SetupGuide

Fully updated for 0.76b1

Page Maintenance

When I first installed spring on linux, it was damn hard. I almost gave up a couple times, but finally got it to work, after lots of time wasted.

This setup guide was horribly outdated back then. Since I liked the game, I gave sth back, by updating this page, and some patches for engine. It wasn't very hard to update this page, it just took some time and effort. Now it's basically in a state, where almost every question on the irc channel regarding linux setup is already answered here, if people just bother to check.

This page doesn't probably require so much modification in the future, assuming no major changes to spring installation procedure. But I am not going to do that, I have no time anymore. This is probably the only up to date page on the whole wiki, and it might be that it again becomes outdated. So I challenge everyone who ever got helped by this page to keep it up to date in the future.

It's a wiki so everyone can edit it, so when you see something that is wrong or missing, just fix it, and that means you! Making an account is trivial.

- semi

Install

Version

The guide is fully up to date with release 0.76b1.

To play online, you must have the same version as everyone else in the game.

Most people should get the current release, version 0.76b1. There are usually between 100 and 200 people online in the lobby, and if you want to play with them, you need this.

Do not use older than current release version, unless you really know what you are doing.

If you want to see the bleeding edge, you can checkout svn head of spring, but it can not be used to play with people who have the release, so you are practically limited to playing against nemo. This is mainly interesting for people who want to contribute to the project, for testing, finding bugs and fixing them, and implementing new features. Head can be seriously broken from time to time, or not even compile.

Packages

If there is a package for your distributions preferred package manager, it is recommended to use it instead of compiling the program yourself from sources.

Debian Etch

This is not updated for 0.76b1. Somebody check if the install succeeds for the new release this way?

This is for version 0.75b2.

We need to use Yokozar's Ubuntu package, so we need some tricks.

The --build step will take about 15 minutes. Hopefully we have precompiled binaries for etch soon too.

wget -q http://ppa.launchpad.net/spring/ubuntu/387EE263.gpg -O- | \
    sudo apt-key add -

wget http://ppa.launchpad.net/spring/ubuntu/sources.list.d/gutsy.list \
    -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/springproject.list

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get build-dep spring -y
sudo apt-get --build source spring -y
sudo dpkg -i spring_0.75~b2-1_i386.deb spring-data_0.75~b2-1_all.deb

If you want to install SpringLobby also, follow the instructions in http://trac.springlobby.info/wiki/Install#Debian

Your paths are: Spring executable in /usr/games/spring and read-only data in /usr/share/games/spring.

Debian Unstable

This is for version 0.76b1

Ubuntu instructions work for debian unstable as is at the moment. Except two extra steps:

wget -q http://apt.wxwidgets.org/key.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

echo "deb http://apt.wxwidgets.org/ etch-wx main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list

The rest is right below.

Ubuntu

This is for version 0.76b1.

We now have a maintained and up to date APT repository for Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy)

If you have some older version of ubuntu, you can easily upgrade to Gutsy with these instructions: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/upgrading

Do the following:

These lines are long and they are split to match the formatting of this page, you can copy-paste this to your terminal as is, as long as you copy the entire wrapped command and not just one line.

wget -q http://ppa.launchpad.net/spring/ubuntu/387EE263.gpg -O- | \
    sudo apt-key add -

sudo wget http://ppa.launchpad.net/spring/ubuntu/sources.list.d/gutsy.list \
    -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/springproject.list

NOTE: If you get a "sudo" error (1st command) or an "unsupported scheme" error (2nd command) with the above code, then try this code instead:

wget -q http://ppa.launchpad.net/spring/ubuntu/387EE263.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

sudo wget http://ppa.launchpad.net/spring/ubuntu/sources.list.d/gutsy.list
    -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/springproject.list

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install spring spring-lobby-springlobby spring-maps-default -y

Also, if you want to download a few large maps you can do following:

sudo apt-get install spring-maps-hunterw spring-maps-deltasiege spring-maps-smallsupreme spring-maps-teamplay

If you own the original Total Annihilation and want to use mods that require the original TA content, then do:

sudo apt-get install spring-data-nonfree

For configuring the lobbies, you can note that the package installs the Spring executable at /usr/games/spring and read-only data in /usr/share/games/spring.

