Doom

Playing Classic Doom on Funtoo

A big upgrade to Funtoo's Doom-playing ability has been merged into `next`!

This page will document how to use it.

Source ports

• games-engines/gzdoom: Good for playing single player.
• games-engines/odamex: Preferred for multiplayer; enables an Online Doom Advanced Multiplayer EXperience.

Game data

Doom data files are organized inside a type of archive called a WAD (pronounced like the word "wad") file. The term 'WAD' is an acronym representing "Where's All [the] Data?".

In order to play Doom with a Doom source port, a WAD file for the internal game data, called an IWAD, is required. Commercial IWADs for the original Doom games come with modern Doom games; so it's possible you have one already. See https://doomwiki.org/wiki/IWAD for reference.

Another way to acquire Classic Doom IWADs is to purchase them directly from Steam or GOG.

• The original Doom from 1993, containing four episodes each with eight maps: https://www.gog.com/en/game/doom_1993
• Doom II: https://www.gog.com/en/game/doom_ii

Most current-day maps and mods are based on the Doom II IWAD.

Doom source ports can be played without commercial IWADs by using Freedoom.

• https://freedoom.org
• games-fps/freedoom-data

Maps

The IWADs come with a lot of great maps. In addition, the community has been making Doom maps and mods for almost thirty years.

A selection of community-produced maps are available in Funtoo's tree. It is easy to add them, and Doom resources traditionally are distributed freely; so more can be made available directly in Funtoo upon request.

Eviternity was created as a 25th birthday gift to Doom and was released on Doom's 25th release anniversary. It's sequel, Eviternity II, coincided with Doom's 30th birthday.

• games-fps/eviternity
• games-fps/eviternity-ii

DoomRunner

DoomRunner is a launcher that makes it easy to set up profiles for combinations of the various source ports, IWADs/PWADs, and mods. DoomRunner generates command line arguments for the source port, starts it, and offers a way to kill it if it misbehaves.

• games-util/doomrunner

Configuring DoomRunner involves first organizing your files into directories that make it easy to find your files. The recommended setup looks like this, with files stored in subdirectories under `~/.local/share/games/doom`:

$ ls ~/.local/share/games/doom maps mods

Various Doom-related ebuilds place files in `/usr/share/doom`

$ ls /usr/share/doom

Multiplayer

Note: It is strongly recommended that you ensure that you can play Doom in a single-player mode with your chosen source port before attempting to play multiplayer.

Odamex is the preferred multiplayer engine. It is very easy to get started with Odamex on Funtoo.

Operating a server

Useful resources:

• https://odamex.net/wiki/Server_variables

Master servers

Odamex master servers listen on `15000/udp` and maintain lists of the servers that are up and running, including information like how many players are logged in. Server operators should set a few relevant variables in the `odasrv` config file that affect the server's appearance in the list.

The master server can be installed by setting `USE="master"` and re-installing `games-engines/odamex`.

Optionally using Docker

• Use `boxer` to build a simple Funtoo docker container from a stage3
• Use that container as a base image and install `odamex` with `USE="server"`
• Save the container as a new image
• Use `slim-toolkit` to minify the odasrv container
• Sample `docker-compose.yaml`:
• Execute like `docker compose up -d`

Don't forget to open the relevant ports on your firewall.

• `10666/udp` is the listening port
• `15000/udp` is used as an outgoing port to contact master servers

Music

Note: To make the MIDI music work in various sourceports, it is necessary to set USE="midi timidity" for `media-libs/sdl2-mixer`. Then remember to run `eselect timidity set 1`. The ebuild for `games-engines/odamex` will require this condition to be true.

Alternative soundfonts exist for Timidity. A great one that is freely available is `8MBGSFX`, obtainable from https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/utils/sound_edit/8mbgmpat. It works easily with a few steps:

• Extract the contents to `/usr/share/tinidity/8mbgsfx`.
• Change all the filenames to lowercase; they seem to come from a case-insensitive Windows system.
• Edit `/usr/share/timidity/8mbgsfx/timidity.cfg` and change the `dir` path to the right place on a Funtoo machine.
• From `/usr/share/timidity`:

 $ sudo rm current
 $ sudo ln -sf /usr/share/timidity/8mbgsfx current

TODO: need to make an autogen for it to perform that procedure automatically