More game breakage - SimCity 3000

Remember my last post on binary compatibility under Linux? Well, I got hit again. For the first time in months, I tried to play my old copy of SimCity 3000 Unlimited - the old Linux port of it that Loki Games did way back. Didn't work in Kubuntu Gutsy.

Fortunately, I was able to find this blog entry on fixing SC3U. The fix requires setting some environment variables and using some libraries from Ubuntu Dapper.

The simple, three-step process goes like this:

  1. download the Dapper libraries and extract them someplace on your machine, e.g. to /usr/local/games.
  2. Adjust your shortcuts, launcher scripts, or whatever you use to start SC3U to use the following command line (lines broken for readability):
    LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/path/to/loki_compat \ LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.4.28 \ /path/to/loki_compat/ld-linux.so.2 \ /usr/local/games/SC3U/sc3u -w
  3. Run your script/shortcut/whatever and hope that SimCity starts.

I guess soon it's going to get to the point where I'll need some alternative method to run these games, e.g. VMware. Loki Games did go out of business 6 years ago and these games have been unsupported ever since, so it's only a matter of time until I can't make them work anymore. And that's sad. I shouldn't have to consider using virtualization to make the native Linux port of a program run on Linux.

I wonder if the Windows versions of the Loki games still run on Vista?

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