Setting up Dwarf Fortress in 64bit Debian

Tuesday, March 1. 2011

Setting up Dwarf Fortress in 64bit Debian

If you want to play Dwarf Fortress in 64bit Debian (or, to be more exact, in Debian GNU/Linux 6.0 (squeeze) x86-64), you need to install a few additional things.

(most of this will also work for Ubuntu!)

Downloading DF

You can get Dwarf Fortress (for free!) directly at Bay 12 Games (click on SDL: Linux), but I suggest downloading a version with a nice tileset (much easier for beginners, and much easier on the eyes

— I've only tried Phoebus' set so far, but really like it.

Direct download links (for version 0.31.19, released on Feb 16):

Original

DF & Phoebus' Graphic Set

The rest of this article will work for both versions.

Unpacking

Assuming you are root (do su - if you are not), and that you have downloaded the tarball from above to /tmp/:

CODE:

cd /usr/local
mkdir games
cd games
tar xf /tmp/df_31_19_linux.tar.bz2 ### OR
apt-get install unzip; unzip /tmp/DF_Phoebus_31_19v01.zip
cd df_linux
find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 644
find . -type d -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 755
chmod 755 df libs/Dwarf_Fortress

Installing 32bit libs

As DF is a 32bit-binary, it needs its libraries in 32bit-versions too. Most of them can be easily installed using

CODE:

apt-get install ia32-libs ia32-libs-gtk

If you try to run ./df now, it won't work though; the ia32-libs package is missing 2 SDL-libs that are used by DF (SDL_ttf and SDL_image), so we need to manually put them into /usr/lib32. Also, some symlinks are needed (don't know if this is DFs or Debians fault).

Download the packages for i386-Debian (just download, don't try to install!):

libsdl-ttf2.0-0

libsdl-image1.2

I'm a lazy bastard, so we are going to unpack those downloaded packages using the wonderful Midnight Commander, so

CODE:

apt-get install mc

Start mc, navigate to /usr/lib32/ in the left panel, press TAB to switch to the right one, navigate to the downloaded packages, press Enter, navigate to CONTENTS/usr/lib32/, and copy (using F5) the libs from there. Do this for both packages, then exit mc using F10 (or Esc-0 if F10 doesn't work)

Library symlinks

CODE:

cd /usr/lib32
ln -s libopenal.so.1 libopenal.so
ln -s libsndfile.so.1 libsndfile.so
ln -s libSDL_ttf-2.0.so.0 libSDL_ttf-2.0.so

Sound configuration

Without any config, DF would now try to use PulseAudio for sound output. This will work for Ubuntu, but luckily Debian is still shipped without PA per default (not saying that PA is a bad system, quite the opposite! But as can be seen (and usually not heard

) in Ubuntu, it's not easy to get it right). So:

In /etc/openal/alsoft.conf, set

CODE:

drivers = alsa,oss,pulse

Startscript

To make starting this addictive game even easier, I suggest creating a small start script. I'll call it dorf. df would be a shorter, but there is already a command with that name

CODE:

cat > /usr/local/bin/dorf
#!/bin/sh
cd /usr/local/games/df_linux
./df
(press Ctrl-D)
chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/dorf

Start the game!

Now would be a good time to drop that root privileges, so exit, or if you are lazy, Ctrl-D

If you've done everything right, typing dorf should now start the best of all games.

Where to go from here

DF is extremely complex, and quite intimidating at first. Only tip I'll give you right now: Losing is Fun!

For some more help, check out The Dwarf Fortress Wiki, especially the Bentgirder tutorial. If you have questions, turn to the official DF Forum. For news and interesting discussions I prefer the DF Subreddit though.

I can't be held responsible if this game eats many hours of your time. And remember: Losing is Fun!

Posted by Martin Schuster in Linux at 23:30 | Comments (12) | Trackbacks (0)

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Sehr gut, vielleicht schaffe ich es jetzt DF für Ubuntu mit Tiles zu installieren.
Süchtle gerade viel zu viel Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (mit Tiles).

#1 Horst JENS (Homepage) on 2011-03-02 07:00 (Reply)

./libs/Dwarf_Fortress: error while loading shared libraries: libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

What's wrong ? 64 bit Debian Squeeze, ia32-libs and ia32-libs-gtk installed. I'm running it with the df script. I followed your advice and it doesn't help.

#2 b0rsuk on 2011-03-05 14:02 (Reply)

Thanks for the hint! Looks like ia32-libs only suggests ia32-libs-gtk

Fixed the entry.

#2.1 Martin Schuster (Homepage) on 2011-03-06 09:37 (Reply)

Please ignore last comment - I did not have the ia32-gtk installed.

#3 b0rsuk on 2011-03-05 14:20 (Reply)

thank you this is very clear and usefull

btw i love the way you do a chmod Xr

#4 yohann (Homepage) on 2011-07-22 12:51 (Reply)

Thanx for giving step by step method for setting df on 64 bits Minux !

I think that no "ln -s" is required,"ldconfig" ( as root ) will do the trick ! ( it did for me !)

#5 Vincent on 2011-09-12 19:51 (Reply)

Thanks for the clear guide.

Happy fortressing

#6 Kwazanju on 2012-01-29 08:25 (Reply)

Doesn't work for squeeze

#7 anon on 2013-02-25 07:26 (Reply)

Because it's suppose to be :

tar xf ~/tmp/df_31 ...etc etc
there's a ~ missing

#7.1 Guigui on 2013-08-09 15:47 (Reply)

No, no missing "~". I wrote:

> Assuming [...] that you have downloaded the tarball from above to /tmp/

#7.1.1 Martin Schuster on 2013-11-13 16:57 (Reply)

Debian now has better multiarch support. Here are the new steps for amd64 systems (packages names might vary, this is for unstable):

[as root obviously, each line is a command that should be fitted in a single shell command line]

dpkg --add-architecture i386

apt-get update

apt-get install libsdl1.2debian:i386 libsdl-image1.2:i386 libsdl-ttf2.0-0:i386 libgtk2.0-0:i386 libglu1-mesa:i386

then it should work...

#7.2 JAnon on 2013-11-12 16:56 (Reply)

1. Used this per instruction https://github.com/andrewd18/df-lnp-installer

2. LNP (it) starts, but wont run df. Running df from bash says Dwarf Fortress not found.

(try random stuff)

3. Go multiarch:

dpkg --add-architecture i386

apt-get update

apt-get install libsdl1.2debian:i386 libsdl-image1.2:i386 libsdl-ttf2.0-0:i386 libgtk2.0-0:i386 libglu1-mesa:i386

4. run df from bash: $ ./df

win!

#8 Casimir Pohjanraito (Homepage) on 2014-03-16 02:57 (Reply)

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