IF the above do not work, read the following forum post regarding downloading Spring using the Synaptic Package Manager (GUI). Download using Synaptic Package Manager

Slackware 12

Working for version 0.76b1.

There is all dependencies in precompiled tgz's:

glew (http://www.linuxpackages.net/pkg_details.php?id=12051)
DeviL (http://www.linuxpackages.net/pkg_details.php?id=10571)
boost (http://www.linuxpackages.net/pkg_details.php?id=12046)
icu (http://www.linuxpackages.net/pkg_details.php?id=12034)
openal (http://www.linuxpackages.net/pkg_details.php?id=11993)
wxWidgets (http://www.linuxpackages.net/pkg_details.php?id=12072)
springlobby (http://www.linuxpackages.net/pkg_details.php?id=12177)
spring - thanks to leo moisio - (http://www.springlobby.info/slackware/spring-0.76b1-i486-1leo.tgz)

assuming that all .tgz are saved in the same direcory, open a console and cd inside that directory; later:

su -c "installpkg *.tgz"

when asked for the root password, give it.

a menu entre for spring and another to springlobby will apear in KDE, XFCE and GNOME.

also, spring and springlobby executables will be accessible via shell; put it on you fluxbox menu, ;D

Gentoo

This is for version 0.76b1.

OVERLAY CHANGED 2008-01-21. SpringLobby and Spring overlays are merged, so you need to add this overlay, if you haven't already, so you can upgrade again. If you are new user, you can ignore this.

An overlay to use with layman is provided. If gentoo overlays and/or layman are new to you, read about them, as they are an essential part of gentoo.

This example assumes you never used layman before. If it's not your first time, you hopefully know what to do.

emerge layman
layman -f -a springlobby \
     -o http://svn.springlobby.info/trunk/gentoo/overlays.xml
echo "source /usr/portage/local/layman/make.conf" >> /etc/make.conf
echo "games-strategy/spring ~x86" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords
echo "games-util/springlobby ~x86" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords
emerge spring
emerge springlobby

Layman makes upgrading really easy too:

layman --sync ALL
emerge spring
emerge springlobby

Your paths are: Spring executable in /usr/games/bin/spring and read-only data in /usr/share/games/spring.

Mandriva

This is for version 0.76b1.

Mandriva has Spring in the official Contrib repositories, follow the instructions at Easy Urpmi to add contrib mirrors

after being done, to install enter the following command in a console:

su root -C "urpmi spring"

and select yes to the confirmation question

For configuring the lobbies, you can note that the package installs the Spring executable at /usr/games/spring and read-only data in /usr/share/games/spring.

Binary for Other Linux Systems

This is for version 0.76b1.

There is an unofficial installer if none of the above work for you: http://spring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=12802

Build From Source

You might encounter sync errors in online play if you are not using the exact same version of the compiler and same compiler settings as used for prebuilt packages!

For 0.76b1 these are: TODO add them here.

If there is no package tailored for your distribution, you have to install from sources manually. Doing this for distributions where packages are available is not recommended.

Get Source

You can either download the source as a 3.9MB tarball (recommended; v. 0.76b1) or get it from the subversion repository. Either way, the result is the same.

Tarball

cd /usr/local/src # or /var/tmp, or whatever
wget http://spring.clan-sy.com/dl/spring_0.76b1_src.tar.bz2
tar xjf spring_0.76b1_src.tar.bz2
cd spring_0.76b1

NOTE: The .zip release is for windows only. Linux users have to get .bz2 like shown above.

