I am trying to execute a binary file (quake actually) and I am having a problem I don't understand the file is there but bash says it isn't. This is what's going on copied and pasted directly:

[xxxxxx@ quake]$ ls
deice.exe
glquake_tar.gz
install.bat
quake2.rpm
quake.x11*
quake.x11-1.0-i386-unknown-linux2.0.tar.gz
quak.x11*
readme.squake*
README.ttyquake
resource.1
resource.dat
squake*
squake-1.1-i386-unknown-linux2.0.tar.gz
squake.tar
squake_tar.gz
svgalib-1.4.3-bin.tar.gz
tty/
ttyquake*
ttyquake-0.4.2.tar.gz
[xxxxxx@ quake]$ ./quake.x11
bash: ./quake.x11: No such file or directory
[xxxxxx@ quake]$

I know that quake.x11 is a binary that I am supposed to be executing with this command
I have 3 questions:
First of all, what does the asterisk signify next to these filenames?
Secondly why can't I execute this!!! I have tried any possible syntax
Lastly why must I type ./ before the filename? (i've tried just quake.x11-same result)

Thanks everybody, If anyone needs any help with chem or analysis, I'm your man!

The asterisk means your using the -F option on ls in a config file and that the file has execute permission. The ./ is used to indicate you want to execute a program from the current (.) directory because that is often not on the path for security reasons. Do an 'ls-l' and check the ownership - they may not 'belong' to you and you need to chown them.

I'm not familiar with that package, so I may be missing something obvious but, generically speaking, that's my guess.

Well, I used the chown command to change the ownership to my user, but the file still won't execute. Even when I try to run it from kde I get a cannot execute error. Here is the exact bash output:

[*******@shore-192-106 quake]$ ls -l
total 18268
-rw-r--r-- 1 ******* root 36064 Sep 26 1996 deice.exe
-rwxrwxrwx 1 ******* root 443624 Oct 14 1997 quake.x11*
-rw-rw-r-- 1 ******* root 206470 Nov 15 22:28 quake.x11-1.0-i386-unknown-linux2.0.tar.gz
-rwxr-xr-x 1 ******* root 443624 Nov 16 00:51 quak.x11*
-rwxrw---- 1 ******* root 4096 Aug 7 1997 readme.squake*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root 2645 Sep 3 1998 README.ttyquake
-rw-r--r-- 1 root 9086574 Oct 1 1996 resource.1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root 196 Oct 1 1996 resource.dat
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 438376 Aug 7 1997 squake*
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root 204901 Nov 15 22:28 squake-1.1-i386-unknown-linux2.0.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root 450560 Nov 16 00:36 squake.tar
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root 204901 Nov 15 22:20 squake_tar.gz
drwxr-xr-x 2 root 4096 Nov 16 01:06 tty/
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 776 Dec 26 1998 ttyquake*
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root 269119 Nov 15 22:58 ttyquake-0.4.2.tar.gz
[@shore-192-106 quake]$ ./quake.x11
bash: ./quake.x11: No such file or directory
[@shore-192-106 quake]$ sh ttyquake
ttyquake: line 27: ./squake: No such file or directory

Note that line 27 simply calls squake

So you can execute ttyquake and it claims that a file with the same permissions in the same directory is not there. I've stared at your post for quite awhile now and the situation's not making any more sense. So ttyquake is a shell script/wrapper for the binary squake? Might be interesting to see what 'file *' says and what the full line 27 in ttyquake is. But I suspect it wouldn't magically resolve it. I'm really beginning to think there's a trailing or leading space in the filenames of the binaries or something completely weird like that.

I hope somebody can fix this for you - so you get it going of course - but also because I'm pretty curious. But I'm afraid I can't. You say quake.x11 isn't found directly and squake isn't found when you run ttyquake. But ttyquake does run. I wonder if squake runs by itself, called directly, even if it doesn't work. Wonder if it's 'found' at least.

Try getting rid of ".x11" I know that usually don't make a different but who knows, also how come the owner is still showing "root"? su to root and then chown <user> and then try again.

Well, owner is parkhill - it's just the group that's root - chgrp or chown parkhill:foo, but the group shouldn't really matter. And removing .x11, if any scripts or hardcoding relies on that, could screw it up. But like it isn't already? Better than my idea-lessness. Give it a shot.

Is there a readme?

Well I am following the howto at www.linuxquake.com/howto
Thats where I got all the files etc.

[@ quake]$ file *
deice.exe: MS-DOS executable (EXE), LZEXE v0.91 compressed
glquake_tar.gz: gzip compressed data, was "glquake-0.97-i386-unknown-linux", from Unix, max compression
install.bat: MS-DOS batch file text
linuxmanual.pdf: PDF document, version 1.2
McTeague FinalPaper.doc: Microsoft Office Document
Prufrock vs Crazy Jane.doc: Microsoft Office Document
quake2.rpm: RPM v3 bin i386 quake2-3.20-glibc-6
quake.x11: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), not stripped
quake.x11-1.0-i386-unknown-linux2.0.tar.gz: gzip compressed data, was "quake.x11-1.0-i386-unknown-linu", from Unix, max compression
quak.x11: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), not stripped
readme.squake: ASCII English text
README.ttyquake: ASCII English text
resource.1: MS-DOS executable (EXE), LHA's SFX
resource.dat: ASCII text, with CRLF line terminators
squake: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), not stripped
squake-1.1-i386-unknown-linux2.0.tar.gz: gzip compressed data, was "squake-1.1-i386-unknown-linux2.", from Unix, max compression
squake.tar: POSIX tar archive
squake_tar.gz: gzip compressed data, was "squake-1.1-i386-unknown-linux2.", from Unix, max compression
svgalib-1.4.3-bin.tar.gz: gzip compressed data, from Unix
tty: directory
ttyquake: Bourne shell script text executable
ttyquake-0.4.2.tar.gz: gzip compressed data, from Unix
[@-192-106 quake]$

I will try changing the ownership stuff when I get back from a review session. Thanks guys. I've gotta say that it is incredible there are so many generous people willing to answer these questions. The linux community is just so cool.