Steam – Is it possible to play the Steam version of Quake on Ubuntu

linuxquakesteam

I understand that playing Quake on Linux requires three things:

  1. An engine
  2. A launcher
  3. The data files (either shareware or registered)

The first two have GPL packages available and are as simple to install on Ubuntu as clicking a link in the Software Center. The third is usually obtained by downloading the shareware version or by taking the data files from an original CD.

Can the Steam version of Quake act as a substitute for a CD so that I can play the registered version? If so, is the process documented anywhere? Bonus points if your answer speaks to all of the games in the franchise available on Steam since I'd love to try them all at some point.

Best Answer

Yes, you can; this post on the Steam community forums is a comprehensive overview of Q1 engines.

I don't know about Q2 or Q3A, but as far as I know they work the same way; you can just install one of the open-source engines on top of the data files provided by Steam.

The same goes for the Steam versions of Doom 1/2 and Duke3d, by the way.

However, you cannot install Windows-only games using your Linux steam client. To make this work, you'll need to either have a Wine install of Steam or have Steam installed on Windows (virtual or real hardware) in order to get the data files in first place.

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