2011-07-31 (updated 2014-08-04)
Choices for installing**.
1. Ultima Arcanum PPA (as of 2014-08-01, I recommend this option for Ubuntu users)
2. Acquire and convert the RPM to DEB
3. Compile from source


Check here for resources <http://xu4.sourceforge.net/download.php>
Acquire the original Ultima VI, v1.01 perferred.
Optionally, acquire the VGA patch.

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1. Ultima Arcanum PPA
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$sudo apt-add-repository ppa:dallen.wilson/ultima
$sudo apt-get install xu4

OR for compiling:

$sudo apt-add-repository ppa:dallen.wilson/ultima
$sudo apt-get source xu4

The PPA has versions for Maverick and Trusty but the package doesn't enforce these versions (may install on any version of Ubuntu).

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2. One simple way for DEB systems is to install the dependencies and convert and install the RPM to DEB using alien in a terminal
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$sudo apt-get update
$sudo apt-get install alien libsdl1.2 libsdl-mixer1.2 libxml2 timidity
$sudo alien -di xu4-1.0beta3-1.i386.rpm


The RPM package provided by the creators will convert to deb with no problems to DEB platforms (Alien or another package converter) up to version 1.0beta2 (beta3 and beta4 fail due to dependencies). The source code will also compile easily on ubuntu systems. Dallen Wilson's Ultima Arcanum PPA has source and deb packages for Ubuntu Maverick and Trusty (which covers all version between). The Trusty build is provided daily.

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2. How to Compile xu4 from SVN in Ubuntu (and possibly other NIXum)
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In Terminal:
$sudo apt-get install alien build-essential checkinstall libxml2-dev libsdl1.2-dev libsdl-mixer1.2-dev subversion timidity

Acquire the latest xu4 source code:
**$svn co https://xu4.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/xu4 xu4
These directories may need to be created first. It harms nothing to run this command anyway:
$sudo mkdir /usr/local/share/pixmaps /usr/local/lib/u4 /usr/local/share/applications/

Enter the main xu4 source directory and build the project*:
$cd xu4/trunk/u4/src
make clean
make


Use your package manager to remove any older version of xu4 you have*

Now to install*:
$sudo checkinstall -Dy --pkgname xu4-mybuild --arch i386

Check install will create a deb file with a name similar to xu4-mybuild_20110730_i386.deb (based on the pkgname you chose and the date of the svn)
Use "--arch amd64" with checkinstall if you built for 64-bit (and are not on 64-bit, likewise "--arch i386" will build a 32-bit version).
Use "-Sy" to build a Slackware package
Use "-Ry" to build an RPM package
Slackware and RPM have additional options that can be investigated with:
$man checkinstall

To get the latest xu4 again, go to the directory that contains the xu4 directory and enter*:
$svn update xu4


*These steps must be done every time to compile from source.
**2014 These instructions no longer work on Ubuntu 12.04 precise and must be modified. I have found no RPM that converts successfully due to additional package requirements that will not function properly after converting.
**instead, use $svn checkout svn://svn.code.sf.net/p/xu4/code/trunk xu4-code