New Player Information

1. First Steps

   1. Do you have a TCP/IP connection?

      Chances are that if you're reading this document, the answer is yes. Since the protocol to read Web pages requires a TCP/IP link to the Internet, you probably have TCP/IP. Paradise is TCP/IP based, so if you don't have a TCP/IP link, you can't play. TCP/IP is just a fancy way of saying that you're on the Internet, for you net newbies.

   2. Do you have X11 installed on your machine (or MS-windows)?

      If you're using a Web browser like Netscape, you probably have X11. As far as I know, most UNIX-based workstations with graphics capability use X11. Simply put, X11 is a graphics system found on many workstations.
      You need X11 to play Paradise, due to it's graphical nature. Windows or Windows NT or a Mac is *NOT* X11.

      But you can emulate X11 on MS-windows with the help of cygwin.

      EVEN BETTER, there is a windows client ready for beta testing: please try it out and report back to the mailing list or IRC channel your experiences and suggestions, they are more than welcome.

   3. Do you have a supported architecture? (currently not all listed here are supported)

      This one is a tough question, especially if you are new to computers or don't have access to the physical machine itself. The cygwin solution may or may not work for you, just try. Take a look at this list and decide if you have a machine and an operating system that matches one of these combinations:

      Machine Type	Operating System
      intel-based PC	BSDI 2.0 (*)
      	FreeBSD
      	Linux
      	NetBSD (*)
      	OS/2 Warp (*)
      	Solaris (*)
      	UnixWare 1.1 (*)
      	Windows (YES, now we have one finally!)
      RS/6000	AIX 4.x (*)
      Silicon Graphics	IRIX 4.0.x
      	IRIX 5.x
      Sun	SunOS 4.1.x (*)
      	Solaris >= 7

      
      (*) -- The client is currently NOT under development. Want to build binaries for it?
      First the general client changes have to be done, then we can try to port. If you want to support something not mentioned here, get the source, succeed in building a running client and announce on the paradise-workers mailing-list, how the source must be modified to succeed as you did.

   Examples:

   1. Joe Trekker has an Alpha running OSF/1 sitting on his desk. He checks the machine type list, and finds 'Alpha' in the list. He scans over to the right of the word 'Alpha', and finds 'OSF/1'. Both match, so he can play.
   2. Gnarl E. Dude has a Pentium-based PC sitting on his desk. He scans down the machine type list and finds 'intel-based PC' in the list. Now, Gnarl knows that he is running Linux He scans the OS list to the right of PC and finds 'Linux'; he's ecstatic. There is a binary for him to use.
   3. Imnotta Realuser has a 386sx-based PC sitting on his desk that runs Windows 3.1. He finds 'intel-based PC' in the machine type list and thinks "Great! There's hope yet!". But, after looking at the OS column and finding that Windows isn't supported yet, he's crestfallen. There's no binary for Windows! Poor guy can't play.
   4. Mac User has a Macintosh Plus sitting on his desk. He looks at the machine type list in a pitiful attempt to find Macintosh listed there, but to no avail. 68k Macintoshes aren't supported, so he can't play. He'll just have to get a Power Mac and run MkLinux.

   If you've answered YES! to all 3 questions, then you can play! See the next section for how to obtain a trek program (called a 'client' or a 'binary' from here on in this document).

2. Client Naming Conventions

   You've answered YES! to the above three questions! Great! You can get a client and play! But the next question is, of course, how on earth do you get a client?

   First, you've got to know a little bit about the naming conventions us Paradise hackers use. It's a little convoluted, but it helps us keep track of what stage we're at while we're coding it.