Subversion

aptitude install subversion # if you are not on debian, figure it out
svn co https://spring.clan-sy.com/svn/spring/tags/spring_0.76b1 \
	/usr/local/src/spring_0.76b1
cd /usr/local/src/spring_0.76b1

If the above subversion host happens to be down (which is unlikely since you're reading this wiki page now), you can try the following hourly updated mirror (replace the svn co line above with the following line):

svn co svn://caspring.org:3691/tags/spring_0.76b1 \
	/usr/local/src/spring_0.76b1

Dependencies

For Etch (debian 4.0 stable) and Sid (debian unstable), I've confirmed the following to be the minimal set that is necessary to get. I have not tested with any version of Ubuntu, but the line is probably almost identical if not the same. Quilted tested with ubuntu fiesty fawn on july 28 2007 WORKS. Note that Spring 0.75b2 depends on the boost libraries version 1.34.* and won't work on lower versions. (updated libboost-serialization-dev, and libvorbis-dev dependencies for 0.76b1)

Also, on 64-bit be sure to build against devIl 1.6.8-rc2 or higher, 1.6.7 has a bug in the PNG loading code that causes issues.

aptitude install scons build-essential zlib1g-dev libfreetype6-dev
aptitude install libsdl1.2-dev libopenal-dev libglew-dev libboost-dev
aptitude install libboost-thread-dev libboost-regex-dev libdevil-dev
aptitude install libboost-serialization-dev python2.5-dev zip
aptitude install sun-java6-jdk libvorbis-dev

This has been tested to work with a clean install of gentoo 2007.0:

emerge dev-util/scons \>=media-libs/freetype-2.0.0 \>=media-libs/libsdl-1.2.0
emerge media-libs/openal =dev-lang/python-2.4\* media-libs/glew dev-libs/boost
emerge media-libs/devil app-arch/zip media-libs/libogg

On Fedora 8, these dependencies should be sufficient:

yum install scons boost-devel openal-devel SDL-devel libvorbis-devel 
yum install devIl-devel glew-devel java-1.7.0-icedtea-devel

Users of other distributions should be able to figure out the correct package names from this. The scons configure will whine if you forget something, but it does not check if you remembered to install zip, even though you still need it.

Build And Install

The build will spew out warnings like the following, which you can safely ignore:

warning: division by zero
warning: 'q' may be used uninitialized in this function

Configure and build:

scons configure
scons

Install:

scons install
mkdir -p /etc/spring
echo '$HOME/.spring' > /etc/spring/datadir

Your paths are: Spring executable in /usr/local/games/spring and read-only data in /usr/local/share/games/spring.

Network

If you have a public ip and no firewall, then you don't need to do anything.

If you don't want to host any games, just join them, you shouldn't need to do anything.

If you have a firewall, to be able to host, you must enable incoming udp to port 8452. If you are behind a NAT, to be able to host you must either use nat traversal / hole punching feature in your lobby client, OR port forward that port from your public ip to your gaming machine.

Finalizing installation

Now all the things you needed to run as root have been done. Some stuff needs to be done by the user who is going to play spring.

I'm assuming bash here, but you can use anything you like to do it of course.

Data Directories

Do this to create your per-user data directories. You will be downloading maps and mods etc to these dirs later.

mkdir -p ~/.spring/{base,maps,mods}

If the above did not work for you, then you can try:

mkdir ~/.spring ~/.spring/base ~/.spring/maps ~/.spring/mods

Maps

You need at least one map to succesfully run spring.

Go to Unknown Files, Map Section and download at least one map. Save it under ~/.spring/maps/ without unpacking the file in any way.

Hint: If you know the map name you want, there is a Quick Search in the top right corner of the page. Just write a part of the name, like one word, and you'll easily find what you were looking for.

Mods

You need at least one mod to successfully run spring.

Go to Unknown Files, Mod Section and download at least one mod. Save it under ~/.spring/mods/ without unpacking the file in any way.

Hint: If you know the mod name you want, there is a Quick Search in the top right corner of the page. Just write a part of the name, like one word, and you'll easily find what you were looking for.

If you want to view unit stats of mods, this is the site for you.

OTA Content

If you want to play mods based on Total Annihilation, for example XTA, AA, BA, then you have to do the following:

wget http://ipxserver.dyndns.org/games/spring/mods/xta/base-ota-content.zip
unzip -d ~/.spring/base base-ota-content.zip

Note that you need to own a copy of Total Annihilation, to download this file legally.

Mods that do not require this file are at least NanoBlobs and Kernel Panic, TODO list other mods that don't need it.

Settings

Defaults should be usable, so you can ignore this until you want to maximize your eye candy or fps :)

When you run spring the first time, it creates ~/.springrc which contains all the settings. It is a simple text file with name=value lines, most of which are pretty obvious and can be edited by hand.

