How to get WoW running under Linux.
by Thecowking | 26/04/2007 21:55:55 As requested by Nehaxak here it is. A guide from choosing your distro to installing WoW. Please remember Linux is not a Blizzard supported OS. Which means that if you get WoW problems, Blizzard might not beable to help. If this isn't General Discussion material, pleas Aeus, Thundy, Van or Ommra, please move it to where it should be. 1) Choose your distro. This is the major theme of Linux. Choice. There's thousands of distros out there, choosing which one you like is the hard part of this guide. Luckily there's a great resource to help you choose: LiveCDs. These let you "test drive" a distribution of Linux before you need to do anything to your hard drive or file system. http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php This site is not a keylogger, but it will give you access to a whole range of distributions availiable on liveCD. This means you can look for one you like and give it a go. For those who are quite confident of their PC skills, but new to Linux, I reccomend Ubuntu. Ubuntu is basically the entry level version of Linux, don't get me wrong, Ubuntu has all the features of other distributions, but it does have an easy learning curve with many features preconfigured for you. If you're familiar with Linux, you've probably got your own choice of distro. Familiar or not, I can't reccomend trying a new distro via live CD enough. 2) Back up all your files that you want to keep. And find that copy of windows of yours, just in case you want to go back. 3)Really, back up everything you want to keep, really important. 4) Decide how much hard drive space you want to dedicate to Linux. Since you'll be running WoW off it, and I can hope you'll be using Linux for a lot more in the future. A note at this point, you may well be ready to take the plunge and have a completely Linux based PC. I can offer only one proviso to this, make sure any work related programs you might need in the future work and that your printer is compatible with Linux. http://www.Linux-foundation.org/en/OpenPrinting is an invaluable tool to this end. 5) Are you ready to take the plunge? At this point you might not be sure you like the various distributions you've tried. If you don't like them, try more! If you feel Linux is not your thing, then leave this guide and enjoy your OS :) If you are ready, then use your favorite partition manager if you use one, or the one included in most live CD installs to set up your har drive as you see fit. I won't go into dual booting, most distros you try will have associated forums, where there will be a guide on dual booting with that OS and windows. They are far more likely to know how your distro works with Grub (the boot loader) or Lilo (another bootloader), than I am. 6) Install your chosen version of Linux and set it up as you like. I won't even begin to offer suggestions here, one of the greatest parts about Linux is that it is so customisable. So just play with it until you feel happy. 7) If you're really uncertain about which distro to try and would love a real walk through from here, I can offer one choice which stands out above all others for ease of use and Linux-newcomer friendliness. Ubuntu, it's simple, easy, has massive community support and above all else, it just works. From here on in, this guide has 2 parts, a general non-distro specific part, and an Ubuntu, newbie friendly part. Just remember b is for uBuntu ;) 8 a) Now you need to find your Gfx card drivers, if you're running an Ati card, please check your distro's forums again, I'm sure they'll have links to the drivers you need. If you're using onboard gfx, you'll probably be fine as is, and if you're using nVidia, you're in for a treat http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html will have what you need. A word of warning on the nVidia drivers though, they can cause problems with desktop effects, again, check on your distro's forums for more information here. 8 b) Getting your drivers on Ubuntu is pretty easy, http://www.getautomatix.com/ will show you the way here. To be honest this program near enough covers every thing you need to play wow, and a lot more besides. Edit:IMPORTANT INFORMATION Automatix will not exist for Hardy Heron and beyond. It seems they've had a falling out with Canonical, so until a replacement pops up, we'll have to rely on using the forums and the restricted drivers repository in Ubuntu. If a replacement becomes available, I will notify you here. 9 a) Installing wine: We're getting closer! Visit www.winehq.org, find the wine for your distro, or even the source to compile yourself if you're feeling brave. On most distros this is a piece of cake, if you have a package manager you can probably get it off that without even going to the wine website. 9 b) Load up Automatix again, it's under Applications> System Tools> Automatix. Choose Wine, it's in there, just click on the tabs and explore. Seriously you'll learn to love Automatix. It makes setting up Ubuntu so easy that even a Tauren can do it! 10 a & b)http://www.wowwiki.com/Linux/Wine Seriously this is such a well crafted guide I can't improve on it. I've referred to it extensively myself. Just remember the old registry tweak, works wonders. 11 a & b) The biggy, the final step. If everything has gone according to plan, by now you have a working OS, with a pile of free and open source software. Your graphics card has been set up, you've probably had a lot of fun playing with desktop effects, maybe even discovered the joys of multiple desktop environments. You're itching to play WoW, you can taste Azeroth, smell Outland. You want to get back in the fray. Ok, let's do it. Insert the WoW install disk 1. Install it just like you would in windows. If you have Burning crusade repeat. Patch as normal. Slightly anticlimatic I know, but seriously it's that easy. 12 a & b) Pop open a beer, or beverage of choice, download your favourite addons (folder name should be /home/<user>/.wine/drive_c/World of Warcraft/interface/ You might need to choose view and show hidden files to see it). Then load up WoW. You can do this two ways. If you're using Gnome, you can probably just use the icon on the desktop, if you're using KDE, the same. As for other desktop environments, you can probably look up the file in the menu. Sit back and enjoy. I've almost certainly a) missed huge chunks of relevant information and b) made at least three catastrophic errors which will end the world as we know it. But I'm sure of one thing, Linux is community. If I've made errors, other Linux users will see them and probably tell me where I went wrong and how to fix it. So if there is anyone out there, who sees what I missed/got wrong tell me and I'll try to fix it. With that said, Enjoy La vida Linux (vaguely legalese disclaimer: the guide presented here is purely for your information. This means if you follow the guide and your PC explodes/breaks/becomes an expensive door stop, it's not my fault. All links are correct and keylogger free at time of production, but if you do install Linux you won't care anyway.) Edit #1: There can occiasionally be an error installing from the CDs, where you cannot get the second CD to be recognised, in this situation simply copy the contents of your WoW CDs to one folder on your hard drive and install from the .exe there. Thanks to Masch for this tip. [ Post edited by Thecowking ] When you look at the candle, if you see fire, you know the meal was cooked hours before. |
by Vaneras | 27/04/2007 10:04:58 A truly awesome guide :-) Behold! Witness the glory of my epic beer container... More commonly known as The epic Mug of Vaneras : http://epicmug.ytmnd.com/ |
by Vaneras | 10/09/2007 14:43:50
Please read the stickies before requesting threads to be stickied: Newcomer reading – updated 15/04  Behold! Witness the glory of my epic beer container... More commonly known as The epic Mug of Vaneras : http://epicmug.ytmnd.com/ |
News
Spam
Hot: Dual-spec questions answered by Ghostcrawler
Last 7 Days
Most Viewed Threads This Week