release soon too.

you havent seen timedoctor's reasons for boycotting winex then, have you?

ok ok I got Wine and installed the RPM . But when I run the command "Wine" nothing comes up? Suggestions?

Yeah, I've seen it. But I want to play games and am certainly not going to run a windows box to do so.

You can get on a soap-box all you want about how Transgaming is ruining Linux gaming. Personally, I don't buy it (but DID buy a subscription from Transgaming, which I have since let expire). The bottom line for Transgaming's WineX is that it is allowing more people to run Linux without duel-booting, therefore increasing the size of the user base. A larger user base means more likelihood of a port.

The biggest problem with Linux gaming is that companies who can EASILY port their games (LucasArts, Raven, Valve, etc.), don't,... citing added development expense (time & money). However, those same companies release Linux servers for their games and expect Linux users to host them. The SAD thing is that they DO HOST THEM. ***NO SELF-RESPECTING LINUX USER SHOULD EVER HOST A GAME SERVER FOR WHICH THERE IS NO LINUX CLIENT***.

Linux users have to band together to boycott any title that releases a Linux server without releasing a Linux client. I have not purchased Jedi Academy for that reason, even though it can be made to work in WineX with a work-around. WineX is for running older titles, in my opinion,... those titles that were released before Linux was on the Radar.

With the current gaming envirnment, there is no real reason to play a game where the same genre isn't avialable in Linux, usually free or at reduced price:

Shooters - Quake 1-3, Unreal (& Tournament,... 2003), prDOOM, Wolfenstein, etc.

Space Sims - FreeSpace 1&2, Terminus (hard to find now), VegaStrike (GPL title)

Arcade - Tetris clones, Frozen Bubble, Chromium, Space Tripper, etc.

Strategy - Homeworld SDL (recently released in Alpha and still buggy), FreeCraft (now re-named), various online games that are either open source or open platform.

RPG - Neverwinter Nights, Savage, etc.

In short, there is no title out there that is an absolute MUST HAVE, that you can't get running some other way,... either on a console, or by using Wine/WineX, or running a native version or clone. You might not get EXACTLY what you want, but you will still get very close.

Yea, do "wine whatever.exe"