ID:34552
 
In this article, we will look at installing the command-line version of BYOND on Linux.

The command-line version of BYOND is suitable for hosting servers but not for playing games, as it does not come with a graphical interface.

For your information: This tutorial uses PuTTy and Ubuntu Linux


Before we start, you will need a copy of GNU Make. GNU Make comes pre-installed on many Linux systems, but not all.

Tip: Users of Debian-based distributions (such as Debian and Ubuntu) can type apt-get install make at the command-line to install GNU make.


First off, you need to grab the latest version of BYOND. To do this, we assume you have the 'wget' command.

wget http://games.byond.com/download/byond_linux.zip


Once you issue this command, your terminal should look something like this:



Next, we need to unzip the file. We will use the 'unzip' command to do that. In your terminal, issue the command:

unzip byond_linux.zip


Your terminal window should look something like this:



Next, we'll use the 'cd' command to go to the 'byond' directory that we extracted.

cd byond


If you want to install BYOND on the whole system, you will need root access. To do this, issue the following command:

su -
make install


Tip: If you are using a Debian-based distribution, you can just type sudo make install


This is what your terminal should look like:



If you do want to install only on your user, issue the following command instead, as your user:

make here


Your terminal should look like this:



And you will need to place the /source line in ~/.profile or ~/.bash_profile, depending on your shell.
At this point, you are done with your installation. To test it out, issue the following command:

DreamDaemon --version


The output should look something like this:

BYOND 4.0 Beta (Version 400.960)


If it does not, refer to the troubleshooting selection below.

Troubleshooting:

During the installation process, some problems can occur. Some common problems are:

Help, I get an error about libstdc++ when I type "DreamDaemon --version"!

Luckily, this is a simple problem. You will need to download libstdc++.so.5, which is provided for us here.

If you have wget, simply type:

wget http://www.byond.com/download/gcc/libstdc++.so.5


If you installed BYOND on the local user, you will just need to place this in your byond/bin folder.

If you installed BYOND on the whole system, you will need to assume root and move this file to your /lib directory. This can be done by issuing the following command:

sudo mv libstdc++.so.5 /lib


Help! I installed BYOND system wide, but I get an error about about some .so file, but it's right here in my byond/bin directory!

Before running DreamDaemon, try running the following command:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/path/to/byond/bin


This will tell your OS to check for libs in your byond/bin folder as well.

Other Questions

Ask on the forums, and we will try to help you as possible.
Dont forget abuot the Linux Guild!
For all of the up-to-date Linux info!
http://members.byond.com/linuxguild
The Linux Guild is nice, but this is actually the official BYOND help guild. We would like to enhance our support of Linux(the BYOND Help guild, not necessarily BYOND). I'm hoping to get all of the basics for installing and running BYOND under Linux here.

If you have anything to add or suggest to this article, feel free.
Nice article, Audeuro, thanks. I took the liberty of tweaking it a bit. Hope you don't mind, and hopefully neither of us overwrote the other's changes. =)

Might want to have a separate article for running BYOND under Wine (for the graphical interface).
Yeah, we were talking about some changes. I meant to have him post it in the forums before hand, so we could talk about it, but it was too late before I suggested it.

As of right now, WINE doesn't seem to work for 4.0, so I'm not sure a guide for it would be a good idea.
Also, I'm thinking the commands need to be in their own box. I don't like the idea of using the tip boxes for them, perhaps we should create a new class for CLI commands.
I went ahead and added a bit more to the troubleshooting section (a problem I commonly have on my installs), and changed some stuff that didn't feel right.
Regarding .so files - something that can help is to do export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/path/to/byond/bin before running BYOND. By default, Linux does not look for .so files in the current directory (which is pretty annoying tbh).
help... the file that is in the install isn't hosted any longer. libstdc is the one I am talking about.
EDIT: Ok I searched the web. I found out that it was supported by YUUM and installed it that way:
yum install libstdc++.so.5
Due to the update in the site, the address was changed to http://www.byond.com/download/gcc/libstdc++.so.5

I'll update the article, thank you for catching that.
I followed everything, but when I try to do DreamDaemon --version it says it isn't found.. >_<

it says: DreamDaemon: error while loading shared libraries: libext.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Sokkiejjj wrote:
I followed everything, but when I try to do DreamDaemon --version it says it isn't found.. >_<

it says: DreamDaemon: error while loading shared libraries: libext.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Are you doing system wide or by account? More infomation would help us help you.
account i suppose
Sokkiejjj, I see you have made a post in BYOND Software Problems involving this issue, that's great. I would recommend you continue this help request there. Also, it is recommended that you check out the Linux Guild, because people there will likely be better able to help you. (Note: the Linux Guild is not an official BYOND Guild.)