Oblivion:Oblivion, Mods & Linux

The UESPWiki – Your source for The Elder Scrolls since 1995

Oblivion is not written to be run on the Linux kernel. The version of Oblivion created to run on the Microsoft Windows operating system can be installed (& plays very well) on Linux, via either the free Wine software, or the commercial title Cedega, produced by Transgaming.

Using either of the aforementioned applications, it is easy to install official game patches & additions. Mods are added & controlled the same way as if the machine were running the Windows OS & typically have installation instructions, which are with few exceptions quite simple. (Some mod managing software requires .NET, & will not install & run on Linux kernel based OS's)

A problem that can appear when running Oblivion & installing mods that add directories to the Oblivion installation (most commonly the Textures & Meshes directories, often with nested subdirectories) on a machine using one of the many Linux distributions, is that Windows is not case sensitive & the Linux kernel is. So the people writing software & scripts to be used on the Windows OS, do not have to be consistent with the case of the names of files & directories & here lies the problem.

Under Windows, both dATa\TExTuReS & data\textures are paths to the same file or directory name, they are one in the same to the Windows OS.

Under the Linux kernel, changing the case of any character in a file or directory name creates a new & separate individual identity, so this means that /data/Textures & /data/textures can both exist simultaneously in the same parent directory.

Once recognized, this problem requires just a little extra time checking that there are not duplicate directories e.g. Textures, textures, Meshes, meshes, or any other nested duplicates in /oblivion/data/.

Neither the Linux kernel, Oblivion, official & unofficial patches, or the mods, are concerned about the actual case of the directory names, so just be sure that there is only ONE directory with the same name spelling per subdirectory & your mods will run as intended.