PrBoom for those who do not know is a Doom engine for Linux and Windows systems using SDL. For those with Windows, please feel free to go to the PrBoom homepage and download a precompiled binary. For those of us in the Linux world things are a bit different. Anyway, this page is for those of us running Slackware 10.0 and wish to use the package system to maintain our system. This page can also be a reference for those who wish to compile and install PrBoom on their own system by downloading the source codes to everything and manually compiling the app and libs.
For full features of the PrBoom engine you will need the following
different packages installed:
- prboom-2.2.4-i486-2.tgz
- smpeg-0.4.4-i486-1.tgz
- sdl-1.2.7-i486-2.tgz
PrBoom
Download: prboom-2.2.4-i486-2.tgz
MD5SUM:
File Size (in bytes):
NOTE: At the time of this revision prboom 2.3.0 is available but is not considered a stable release, so as with Slackware tradition, I'm sticking to covering only the stable release.
SMPEG
Download: smpeg-0.4.4-i486-1.tgz
MD5SUM:
File Size (in bytes):
SDL
The main SDL package is included in Slackware 10.0 or available for download via
the Slackware FTP at ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-10.0/l/
or a mirror. You MUST install the
main SDL package before running PrBoom. (NOTE: the PrBoom package available here
was built off the included SDL package from Slackware which was version 1.2.7, any
newer package should also be usable but at your own risk.)
SDL_mixer
SDL_net
These libraries are now included in Slackware 10.0's official SDL package, so I no
longer have them labeled as needed installs. If you are building prboom on a
non-Slackware system, you will still need these libraries.
Installing all of the above packages will effectively give you a working PrBoom
install; with full sound effects, and networking capabilities. Next you will need a
WAD (the file Doom stores game info in), the shareware Doom iWAD file can be found
at ftp://www.idsoftware.com/idstuff/doom/
I believe the file is doom-1.8.wad.gz you are looking to download. Place the
un-gzipped file in /usr/share/games/doom (or place any of your registered
WAD files in that directory). For further usage of PrBoom, check your man page (
"man prboom", at your bash prompt). NOTE: If you are using the shareware
iWAD file you must rename it from "doom-1.8.wad" to anything with only one period
in it, such as: "doom18.wad" or "doom.wad" before using or else PrBoom will not
recognize the file.
After this, there is one more step. If you've already tried to use PrBoom, you will
notice a lack of music in the game. You've got sound effects just none of the
classic Doom tunes (which are my favorite ;) What you need is a set of timidity
patches installed to give you that. I use the ones available from http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_mixer/
(link to download them is at the bottom of the page there) for my music needs. I
did not make these patches into a package for various reasons, most notably, they
lack a real name, they are not buildable, and lastly it's about a 14MB download
(even more when un-tarballed) and a file that big would probably get my host
complaining to me, so I'm looking out for my interests here also. :)
Technically the patches should be un-tarballed and placed in the
/usr/lib/timidity path (which would be "correct" for Slackware). But, they
don't work when placed there. They need to either be placed in
/usr/local/lib/timidity or placed where previously mentioned and a symbolic
link created to this location. It's your box I'll leave that choice to you
(although I would say the later method is proper and the way I would choose).
I will attempt to keep these packages current to themselves and Slackware and if
anyone has any problems or questions you can send me mail to the address below
(change the "at" to "@" and the "dot" to a ".", of course) and I'll do my best to
answer them.
- Jay Lanagan ( roniatparodiusdotcom )
rev. 20040702