Install X-Plane 9 in Linux

Posted 26 March 2009 - 01:24 PM

On a new install of both Archlinux and X-Plane 9, I ran into a number of difficulties and maybe my experience can be of use to you.

In the first place X-Plane documentation is rather limited and with Linux it is even worse. Most of the things that are talked about, you already know, and the things that you are curious about aren't even mentioned. So here goes and please don't be mad at me if this doesn't work or I left something out Because, I am only trying to help.

Problem 1. Mounting the DVD
Best thing to do here is to install pmount first. These illistrations are for Archlinux, but you can adapt them for your distro:

pacman -S pmount

Now, try to mount your drive. Try something like this:

pmount -r /dev/sr0

If this does not work, try modifying your PolicyKit. In an editor (like nano or something) type:

Edit: This may no longer be necessary or even work. 12-16-2009

nano /etc/PolicyKit/PolicyKit.conf















Now, that should enable us to mount the drive. Make sure openal is installed.

pacman -S openal

Copy the file Installer_Linux off the DVD and onto your HDD (hard disk) into a nice location (like maybe the desktop). The reason you have to do this is because you won't be able to eject the first disk because the computer is using that program on that disk. Even at that, you may have to force it to eject with "eject" in a terminal.

There is currently a bug going around and you may have to link the lib for openal 0 to openal 1. Now you could just rename the file, but there is a good chance that that might break something else, so until this is fixed, just do:

ln -s /usr/lib/libopenal.so.1 /usr/lib/libopenal.so.0

That's about it. You should be able to install. Make sure you install as a user and NOT root or you will have to run the sim as root and that IS NOT a good idea.

Hope this helps, I got this from various sources, but just wanted to put it together in one place. This is current as of this date (STS-119).

Let me know how this works and your feedback is important. Thanks.

Edit 3-12-2010:
Had a problem with a user acct. (me) and had to re-install. Same as always. But I made a big mistake and installed it as root and that does not work so well. Had to re-install again as user and no prob, ha silly me. Also changed the filename from 'X-Plane 9' to the more friendly xplane9.