Sorry, that this page came so late, but Windows95 fraged my file two times...
It will explain how to get Quake II for Linux and how to get started in a few steps

Step 1)First you have to get the latest LinuxGlide Version from 3dfx.com, if you have a 3dfx card. Copy it to a temporary folder and unzip and untar the file, then execute install and follow the instructions. In most cases you will install Glide to the default folder /usr/local/glide. The install program will do that for you if you want it to. For example an installation of Glide would look like the following:

cd /<the temporary folder>
gunzip <the filename of the glide archive>.tar.gz
tar -xf <the filename of the glide archive>.tar
./install
...

Step 2) Get Quake II for Linux for example from http://threewave.planetquake.com/linux/. unzip and untar it to your Quake2 directory. I would suppose /usr/quake2 or sth. else. Copy game386.so to /usr/quake2/baseq2. Then set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to your lib directory if that variable doesn´t exist. Check this with set.

cd /usr/quake2
gunzip quake....tar.gz
tar -xf quake....tar.gz
cp /usr/quake2/game386.so /usr/quake2/baseq2/
rm /usr/quake2/game386.so

try whether LD_LIBRARY_PATH is set or not:

set

scroll up and down using SHIFT-Pageup and Pagedown
if you don´t see LD_LIBRARY_PATH then it is unset and you have to type the following command:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib:/lib:/usr/local/glide/lib

if there is already that variable then type:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/local/glide/lib

run ldconfig as root

Then you have to copy the pak0.pak and the other files from the /install/data directory of your Quake2 CD to the baseq2 directory in your in your Quake2 folder. i.e. /usr/quake2/baseq2

Step 3)Start Quake2 :

cd /usr/quake2
./quake2

Remember you must be root for starting Quake2 and LD_LIBRARY_PATH must be set
if you don´t want to set it manually, you have to edit your .bash_profile in your home directory.
simply add the line

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib:/lib:/usr/local/glide/lib (if variable is unset after booting)
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/local/glide/lib (if variable is set after booting)

to that file

In the Game you can select the video mode (svgalib, X11 or gl for 3dfx)

Step 4)Troubleshooting

 

1. Quake2 won´t run in GL mode when gpm is started (gpm wants to use the mouse und Quake wants to use the mouse and *crash*) so remove it from your startscript. Most distributions offer an option to disable gpm...

2. If you want to install Mesa as described later you have to edit a file named texus.h in your /usr/local/glide/include directory there are two or three lines which are wrong. They begin with // which is C++ style but they have to be in C style. i.e.

// remark would be
/* remark */

you´ll easily find them...

 

 

That was the beginning...

Gaining Speed

 

When you run Quake2 on an 3dfx card you won´t be satisfied because you´ll get very few fps. To get better results you can do a few things:

Step 1)Setting Variables

All the variables you can set under Windows you can also set under Linux. Simply replace the set command through an export command. Get the variables from the 3dfx section of our site. i.e.

set SST_GRXCLK=57 under Windows would be
export SST_GRXCLK=57 under Linux

Step 2)Get Mesa from http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~brianp/Mesa.html

Mesa is an API which is very similar to OpenGl and ... (other people can explain this better, look at the Mesa Homepage). Everything you have to know is that you need Mesa to use your 3dfx-card under Linux. So go to the Mesa Homepage and download the newest beta (currently 2.6Beta3 I think). Unzip and untar ( ;-) ) the file to /usr/local/mesa. And compile it. i.e.

decompress Mesa (I won´t like to explain it for a third time)
cd /usr/local/mesa
make linux-386-quake-glide (or sth. else simply type make to find out)
then copy the files from /usr/local/mesa/lib to /usr/lib or /lib
run ldconfig as root

run Quake2

Another way is to get PGCC (a Pentium optimized C-Compiler) from http://www.goof.com/pcg/ and compile Mesa with this compiler, but I can´t give any tips on this topic, because I haven´t tested it yet. Maybe it will come soon...

Good Luck,

Platon