Starting DOOM

To play DOOM, you must first have X Windows running, so enter startx. When X Windows is running, you can start an xterm session or use the <Ctrl-Alt-Fx> key sequence to access one of the virtual character terminals; then enter linuxxdoom. If this doesn’t work, Linux can’t find the DOOM program—that is, it’s not located in your path. If this occurs, simply change the current directory to the directory where you installed DOOM. Then enter the DOOM command again.

If you started DOOM from a virtual terminal, you need to return to the X Windows session by pressing <Ctrl-Alt-F22>. If you started DOOM from an xterm session, you should see the DOOM introduction screen in a few seconds.

While DOOM loads, notice a series of messages. One might indicate that DOOM and Linux can’t start the sound system; thus, you might have to play DOOM without sound. Sound still isn’t fully supported in this port of DOOM; such is the life of an evolving system such as Linux. For instructions on playing DOOM, see the README.Linux file.

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NOTE:  X Windows servers (remember, the server runs on the local system) are available for most non-UNIX systems. One of the best X servers is MicroImages’ MI/X application, available for both Macintosh and Windows operating systems. For more information and a free X server, go to http://www.microimages.com/.

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From Here…

Plenty of programs are available for Linux out on the Net. You can also use X Windows to multitask different Linux programs more easily by using xterms rather than the virtual terminals available from the character screens. You can check out the newsgroups comp.windows.x.apps and comp.windows.x.intrinsics for various information about X Windows in general. The following chapters also provide more information:

•  Chapter 3, “Installing Red Hat,” explains how to install the Red Hat distribution of Linux, which includes installing X under Red Hat.

•  Chapter 21, “Installing the X Windows System,” explains how to install the XFree86 version of X for Linux, which you need to do before installing X Windows.

•  To learn how to access the Internet with Linux, check out Chapter 30, “Accessing the Network with telnet, ftp, and the r- Commands.”

•  For surfing the Net, check out Chapter 31, “Surfing the Internet with the World Wide Web.”