If you want a tool for editing the file, you can use SpringSettings (SpringLobby has this integrated).

Dual Head

Automatic: if you are using SpringSettings you can select a dual screen resolution in simple mode and the rest is done automatically.

Manual: to make Dual Monitors work add/change these settings in your .springrc file. "DualScreenMiniMapOnLeft=1, DualScreenMode=1, XResolution=2560, YResolution=1024"

Make sure to use your own resolution for the X,Y resolutions. For example: you have two monitors configured for 1280x1024, the X,Y is 2560x1024.

Save then restart Spring.

LuaUI

Spring UI is scriptable with Lua. This is called LuaUI, and it is not enabled per default.

Replace LuaUI=0 with LuaUI=1 in your ~/.springrc to use LuaUI.

To install some LuaUI scripts, start by copying LuaUI folder from you read-only data directory to your read-write data directory.

rm -r ~/.spring/LuaUI
cp -r /usr/share/games/spring/LuaUI ~/.spring/LuaUI

Then go find the LuaUI scripts you need from Unknown Files LuaUI Section. All LuaUI scripts are released there, so if you make good ones yourself, make sure to upload them.

The scripts can come in any setup, so prepare to decompress them if they are compressed. They might have a whole directory structure, and they should have their own instructions on how to install them. Check which directory you need to extract them to. Most likely it is ~/.spring/LuaUI but it might be a directory inside this directory too for some script.

Once you have copied the script into place, when you start spring next time, you can press F11 to enable/disable anything from your list of installed LuaUI scripts. If your new script is not there, you copied it wrong.

Lobby Client

To setup online games, you need a lobby client. There are several options to choose from.

You can also use lobby client to setup single player matches against the AI. TODO more information about setting up tasclient to play against AI.

Recommended lobby client for linux is either SpringLobby or AFLobby. You can use them in windows and mac too.

Omni

This project has been abandoned, and you should not use it.

UnityLobby

UnityLobby has been abandoned since april 2007, and you should not use it.

SpringLobby

SpringLobby is for (at least) Windows, Linux and Mac. It's now in a usable state and has a feature set close to that of TASClient for windows. Try it out! Bug reports and feature requests are very much welcome.

Visit http://springlobby.info for all things SpringLobby.

AFLobby

This project is very promising, and is usable for online multi player. Its the oldest lobby still actively maintained.

Official webpage for the project is http://www.darkstars.co.uk which should always have the latest release for download.

TASClient

To run the default windows lobby client under Linux, you will need to install wine and do a fairly large amount of configuration. If you don't want to spend the time setting up TASClient, use springlobby instead. TASClient has been around for the longest period of time, however, and has some featuers that the newer lobbies have not yet implemented.

Troubleshooting

Ingame

LuaUI Crash Ingame

LuaUI can crash during game, because some lua script you use has a bug. 0.75 should be resistant to this problem, but 0.74b3 is not. After crash, you won't see the bottom left tooltip box and top right resource bar anymore. Fear not, help is near:

/resbar 1
/tooltip 1

These might not be necessary in 0.75 anymore at all.

Also, you won't be able to change the build menu page with mouse anymore, but keys , and . do the trick.

LuaUI can also be restarted after it crashed. Often this does the trick and it works fine the rest of the game:

/luaui reload

Mouse is slow in fullscreen mode

Run:

echo 'export SDL_MOUSE_RELATIVE=0' >> ~/.bash_profile

And log out and log in again.

The mouse should now be as fast as in windowed mode.

Rotating Buildings Ingame

You can rotate a building before you give the build order, but the keys that do this don't work in linux by default for some users. Issue the following commands in the beginning of the game:

/bind keycodex buildfacing inc
/bind keycodey buildfacing dec

Keycodex and keycodey above are just placeholders. What you want to write depends on which key you want to use. To see what keycodes any keys have, do:

/keydebug yes

And then hit the keys you want to use, and spring prints the keycodes in the message buffer.

TODO: add information on how to save the settings so that they work the next time you start spring.

Map is White

If the whole map is only shades of white and grey, there is a problem with your display driver. Maybe your gpu is very old and does not support some needed opengl feature. For example I had this problem with matrox g550 but not with some very old geforce.

