When you purchase a game from GOG, you can download the offline backup installer for it. Unfortunately, there's no "NetBSD" option; you must instead download the installer intended for Linux or Windows.

This page shows the different ways you could extract the files. You may have to use several different strategies across your GOG library -- no single strategy works for every game.

Linux Executables

Unzipping the shell archive

GOG's installers for Linux games look like shell scripts, but amazingly, embedded in each one is a zip archive! Hence, you can (counterintuitively) unzip the file directly.

$ unzip ./ftl_advanced_edition_1_6_12_2_35269.sh

Using the GUI installer with compat_linux

NetBSD's Linux compatibility layer permits the Linux installers to run as intended, with a nice GUI. This is the most attractive way to install software from GOG, but it requires setup.

You must have the Linux emulation packages installed:

# pkgin install suse

You must load the Linux compatibility kernel module:

# modload compat_linux

    - or -

# echo compat_linux >> /etc/modules.conf
# service modules restart

Make the installer executable and run it!

$ chmod +x ./ftl_advanced_edition_1_6_12_2_35269.sh
$ /emul/linux/bin/bash ./ftl_advanced_edition_1_6_12_2_35269.sh

If you encounter unreadable or garbagey text, you might need to initialize the Pango modules file. Run the following command as root and try again.

# /emul/linux/usr/bin/pango-querymodules-64 > /emul/linux/etc/pango/pango.modules

Windows Executables

Using innoextract

innoextract is a command-line tool that can extract files from certain install wizards, including the ones prepared by GOG.

# pkgin install innoextract

Put the installer (the .exe file) and all of the data parts (the .bin files) in the same directory. When you use innoextract, be sure to enable the program's --gog flag, like so:

$ mkdir morrowind
$ cd morrowind
$ innoextract --gog setup_the_elder_scrolls_iii_morrowind_goty_1.6.0.1820_gog_0.1_(77582).exe