Productivity is the greatest scourge a workplace can face. You want to make sure your workers aren’t too productive, but how do you do that? Sure, you could install Dwarf Fortress, but then you’d need to keep up with all the Dwarf Fortress updates. If you have your workers do it, they might get distracted and get work done while they should be playing Dwarf Fortress. What are you going to do?
Now, there’s help. If you’re using chef, you can use this Dwarf Fortress chef cookbook to install and manage Dwarf Fortress on your workstation. It will download the latest release (or another, if you specify) and unpack it in your home directory in a directory named “dwarffortress/df<version number>”, then link the current version to “dwarf_fortress/current”. If another version comes out, run the cookbook again, and it will install the new version of Dwarf Fortress and relink the current directory.
So, assuming version 0.34.10 is current, it will install Dwarf Fortress to ~/dwarf_fortress/df_0.34.10, then link ~/dwarf_fortress/df_0.34.10/df_osx (or df_linux, depending) to ~/dwarf_fortress/current. When 0.34.11 comes along, it’ll do the same installing and linking, but with ~/dwarf_fortress/df_0.34.11.
Things it does:
- Enables !!FUN!!
- Works with Mac OS X and Debian at the moment.
- Destroys productivity.
- Lets you specify a different source URL and version number, if you want.
Things it does not do:
- At the moment, it does not support Windows or Linux distros that aren’t Debian. Someday.
- Install tilesets and things like Dwarf Therapist.
- Currently, it does not move your saved games from the old version into the new one. This may become optional behavior later, but saves aren’t always compatible between versions.
- Currently assumes if you’re running Linux that you’re 64 bit. Probably shouldn’t.
- It leaves your OpenAL settings alone. If you don’t get sound when playing Dwarf Fortress, you should fix that yourself. It’s tricky enough that I thought it’d be best to leave it be.
To learn more about Dwarf Fortress, either visit your local library, or read up at the Dwarf Fortress Wiki.
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