Cant start UFO:AI

[MipSpec109]

Hello all. I'm a outright noob at linux AND computers. I downloaded UFO:AI ver. 2.2 and started the .run file which i downloaded from sourceforge.net. installation went smoothly and it finished with no problems at all. however, when i went to the directory and tried to run the executable file, nothing happened. any help would be appreciated =)

[Valis]

What message do you get on your console?
What linux distribution do you use?

There are several similar threads on this forum, did you try any of the proposed solutions in those topics?

[geever]

There is a shellscript runs the binary. It sets working directory and so AFAIR.

-geever

[MipSpec109]

i get a message that ask me if i wan to run the executable (ufoai) "In Terminal" "Display" "Cancel" or "Run". i tried the run command but nothing happens. i also try the ./ufoai command in Terminal but it says the directory doesnt exist.

i have Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Hardy

what is this shell script though?

[Valis]

Were are you running the command from?

I also think you try the wrong command. It is not './ufoai'. Try './ufo' instead.

When I am back at home I will give you the exact path you should be in while running the script [unless someone has this info already]

[MipSpec109]

im running the command via Terminal. ive also tried to run the game through the directory.

when i use ./ufo it says there is no such file/directory. when i use ./ufoai it says "./ufoai is a directory"

thank you all for your continued efforts

[Valis]

If './ufoai' is a directory then you chave to go into the directory

Type:
cd ufoai
./ufo

If this does not work then type 'ls' and post here the output [also post the outpot when there is an error of any sort]

[MipSpec109]

after typing what you said, i got "./ufo: error while loading shared libraries: libSDL_ttf-2.0.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"

the ls output is "base  gtkradiant  ufo  ufo2map   ufoai  ufoded  uninstall"

[Valis]

Ok, now you know how to run the game.

You simply do not have all the neceserly system components to run the game. See here: http://ufoai.ninex.info/wiki/index.php/Debian

This should tell you what you need to install to run it on your Ubuntu.

[MipSpec109]

should i uninstall my previous installation of UFOAI?

[Valis]

I do not think it is necessary.

[MipSpec109]

i did everything until the compile when i got a "configure: error: You must have libcurl!!!"

[geever]

Okay. it's 2 different things:
* run the game
* compile the game from source

Valis showed you that page because there are packages mentioned which are needed for the game. For just playing you don't need to compile. However if you wanna try 2.3-dev I suggest you to compile the source as it's more recent (and even dev-packages can be as buggy as the current version).

About the error message you got you need libcurl3-dev package (it is on the list).

-geever

[MipSpec109]

Wait geever, im not following you there. I thought that link contained all the information i needed to play. So what you're saying is i just need to play attention to the "Running" section of that link? When i use the ./ufo command, it says there is no such file/directory.

[Valis]

You are lost again.

Yes, sorry for not being clear, but I posted the link so you see only what components you have to install to your system to run the game.

You are back now were you started. First you have to go into the directory of the game. The 'cd' command does that [so you type 'cd ufoai'] Then you type the run command with for every program looks different, in our case it is 'ufo'. The './' means that you want to run the script from the current directory. You can check if the directory that you are in right now [the current directory] has the file you want to run by using the 'ls' command. You could also run the game probably by using the './ufoai/ufo' command just after starting your console.

Your problem now is that you do not have all the system [non game] components installed. Think of it like that: under windows it would throw you an error that you do not have drivers to your graphics card installed or something equal.

The link in the wiki says what packages you need to install to compile and also to run the game. How you do it is beyond me as I use openSuse and have no experience with Debian/Ubuntu. I only know that in your system is also easy to install new features and someone here can help you if they stumble on this thread. The wiki actually gives you the exact command that you have to run to install all necessarily components. [ 'Prerequisites' part]