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Hey everyone. I am having trouble getting Unreal Tournament 2004 to run natively on Linux. I've seen some forum posts about this already, but none of the solutions have helped me, since they're either based on the CD version of the game, or the instructions lead to a wget command from a package that is out-of-date.

Can someone explain the best way to play the native Linux version without the .run installer (the installer freezes when I enter my CD key and hit "Next")? I am more on the new-ish side to Linux, because I'm just mastering the basics. All I know is that the old posts directed me to outdated packages, so I need a more recent method, since those posts were from, like, 2008 at the latest.

My specs:
Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit
8GB RAM
Intel Core i5-2400
Nvidia GeForce GTX 560

Thanks in advance!
-Andrew
Post edited October 08, 2012 by PyGuy
This question / problem has been solved by Gabelvampirimage
I'll look into that when I find the time.
Unfortunately it has been ages since I played UT 2004 under Linux (ca. 2008 or so), and I did not try to get it to work with the GOG version yet, since I bought it when it was last on sale in August.
But I should have all the old files that were needed to get it to run with the CD version lying around somewhere, so if they are any help I'll be able to post them here.

Oh and your Specs should be fine, in fact your PC will probably be bored.
Last time I played it under Linux was on my old PC, I think the specs were:
Athlon XP 1800+
1 GB RAM
NVidia GeForce 7650 AGP or something like that.
As for my preferred Linux, I normally run Debian (testing). Still 32 Bit because I am to lazy to switch to 64 bit for some years now ;)
Post edited October 09, 2012 by Gabelvampir
Ok it is do-able, but will take a bit for me to work out some kinks and to write up instructions that are understandable for a Linux newbie. Unfortunately I don't have much free time at the moment and I really want to play more La Mulana, so it could me take a few days. But I'll try to post the first version by sunday evening, Middle European Standard Time.
Hey thanks man! Take your time. I really appreciate it :)
Okay, here's what should work for you, if you don't understand something or have another problem with it feel free to ask.

1.) Install the Windows GOG UT2004 package with wine. I'd use a temporary directory, not the standard wine directory. I.e. a directory named tmp in your home directory (you have to create this first with mkdir), So the command will look something like this;
WINEPREFIX=~/tmp wine /path/to/GOGfiles/setup_ut2004.exe
(WINEPREFIX is the environmental variable that tells wine which directory to use, the command above sets it to the mentioned tmp directory, but only for the wine command that comes after it)

Edit: It is a far better idea to use innoextract to get the files. See its man page for usage, it is pretty easy to use.

2.) Move the UT 2004 files to the folder you want the game to install to. I use the directory UT2004 in the home directory as an example.
mv ~/tmp/drive_c/Program\ Files/GOG.com/Unreal\ Tournament\ 2004/* ~/UT2004/

3.) Get the Linux UT2004 Megapack from icculus (He ported UT 2004 to Linux for Epic. Remember his name, he was involved with most of the Linux ports of commercial games for the last 10 years or so. Nearly everything that isn't from id Software or Linux Game Publishing).
The URL to the Megapack is: http://treefort.icculus.org/ut2004/ut2004megapack-linux.tar.bz2
Unzip that with tar to a temporary location:
tar -C ~/tmp -xf /path/to/Megapack/ut2004megapack-linux.tar.bz2
Now you have a directory called UT2004MegaPack move its contents to your UT2004 directory.
mv ~/tmp/UT2004MegaPack/* ~/UT2004/
I'm not entirely sure if the MegaPack is needed, but the latest patch says install it first. And there is other stuff than maps in it (i.e. updated binaries), so install it to be sure.

4.) Get the latest patch from icculus. The URL is http://treefort.icculus.org/ut2004/ut2004-lnxpatch3369-2.tar.bz2
Unpack it to the temp. directory:
tar -C ~/tmp -xf /path/to/Patch/ut2004-lnxpatch3369-2.tar.bz2
Move files into your UT 2004 directory:
mv ~/tmp/UT2004-Patch/* ~/UT2004

5.) You'll need to get 2 libraries that the original Linux installer on the disc provided. I made 2 tarballs off them, for 32 and 64 bit respectively. You'll find them at [url=http://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~deusser/UT2004]http://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~deusser/UT2004[/url]/
For your 64 bit system get [url=http://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~deusser/UT2004/ut2004-libs-amd64.tar.gz]http://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~deusser/UT2004/ut2004-libs-amd64.tar.gz[/url] and unpack them into your UT2004 directory.
tar -C ~/UT2004 -xf /path/to/Libraries/ut2004-libs-amd64.tar.gz

6.) The last thing you'll need to run the game now is the CD Key. I think every GOG copy of UT 2004 has the same but it would be a bad idea to post it here. But you can get yours pretty easily from the registry of the wine directory where you installed the game.
So in this case you'll need to open the file ~/tmp/system.reg and search for CDKey. Copy the value of the key (which should be 4 groups of alphanumeric digits with 5 digits each, seperated by dashes).
Create a new file called cdkey with you text editor in your System directory of your UT2004 directory. So in this example it should be called ~/UT2004/System/cdkey.
Paste the CD Key into it and save.

7.) Test if the game runs.
cd ~/UT2004/System
./ut2004-bin-linux-amd64
or
./ut2004-bin on a 32 bit system.

The game should work now, but you'll want to configure the graphics and your player character for multiplayer. I tested multiplayer and single player and both worked flawless. The only problem I had was that I had now sound, but that was a problem with my OpenAL config (the sound system UT2004 uses but not many other programs I use regularly)

The only minor problem this method still has is that you need to start the game from the System directory so it can find the 2 libraries. But I'll look what the original installer did about this and post a way to have some convenient short cuts and start menu entries here, hopefully.

Edit: The easiest way to make a shortcut is probably to create a link to the ut2004-bin-linux-amd64 binary on your desktop or in the start menu of your window manager. Keep in mind that the UT2004/System directory needs to be set as the working directory. Here is a link to the icon file the original Linux installer provided so your desktop shortcut will look like it belongs to UT 2004: [url=http://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~deusser/UT2004/ut2004.xpm]http://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~deusser/UT2004/ut2004.xpm[/url]
Post edited December 14, 2013 by Gabelvampir
I got the game to launch, but mine doesn't have sound, either. It works like a charm aside from that, however. Thanks SO much for taking the time to type this up. It actually taught me some new things about Linux, too (small things like how to type a command that includes file names with spaces). Seriously, people like you are why I am proud to be part of the Linux user community. Until I get sound fixed, I'll use Rhythmbox while I play ut2004.

Again, thanks.
No problem, glad I could help and teach you some things.
What fixed sound for me was changing priority of the drivers which OpenAL wants to use.
in the file /etc/openal/alsoft.conf uncomment the line starting with #drivers by deleting the hash character and change the order of the backend drivers. As I still use alsa for everything I made it first of the list. Unfortunately that only took effect after a reboot, and I don't know why because OpenAL does not have a daemon that needs to be restarted or something like that. Maybe it cashes its config, and that's why it did not work until a reboot for me.
Try if that works for you, there are other probably better alternatives but they are hard to describe and I myself need to look into some of it because I never did learn how to use some of the newer audio backends.
Post edited October 14, 2012 by Gabelvampir