Unable to change dir to /usr/lib/conquer [gpl-release]

[MikZyth]

Hello.
By default, when not setting $PREFIX, make new_game will exit with the following error:

~/src/conquer/gpl-release$ make new_game

=== Linking administrative executable...
rm -f cexecuteA.c ioA.c miscA.c navyA.c magicA.c dataA.c tradeA.c 2>/dev/null
/usr/bin/gcc -g -fno-strict-aliasing -fwrapv -Wall -Wextra -O2 -D_DEFAULT_SOURCE -D_XOPEN_SOURCE=600  -DDEFAULTDIR=\"/usr/lib/conquer\" -DEXEDIR=\"/usr/bin\" -DVERSION=\"4\" -DPATCHLEVEL=\"12\" -DLOGIN=\"vmacc\" -o conqrun combat.o cexecuteA.o ioA.o admin.o makeworl.o navyA.o spew.o newlogin.o update.o magicA.o npc.o miscA.o randeven.o dataA.o tradeA.o check.o -lncurses -ltinfo  -lcrypt
strip conqrun
=== Linking game executable...
rm -f cexecuteG.c ioG.c miscG.c navyG.c magicG.c dataG.c tradeG.c 2>/dev/null
/usr/bin/gcc -g -fno-strict-aliasing -fwrapv -Wall -Wextra -O2 -D_DEFAULT_SOURCE -D_XOPEN_SOURCE=600  -o conquer commands.o cexecuteG.o forms.o ioG.o main.o move.o navyG.o magicG.o miscG.o reports.o dataG.o display.o extcmds.o tradeG.o check.o -lncurses -ltinfo  -lcrypt
strip conquer
/usr/bin/gcc -g -fno-strict-aliasing -fwrapv -Wall -Wextra -O2 -D_DEFAULT_SOURCE -D_XOPEN_SOURCE=600  -o conqsort sort.c
strip conqsort
/usr/bin/gcc -g -fno-strict-aliasing -fwrapv -Wall -Wextra -O2 -D_DEFAULT_SOURCE -D_XOPEN_SOURCE=600  -DPSFILE=\"/home/vmacc/conquer/bin/psmap.ps\" -DLETTER psmap.c -o conqps
In file included from psmap.c:30:
psmap.h:3:1: warning: "/*" within comment [-Wcomment]
    3 | /*
psmap.c: In function ‘main’:
psmap.c:467:19: warning: comparison of integer expressions of different signedness: ‘int’ and ‘size_t’ {aka ‘long unsigned int’} [-Wsign-compare]
  467 |     for (c = 0; c < strlen(firstline); c++) {
      |                   ^
strip conqps
✓ Build complete for Linux (x86_64)
Run 'make new_game' to set up a new game world
Run 'make install' to install existing game
Setting up new game world...
Creating world...
unable to change dir to /usr/lib/conquer
make: *** [Makefile:320: new_game] Error 1

Perhaps, because /usr/lib/conquer is hardcoded in Makefile.

[vejeta]

Hi @MikZyth, thanks for reporting this, and sorry for the delay in answering.

Did you do the make install first?
You can install it in one directory where your user has permissions, or use the defaults.

As in the README:

 # Install to a custom location (no sudo required if you own the directory)
make install PREFIX=/path/to/your/directory

# Install to system directory (requires sudo)
sudo make install PREFIX=/usr

If you are going to install it under the /usr, you will need to use sudo afterwards, I recommend do it under a folder of your user to start with.

[MikZyth]

Hi @MikZyth, thanks for reporting this, and sorry for the delay in answering.

Hello @vejeta, that's ok.
Thank you for releasing the game.

Did you do the make install first?

Yes. I used these commands (actually following instructions):

$ make all OPTFLG="-std=gnu99 -D_GNU_SOURCE"
$ make install
$ make new_game

Actually, it doesn't matter if I use make install or not. The error after make new_game is the same:

unable to change dir to /usr/lib/conquer
make: *** [Makefile:320: new_game] Error 1

Of course, all files are correctly installed in ~/conquer.

If you are going to install it under the /usr, you will need to use sudo afterwards, I recommend do it under a folder of your user to start with.

I have not tried installing in /usr yet, just the default ~/conquer.
Can you reproduce this on your system?

