HowTo: BzFlag on Ubuntu 5.10

[flight_master]

What is BzFlag (http://www.bzflag.org):

BzFlag (or Bzfs for short) is a:

BZFlag is a free multiplayer multiplatform 3D tank battle game. The name stands for Battle Zone capture Flag. It runs on Irix, Linux, *BSD, Windows, Mac OS X and other platforms. It's one of the most popular games ever on Silicon Graphics machines.


Why NOT to Use APT-GET:

The version which is in the Breezy repositories has two issues. Firstly, it is version 2.0.2, which has issues with high latency spikes. And secondly, (very important!) You can't shoot anyone :razz: Seriously, bullets will go right through the other tanks, 100% of the time!

Installation Instructions:

Download (http://ftp.bzflag.org/bzflag/bzflag-2.0.4.20050930.tar.gz) the latest version of BzFlag (2.0.4)
Now, we'll need to install some missing packages;
sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2-dev
sudo apt-get install libcurl3-dev
Unpack it; open a k/console, and 'cd' to the directory where you downloaded. I'm assuming Desktop/ here. tar zxvf bzflag-2.0.4.20050930.tar.gz
You will now have a folder called 'bzflag-2.0.4.20050930'. You will want to change into this directory, again using 'cd'.
Now, comes the fun part; Ubuntu is using the GCC version 4.0 compiler, which causes certain issues (bugs) with BzFlag. These issues are caused by a very high optimization level. To solve this issue, type into your console: export CXXFLAGS=-O1
Now, You will need to run: ./configure. The output from this should say BzFlag Client at the very bottom.
If all is right, compile it by typing: make
Finally, you'll need to install it; do this by entering: sudo checkinstall
This step is optional, but always a good idea; after installing it, clean your source directory - that way, when you compile the next time, you'll be using fresh sources. Do this by entering: make clean.
Your done! Test out BzFlag by entering: bzflag in the console.


Have fun, and watch out for Guided Missiles! ;)

I hope this helps ya'll!
-Christian

[flight_master]

*fixed a few typos, and updated package name

[durand]

It might be better to do sudo checkinstall instead as this creates a deb, installs it and it also means u can dpkg -r packagename or apt-get remove packagename it to remove it. It would probbly be a better method.
Nice HowTo by the way.:)

[durand]

It might be better to do sudo checkinstall instead of sudo make install as this creates a deb, installs it and it also means u can dpkg -r packagename or apt-get remove packagename it to remove it. It would probbly be a better method.
Nice HowTo by the way.:)

[johannes]

Nice guide! Thanks.

I also think checkinstall is a better option.

[flight_master]

@durand: Thanks for the input - I've updated the HOWTO to use checkinstall instead ;)

@johannes,

Thanks :D

-Christian

[pianoboy3333]

Great guide!

[CallsignBaron]

Wonder if you can help me. I am a newbie to Ubuntu and especially new to command line functions. I have followed this tutorial and seem to have run into a snag at about step #7. Here is the error:

configure: error: no acceptable C compiler found in $PATH
See `config.log' for more details.
todd@24-176-84-202:~/bzflag-2.0.4.20050930$ sudo checkinstall
sudo: checkinstall: command not found
todd@24-176-84-202:~/bzflag-2.0.4.20050930$ make clean
bash: make: command not found
todd@24-176-84-202:~/bzflag-2.0.4.20050930$ bzflag
bash: bzflag: command not found
todd@24-176-84-202:~/bzflag-2.0.4.20050930$

I obviously do not have something installed or installed correctly to allow me to install a program in this manner. If you would be so kind as to let me know what I need to do from here it would be greatly appreciated. I was so close and as you can imagine was disappointed to see this error. I had bzflag in suse and I miss it greatly. I ran into the same problem with the version I got with apt-get, it ran wonderfully but I couldn't shoot anyone. Thanks for your help.

[flight_master]

Hello and welcome to Ubuntu!

