Download Racer beta version for Linux

Racer beta downloads - Linux

For Linux content generation you might want to try Blender

Dolphinity Organiser - free planning, project management and organizing software for all your action lists

This document describes getting the Linux beta versions up. This beta version is highly recommended over the latest 'stable' version, which is a couple of years old by now. Getting the Linux beta up & running is a bit more work than on Windows; I hope to make the steps better as more information becomes known about Linux installation quirks.

I'm using an Ubuntu 7.10 installation, running Kernel 2.6.
About 512Mb of system memory is recommended for all the data.
A good 3D graphics card is required. nVidia and ATI these days should both work with the executables (AMD/ATI unconfirmed; I use an ancient Geforce2 400MX).

You can alternatively use Wine and just run the Windows version.

I just prepared a Linux box for the Racer port which will hopefully last longer so beta's won't take as long to arrive as they used to. To install this Linux version of Racer:

Get the Loki installer (a .run file) from here (thanks to LIfLG (Loki Installers for Linux Gamers) for providing the installer).

alternatively:

Get the Linux Racer beta tgz file (from this site).
Unpack it to ~/racer for example by running 'tar xzvf racer054b1.tgz' from your home directory (first run 'cd ~').
Install fmod (for example by 'sudo cp racer/libfmodex.so /usr/lib'; I know this isn't the correct way).
cd ~/racer
./racer (if it doesn't want to start, try 'chmod +x racer' first)

As you download cars & tracks, you will find that content created on Windows has some case issues. The installation also contains a 'lowerize' command. After adding cars and/or tracks, run 'lowerize data' from within ~/racer to search & correct filenames with uppercase names.

Linux files are case-sensitive, so 'README' is not the same file as 'ReadMe'. This generates some confusion since most cars & tracks are created on Windows, where case is not an issue. To rename files to lowercase, adjust ini and shader files, a utility is available on SourceForge, called 'Racer File Fixer'.

Get Racer File Fixer from here.

This version also appears to at least run on: Mandriva LE2005.
Compatible graphics cards are at least: ATi Mobility Radeon 9700.

Follow these steps for a manual installation:

Download the Windows Racer v0.5.3 beta 5 data files (18Mb/zip) from here.
Download the Linux v0.5.3 beta 6 executable (and fmod v4.06) from here (19-3-07, 1Mb zip).
Unzip the Windows files; they'll probably end up in racer053b5/
Unzip the Linux zip and move the 'racer' and 'libfmodex.so' files into racer053b5/.
cd into racer053b5

Next, to run, first try:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}; ./racer

If that doesn't work, try:

Copy libfmodex.so to /usr/local/lib (be careful not to overwrite any possible existing file) and run 'sudo ldconfig'.
Run ./racer

Editing settings can be done using 'vi racer.ini', error checking after a run can be done with 'cat QLOG.txt'.

This method may work on other Linux variations as well.

As posted by Bub73 on RSC:

Click on the Gnome panel and select Custom Launcher. Then under Basic enter the command 'racer'.
Next click the advanced button and add under 'Try this first': cd /usr/local/games/racer053b5/ or sudo cd /usr/local/games/racer053b5/ if needed. The path to racer = "cd /usr/local/games/racer053b5/"; yours will be where-ever you installed Racer.

f the above command line doesn't work try ( sh -c " cd /path/to/racer053b5/ && ./racer")
without brackets but with the quotes in the command field and delete the advanced try first field mentioned above.

Lastly I choose racer.xpm for an icon and clicked ok. Racer now starts from the desktop with just one click of the icon on the panel.

Racer v0.5.2 beta 8.9 (5-4-05, 12Mb zip) - this previous beta is still available; look here (at Loki Linux Installers, thanks guys), or the Russian mirror here. Alternatively get the Windows 052b89 zip file for all the data files and then install the Linux executable.

I get 'X11; cannot connect to server :0.0; connection refused'; run Racer as root or use xhost to allow Racer to connect to your display (run 'xhost +').
libfmodex.so is not found; copy libfmodex.so as root to /lib
When trying to host or join a multiplayer game, the game crashes. This is a known bug.

Problem (on Ubutu 7.04 for example):

./bin/racer: error while loading shared libraries:
libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3: cannot open shared object file: No such file
or directory

Solution (thanks to Marco Papi for this):

Run as root:
sudo apt-get install libstdc++6-dev
sudo apt-get install libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2

For other problems, check out the troubleshooting page.

Dolphinity Organiser - free planning, project management and organizing software for all your action lists

(last updated December 30, 2014 )