Installing The Ur-Quan Masters for Debian
Was: “The Ur-Quan Masters for Debian (problem & solution)”
Edit (Feb 28, 2009 @ 19:45): This post was based on error of mine. Originally I wrote that debian packet ‘uqm’ did not install starter wrapper in $PATH. The game binary is installed at
The Ur-Quan Masters is a 100% free implementation of original 3DO console version of Star Control II and there is also aditional optional speech package, package with original 3DO music and tree add-on remix packs for download.
I ran into a problem not finding the game executable when I had installed The Ur-Quan Masters (on my Debian Etch stable/Lenny), a fantatic game I had come upon years ago originally. “…far journey, a space odyssey encompassing the realms of science-fiction and role-playing.“. It had both, fantastic single player adventure and a 2 player dualing game that really got me addicted before even trying the single player.
Installation (was: “Problem & Solution”): I installed the debian version as the site adviced, with
The Ur-Quan Masters (Star Control 2) title screen.
/usr/lib/games/uqm/uqm and the packets for different distributions install a wrapper script to run it when called. So I adviced to create a symbolic link to it at /usr/bin/uqm. This is unnecessary, I was wrong.
However when I contacted the package maintainer to inform him, I was (politely) replied that the game installs the wrapper at /usr/games/uqm (which I missed when investigating package content) and was adviced to check my $PATH.
Apparently debian should have /usr/games set in $PATH but for some reason I had edited my ~/.bashrc line and defined my own $PATH setting instead of adding a directory to already set $PATH variable. What a fool have I been indeed :) The line was mostly correct, only missing the /usr/games from original defitition.
The original post is still all below but I added this note in front to tell people that this game installs flawlessly on debian with:apt-get install uqm uqm-content uqm-music uqm-voices
Super Melee dual with other ship getting in planets gravity pull
apt-get install uqm. Advice was for Debian “unstable” - that however meant “Lenny” which just recently became current “stable”, so at the moment the site has old information and you can now install it on stable (actually, Etch, now “old-stable”, has it available too but it was an older version). The package has a bug, as should be clear by now (at the moment anyway) - it installs data files, menu entries and all but does not provide the launcher file at /usr/bin/uqm. I contacted the author and was lucky to find out that it’s just a link to binary at /usr/lib/games/uqm/uqm, so to fix the issue you just need to run the following command as root to add the “missing link”:
ln -s /usr/lib/games/uqm/uqm /usr/bin
Additionally you will propably want to install also:
apt-get install uqm-voice
apt-get install uqm-music
Now have fun with Thu Ur-Quan Masters - of course this problem of missing /usr/bin/uqm link will most likely soon cease to exist as I will email the uqm debian packet maintainer about this problem and expect it to get fixed soon.
edit: Actually, there is also a way to install intro and ending movies from 3DO version if you have the original CD or an image of it (the game is available for free otherwise so I wont judge anyone if you go and get a warez version via p2p). These are not included in the free game because Toys For Bob does not own copyright for the videos. For info on how to do this, head at The Ur-Quan Masters Technical FAQ.
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Author is a 29 years old linux zealot and hacker from Finland.
Tags: debian, games, GPL, guide, Linux/Unix, Open Source
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