I'm guessing you are using a very clean system, right out of the box, so you are going to need a few extra tools (compilers, and build-tools)

open a console and type in:


sudo apt-get install build-essential gcc g++


If you do this, and still get errors, please post the output of the ./configure command. When doing this, though, make sure to put it inbetween code tags ;)

Regards,
Christian

[CallsignBaron]

Thanks for your quick reply flight_master. You are correct this is a fresh install, very clean and I figured I was missing something. I will give this a shot and let you know the outcome. If you can tell me what "put in between code tags" means I will be more than happy to comply. :)

Thanks,
Todd

[flight_master]

No problem! Good luck :p

Guess I spend too much time on forums & Ubuntu :D what I mean by 'code' tags is, enclosing the output between:

[code ]
<PASTE YOUR OUTPUT FROM ./configure HERE>
[/code ]
Or else, it'll screw up the forum layout, not to mention make it hard to read

-Christian

[CallsignBaron]

FYI-BZ Flag is installed! Thank you very much for your help! The only problem I had was I couldn't do a "sudo checkinstall", I got the error "no such command" but I did "make install" and it went flawlessly. I don't know if I need to install something else to do a checkinstall. It works perfectly now and and I can blow up the bad guys! (just what my wife wanted to hear! lol) Thanks for your help once again. I am really loving Ubuntu, everything really seems to work very well. I just switched from SuSE and never thought I would ever do that. Also, the forums are very helpful and it really seems like a very friendly community. I believe I'm here to stay.

Regards,

Todd

[CallsignBaron]

Also, I'll remember the code tags for next time! Thanks ;)

[flight_master]

FYI-BZ Flag is installed! Thank you very much for your help! The only problem I had was I couldn't do a "sudo checkinstall", I got the error "no such command" but I did "make install" and it went flawlessly. I don't know if I need to install something else to do a checkinstall. It works perfectly now and and I can blow up the bad guys! (just what my wife wanted to hear! lol) Thanks for your help once again. I am really loving Ubuntu, everything really seems to work very well. I just switched from SuSE and never thought I would ever do that. Also, the forums are very helpful and it really seems like a very friendly community. I believe I'm here to stay.

I'm glad you have it running! Yes, you need to do:

sudo apt-get install checkinstall

in order to use checkinstall. I'm glad you plan on staying with Ubuntu!

-Christian

[CallsignBaron]

Got it now! Thanks again.

-Todd

[transistor]

All going well until step 6. ./configure returns "No such file or directory."

Any ideas? I can't find ./configure in the sub-dirs.

Thanks for the effort on the How-To. They're a real help.

[flight_master]

Could you try ./configure again, but when it comes to "No Such File or Directory", could you please paste the output of:

pwd
I'm guessing you are in the wrong directory... but just to make sure ;)

-Christian

[transistor]

Thanks flight_master.

/home/username/Desktop contains
bzflag-2.0.4.20050930-i386-Opkg
bzflag-2.0.4.20050930-i386-Opkg.tar.gz

Running ./configure from Desktop gives "No such file or directory."

Changing to the bzflag directory
/home/username/Desktop/bzflag-2.0.4.20050930-i386-Opkg
gives the same result.

Thanks.

[flight_master]

Hi,

Sorry for the delay, between my flu, this snowstorm, and tests, life is pain :P

Anyway, it seems that you downloaded the wrong package? Can you try again, by downloading this package: http://internap.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/bzflag/bzflag-2.0.4.20050930.tar.gz

And see if that works for you ;)

Regards,
Christian

[transistor]

Thanks, flight_master. Yes I had downloaded a different version. I've had a bit of bother with the sourceforge mirror but successfully downloaded the correct version of the file.
When I un-tarred the file the end of the operation reads:

bzflag-2.0.4.20050930/src/regex/Makefile.am
bzflag-2.0.4.20050930/src/regex/utils.h
bzflag-2.0.4.20050930/NEWS
bzflag-2.0.4.20050930/configure

gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file
tar: Read 2649 bytes from bzflag-2.0.4.20050930.tar.gz
tar: Unexpected EOF in archive
tar: Unexpected EOF in archive
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
This didn't look promising and sure enough running ./configure returns
./configure: line 1173: syntax error: unexpected end of file
I'll try downloading again.
Weather is good here in Ireland. Apparently the sea around Ireland is 2 degrees C warmer than usual (thanks to the Gulf Stream coming over from the Gulf of Mexico).

