Hello fellow Linux gamers!

If you want to play Alpha Centauri natively on Linux, you can use a command-line packages generator that has been under development for more than ten years: ./play.it

Supported distributions include Debian, Arch Linux, Gentoo, and all their derivatives.

Install instructions can be found here: https://doc.dotslashplay.it/en/start#installation
And usage instructions there: https://git.dotslashplay.it/scripts/about/#usage

Support for Alpha Centauri is provided through vv221ʼs games collection (provided as "play.it-vv221" on Debian and derivatives). You can find install instructions as well as a list of games supported by this collection here: https://git.vv221.fr/play.it-vv221/about/

We hope you’re going to enjoy the ease-of-use provided by this tool as much as we enjoy writing and tweaking it ;)

Hello, thanks for writing the script for SMAC, I really enjoy your work. I have a slight problem though, there's no sound. Running the alpha-centauri or alpha-centauri_smacx command from the terminal I get this information:

petar@marija:~$ alpha-centauri
ALSA lib conf.c:3314:(snd_config_hooks_call) Cannot open shared library libasound_module_conf_pulse.so
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default
petar@marija:~$ alpha-centauri_smacx
ALSA lib conf.c:3314:(snd_config_hooks_call) Cannot open shared library libasound_module_conf_pulse.so
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default
petar@marija:~$

So yeah, the game starts, and runs fine, except there is no sound. I didn't look around for solutions on the internet, because I think I should give you feedback, so you could improve your scripts.

I have seen the same problem when pulseaudio is installed, and uninstalling it did fix it.
As I ususally don’t use it, I don’t know how you can temporarily disable it while the game is running, but if someone can give me the command used for that (is it "pasuspend" or something similar?) I’ll add an automatic suspend of pulseaudio when you run the game.

You mean pasuspender? Believe this is sufficient: Likely would be better to test it first.

I tried using the pasuspender -- alpha-centauri command, but it gives me the same error like the regular alpha-centauri command

petar@marija:~$ pasuspender -- alpha-centauri
ALSA lib conf.c:3314:(snd_config_hooks_call) Cannot open shared library libasound_module_conf_pulse.so
ALSA lib pcm.c:2217:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM default
petar@marija:~$

So it basically does nothing for the sound.

Right, I remember now that not having PulseAudio running was not enough: I needed to not have it installed to get sound.
There must be some work-around, I’ll work on this.

A just made Archlinux port: https://github.com/Amadren/play.it

Edit: Updated the smac script with a fix for the sound bug.

Try loading the 'snd_pcm_oss' kernel module before running the game:
sudo modprobe snd_pcm_oss

Does it fix your problem of missing sound?

That fixed it, thanks so much!

I made a script to fix the sound bug and auto-load "snd_pcm_oss" at each restart

Here it is: https://github.com/Amadren/play.it/blob/master/Games/Sid-Meier-s-Alpha-Centauri/sound_fix.sh

Click on raw, download it, make it executable and run it using sudo.

It will work on any distribution.

And here you go for a direct download link:
https://github.com/Amadren/play.it/raw/master/Games/Sid-Meier-s-Alpha-Centauri/sound_fix.sh

Where do you get that engine from? Is the source code for it available?

You can download the engine from my website, check the link in the opening post to find it.

I’ve extracted it from an original Loki SMAC fully patched installation, the sources for it are not available. This engine is *not* open-source.

I've seen that I can download it from your website. But that wasn't my question.

Is the engine freely redistributable or is this some kind of "gray zone"?