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charameiGetting Creatures to install on Ubuntu has never exactly been easy, and as I recently discovered while trying to get Norns onto my newly-rebuilt laptop, Karmic has worsened the experience.
Also, the only article on Google which worked for me last time has disappeared, and I'm very glad I remembered vaguely what it said and was able to extrapolate.
So. No readily available information and a whole heap of problems... somebody ought to collate this stuff.
Go to the wiki and download Docking Station from one of the mirrors listed there into your home directory. Yes, DS is on the CIE disc, but you're going to have to edit some files: this is slightly easier than copying the whole thing onto your hard-drive.
This will open sources.list in gedit. At the bottom of the file, add these two lines:
Save and close the file, then return to the terminal and type:
Aptitude should then install libgtk1.2 from the Jaunty repositories.
The next thing to do is to clean up, so reopen sources.list:
Delete the two lines that you added, save and close gedit.
This should start the Creatures 3 install script. Follow the instructions: if you change the directories, be sure to make a note of where you tell it to create its symbolic links (default is /usr/local/bin/). It should install without a hitch. Do not run the game yet. If you do C3 will give you a 'NLE0001: 'Main Directory' setting not found' error and crash. Instead, as root, open the symbolic link file that the installer has created:
Or wherever you told it to create them. Do a search for $11 and change it to $10. There should be one instance.
The game should now run if you type 'creatures3' into the terminal.
NOTE: If you ran C3 before editing the symbolic link (and it crashed), you will need to go to your home directory and delete the .creatures3 folder to get it to run. The next time it starts it should create a new one and set its links properly.
You need to edit the install script to get it to point the right way, so now that you're in the directory it's gedit time again:
Do a search for $11 and change all instances to $10. There should be two. Save and close, and you can now run the install script:
After showing you the EULA*, the installer will ask you if you want to install Docking Station. Tell it yes.
My copy of the installer then seemed to patch itself and attempted to reboot. If you get a 'relaunching new version of script' message and the terminal idles, just re-run ./dstation-install to start the script again.
When this is done, exit root and try to run DS:
Odds are good you'll get the dreaded 'dirname: missing operand' error. The fix for this is on the wiki, but I will copy it here for completeness' sake. Enter these two lines into the terminal:
Typing 'dockingstation' should now run DS. Whew!
The above is the product of nearly five hours' combined Googling, swearing and improvising. Very little of the information is new: it was just spread out far and wide. I am indebted to the following:
*Humorous aside: while scrolling through it, I noticed that the EULA contains a clause absolving Creature Labs of blame in the event of the customer's death or mutilation. Grendel attack? [Back]
Also, the only article on Google which worked for me last time has disappeared, and I'm very glad I remembered vaguely what it said and was able to extrapolate.
So. No readily available information and a whole heap of problems... somebody ought to collate this stuff.
Before you start...
Go to the wiki and download Docking Station from one of the mirrors listed there into your home directory. Yes, DS is on the CIE disc, but you're going to have to edit some files: this is slightly easier than copying the whole thing onto your hard-drive.
Installing libgtk1.2
libgtk1.2 has been removed from Karmic, for reasons best known to Canonical. Without this library, C3 won't run and DS won't install. The easiest place to get it from is the old Jaunty repository, so open a terminal and type:sudo gedit '/etc/apt/sources.list'
This will open sources.list in gedit. At the bottom of the file, add these two lines:
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jaunty universe
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jaunty universe
Save and close the file, then return to the terminal and type:
sudo aptitude update && aptitude install libgtk1.2
Aptitude should then install libgtk1.2 from the Jaunty repositories.
The next thing to do is to clean up, so reopen sources.list:
sudo gedit '/etc/apt/sources.list'
Delete the two lines that you added, save and close gedit.
Creatures 3
Now to install C3. Put the CIE disc in the drive and open a terminal:sudo su -
cd /media/cdrom0
sh ./install-c3.sh
This should start the Creatures 3 install script. Follow the instructions: if you change the directories, be sure to make a note of where you tell it to create its symbolic links (default is /usr/local/bin/). It should install without a hitch. Do not run the game yet. If you do C3 will give you a 'NLE0001: 'Main Directory' setting not found' error and crash. Instead, as root, open the symbolic link file that the installer has created:
sudo gedit '/usr/local/bin/creatures3'
Or wherever you told it to create them. Do a search for $11 and change it to $10. There should be one instance.
The game should now run if you type 'creatures3' into the terminal.
NOTE: If you ran C3 before editing the symbolic link (and it crashed), you will need to go to your home directory and delete the .creatures3 folder to get it to run. The next time it starts it should create a new one and set its links properly.
Docking Station
You may as well take the disc out now. Open the terminal.sudo su -
cd /home/username/
tar xvfj dockingstation_195_64.bz2
cd dockingstation_195_64
You need to edit the install script to get it to point the right way, so now that you're in the directory it's gedit time again:
sudo gedit '/home/username/dockingstation_195_64/dstation-install'
Do a search for $11 and change all instances to $10. There should be two. Save and close, and you can now run the install script:
./dstation-install
After showing you the EULA*, the installer will ask you if you want to install Docking Station. Tell it yes.
My copy of the installer then seemed to patch itself and attempted to reboot. If you get a 'relaunching new version of script' message and the terminal idles, just re-run ./dstation-install to start the script again.
When this is done, exit root and try to run DS:
exit
dockingstation nocheck
Odds are good you'll get the dreaded 'dirname: missing operand' error. The fix for this is on the wiki, but I will copy it here for completeness' sake. Enter these two lines into the terminal:
export DS_BIN="`whereis dockingstation | awk '{print $2}'`"
sed -i s/11/10/ "`ls -l $DS_BIN | awk '{print $10}'`"
Typing 'dockingstation' should now run DS. Whew!
Sources
The above is the product of nearly five hours' combined Googling, swearing and improvising. Very little of the information is new: it was just spread out far and wide. I am indebted to the following:
- The Creatures Wiki
- 'Chef' at the Rabbnix forums
- The blogger who wrote the original how-to, now sadly gone from the Internet
- The Creatures Community, who are just generally wonderful.
*Humorous aside: while scrolling through it, I noticed that the EULA contains a clause absolving Creature Labs of blame in the event of the customer's death or mutilation. Grendel attack? [Back]