1.) This page is a place to get you started running Archipelago MUD on Windows using the Cygwin Unix program.
Archipelago was a popular and excellent MUD (Multi User Dungeon) based on CIRCLEMUD. The source code is available to play with, the only successor to Archipelago online today is Tempora Heroica.
Cygwin is a Unix - like platform that will run on any Windows based PC, it is possibly the easiest Unix/ Linux type system to run on Windows, as it doesn't require drive partition or any special hardware installation, it installs as simply as a windows application. Please read on to see how to install Cygwin and get Archipelago running.
Credits - If you decide to use the Archipelago code, please leave the credits text on the opening screen (the text file in src/config.c), the credits file in lib/text and elsewhere. Please do not remove any credit references to Alastair Neil (Ponder), David Czeck (Magnifico) and other individuals who have developed Archipelago MUD, Circlemud or Dikumud. Please give credit where it is due, thanks.
Warnings / Bugs - there are a few warnings when compiling Archipelago on Cygwin in Windows, but no serious bugs that stop the game compiling or running. See later on the page for info on these.
Modifications - I have done a little update on one of the Archipelago files - it enables autoexits to display full room exits after the room description (Archi only had directions, you had to type 'exits' to see them. More info at the bottom of the page.)
Discussion Board - I have set up a discussion board to record people's ideas and contributions to getting Archipelago working on Cygwin, you can also post queries and new bugs on here for people to read and hopefully help solve. See end of page for the link. See later in page for the board.
The Archipelago files - You will need to download the Archipelago source code as a compressed archive from the Tempora Heroica Web page, do not do this now, instead I will tell you how to get the file once you have installed Cygwin. There are some extra files I will discuss too.
Quick Guide to Compiling the MUD - if you want to skip my detailed instructions below, you can just download Cygwin and read Magnifico's short guide on the Tempora Heroica Website - this is only for the test server.
Running MUDs - Please be aware I'm not trying to encourage people to start Archipelago MUD clones, MUDs are hard work, and it's better to contribute to developing an existing mud like Tempora Heroica than starting a new one - this site is mainly for nostalgia and fun, many thanks to Magnifico on Tempora Herocia, he does a great job, and I think it's great the way he's kept the mud alive all these years. If you haven't done so already please check out the Tempora Heroica website and log into the TH MUD you might never leave !
2.) To install Cygwin, a Unix - like program. You need to go to the Cygwin web site : http://www.cygwin.com
3.) Click on the link to the Setup program
4.) Once setup has downloaded, run it from you hard drive.
5.) The Cygwin setup program will ask you if you want to 'Install from Internet', Download from Internet', or 'Install from local directory' - I recommend you start off by downloading the files to your hard drive first, and installing later, so select Download from Internet. Then click next.
6.) You will be asked where to save the files (Local package directory) - type in or browse to the folder you want to save the install files to. You may want to create a new folder for this, eg: c:\temp\cygwin. Then click next.
7.) Next you will be asked how you want to download, I recommend you choose the 'direct connection' option, but if you are behind a proxy server which causes problems, you can provide the proxy host address and port number in the 'Use.. Proxy' box. Then click next.
8.) Next you must click on an FTP location to download the files, I tried a few and there's not much difference in speed, click on one of these, then click next.
9.) The setup file will download, then you will go straight to the options
screen, where you can choose which specific files to download, - there are
several categories - you need to expand them by clicking on the (+)
symbol, if you want to have a full UNIX-like OS, then you should choose
all the options, but if you want a minimal install taking less time to download,
just make sure you tick the following in 'Devel' : binutils, gcc, gdb and
make.
To be on the safe side, you might want to tick all the 'Devel' options.
Personally, I ticked every option in every category, just to be sure I had
everything I needed. If someone has a definitive list of the options
needed for Archipelago, please let me know or post it on the discussion board.
10.) Once you have ticked the options you want, click next, the download should begin
11.) Once all the file have downloaded, you will get a confirmation box (download complete)
12.) Now run the 'Setup' program on your hard drive again - this time choose the option Install from Local Directory. Click next.
13.) You will be asked where to install Cygwin, I reccommend you use the default C:\Cygwin. Leave the other options as they are (Install for : All Users, File type default : Unix.)
Click Next, Cygwin will install to your hard drive. Let Cygwin go through all it's setup processes, do not close the Shell box (like the DOS box).
14.) A lot of automated batch processes will run, leave these alone for a while until you see 'Install Complete' This could take a while. Once Cygwin has finished installing, and you are back to Windows desktop, restart Windows. (This seems to be required.)
