Quake Live logo

If you tried to play Quake Live on Arch Linux, you might get this error if you don’t have libpng version 1.2 (run Firefox via terminal to check this)

libpng warning: Application was compiled with png.h from libpng-1.2.24
libpng warning: Application  is  running with png.c from libpng-1.4.3
libpng warning: Incompatible libpng version in application and library

Terminal will be spammed with this series of warnings and Quake Live wont start or can even make Firefox crash (Screen images don’t load at all and you only see squares).

The problem here is, as you can tell from the terminal output, the libpng version to compile the software is older than the one arch has installed.

So, to fix this you have to do two things:

1) Install the old libpng on arch (available on the AUR)

sudo yaourt -S libpng12

2) Tell Firefox to use it on Quake Live page

Here is the command:

LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libpng12.so /usr/bin/firefox

This will load the library and Firefox will open up, then go to the Quake Live page and try a training session to see if it loads correctly.

If it worked, then you can make the change permanent and automate the process with this command:

alias quakelive='LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libpng12.so /usr/bin/firefox http://www.quakelive.com'

This way, when you type "quakelive" on the terminal, it will open up Firefox and everything will work right away, no need to remember the previous command.

Some more tips so you don’t have to search for them:

– alt+enter makes Quake Live Fullscreen

– Quake Live supports Firefox ONLY regarding Linux, so don’t bother trying to get another browser to work with Quake Live, but they are working to get other browsers work too (like chrome-chromium). Nevertheless If I find a way to make the game work on chromium (my primary browser) I will put the HOWTO here.