[flight_master]

Hmm....

That error is one of the excellent corrupted-tar errors! It seems that when you downloaded the archive, it somehow got corrupted. No worries; I've uploaded a temp. copy here: http://montecarlohosting.net/bzflag-2.0.1.20050930.tar.gz

Interesting... They say that's the same flow which is dumping all this snow onto us. Apparently, you guys are getting the better deal! :D

-Christian

[transistor]

Thanks for the tar. It's labeled bzflag-2.0.1.20050930 but it's 2.0.4 inside!
The make ran for about 30 minutes and quit cleanly.
'checkinstall' returns 'Command not found' so I guess it's not installed on my machine. It's not available on Synaptic and 'apt-get checkinstall' returns
E: Invalid operation checkinstall

So the status is I don't have checkinstall and don't have bzflag.
~/games/bzflag-2.0.4.20050930$ bzflag
bash: bzflag: command not found

Here's the content of ~/games/bzflag-2.0.4.20050930
aclocal.m4 ChangeLog include plugins README.UNIX
AUTHORS config.log INSTALL PORTING README.WIN32
autogen.sh config.status libtool README README.XMINGW
BUGS configure m4 README.BeOS RELNOTES
bzflag.info configure.ac Makefile README.DEVC++ src
bzflag.info.in COPYING Makefile.am README.IRIX TODO
bzflag.lsm data Makefile.in README.Linux tools
bzflag.lsm.in debian man README.MacOSX win32
bzflag.spec Dev-C++ misc README.MINGW32
bzflag.spec.in DEVINFO NEWS README.SDL
BZFlag.xcode doc package README.SOLARIS

Thanks for all the help. I've needed some job to learn how to do some of this stuff and one learns very little when an install goes flawlessly.

[skymt]

Thanks for the tar. It's labeled bzflag-2.0.1.20050930 but it's 2.0.4 inside!
The make ran for about 30 minutes and quit cleanly.
'checkinstall' returns 'Command not found' so I guess it's not installed on my machine. It's not available on Synaptic and 'apt-get checkinstall' returns
E: Invalid operation checkinstall

It's 'sudo apt-get install checkinstall'. I know, it doesn't really make sense. apt-get should get the package by default, but that's how it is. *sigh*

Also, it isn't actually necessary to compile BZFlag yourself. The latest version is in Breezy Backports (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuBackports). Some people don't want the additional instability adding backports can create (a few packages from the GNOME 2.13 branch are there), but I like living life on the edge. :cool:

Since Backports is an official Ubuntu repository, the newest BZFlag packages are available in the pool here (http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/b/bzflag/). 2.0.4 is toward the bottom.

[xtacocorex]

Thanks for the nice HowTo. I've seen this game in the repos but never installed, so I'm glad I found this.

I'm glad I followed it too as I probably wouldn't have added the compiler flags and screwed up something.

I'm so going to be unproductive this semester now...

[Kaobear]

Worked liek a charm. Thanks for the HOW-TO

[flight_master]

It's 'sudo apt-get install checkinstall'. I know, it doesn't really make sense. apt-get should get the package by default, but that's how it is. *sigh*

Also, it isn't actually necessary to compile BZFlag yourself. The latest version is in Breezy Backports (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuBackports). Some people don't want the additional instability adding backports can create (a few packages from the GNOME 2.13 branch are there), but I like living life on the edge. :cool:

Since Backports is an official Ubuntu repository, the newest BZFlag packages are available in the pool here (http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/b/bzflag/). 2.0.4 is toward the bottom.

Actually, they still have the bug with GCC ;)

Ah, the love of packages. You still can't go wrong with a compile :D

-Christian