World of Warcraft (WoW) is a massive multip_layer_ online role playing game (MMORPG) that is fun, entertaining, and addictive. So how can you too get in on the action and play this popular Windows only game, now that you have a Linux distribution in place of Windows(R)? The answer is simple, but there are some steps that should be taken in order to make the game work, and to work well.

The first step is your system configuration. Primarily what video card do you have installed. When first I switched to Ubuntu (on my desktop), I had an ATI Radeon 9550 AGP graphics card. Maybe it was me, but I was not able to get the greatest performance with the ATI linux video driver on my aging 7 year old computer. WoW was not the only application I was having problems with, either. So I went to the brand many others recommended, and opted for an nVidia card. My choice was a GeForce 7600 GS AGP video card. This simple upgrade from the ATI to an nVidia has made a substantial difference, and the nVidia drivers were much easier to install. Forgive me for not saying how to install this driver, but that is a topic for another post.

The second step is to install wine, which is a linux program allowing one to run most Windows(R) applications on a linux operating system. The method by which you obtain wine will depend on your distribution and package management method. With Ubuntu, I added the winehq.com site to the repository list, so that I could get the latest and greatest version. For those who are wondering which package manager is my preference, I use both Adept Manager and Synaptic. The former is primarily for updates, and the latter for when I am looking for a new application in specific. The two work hand in hand, and update the same data_base_.

Since I had originally been playing WoW under Windows(R), and installed Ubuntu on a separate partition, I was able to copy the whole WoW folder from the Windows partition to my Linux ~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files location, and begin play from there. OK, this leaves out a lot. Of course you would have needed to install wine first, and what if you never had WoW installed under Windows(R), or need to to reinstall on a new/clean system that does not have a previous installation. Well, I have answers. One, you can get the 10-day free trial download from Blizzard.com. It's a very, very large download best done with a fat broadband connection. I did the ~5 GB download in about 8 or so hours with the satellite connection I had. Start and walk away. Enjoy some food, go to the movies, clean out that mess in the yard. You get the idea. The better method is to have the purchased box with CDs (some boxes are also being sold as DVD). You will need the box set in the end, as it contains the key code that allows play beyond the 10-day free trial. The easies method, especially if you have the CDs, is to copy the contents of the disks to your local hard drive, preferably into a directory like ~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/WoWinstall (you will need to create this most bottom directory). Once you are done copying the files off CDs to HDD, then go to the WoWinstall directory, and type "wine setup.exe", and the installation process will begin.

Now that you have WoW installed, there are some configuration steps that you may need to implement. My suggestion is that you head over to http://www.wowwiki.com/Linux/Wine . This is a great guide on much of what I have covered, as well as configuration tips so you get the most out of your gameplay. I highly recommend the tips regarding opengl settings and configuration of the WTF file.

See you online, and Happy Hunting!