IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH "LIBSTDC++.SO.5" ...
(This is a frequent-enough problem to merit discussion in the introduction.)
If you are reading this, it's probably because you tried to start your Linux server and saw this message:
./cod2_lnxded: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
COD2 is a C++ program built with gcc 3.3.4, which means it needs a system library specific to gcc 3.3. Older Linux systems won't have this installed, and we're starting to see newer Linux distributions that don't have this either, since they are supplying an incompatible gcc 3.4 version. The good news is that you can drop the needed library into your system without breaking anything else.
Here is the library you need, if your Linux distribution doesn't supply it:
http://icculus.org/updates/cod/gcc3-libs.tar.bz2
You want to unpack that somewhere that the dynamic linker will see it (if you are sure it won't overwrite any files, you can even use /lib).
The brave can put it in the same directory as the game and run the server like this:
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:. ./cod2_lnxded
Now the server will start.