EndSection

Next search for the line, Load “glx”. Un-comment this and add another line below it, which says Load “dri”. The entries should now look as below.

# This loads the GLX module

Load “glx”

Load “dri”

Start X. In the string of messages that go by, look for `Direct Rendering Enabled’. You see that and you’ll be set to start Quaking.

Open a terminal window and navigate to the Quake2 directory. Now enter the following command.

$ LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libGL.so.1 ./quake2 +set vid_ref glx +set gl_driver

/usr/lib/libGL.so.1 +set _windowed_mouse 1

A little complex, but this is the best way to make Quake 2 start up in OpenGL mode at 640x480 resolution. Changing resolutions would crash the computer so we stuck with 640x480.

It all looks real good, but you’ll soon see that mouse control is horrible, the desktop cursor still sticks in the center. And you’re still stuck inside a window with title bars etc. Luckily, Zinx Verituse, has written a hack that gets rid of the window borders and gives you a DGA-ized mouse. DGA is another XFree86 4 extension that allows direct access to the device, making for much better movement. You can get this great hack from his site at http://staff.xmms.org/zinx/q2hack/.

Compiling the program is simple.

# tar zxvf q2hack-0.0.4-BETA3.tar.gz

# make

# make install

Open another xterm window, get back to the quake 2 directory. Instead of typing the painful command above, just type ./q2 and let your jaw drop. When we did so, mouse control was smooth but very slow. One thing is for sure—we’ll be watching this hack closely as it develops further.

Quake III

Once Quake 2 is up and running, Quake 3 is a cinch. Get the file, install it and you’re set to go. You can download the demo from www.quake3arena.com. Trouble is that activision requires you to put in your credit card number, for age verification, before you download the file. If anyone has a direct download URL then please key it in the comments section below or send us a mail.

We were able to find a Quake 3 Arena test demo rpm. Install the rpm with a --nodeps if you don’t have a voodoo.

rpm -ivh q3demoTEST-1.10-5.i386.rpm --nodeps

Start it. You don’t need to be root, but you need to be in X.

cd /usr/local/games/q3demoTEST/

./linuxquake3

And that’s it. Quake I, II, III are up and running. Hope this short intro helps you lose some productivity and maybe get a life along the way!