Startup

Missing Default Cursor

This or any similar error of not being able to find a specific file are usually because the mod you are using needs ota content, download & install as explained earlier in this document.

could not open file: gamedata/defs.lua

Make sure your ~/.spring does not contain an outdated version of base/springcontent.sdz because a new version of this file is distributed with spring. If you do, just remove it.

sounds/button9.wav "cant find wav file"

Same problem as above.

Couldnt find matching GLX visual

Reduce anti aliasing.

GL_ARB_texture_compression not found

This can be an issue with your gpu drivers. The drivers you are using do not support a feature that is required to run spring. You might have better luck with the closed source official drivers of nvidia or amd cards. If your gpu itself is really old, this might not help.

If you use the fglrx ati-graphics driver and you are getting this error there might be a chance that still spring work (I use this with ubuntu gusty). At first we must check that fglrx is installed correctly:

~$ fglrxinfo
display: :0.0  screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: ATI Mobility Radeon X1400
OpenGL version string: 2.0.6747 (8.40.4)

Then lets check the glx-extention.

~$ glxinfo | grep direct
Xlib:  extension "XFree86-DRI" missing on display ":1.0".
direct rendering: No

If you get this message, notice that glxinfo releates to display ':1' and fglrxinfo to display ':0'!! Lets check the glx-extention on display :0 now.

~$ DISPLAY=:0 glxinfo | grep direct
direct rendering: Yes

This message mean that you can start spring by typing (in a terminal)

~$ DISPLAY=:0 spring

If you use the TASclient with wine and the native linux spring. Start the whole TASclient-start-script by typing.

DISPLAY=:0 TASCLIENT-start-script

But Notice under circumstances is no windowmanager running on screen :0! This means there are NO windowframes at the TASClient window! You can't move it or close it by clicking the closebutton (unless you click at the close button on the terminal-window in witch you startet TAS). You can although close TAS with the keys ALT-F4

OpenAL Segfault

If spring crashes with this output:

OpenAL: ALC_EXT_capture AL_EXT_capture AL_EXT_vorbis AL_EXT_MP3
AL_LOKI_quadriphonic AL_LOKI_play_position AL_LOKI_WAVE_format
AL_LOKI_IMA_ADPCM_format AL_LOKI_buffer_data_callback ALC_LOKI_audio_channel
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

Look into this thread on the forums for a fix: http://spring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=12568

Then bug nemo in #taspring to finish this troubleshooting entry. He knows how to fix it.

This is mod-related, ie. it only happens on some mods. Please list here the mod versions that give this error for you.

- Star Wars mod, unknown version, by user report

The problematic mod contains a sound file that crashes openal. You can try to unzip the mod file that crashed for you, and play each sound file. Please report any sound files that fail to play right, just list them here.

- unknown file

Compiletime

make_gamedata_arch.sh not found

The .zip you downloaded is for windows, you must download a .bz2, instructions earlier in this document.

invalid use of ILvoid

During compiling, if you get a lot of the following errors:

/usr/include/IL/il.h:497: error: '<anonymous>' has incomplete type 
/usr/include/IL/il.h:497: error: invalid use of 'ILvoid'

This happens because the version of libdevil-dev you have installed is not compatible with gcc version 4.2 and newer.

You should upgrade your libdevil-dev to fix this issue. However, in some distributions (at least gentoo), the fixed package has the SAME version number as the older unfixed package, so you might actually need to remove your current libdevil-dev package completely and reinstall it.

TODO: add critical version numbers of libdevil.

Network Setup

Usually you don't need to do any network setup whatsoever, because the lobbies take care of nat traversal with firewall hole punching, but if you need to know the topology, it goes like this:

Host needs to enable incoming udp to port 8452, and outgoing replies to those. Non-host players need to enable outgoing udp, and incoming replies to those. So basically only non-host players initiate "connections", and only the server listens on a well-known port.

If You Still Have Problems

Join to #taspring on Freenode or #sy on QuakeNet and try your luck.

However, generic linux problems not really related to installing this should be asked elsewhere.

