Setting up FoF on Linux/Issues with it. - Title says it all, don't it?

[CaptainFreakshow]

Hey there.
Since i see a distict lack of help topics when it comes to running FoF on Linux, I'm going to make a little guide.

This guide is written for Ubuntu, but any Distro can be used with FoF - I'm not sure if these steps work on anything else than Ubuntu.
You need Administrator access (and Maybe the root password) to run FoF on Linux.

1. - Downloading and installing FoF
First of all, Download the latest Linux package - (Located here, at the time of posting.)
It should be in .tar.gz format - If it's not, you've downloaded to bad file.

When it's done, extract it somewhere - This can be anywhere, but i'd recommend your home folder. (Just press extract and then extract again when in the file browser.)
Note: Linux programs does not need to be installed, Running them or a config file is ussually enough.

When you're done with this, open your terminal.
Time to do some linux work.

Make sure you're administrator, then type: sudo apt-get install fretsonfire
Enter your password when promted, and let it work. (this will install the needed libraries for FoF to run smoothly/Run at all!)

And now, A small addition by Dorkvader: if you are afraid of the terminal, you can use a package amanger to get fretsonfire. It's listed in ubuntu's repositories, so if you have ubuntu, open 'synaptic package manager' and if you're in kubuntu, open 'adept manager'
For synaptic, to to search: andtype in 'fretsonfire' click the box, then apply changes
For adept, type 'fretsonfire' into the search bar, click on the package, and then mark for installation, then apply.


You're pretty much done with this step now, onwards!



Running FoF/Issues with starting.

Get your terminal ready, once more.
Navigate to the place you extracted the Files. (If you extracted it to your home dir as i said, just type: cd FretsOnFire)

Type ./FretsOnFire - and enjoy!

Step 2-B, Issues when running.
I currently only know of one problem with running FoF on linux, and that is if you get the following error in the terminal when running:
It spits out a lot of glibberish and then gives your the following error.
"pygame.error: No available audio device"

To fix this, make sure you have root's password.
(If you're a administrator user, here's how to set Root's password: Linkay.)

Then type: su
And enter your Root password.

if it accepts, type: pasuspender ./FretsOnFire
And it will start.

Adding Songs.
First of all, Ubuntu can't open .rar files when starting out.
To make it able, whip out your terminal once more and type:
sudo apt-get install unrar

Now, you should be able to open .rar files.
Find the place where you extracted FoF, And extract your song to to data -> songs.

If any of you guys need help, feel free to post here - and i'll help you the best of my ability.

[dorkvader]

Hello. very handy guide here. Maybe a few things to add:

of you are afraid of the terminal, you can use a package amanger to get fretsonfire. It's listed in ubuntu's repositories, so if you have ubuntu, open 'synaptic package manager' and if you're in kubuntu, open 'adept manager'
For synaptic, to to search: andtype in 'fretsonfire' click the box, then apply changes
For adept, type 'fretsonfire' into the search bar, click on the package, and then mark for installation, then apply.

Find where fretsonfire is downloaded to. By default, I think it's /usr/fretsonfire. If you don't know, run a search for it.

I don't know about other builds, but kubuntu comes with ark archive manager by default. You can open rar files with it. Select extract all (the blue up arrow) and pick a destination.

So that's just for lazy people who like GUIs like me. The package managers are really useful, especially if you don't -quite- know the name of your package.

you can add that above, a section for lazy people, if you want. I don't want to steal your thunder. Great guide, and very easy to follow. I laud your efforts.

But I am having an issue with fretsonfire. I downloaded the package, and set the screen size to 300X400 (not fullscreen) so my graphics card has a better chance of handling it. I can play songs, and all features work, but at 1.5-2 frames/second. It's so slow, I can't play anything correctly. I downloaded the alarian for linux, and it installed well, and the menus work much faster. very snappy. it hangs when i try to play a song. any thoughts? I have a pretty nice sound card (that works) so it's not that.

[CaptainFreakshow]

But I am having an issue with fretsonfire. I downloaded the package, and set the screen size to 300X400 (not fullscreen) so my graphics card has a better chance of handling it. I can play songs, and all features work, but at 1.5-2 frames/second. It's so slow, I can't play anything correctly. I downloaded the alarian for linux, and it installed well, and the menus work much faster. very snappy. it hangs when i try to play a song. any thoughts? I have a pretty nice sound card (that works) so it's not that.

Try using pasuspender on top, it may be the program handling your sound acting up.

On a side note - maybe this could be stickified?

[dorkvader]

I'd like a linux help stickie, but I don;t think it's going to happen.