15.) Start Cygwin from the Windows Start menu or the icon on your desktop (You will have had the option to create these earlier.) Wait for bash to initialize.
You will see a command prompt, looking something like:
defualt@(your computer's name) >
You need to use a few UNIX commands later in Cygwin, if you get lost usng my instructions here are some basic UNIX commands for your reference :
| pwd | Print working directory, shows you the path / directory name you are in |
| ls | Shows you all files / folders in current directory |
| cd | Return to the root (home/default directory) |
| cd .. | Go back a directory |
| cd path | Move up to the specified directory(s) from the current directory, eg: cd archipelago or cd archipelago/src |
| cp file destination | Copy a file to specified path, eg: cp
archi.zip new Copies archi.zip to a folder called new from the current location. |
| rm file | Remove the specified file in the current directory |
| mkdir name | Make a new directory in the current directory. |
| rmdir name | Remove a new directory in the current directory. |
| man keyword | Search the manual for help on a keyword |
| ./ | run a file, eg: ./hello.exe |
| gunzip filename | uncompress a tar.gz compressed archive in current
directory, into a
tar archive, eg : gunzip ok.tar.gz it will convert to a tar archive in the current directory |
| tar xvf filename | uncompress a tar archive in current directory, eg : tar xvf
ok.tar It will expand fully into the directory structure contained in the archive. |
| wget path | download a file into current directory, eg wget http://awebsite.com/file.zip |
| make | send 'make' command to a makefile in the current directory to compile files specified in the makefile |
| make all | send 'make all' command to a makefile in the current directory to compile files specified in the makefile |
| Other Unix Command Reference Pages |
16.) Now you need to download the Archipelago archive (compressed file) to the /default/ folder in Cygwin.
In cygwin, make sure you are at the command prompt, and in the home/default directory, you can check this by typing pwd (print working directory), you should see :
home/default
Download the archive (Archipelago-1.1-fixed.tar.gz) from the TH Website by typing :
wget http://www.ibiblio.org/TH/Archipelago-1.1-fixed.tar.gz
You will see a slider bar showing the progress of the download, once downloaded, type ls to check the archive file is present.
If you want a backup of the archive,
you should use the cp command to copy the Archipelago-1.1-fixed.tar.gz file
from home/default to a backup location on your hard drive. If you
leave this until later the archive will have expanded to a tar file, eg: make a
folder called backup in home/default,
cd && mkdir backup copy the archive to the
backup directory: cd && cp Archipelago-1.1-fixed.tar.gz backup
17) At the Cygwin command prompt, you need to uncompress the archive, so type :
gunzip Archipelago-1.1-fixed.tar.gz
then type:
tar xvf Archipelago-1.1-fixed.tar
You will see lots of confirms saying the files have uncompressed. It should have created a folder called archipelago, type ls to check the folder is there.
Type cd archipelago to move to the new folder containing all the files.
Type ls to check the directory contents, you should have the following :
doc
html
lib
log
slave
src
other files at this level, eg: readme etc.
18.) Next, you need to download and replace the comm.c file in the source directory with the new one on the TH site :
At the Cygwin command prompt, type cd src to move up to the src directory.
First, delete the existing comm.c file by typing : rm comm.c
then download the update by typing :
wget http://www.ibiblio.org/th/comm.c
The comm.c file will download into src directory.
** Optional Autoexits **
If you want autoexits (i.e: the ability to show full exits automatically without having to type 'exits' ) then you can get my version of /src/act.inform1.c
First, delete the existing act.inform1.c file by typing : rm act.inform1.c
Then type :
wget http://draigweb.co.uk/archipelago/act.inform1.c
The act.inform1.c file will download into the src directory.
** Optional Roomedit fix **
To enable you to use the Roomedit (redit) feature without having to use uppercase 'Q' to quit options, (just an annoying bug) you can get my version of /src/roomedit.c This replaces the uppercase command with lowercase, so you just type q to quit options, rather than have to hold down the Shift key every time
First, delete the existing roomedit.c file by typing : rm roomedit.c
Then type :
wget http://draigweb.co.uk/archipelago/roomedit.c
The roomedit.c file will download into the src directory.
My updates are unsupported, and used at your own risk !
19.) Ok, you are at the archipelago/src directory in Cygwin, to confirm you are here, type pwd
You should see :
home/default/archipelago/src
20) Ok we are in the src directory, now type make clean
You will see lots of confirms, you may see some warnings, you can ignore these as they don't stop the game working.
Then type make
You will see more confirms, you may see some warnings, you can ignore these also.
