Learning Debian GNU/Linux

Chapter 9. Playing Linux Games

In the last chapter you learned how to use Linux to help you work; in this chapter you’ll learn how to use Linux to help you play. A variety of challenging and exciting games is available for Linux; many of them are free. In addition, you can use WINE to run a variety of commercial games originally written for Microsoft Windows.

A Survey of Linux Games

Linux includes several popular games. In addition, many Linux games are available on the Web. Table 9-1 lists some of the most popular sites offering Linux games and Table 9-2 describes some of the most popular Linux games. However, you’ll find almost every game you could want on the Debian web site, http://www.debian.org/.

Table 9-1. Popular Linux Game Web Sites

Web Site	URL
Freshmeat	http://freshmeat.net/
Linux Game Tome	http://happypenguin.org/
Linux Games Page	http://www.linuxgames.com/
Linux Quake Page	http://www.planetquake.com/linux/
linuxquake.com	http://www.linuxquake.com/
Loki Games	http://www.lokigames.com/
Slashdot	http://www.slashdot.org/

Table 9-2. Some Popular Linux Games

Game	Type	Description
BZFlag	Action	Multi-player tank battle game.
Civilization: Call To Power	Strategy	A commercial Linux version of the sequel to Micropose’s Civilization. Supports network play.
CrossFire	Role Playing	Resembles Rogue. Supports multi-player network play.
DOOM	Action	Classic action game. Requires doom.wad file from licensed copy of game.
Freeciv	Strategy ...