Can someone help me with installing the game when using Linux
Well, why don't you tell us what you tried and what happened?
Well i really dont know where to start. i tried "apt-get install packagename" and that didnt work. Im new to linux
Sorry, can't help you then - you'll have to wait for someone else. But usually simutrans doesn't really need an installation - just two archives (program and one pakset) need to be unzipped into a folder, and that's basically it. Don't know if there are any special steps necessary under Linux...
You didn't mention which flavour of Linux, and DirrrtyDirk is right, it is as easy as downloading the two zip files.
1 - Get the Simutrans binary for Linux as well as a PAK, save them in the same folder. Keep in mind that you need permissions to the folder in question.
2 - Extract the two files. On OpenSuse it is as easy as right-clicking on the file and selecting "Extract Here". This will extract the PAK in one folder, and the binary in another folder.
3 - If you look in the two folders, you will see that they both contain a Simutrans folder. You need to merge these two folders, by copying the simutrans folder of one over the other. When you are done, if you look in the simutrans folder, you should see a folder called PAK, or PAK128 (varies depending on what version you are using).
4 - To run Simutrans, simply double click on the icon. If you followed these instructions, then it should work. If Simutrans does not start, you either did not copy the files properly, the Simutrans folder does not have Execute permission, or there is a problem with playing midi music. The 3rd problem can be cirvumvented by opening up terminal, changing directories until you are in the Simutrans one, and typing "./simutrans -nomidi".
I wrote this quickly, I hope I didn't forget something (I am sure I will be corrected).
Just two additional details:
1) zlib and SDL libraries are needed. To install:
sudo apt-get install zlib1g
sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2debian-alsa
in my system.
2) I needed to provide this file: english.tab in simutrans/text, but I am not sure of that.
It's actually easier and faster to extract both at the same location - for recent versions: the order of extraction isn't important, because the packages don't have files in common.
apt-get will work on debian, given that you are using an unstable repository. However, unzipping the nightly will give you the newest version.
Ok, this is about 10 days ago. and I just tried to also install simutrans on a linux machine.
I installed. unzipped into a folder... But I did not intall a pak, as the link for some reason did not work. Will check on that again. but my qestion is this.
I clicked on the icon to run the game. It came up witha black screen and a box in the middle. it said as follows.
You need to download a pak with Simutrans, as it contains all the graphical elements of the game. Without it, Simutrans cannot work.
That being said, you should have gotten a message saying "no pak found" instead of the "multiple paks found" message you received. I tried starting Simutrans myself without a pak, and it does the same thing. Looks like you found a bug ;D
Of course, there is more than one way to do it ;D
Said error is already corrected in the nightly.
Where do I download the paks. the ones in the download page dont seem to work.
Wich PAKs do you mean?
The "nightlys" can you get from my webpage:
http://www.wernieman.de/simutrans/index.en.html (http://www.wernieman.de/simutrans/index.en.html)
Atention:
There is no guarantee, that they work!!
Probably SourceForge / mirror problem then. Try from this site: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=196471