   The naming convention for binaries follows this form:
   <type-version-machine-OS[.dynamic]>

   Now, the <type> is either tedturner or paradise (dying out since everything has grown into tedturner).
   However, the other things you'll need to worry about:

   <machine-OS>: Since we have (had ;) so many binaries for so many different machines, naming the clients with the machine or OS name in them is a logical solution to an otherwise difficult naming problem. Here is a table of translations:

   Machine,OS	Name
   PC, Linux	intel-Linux-X11R5
   	intel-Linux-X11R6, a.out or ELF
   	intel-Linux-term
   PC, FreeBSD	intel-FreeBSD
   PC, Unixware	intel-Unixware
   PC, Solaris	intel-Solaris
   SGI, IRIX	SGI-IRIX4
   	SGI-IRIX5
   RS/6000, AIX	RS6000-AIX
   Sun, SunOS 4	Sparc-SunOS
   Sun, Solaris 2	Sparc-Solaris

   [.dynamic]: For some operating systems that undergo many revisions, we post two versions of the client: a static and a dynamic version. Static versions of the client have the required libraries linked right into them and are usually bigger. Dynamic versions of the client don't have the required libraries linked into them and are usually smaller, but require that you have at least the library version of the developer. If you don't, a typical error message is 'Shared library <blah blah blah> is older than expected', but the client could still possibly run.

   If you don't want to worry about all of this semi-arcane stuff, pick out the static client; it will work on every system, no matter what the library version is. The dynamic client will save you some disk space, but as of this writing, clients are typically less than 3MB in size.

   Current systems that have two sets of binaries are Linux, FreeBSD, SunOS 4, and Solaris 2.

3. Getting a Client

   Alright, you've survived the THREE QUESTIONS and you've learned about the huge naming convention those wild'n'crazy Paradise hackers have created for you. Now you can get a client?

   Clicking on http://www.netrek.org/pub/paradise/bin/ will let you use your Web browser to fetch a blessed NON-MS-windows client. blessed means it can connect to servers which allow only authorized (== not cheating clients).

   However, not all servers are so restrictive. You can get the source for both the client and the server to build your own binaries, and tweak the game to your preferences.

   DOWNLOAD: client and server sources

   OR AT LAST you can try the MS-windows client NetrekXP2009!

   To use the client, download it, then extract it to your programs or games directory. Either

   • merily double-click netrek.exe in your file manager.

   OR open a DOS-prompt, then:

   • switch to the drive where you extracted it: c:
   • go to the directory: cd \...\PROGRAMS\netrek
   • start it: .\netrek.exe

   You can find related (or older stuff) in the parent dir, too.

   There is a netrekrc.txt file to edit your configuration. When ready, connect to one of our Paradise servers directly, because they aren't listed in the meta-servers yet.

   The MS-windows binary based on NetrekXP is brought to you by William Balcerski, the maintainer of NetrekXP, a popular MS-windows client to connect to non-Paradise servers.

4. Possible Problems / Q and A

   • Q. When I type netrek, it tells me Command not found even when I'm in the directory it is in. What's wrong?
     A. It's probably not been made executable. At the command line type

     chmod 755 netrek

     (netrek is the name of the client binary). This should make it executable. Also, some sites don't put . into the path. In this case, type

     ./netrek

     on the command line (again, netrek is the name of the client binary) to execute it.

   • Q. I got a binary, but it says something about lib*.so: expected version x, found version y?
     A. You need a static binary. Get the -static client. See the explanation on the difference between static and dynamic binaries.

   • Q. The client says 'Can't connect to metaserver.' What's wrong?
     A. Either the metaserver is down, or your machine isn't doing name lookups right, or your machine isn't connected to the Internet, or you're behind a firewall that restricts outgoing packets. If the metaserver is down or your machine isn't doing name lookups right, there's still hope. If not, you're out of luck.

     If there's still hope, try this command:

     $ telnet metaserver.us.netrek.org 3521 | grep 'P$'

     
     This command should list all Paradise servers. If it doesn't, the metaserver is down. In this case, you'll have to use the -h option to netrek to specify a host; e.g.

     $ netrek.paradise -h paradise-lost.kulua.org

     will connect you to paradise-lost.

   • Q. I can play for awhile, but then the client unexpectedly quits. Why?
     A. Well, barring a server or a client bug, odds are you failed the cluecheck. To get a clue, see the section on reading messages and the cluecheck in the Primer.

   • Q. There are soooo few Paradise players logged in, how can I find some to play with ?
     A. Either you wait a long time until somebody else joins you (bad, can take very long), or you join the Paradise games mailing-list and request a game to happen--best with time and place at which you like it to happen.

   If you have a question that you want answered, send your question to Rado (users.sourceforge.net@rado). He'll answer your question and put it on the Frequently Asked Questions web page.