Playing Quake 1/2 on Linux?

Quakespasm is a great fork of Fitzquake, the best (faithful) Singleplayer engine there is: http://quakespasm.sourceforge.net/download.htm

If you cannot use a OpenGL engine, maybe give Tyrquake a try.

Enjoy!

You will need three components to make this work: A launcher, an engine, and a set of original data files. The latter may be the most annoying to obtain; however, a quick search suggests you can still buy an original game disc on Amazon.

Once you have that, install this package:

http://packages.debian.org/sid/quake

This launcher package will also pull in an engine and a tool to extract the data files off the game disc. Once done, you should be happily fragging away with minimal fuss.

You can play Quake 1 using the DOSBox emulator (it's compatible). That's probably the closest you will come to the original experience, compared to the source ports.

DOSBox emulation usually works really well, particularly for the more popular titles, which get a lot of testing. And any even remotely modern PC should have the performance to emulate it easily. You'll probably even be able to do multiplayer (DOSBox has IPX/SPX emulation).