Got a Copy of Good Old 'Duke Nukem 3D'? Play It Natively on Ubuntu with High Resolution Pack

Duke Nukem series has been greatly popular in past one and half decade. Though there were no new games for some time, the macho Duke is back as showcased in demo of Duke Nukem Forever at PAX 10 bursting pigheaded aliens with his gun. 

While there is still time for the game to come, in the meantime you can go back to all time classic Duke Nukem 3D and play it on Linux like a native game. 

What You Need to Play the Game 

You will need a copy of original Duke Nukem 3D to be able to play it on Linux and EDuke32 an open source enhanced port of the game. You can buy the game for $5.99 from the link provided on the Eduke32 site. Though you will get a playable shareware version with Eduke32 with limited levels.

About EDuke32

EDuke32 is a free homebrew game engine and source port of the classic PC first person shooter Duke Nukem 3D to Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD and several handhelds. It includes all kinds of new renderers, tons of cool features and upgrades for regular players, and thousands of additional editing capabilities and scripting extensions for mod creators. EDuke32 is completely free, open source software.

What EDuke32 can do:

• It runs natively without relying on emulation of any kind
• It runs at crazy resolutions like 3072x2304
• It allows you to choose between two different hardware accelerated OpenGL renderers, or the classic, warped software mode
• It fixes lots of programming errors
• A huge number of new extensions to the game's scripting system, allowing gameplay mods
• It runs the High Resolution Pack with support for all features, most of which require EDuke32
• Adds a full-featured console, including Quake-style key bindings, command aliases, advanced tab completion, comprehensive command history, colored text and more
• Hundreds of code rewrites, optimizations and fixes for rare or annoying bugs in the original code
• Adds tons of optional new features that make the player's life easier including modern status display/HUD, support for loading mods from the startup window, and modern, WSAD-based controls with thoroughly reworked mouse aiming
• It supports Ogg Vorbis sound and music

How to Install and Run It:

The installation process is quite simple. Follow the steps:

1. Add the following repositories to your sources list. Go to System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager and click on Settings > Repositories to add the following lines, one at a time:

deb http://apt.duke4.net maverick main 

deb-src http://apt.duke4.net maverick main

Replace maverick with lucid, karmic, jaunty, intrepid or hardy as per your Ubuntu version

2. Run the following command: sudo apt-get update

3. To avoid any key errors, please run the following commands to add the GPG public key:
wget http://apt.duke4.net/key/eduke32.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

4. Run the following command to install Eduke32: sudo apt-get install eduke32

5. If you want to install shareware version of Duke Nukem 3D, run the following command: 
sudo apt-get install duke3d-shareware

6. If you got a copy of the full game, ignore step 5. Now, copy the file DUKE3D.GRP from the full 
game and paste it to: /home/yourusername/.eduke32

7. You are now all set to play the game. Run it from Applications > Games > EDuke32

8. If you want to play with high resolution pack (HRP), download it from here and place 
the file duke3d_hrp.zip to /home/yourusername/.eduke32 and run the game from 
Applications > Games > EDuke32 HRP

Watch a Video of Duke Nukem 3D on Eduke32 with High Resolution Pack

In case of some doubts, please visit the Eduke32 forums and wiki from the official website.

P.S. Not everyone will like the game as it is quite old (released 1996). But fans of 
Duke Nukem series and classic shooters will surely have a fun time playing it.