Thanks for bringing up the ubuntu forums, there's a lot of help there =P I don't know my issue with alarian is, but I'm going to try FoF 1.2.451 with noobedition and see how that works. I'm re-downloading alarian, with the hope that it'll work better.

I see that 1.2.512 is a bad build, and that's what I tried first, Hopefully I can resolve this.

Now, what is pasupender. and how do I use it?

Lastly: there are a buncha people on the ubuntu forums that have fof issues, especially with slowness. I'm about this close |---| to getting the windows one and running it in wine. Maybe adding a section with tips on speeding it up/common issues, if you know any?

But otherwise, you have the start of a good helpfile here, I hope people can use it well.

[CaptainFreakshow]

Now, what is pasupender. and how do I use it?

Pasuspender is a command to disable PulseAudio.

Ubuntu (8.04 atleast, not sure about earlier builds.) Uses a technology called Pulseaudio to make sound... well, Sound better :p
Pulseaudio is known to annoy the hell out of Phyton, so Pasuspender disables it for the current command - in this case to run FoF.

To use it, just type: pasuspender ./FretsOnFire in the terminal.
Also, Make sure you're root, Sudo won't work on Pasuspender.

[dorkvader]

sounds good to me. thanks for the explanation, as that helps.

I've got another thing to mention: the fretsonfire in the ubuntu repository is (supposedly) crap. it's slow, etc. I've read that the one from the sourceforge (build 1.2.451) is better, and it seems that way for me, just something to look out for if the one on the repository isn't working as well as you'd like.

But I have no ho/po's in the sourceforge build (1.2.451) I'll have to install rf-mod, which is a pretty popular mod. Do you have any tips for me (and other users)?

Lastly: I just can't get alarian to work right. I installed all the GH-aerosmith songpacks, and alarian won't recognize them. The 'official' build of fof, 1.2.451 recognizes them right, but alarian just treats it as another song directory. I'm pretty frustrate with it right now.

Wellm, I'm off on vacation this morning, so I'll come back in 9 days all ready to rock out. Thanks a bunch for helping me, and other people.

edit: after yet another search, I found rf mod for linux here
https://www.fretsonfire.org/cgi-bin....id97231

[ADH]

here is the Alarian mod 2.9 full download for linux it works pretty much the same as the old version but Alarian mod has many more features oh and its in tar.lzma so you'll have to install the lzma package.

[dorkvader]

here is the Alarian mod 2.9 full download for linux it works pretty much the same as the old version but Alarian mod has many more features oh and its in tar.lzma so you'll have to install the lzma package.

yeah, i did all that, lzma was installed by default (which is pretty cool)

I was able to unzip it and run it well all the way up to the songs. I used the version posted here (2.9) and it only shows a blank screen instead of loading the song. I searched the ubuntu forums and found another version, and it only opens the song as a folder, and doesn't play the song.

I had no issues unzipping it and running, it's the whole '2 builds didn't work for 2 different reasons' that has me stumped.

I used alarian on windows xp several times and it works fine, but I prefer UC's mod, because the computer I had at the time was much better.

Edit: I'm too cool to double post, but...

I tried running fof with the pasuspender command, as detailed above. the error message was:
The program 'pasuspender' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
apt-get install pulseaudio-utils
bash: pasuspender: command not found


It looks like I don't have pulseaudio, possibly because I'm on kubuntu? either way, it runs just fast enough to be playable on my 9 year old hardware. I think that's the biggest issue here, a single core 750 Mhz cpu with ~350 mb ram

thanks for all the help, now time to get blazingamer's megalight mod =p

Edit:
@ below: I could post them, but I'm about out of time here tonight. I don't think it's an issue there, because I use the same config settings for both alarian 2.900 and fof-1.2.451

Whatever's teh case, fof-1.2.451 is good enough -for now- and I'm not gonna fool with it until after vacation. thanks again. I'll porbably send PM's to parties concerned with issues on alarian after I get to do some good testing/configuring/redownloading If I can't clear it up then, I'll ahve to ask for help, but I haven't tried it with a 'normal' song yet. What -i- think the issue is, it's thinking the songfolder is a songpack folder, as fof used to do that for some songs with improperly written song.ini's, or subfolders. I'll get something from the forum here and see if I can get it to work on alarian, I hope that's the issue =p

The reason I suspected the above was that i'm testing it on gh-aerosmith tracks, with could have more info that is confusing the game into thinking it's a folder containing songs. I haven't looked at it yet, though.

[ADH]

can you post your configuration settings i think its in your home folder but i'm not sure.

[CaptainFreakshow]

Glad we could help.
^·^