0003567: TDM incapable of being ran from a read-only directory as a normal user - The Dark Mod Bugtracker

ID	Project	Category	View Status	Date Submitted	Last Update

0003567	The Dark Mod	Design/Coding	public	11.10.2013 00:17	14.06.2026 00:21

Reporter	naelstrof	Assigned To	taaaki
Priority	high	Severity	crash	Reproducibility	always
Status	assigned	Resolution	open
Platform	Linux (any)	OS	Linux (any)	OS Version	Linux (any)
Product Version	SVN

Summary	0003567: TDM incapable of being ran from a read-only directory as a normal user
Description	This bug is based off the fact that fs_basepath should be assumed to be read-only, but TDM attempts to write to it anyway. Launching TDM from a read-only directory (like any normal application/game in Linux) causes an immediate crash due to being incapable of writing gamex86.so to the game directory. It is also incapable of writing configuration files or downloading maps. To solve this, Doom 3 wrote everything it needed to ~/.doom3. This kind of functionality apparently was removed. Attempting to reaquire the same functionality: Setting fs_modSavePath and fs_savepath to the home directory (~/.thedarkmod), and manually extracting gamex86.so allows TDM to run, but causes the following bugs: * Maps loaded from ~/.thedarkmod/fms lack names, images or any information besides the map size in the menu (they appear invisible, basically), but are entirely playable by clicking where they should be in the menu. * Any kind of configuration works during the run, but never saves properly. (Assuming configuration files are being saved to fs_basedir...) * Pressing "Restart game" in the configuration pane causes it to crash due to not finding "Default.cfg".I couldn't find the file anywhere. Perhaps it too was trying to write itself to the read-only fs_basedir?
Steps To Reproduce	Install thedarkmod into any read-only filesystem location and attempt to play as a normal user.
Additional Information	https://svn.thedarkmod.com/svn/darkmod_src/trunk/framework/FileSystem.h This file states "fs_basepath path to local install, read-only", for good reason too.
Tags	install, linux

stgatilov 25.12.2019 02:22 administrator ~0011941	Heated discussion on dev. forums: http://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/20199-tdm-in-read-only-locations/

covert_caedes 14.06.2026 00:17 reporter ~0017325 Last edited: 14.06.2026 00:21	I think much of this discussion/problem could be sidestepped if at least fs_savePath worked as expected, because then users could just set it to $HOME/.darkmod/ or whatever they want. However it doesn't work. Configs get written there, but aren't loaded from there, unless it happens to be the same directory as fs_basepath, because fs_savepath isn't added to the search paths (no call like AddGameDirectory(fs_searchPath)). For development I'd like to use my SVN checkout of the data as fs_basepath, but I don't want configs and savegames etc to be written there..

Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
11.10.2013 00:17	naelstrof	New Issue
15.10.2013 16:58	taaaki	Assigned To	=> taaaki
15.10.2013 16:58	taaaki	Status	new => assigned
17.10.2013 11:16	taaaki	Relationship added	related to 0002966
12.10.2017 16:18	nbohr1more	Relationship added	related to 0003195
25.12.2019 02:22	stgatilov	Note Added: 0011941
11.02.2024 05:26	Fiver	Tag Attached: linux
11.02.2024 22:14	Fiver	Tag Attached: install
14.06.2026 00:17	covert_caedes	Note Added: 0017325
14.06.2026 00:21	covert_caedes	Note Edited: 0017325