New To Linux Please Help Installing Downloaded Games

[Timberwood]

Hi all!! I am embarassed to say, but I am soooooo new to the Linux environment and have absolutely no idea how to install the cool games I downloaded to my Ubuntu system. I untared them to my desktop but do not know what to do next. Can anyone please help this x-windows gamer please?:(

[spizkapa]

One would need more information in order to help you. What game is it? Did you download the source or a binary version? Do you have accelerated drivers for your card installed?

Have you read the README file that inevitably came with your download?

[briguy]

There are quite a few games you can get using Synaptic (System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager). This will download and install the games you select. Enabling all the repositories will make more games available - search "howto repository" on this forum and the answer should come up.

[BLTicklemonster]

If I knew more about all this, (Or could remember how I did this kind of stuff a week or two ago) I would be able to tell you that you should unpack each to /home/yourname/ as you get them first, then open the terminal, and depending on whether you have to sh or make or whatever, I'd give you a scenario on each of these situations, but I can't, because I don't remember how I did all that, nor do I remember where I saw any of it, sorry.

BUT, I'm sure that someone who can will come along, realize that this would be the appropriate answer to your question, and state the obvious, rather than frustrate you with ... stuff like this.


Ain't this place great?


Good luck, and be patient. Sooner or later, someone with the answer will pop up and blow the others (that'd be me) away.

[BLTicklemonster]

There are quite a few games you can get using Synaptic (System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager). This will download and install the games you select. Enabling all the repositories will make more games available - search "howto repository" on this forum and the answer should come up.


My problem when I do that, is that a lot of the stuff I install what way just never shows up anywhere, and I have no idea how to get to them. I'm sure seasoned pros would be able to do it, but not me. I hope that Dapper will make allowance for this, and whenever anything is installed using synaptic, it will put a launcher somewhere. It's irritating having to use the terminal for the few I do know. And I'd manually put them in Applications, but I can hardly ever get the launch dialogue right on all of them, just some.

[briguy]

I know what you mean about the menu thing - it's a pain when you can't find what you installed.

[spizkapa]

Folks, some games and other applications simply do not provide the right information for inclusion into the gnome menu. It's down to the package to do that, as far as I know. To the new Linux user, this can be a problem but, more often than not, the application in question does not need a menu item. For example, PDF viewers hardly ever make it to the menu, they integrate through nautilus instead.

[BLTicklemonster]

But if I knew enough about all this, I could go to applications>System Tools>Applications Menu Editor and add a link, right? Therefore....

[lrmall01]

One way I get around this is by adding a "run application" shortcut to my toolbar. Most of the time you can go to run application and type the name of the program that you installed and it will run.

To do this, go up to your top toolbar and right click. Select "add to panel" from the menu and then select "Run Application..." form the dialog box.

Now you can select this and type in the name of the program. One usefull feature is that the box will auto complete - so if you can just get the first couple of letters right for the program, it will complete the rest for you.

Hope this helps.

[Deekin]

One way I get around this is by adding a "run application" shortcut to my toolbar. Most of the time you can go to run application and type the name of the program that you installed and it will run.

To do this, go up to your top toolbar and right click. Select "add to panel" from the menu and then select "Run Application..." form the dialog box.

Now you can select this and type in the name of the program. One usefull feature is that the box will auto complete - so if you can just get the first couple of letters right for the program, it will complete the rest for you.

Hope this helps.

Hey, I can't find that option! I am using KDE if that helps, so I am going from the bottom menu, but following these instructions I couldn't seem to find a run box specifically, and I didn't find it anywhere else...thanks!

[BLTicklemonster]

Just drag the icon over and drop it on the bar. It makes a shortcut, and leaves the original.


I think one way to see how some of them launch, and perhaps learn from it, is to open the Applications menu editor, and look at the properties of some of them in there.