In case this is needed:

$ dpkg -l | grep -e "libncurses" -e "build-essential" -e "pkg-config"
ii  build-essential                    12.12                                amd64        Informational list of build-essential packages
ii  libncurses-dev:amd64               6.5+20250216-2                       amd64        developer's libraries for ncurses
ii  libncurses6:amd64                  6.5+20250216-2                       amd64        shared libraries for terminal handling
ii  libncursesw6:amd64                 6.5+20250216-2                       amd64        shared libraries for terminal handling (wide character support)

$ uname -srvmo
Linux 6.12.57+deb13-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.12.57-1 (2025-11-05) x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ gcc --version
gcc (Debian 14.2.0-19) 14.2.0

[MikZyth]

I have made some changes to gpl-release/Makefile in my installation:

$ diff Makefile ~/src/conquer/gpl-release/Makefile
41c41
< PREFIX ?= $(HOME)/.local
---
> PREFIX ?= $(HOME)/conquer
43c43
< DEFAULT = $(PREFIX)/lib/conquer
---
> DEFAULT = $(PREFIX)/lib
53c53
< CDEFS = -DDEFAULTDIR=\"$(PREFIX)/lib/conquer\" -DEXEDIR=\"$(PREFIX)/bin\"
---
> CDEFS = -DDEFAULTDIR=\"/usr/lib/conquer\" -DEXEDIR=\"/usr/bin\"

The game installs and runs ok with these changes.

P.S. Also, I use the XDG Base Directory Specification standard $(HOME)/.local instead of $(HOME)/conquer as a default PREFIX here.

[vejeta]

I understand, previously what I tried to say was in the line of that, make install will use the default directories (The game still uses the old Unix customs) although you are making a good point regarding using XDG specification, and I make include that in next changes.

What I tried to convey before is that using the PREFIX when doing the make install you could achieve the same:

make install PREFIX=/path/to/your/directory

Otherwise using sudo, that I don't recommend, and that is kept for historical purposes, or if used inside of secure containers.

Please, let me know if you find something else, I am finishing some other projects, but I keep the conquer-web project in the back-burner to make some instance available on the web for demonstration but also to organize some games again :)

[MikZyth]

What I tried to convey before is that using the PREFIX when doing the make install you could achieve the same:

make install PREFIX=/path/to/your/directory

Sure, but this won't help solve the problem in question.
The culprit is this:

$ grep "/usr/" gpl-release/Makefile
CDEFS = -DDEFAULTDIR=\"/usr/lib/conquer\" -DEXEDIR=\"/usr/bin\"

This change will help:

CDEFS = -DDEFAULTDIR=\"$(PREFIX)/lib/conquer\" -DEXEDIR=\"$(PREFIX)/bin\"

Otherwise using sudo, that I don't recommend, and that is kept for historical purposes, or if used inside of secure containers.

Yes, installing as root (in /usr, for example) has other problems - the game stores variable files, like saves, generated maps etc. in the same directory as data files, which leads to permission problems. Probably, this cannot be mitigated that easily, and will require some work on code. Those files should be traditionally saved either in a user $HOME directory or in /var/games/conquer (with special permissions set, like user:games).

Please, let me know if you find something else, I am finishing some other projects, but I keep the conquer-web project in the back-burner to make some instance available on the web for demonstration but also to organize some games again :)

Ok. No rush here.

[vejeta]

@MikZyth. I finally came back to this. As you found, the bug was on line 53 of the Makefile - CDEFS hardcodes /usr/lib/conquer and /usr/bin instead of using $(DEFAULT) and `$(EXEDIR). The correct line was actually commented out on line 51.

I'll fix this so the compiled binaries respect the PREFIX setting. Thanks for the detailed analysis and the XDG suggestion - I'll consider adopting $(HOME)/.local as the default in a future update.

[MikZyth]

@MikZyth. I finally came back to this. As you found, the bug was on line 53 of the Makefile - CDEFS hardcodes /usr/lib/conquer and /usr/bin instead of using $(DEFAULT) and `$(EXEDIR). The correct line was actually commented out on line 51.

I'll fix this so the compiled binaries respect the PREFIX setting. Thanks for the detailed analysis and the XDG suggestion - I'll consider adopting $(HOME)/.local as the default in a future update.

Hi, vejeta.
This works without errors now. Line 51 is indeed a better option, since we set directories in 'BUILD CONFIGURATION' part.