Oolite Addons with Ubuntu

I used to love playing Elite when I was younger – a fantastic intergalactic space simulator, so I was delighted when I stumbled across Oolite, which is based on the classic game, but implements modern graphics! It’s already available via the Synaptic Package Manager (System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager) – just search for “oolite” and select “oolite” and “oolite-data” for installation. Alternatively, it can be installed via the command line, by opening up a terminal window (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal) and running:

sudo apt-get install oolite oolite-data

The game itself is great fun, and what’s more, there are myriad addons, expansion packs and mods which can be downloaded and installed.

To install the addons in Ubuntu, I had to create the AddOn directory:

cd
mkdir .Oolite
cd .Oolite
mkdir AddOns

Now, any addon-name.oxp directories contained within downloaded expansion packs should be extracted to the new ~/.Oolite/AddOns directory for the Ubuntu version of Oolite to recognise and locate for use in the game.