Minecraft

Minecraft is a commercial game very popular with geeks. It's a game about blocks. You can build a computer out of the game thanks to logical switches. There is a parallel world. Zombies, pigs, spiders, sheeps, wolves that you can tame, etc... This wiki page is here to help you install the game :)

Installation

minecraft^AUR is available in the AUR. This package includes the official game plus a script for launching it.

Setting Up Java

Minecraft should work out-of-the-box with a couple of the various Java JREs.

OpenJDK6

Minecraft should 'just work' with OpenJDK6. Install it from community:

# pacman -S openjdk6

OpenJDK7

OpenJDK7 works with Minecraft too:

# pacman -S jre7-openjdk

If Minecraft has issues (sticky keys, stuck on pause menu, etc.), you can force it to use the newest version of LWJGL:

• Download LWJGL 2.8.4 from here
• Replace the following files in .minecraft/bin/ with the corresponding versions in lwjgl-2.8.4/jar

jinput.jar
lwjgl.jar
lwjgl_util.jar 

• Replace the following files in .minecraft/bin/natives/ with lwjgl-2.8.4/natives/linux

libjinput-linux.so
libjinput-linux64.so
liblwjgl.so
liblwjgl64.so
libopenal.so
libopenal64.so

Running Minecraft

If you installed Minecraft from the AUR, you can use the included script:

$ minecraft

Otherwise, you will need to manually launch Minecraft:

$ java -jar $HOME/.minecraft/minecraft.jar

To allocate more RAM to the game, include Xms and Xmx arguments:

$ java -jar -Xms1024M -Xmx2048M $HOME/.minecraft/minecraft.jar

You can change these depending on the amount of RAM that you have. The Xms argument specifies the minimum amount of RAM to allocate to the program, and the Xmx argument specifies the maximum amount.

Extras

There are several programs and editors which can make your Minecraft experience a little easier to navigate. The most common of these programs are map generators. Using one of these programs will allow you to load up a Minecraft world file and render it as a 2D image, providing you with a top-down map of the world.

Minutor

Minutor is described as a minimalistic map generator for Minecraft. Don't let this mislead you, it generates maps of existing worlds, not the other way around. You are provided with a simple GTK based interface for viewing your world. Several rendering modes are available, as well as custom coloring modes and the ability to slice through z-levels. minutor^AUR is available in the AUR.

Minecraft Server

There are two AUR packages for easy installation of a minecraft server. For a server compatible with systemd, install aur/minecraft-server-systemd and then enable the service:

$ systemctl enable minecraftd
$ systemctl start minecraftd

• Monitor the minecraft server by running the below command as root:

$ screen -r

(Remember that one can exit screen sessions with ^A,D)

Note: This creates a user called minecraft with a home directory at /srv/minecraft. Add your user to the minecraft group to modify minecraft settings.

For a server that uses the legacy rc scripts, install aur/minecraft-server

You can also run a dedicated Minecraft server:

• Follow the steps above to install Java
• Download the multiplayer server from the Minecraft site
• Run the server:

$ java -Xmx2048M -Xms2048M -jar minecraft_server.jar nogui

(You can sub the -Xmx and -Xms values for the amount of memory you want your server to use. A good rule of thumb is one GB per ten users.)

• To configure the server, take a look at this wiki page.

Extras

• Establishing a Minecraft-specific user is recommended for security. By running Minecraft under an unprivileged user account, anyone who successfully exploits your Minecraft server will only get access to that user account, and not yours.
• To leave the server running unattended, look into tmux or screen.
• You may wish to modify your server, to provide additional features:
  • Server Wrappers are one way to add administrative capabilities.
  • Bukkit is a powerful modding API, with a wide variety of plugins available.
    • If installing the Dynmap plugin, you will need to install fontconfig and libcups to get it to work.
• You might even set up a cron job with a mapper to generate periodic maps of your world.
• ...or you could use rsync to perform routine backups.

Useful links

• Main site : http://www.minecraft.net/
• Community links: http://www.minecraft.net/community
• Crafting recipies : http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Crafting
• Data values (useful in multiplayer mode) : http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Data_values
• Reddit community : http://www.reddit.com/r/minecraft