Installing a F.E.A.R. Combat server on Ubuntu

F.E.A.R. is an FPS-like game which was a big commercial success thanks to its action/thriller scenario. Vivendi Universal decided to bring out a free multi-player version several months after the game was released.

This is how to install the server on Ubuntu.

Step 1: Download the archive

Before downloading the archive, let's choose a target directory and go there:

cd /usr/local/games/

Now let's download the archive (about 160Mo) with the wget command

wget http://www.1337-server.net/fear/fear-linuxserver-1.08.tar.gz

The wget URL could become outdated. We're relying on the Gandi community to keep it up to date! :)

Step 2: Installing the required C++ library

In order to function, the FEAR Combat service requires the installation of the C++ library used by the program: libstdc++5

With this command, it's very quickly and easily installed:

apt-get install libstdc++5

Which will give you this:

The C++ module being installed, let's go back into the thick of things.

Step 3: Deploying the server

First, let's decompress the archive

tar -xvf fear-linuxserver-1.08.tar.gz

This operation can take several minutes. Once it is done, you'll have a FEAR directory located at /usr/local/games. So let's go to this directory:

cd /usr/local/games/FEAR

If you run the command to list the content of the directory (ls -la), you'll find a certain number of files among which a certain start.sh which is the script used to launch the server. At this stage, executing the script will launch the server in its default configuration:

./start.sh

Step 4: Configuring the server

The configuration file is in the ServerOptions directory.

cd /usr/local/games/FEAR/ServerOptions

Let's take a look at the ServerOptions.txt

vi ServerOptions.txt

If you wish to change the configuration, you need to know the basic commands for the VI editor.

The first part of the file is the most important:

[ServerSettings]
GameType=DeathMatch

This is where you determine the type of game you want. FEAR supports a great number of gamed modes, with specific options for each. The possible game modes are DeathMatch, SlowMoDeathmatch, TeamDeathMatch, TeamSlowMoDeathmatch, CTF, SloMo CTF, Elimination, TeamElimination, CaptureAll, CaptureHold

ServerMessage=

This is the message that will be sent by the server to newly connected clients. For example: Welcome to my FEAR Combat Server, Hosted by Gandi.net

UsePassword=0
Password=password

If the UsePassword value is equal to 1, then your server will be private and players will need to enter the password defined in the following line to be able to enter.

Port=27888

This is the game's default port.

UsePunkBuster=0

Enables you to activate or disable PunkBuster, the anti-cheat software.

There are many different options you can set. Way too many, in fact, for us to provide an explanation for each. Most of them are self-explanatory, though.

If someone feels like completing this part of the tutorial, you're absolutely welcome to!

Installing a F.E.A.R. server: Give it a go!

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