The test server will be created in the bin directory
21.) If you want the main server and all the utilities as well, go to 22, if you just want to play on the test server, go to 23.
22.) To get all the utilities Type make all clean
then make all
All the archipelago exe files will be created in the bin directory. (This will create the normal server and some old CircleMud admin programs - I'm not sure if they are any use but they are described in the Circlemud Wizhelp.doc file, which I have a link to later in this page.)
23.) You can use Cygwin to make sure the exe file(s) are there using cd && cd
archipelago/bin && ls
You should at least have test1.exe (a replica of the server exe) to run the mud, and some other
exe's if you made all the files :
archipelago.exe (the normal server file to run the game see next section.)
autowiz.exe (updates the immortal list, I think..)
delobjs.exe
hasmail.exe
listrent.exe
mailindex.exe
test1.exe (the test server - can run the game using this see next
section.)
(I'd like to put a description of what each does soon.)
24.) Now, to run the server, go back to the root archipelago directory by typing
cd ..
type pwd
You should see
home/default/archipelago
If you only made the test server, type : ./bin/test1.exe
If you made all the exe files and utilities, type : ./bin/archipelago.exe
./ is the command to run
an executable in Unix
Note, the server Must be run from the archipelago
root directory as shown above, NOT archipelago/bin/
25.) Now, you should see a lot of text, ending in some info about the 'game loop' - just minimize Cygwin and run your favorite terminal program - to connect, just use localhost as the address on port 2000, eg: localhost:2000
You can change settings such as the port in the src/config.c file, but remember to delete config.o in src and all exe files in bin, then re-compile to take effect (to recompile, go to 19).
26.) Ok you should see the prompt to set your color on or off and all the rest of the archipelago mud.
There are lots of settings that you can change in the /src/config.c file, as far as I can tell, you will need to delete the config.o file in /src/ and all the exe files in /bin/ and recompile the mud after your changes have been made (step 19). config.c options include the port setting, login page details, and things like player killing, you may discover other configurable c files, but config.c appears to be the main one.
Compile time warnings (these don't break the game) - Apart from a few issues compiling under Cygwin (see below) there are some unresolved warnings when you compile, warnings about ISO C89. These issues at compile-time don't seem to affect the game, it runs very stable, but if you have any workarounds or fixes to stop the warnings, please post them on the discussion board..
Fixes / Known Issues in Cygwin that have been solved (kindof) :
Winzip Problem - If you extract the files using Winzip, you see the tilde (~) after most room names and mobile names, and the text of descriptions are mixed with each other, this is because it's not been extracted as unix file format, you must extract the files as shown earlier in Cygwin. Never extract the files using Winzip !
Missing Room 4008 - There is a room missing in Lamman to the south west (I think) - while the game is running you get an error Room 4008 does not exist - I guess you just need to use the online builder commands to recreate it. If you have info on this post it on the discussion board.
If you want to email me any bug details or code contributions, you can
email me on this form :
http://draigweb.co.uk
If the form is down for some reason, use the discussion
board you can also mudmail me (Thon) on Tempora Heroica, or just look out
for me one evening.
Updated file : /src/act.inform1.c to enable autoexits
I have done an update on act.inform1.c, it has autoexits, replacing the simple exits: north, south, east etc. Note: these added autoexits are not optional, they always show - but you can use Brief or Compact to reduce the display format. (This update also displays portals, - eg: South - A door to Courtts Bank.)
For example :
|
You fly south. |
If you downloaded and replaced the file act.inform1.c file in step 18, it should work, I must add I don't know C well myself, I just hacked it around based on other parts of the code, but it seems to work ok.
Updated file : /src/roomedit.c
If you downloaded and used my updated roomedit.c then this fixes the uppercase-only 'Q' for quit when using redit to edit rooms.
Some things I'd like to do :
There is precious little documentation on using Archipelago MUD, but it is possible to piece it all together..
Most of the semi-useful info out there on the Web is about Circlemud, what Archipelago is based on. I have managed to compile Circlemud on Cygwin, if you ask me I'll put some more info on here, but frankly Circlemud is pretty dire and I'd rather see Archipelago up to speed on Cygwin.
Go to the discussion board to post topics on getting Archipelago working on Cygwin in Windows.
If you want to email me any ideas, workarounds or code contributions, you can
email me on this form :
http://draigweb.co.uk
I'm not responsible for any mishaps that may occur on your own PC if you follow any of the above instructions, it's all at your own risk, I could be a Martian, or a giant Wombat for all you know.. 90% of the Internet community probably are anyway, so be aware, it's all at your own risk..