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The Debian Package
As of 0.4, Odamex has an [official/unofficial] Debian package. The package operates differently from the Archlinux package and has a few different things you should check before you post a bug.
Setting up aliases for .bashrc
Because the Debian package does not use sed to set a static wad directory, you will have to run Odamex with the .desktop file included with the package or you can setup your bash configuration to automatically add the -waddir argument. To do this, you would need to run
echo "alias odamex='/usr/bin/odamex -waddir /usr/share/doom'" >> ~/.bashrc echo "alias odasrv='/usr/bin/odasrv -waddir /usr/share/doom'" >> ~/.bashrc source ~/.bashrc
Optionally, you can change the directory set as the waddir to wherever you house your game files.
Note: if you change the directory to a custom setting, you have to cp /usr/share/doom/odamex.wad to the directory you set, otherwise Odamex will not run
Setting up midi playback
Without any midi sequencer setup, Odamex has strange effects in Debian-based systems. To eliminate this, if you haven't already setup a midi sequencer or an emulation software, this command will grab and install Timidity for you
apt-get install timidity
You also must run this as a user with sudo or as root.
By default, the .desktop files installed with the package use the wad directory /usr/share/doom/ to look for data. This directory is also protected by permissions (unless you chown it). If you want to be able to write to this directory yourself (and nobody else) you can safely run:
chown -R <your username> /usr/share/doom/
If you choose not to change the ownership of the directory (and its contents), you will have to copy all of the game data with sudo or as root. If you changed the directory to something else in the .bashrc section, you can copy the data over with cp. If you don't own a copy of doom, you can buy a copy of the collectors edition directly from id Software or you can install freedoom with apt
apt-get install freedoom
If you choose the freedoom option, you aren't out of the water yet. You still need to put it where the package configuration currently points to (/usr/share/doom/). To do this is fairly simple. Run
cp /usr/share/games/doom/doom2.wad /usr/share/doom/
as root, or you alternatively can edit 'odamex.desktop' in /usr/share/applications/ and change
-waddir /usr/share/doom/
to
-waddir /usr/share/games/doom/
Either way, you will end up copying wads over. If you choose this second approach, you will need to copy odamex.wad over to /usr/share/games/doom
cp /usr/share/doom/odamex.wad /usr/share/games/doom/
If you want to be able to copy files without being root or using sudo, you can follow the directions above for enabling user write access to /usr/share/games/doom