Debian

The Debian project is responsible for the Debian GNU/Linux operating system. This page summarises the integration of Doom into the Debian system.

Virtual packages
The two major components needed to play Doom are a Doom engine and an IWAD. This dependency is expressed in the Debian package system using the  and   virtual packages. Virtual packages are names which can be "provided" by real packages.

This flexible approach allows for different combinations of engine and IWAD, whilst preventing an engine without a IWAD from being installed.

doom-engine
Provided by:


 * prboom
 * lxdoom
 * doomlegacy
 * chocolate-doom

doom-wad
Provided by:


 * doom-wad-shareware
 * freedoom
 * doom2-wad


 * udoom-wad; tnt-wad; plutonia-wad

Categorisation
Doom is a game, and according to the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, the binaries belong in  and the manual pages in section 6. The same applies for doom utilities.

Doom engines and tools should provide a debian menu and file themselves in the Games section. Prboom suggests "Games/Arcade".

Alternatives system
The Debian alternatives system (also adopted by Red Hat) allows multiple packages to provide the same files and for the system administrator to choose which package provides the files at a given time.

The doom IWADs are registered with the alternatives system. The canonical locations are:

/usr/share/games/doom/doom1.wad /usr/share/games/doom/doom.wad /usr/share/games/doom/doom2.wad /usr/share/games/doom/tnt.wad /usr/share/games/doom/plutonia.wad

Tools (and engines) which require an IWAD should check for the existence of these files.

Id Software IWAD files carry an alternatives priority of 25; the freedoom alternatives use 50. Therefore, the Id IWADs will override the freedoom ones if both are present (unless the system administrator intervenes).

Utilities
Key:

Repositories
Most packages are available from the main Debian repositories unless otherwise noted. Development versions of packages are available from Jon Dowland's unofficial repository (these packages are not in Debian actually).