Jes.sTelford

Compiling / playing nethack 3.6.0 on Ubuntu or Debian

December 26, 2015

codingdebiangameslinuxnethackrogueliketerminalubuntu

UPDATE: Instructions added for enabling the hilitestatus feature to get nice coloured Hitpoint & Hunger highlighting_

After a 10+ year hiatus, the NetHack DevTeam is happy to announce the release of NetHack 3.6, a combination of the old and the new.

- nethack 3.6.0 release notes

It took me a while to figure out how to actually get nethack v3.6.0 running on Ubuntu, so I’ve shared what I learned for others.

Thanks to Jochen, we can also get this compiling on Debian Jessie.

Get setup

  • Install the dependencies
  • sudo apt-get install flex bison build-essential libncurses5-dev checkinstall
  • Get the source
  • Extract the source
  • tar xpvzf nethack-360-src.tgz

Prepare the source

  • Edit include/unixconf.h
  • Change /* #define LINUX */ to #define LINUX
  • Edit sys/unix/hints/linux to be as here.
  • For Debian Jessie, change the HACKDIR=... line to be HACKDIR=$(PREFIX)/lib/games/$(GAME)dir
  • If you want to enable Status Hilite’s;
  • Edit include/config.h
  • Change /* #define STATUS_VIA_WINDOWPORT */ to #define STATUS_VIA_WINDOWPORT
  • Change /* #define STATUS_HILITES */ to #define STATUS_HILITES
  • sh ./sys/unix/setup.sh sys/unix/hints/linux (sets up the Makefiles correctly)

Build & install

  • make all

  • sudo checkinstall (will create a package and install it for you)

  • Hit y to create default docs

  • Enter nethack 3.6.0 then hit <Enter> twice when prompted

  • At the options screen, change option 12 to say nethack-common. This avoids accidentally installing any old version from your package manager.

  • Hit <Enter> to continue

  • If you see an error ”Some of the files created by the installation are inside the home directory“;

  • Hit n (it’s just a temporary file), then

  • Hit y to continue (we do not want those files in our package).

Uninstallation

To uninstall, use your favourite package manager, or sudo dpkg -r nethack.

Play!

Now you can run the game via nethack.

Need some help getting starting with nethack? Read the v3.6.0 guidebook.

Jess Telford

Jess Telford
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