Debian

From DoomWiki.org

The Debian project is responsible for the Debian GNU/Linux operating system. This page summarises the integration of Doom into the Debian system.

Virtual packages[edit]

The two major components needed to play Doom are a Doom engine and an IWAD. This dependency is expressed in the Debian package system using the doom-engine and doom-wad virtual packages. Virtual packages are names which can be "provided" by real packages.

This flexible approach allows for different combinations of engine and IWAD, whilst preventing an engine without a IWAD from being installed.

doom-engine[edit]

Provided by:

doom-wad[edit]

Provided by:

Categorisation[edit]

Doom is a game, and according to the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, the binaries belong in /usr/games and the manual pages in section 6. The same applies for doom utilities.

Doom engines and tools should provide a debian menu and file themselves in the Games section. Prboom suggests "Games/Arcade".

Alternatives system[edit]

The Debian alternatives system (also adopted by Red Hat) allows multiple packages to provide the same files and for the system administrator to choose which package provides the files at a given time.

The doom IWADs are registered with the alternatives system. The canonical locations are:

  • /usr/share/games/doom/doom1.wad
  • /usr/share/games/doom/doom.wad
  • /usr/share/games/doom/udoom.wad
  • /usr/share/games/doom/doom2.wad
  • /usr/share/games/doom/doom2f.wad
  • /usr/share/games/doom/tnt.wad
  • /usr/share/games/doom/plutonia.wad

Tools (and engines) which require an IWAD should check for the existence of these files.

id Software IWAD files carry an alternatives priority of 25; the freedoom alternatives use 50. Therefore, the id IWADs will override the freedoom ones if both are present (unless the system administrator intervenes).

Utilities[edit]

tool package available from
glBSP glbsp 2007-01-28
Deutex deutex 2005-08-16
game-data-packager game-data-packager 2005-10-03
ZDBSP zdbsp 2019-01-07
WadC wadc 2016-10-10
DOSBox dosbox 2003-03-31
Eureka eureka 2013-09-01

Repositories[edit]

Most packages are available from the main Debian repositories3 unless otherwise noted.

Notes[edit]

1. ^  Not in the official archive - binary package available from ReMooD Download (archived 🏛).
2. ^  These packages can be generated using the game-data-packager tool.
3. ^  See http://www.debian.org/distrib/ftplist for the list of Debian mirrors.

External links[edit]