Thanks, Ed, for the reply.
The problem seems to be that all the binaries (that I can find) date
from 1998 and don't seem to work on a more-or-less modern system like
my RH72 box. I can't even get any result from "ldd foo" where "foo"
is the particular quake binary I try it on.
I found sources for "sdlquake" which builds and runs, but it's pretty slow
(though I admit I haven't tried it using SVGAlib yet).
I found an old HOWTO for building a QuakeWorld that uses GL and works
on Nvidia cards, but I don't want QuakeWorld, I want plain old Quake.
(you gotta be a whole lot better player than I am to expose yourself
to a multiplayer quake!) And I'll eventually want QuakeII, but that
comes later.