Installing Uplink: Hacker Elite
CONVENTIONS USED

Infogrames/Strategy First/Intoversion have re-released the game Uplink, and they called it Uplink: Hacker Elite. You can find this game on store shelves now, and it is a great change of pace from the tired genres such as first-person shooters, action, and real-time/turn-based strategy. This tutorial will help you get it installed and working great.

First of all, you need to mount the CD. If you have done this, then great. If not, you need to know where your CD mounts to. Normally, it mounts to /mnt/cdrom, so for the purpose of this tutorial, I'll assume this is the case.

Open a console window, and type in su and hit Enter. You will be prompted for the root password. Type that in and press Enter again.

Insert the game disc into your CD-ROM drive.

Now, type in mount /mnt/cdrom and hit Enter. The CD-ROM should now mount, and you should be able to see the contents in the /mnt/cdrom directory. To test this, use the command ls /mnt/cdrom/.

Now, we will assume you want to do a system-wide install, which is what I recommend for all games. Users will keep their saved games and configuration files in their home directories, in a hidden directory. This is done automatically by the game, so don't worry about it if that sounds complex to you. I put my copy of Uplink into /usr/local/games/uplink, and this tutorial will assume you will do the same.

In the root console, type in cp -a /mnt/cdrom/linux /usr/local/games/ and hit Enter. This will copy the game from the CD-ROM to your hard drive.

Next, you can type in eject or umount /mnt/cdrom/ and remove the CD-ROM. You won't need it anymore.

Now, type in cd /usr/local/games/ and hit Enter. We have to rename the directory we just copied over, so type in mv linux uplink and hit Enter.

Next, enter into the directory by running the command cd uplink/ and then untar the newest patch. To do this, type in tar zxvf linuxpatch1.31.tar.gz and then hit Enter. Once this is done, you can remove the tarball, as you don't need it anymore. To do this, type in rm linuxpatch1.31.tar.gz and hit Enter.

Next we need to make sure the permissions are set properly. To do this, type in the command chmod 644 * and hit Enter. Then you need to make sure the binary is executable, so run the command chmod +x uplink.

Now the game should be able to be played, but we probably should make a script to run the game from any directory. Games that use the Loki installer usually default to install a symlink or a script in /usr/local/bin, and this is where we will do the same.

Still as root in the console, type in echo -e "\043\041/bin/sh\ncd /usr/local/games/uplink\n./uplink" > /usr/local/bin/uplink and hit Enter. This will create a script to launch Uplink from any directory. Only thing left to do is ensure it is executable. Type in the command chmod +x /usr/local/bin/uplink and hit Enter to do this.

Now you can close the root console. Make a desktop icon to run the command "uplink" and you're all good to go! If it doesn't work, try looking at the output in a console as your user, to see if you get any errors or anything. You shouldn't, but you can never be certain. Note that Red Hat 8.0 users may require a special fix from the Uplink website. You can get this image as your icon if you wish:
Uplink Icon

I created it from one of the images on the website, and I use it with iDesk. Just right-click on it, and Save Image As... to wherever you wish.

Enjoy the game!


© D. Olson 2001-2003 -- Originally found on The Mandrake eXPerience