Netrunner

Geri Atricks

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Feb 23, 2021, 7:20:10 PM2/23/21

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Hey G00R00, I have no idea what's going on, but I can't get Netrunner
Terminal to work on my laptop. I downloaded the latest version from the
website, works great on my desktop, but when I try to run it on my laptop it
crashes saying "Unable to initialize video". Both machines are running the
same version of Ubuntu (20.04) and I've already made sure that the laptop is
running the latest libsdl2. Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.

-Dallas
---

Before the Web - telnet: furmenservices.net:23232
Legends of Yesteryear (FIDO 1:123/256) - telnet: furmenservices.net:23322
Sound Source ]|[ - telnet: furmenservices.net:2323
Furmen's Folly (FIDO 1:123/257) - telnet: furmenservices.net:23

IB Joe

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Feb 23, 2021, 8:20:07 PM2/23/21

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On 23 Feb 2021, Geri Atricks said the following...

GA> Hey G00R00, I have no idea what's going on, but I can't get Netrunner
GA> Terminal to work on my laptop. I downloaded the latest version from the
GA> website, works great on my desktop, but when I try to run it on my
GA> laptop it crashes saying "Unable to initialize video". Both machines are
GA> running the same version of Ubuntu (20.04) and I've already made sure
GA> that the laptop is running the latest libsdl2. Any assistance will be
GA> greatly appreciated.
GA>

SAME here... I'm new to Linux so I thought it was me... I installed Mint
though.

IB Joe
AKA Joe Schweier
SysOp of Joe's BBS
-=JoesBBS.com=-

g00r00

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Feb 25, 2021, 2:20:15 PM2/25/21

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GA> laptop it crashes saying "Unable to initialize video". Both machines are
GA> running the same version of Ubuntu (20.04) and I've already made sure

Are you running in a VMware/VirtualBox?

IB Joe

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Feb 25, 2021, 6:20:11 PM2/25/21

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On 23 Feb 2021, g00r00 said the following...

g0> GA> laptop it crashes saying "Unable to initialize video". Both machines
g0> GA> running the same version of Ubuntu (20.04) and I've already made sure
g0>
g0> Are you running in a VMware/VirtualBox?
g0>
Um, I got the same error. I had it in a VM and just this morning I installed
Linux Mint on my laptop and got the same error.

I initially thought it was me... because I'm new with Linux but then I say
someone else having the same issue.

Thanx

Geri Atricks

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Feb 26, 2021, 7:20:15 PM2/26/21

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g0> GA> laptop it crashes saying "Unable to initialize video". Both machines
g0> GA> running the same version of Ubuntu (20.04) and I've already made sure
g0>
g0> Are you running in a VMware/VirtualBox?

Nope regular CLI terminal window. Gnome Terminal 3.36.2

Jamie Bainbridge

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Mar 10, 2023, 12:12:04 AM3/10/23

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On Saturday, 27 February 2021 at 11:20:15 am UTC+11, Geri Atricks wrote:
> netrunner crashes saying "Unable to initialize video"

This is not your fault, the Netrunner binary looks for the libraries in the wrong path.

You can fix this with a command like:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libSDL2-2.0.so.0 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libSDL2.so

Long explanation:

If you run Netrunner under a system call trace like:

strace -vffttT -o strace.txt ./netrunner

Then look in the "strace.txt" file, you will see it's trying to open "libSDL2.so" under many different library paths, but it never finds SDL2 so it can't start the graphical interface.

If you list the contents of the SDL2 library package with:

dpkg-query -L libsdl2-2.0-0

You will see the library file is actually called "libSDL2-2.0.so.0" and not "libSDL2.so" which Netrunner is looking for.

So we make a symlink from the actual library filename to the filename which Netrunner expects, and it works.

Maybe Netrunner is built on an older Ubuntu (18.04 or earlier?) which had a different filename for the SDL2 library.