Prepare to list your distribution, which installation method you used, and what exactly is the error. Don't ask if people are around or not, just go straight to business and tell all details, for maximizing your chances of getting help.

IRC

1. #taspring @ FreeNode
2. #sy @ QuakeNet

Asking For Help

Ok so you need human help. This is how NOT to do it:

15:54 -!- **** [n=****@*] has joined #taspring
15:54 < ****> Hi, i have a problem with compiling spring on debian
15:54 < ****> can anyone help me?
15:57 -!- **** [n=****@*] has quit [Client Quit]

Don't ask to ask, instead go straight to business by stating the exact problem you have, and giving all necessary information. What you were trying to achieve, how did you try to do it, what happened and what did you expect to happen.

Then WAIT for someone to notice you.

Configure Options

If you want to see the configure options, because of a bug in the buildsystem you have to have spring configured first. But if configure fails, you are out of luck. So I have listed the options here:

$ scons --help
scons: Reading SConscript files ...
make: Nothing to be done for `all'.
Succes building streflop!
Updating bitmaps.sdz
Updating springcontent.sdz
scons: done reading SConscript files.

platform: Set to linux, freebsd or windows
    default: None
    actual: linux

debug: Set to yes to produce a binary with debug information
    default: 0
    actual: 3

debugdefines: Set to no to suppress DEBUG and _DEBUG preprocessor #defines \
 (use to add symbols to release build)
    default: True
    actual: True

syncdebug: Set to yes to enable the sync debugger
    default: False
    actual: False

synccheck: Set to yes to enable sync checker & resyncer
    default: True
    actual: True

optimize: Enable processor optimizations during compilation
    default: 1
    actual: 2

profile: Set to yes to produce a binary with profiling information
    default: False
    actual: False

profile_generate: Set to yes to compile with -fprofile-generate \
 to generate profiling information
    default: False
    actual: False

profile_use: Set to yes to compile with -fprofile-use to use \
profiling information
    default: False
    actual: False

cpppath: Set path to extra header files
    default: []
    actual:

libpath: Set path to extra libraries
    default: []
    actual:

fpmath: Set to 387 or SSE on i386 and AMD64 architectures
    default: 387
    actual: 387

prefix: Install prefix used at runtime
    default: /usr/local
    actual: /usr/local

installprefix: Install prefix used for installion
    default: /usr/local
    actual: /usr/local

datadir: Data directory (relative to prefix)
    default: share/games/spring
    actual: share/games/spring

bindir: Directory for executables (rel. to prefix)
    default: games
    actual: games

libdir: Directory for AI plugin modules (rel. to prefix)
    default: lib/spring
    actual: lib/spring

strip: Discard symbols from the executable (only when neither \
debugging nor profiling)
    default: True
    actual: False

disable_avi: Set to no to turn on avi support
    default: False on windows, True otherwise
    actual: True

use_tcmalloc: Use tcmalloc from goog-perftools for memory allocation
    default: False
    actual: False

use_mmgr: Use memory manager
    default: False
    actual: False

dc_allowed: Specifies whether FPS mode (Direct Control) is allowed in game
    default: True
    actual: True

cachedir: Cache directory (see scons manual)
    default: None
    actual:

Use scons -H for help about command-line options.

Tips

This section contains just some old crap I didn't write, and shouldn't be necessary.

• If spring hangs/crashes while in full screen mode, you can press ctrl+alt+backspace to restart X, so no need for a reboot.

• Spring uses OpenAL for sound, Config your sound output i.e esd / arts / oss / alsa by editing /etc/openalrc or ~/.openalrc, example: ("'(" is not a typo)
  
  (define devices '(alsa))
(define speaker-num 2)

(define alsa-out-device "hw:0,0")
(define alsa-in-device "hw:0,0")
  
  Adventurous people with an emu10k1 based card (sblive) can try the accelerated openal version. http://www.lost.org.uk/openal.html , don't submit audiobugs if you do.

• If you really can't figure out how to get spring compiled, or you think there's a bug in the code or the buildsystem...

• Just poke any developer on IRC:

• channel #taspring on FreeNode
• or channel #sy on QuakeNet

• Post it on the forum
• or file a bug in our bug tracking system.

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