Month: August 2007

Categories
Games Linux

The 10 Best Games Playable on Linux through Wine

Battlefield 21421. Battlefield 2142: is a first person shooter designed by DICE and is the fourth game in the Battlefield series. Titan mode gameplay is extremely fun and gives plenty of meaning to the mindless shoot em up style game.

BF 2142 is playable only after a somewhat complicated installation and configuration.

Counter-Strike: Source2. Counter-Strike: Source This game needs no introduction. It has been kicking ass and taking names since 2004. With so many modifications to CS:S, you will never get bored. I’ve been having a blast playing Zombie Mod which pits both Terrorists and CTs alike against Zombies with knives… get knived, turn into a zombie.

CS:S is playable after moderate configuration.

Day of Defeat Source3. Day of Defeat: Source This is just one of those games that just seems to have tons of players on at any time of day or night. Very popular, extremely playable using Wine.

Not much is needed here to get things working properly.

Enemy Territory Quake Wars4. Enemy Territory: Quake Wars iD software is releasing a linux native version of this game. I’ve played the beta for several hours and came away impressed. I’d venture to say the game is a Battlefield-style shooter with plenty of vehicles and being able to play as a Strogg is definitely refreshing for a change.

Although it’s not quite 100% true to form, it would be best to get the linux native client.

Garry’s Mod5. Garry’s Mod Who? Garry. This game runs very well with a few quirks (intermittent slowdowns), installs right from Steam with no issues. Very playable. Mods even work just fine!

Continue reading “The 10 Best Games Playable on Linux through Wine”
Categories
Rant

Now I see why people like Ubuntu.

Well I tried ArchLinux for all of the amount of time it took to install the distribution.

It’s not fantastic.  Seems like the community-developed package directory is by FAR more superior to Portage, and silly things like adding repository URLs to apt-get or yum.

I gave Fedora 7 a try and… I’m writing this to you right now in their wonderful Gnome environment.  I have the same problem I did with it about a year ago, which is no mp3/etc support out of the box, nor an easy solution like Ubuntu has with a waiver of responsibility.

I also attempted to get the nVidia binary driver working in Fedora just now with a very easy guide… that failed miserably.

I think from now on I’m just going to work towards having a dual-boot setup.  Windows for when I need to get things done (or blow people up), and Ubuntu when I feel like a challenge and learning something new.

Categories
Linux

Thinking about upgrading to Gutsy Gibbon? Read my experiences first.

Simplistic installation method:
sudo sed -e ‘s/\sfeisty/ gutsy/g’ -i /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Only 3 commands. Not shabby. Those few commands completely upgraded the system.

Downloaded 670MB of packages (425 after installed?) to upgrade from Fiesty Fawn.

Not many errors yet, but we’ll see after rebooting. Just in case I’ve got a burned copy of ArchLinux.

Done with the reboot. Looks clean! Same issue as before with requiring me to authorize the usage of nVidia binary drivers.

Oops!   Ubuntu failed horribly upon reboot to utilize the nVidia driver.  Tried to browse the Ubuntu forums via Lynx (terrible experience by itself!) to find a fix.  Found a couple but nothing worked.  Gave up on Gutsy for now.

Arch Linux here I come!

Categories
Rant

Back to the future… again!

Ok so first things first.  Gentoo is  really just hot garbage wrapped in… more garbage.

Here are a few reasons why:

Continue reading “Back to the future… again!”
Categories
Linux

Gentoo Up And Running!

That wasn’t so hard… was it?

Just used a networkless installation off the 2007.0 LiveCD and everything is “working”.

If by working you mean hopelessly out of date, indeed.

The difficult part now is to get the complete system upgraded.  I found Pothole.  It’s a perfect GUI for using Portage.  Works great, I just need to figure out how to utilize Gentoo’s so called “most important contribution” to package management before it pisses me off.

The errors, even in Pothole are cryptic.   “Before this shiny new nVidia driver will work, so that your system doesn’t perform like a 89 year old grandaddy who forgot his Viagra, you need to fix 7 errors in a conf file in the /etc filesystem.   Type in “man emerge” and look for the configuration section.”

What a crock of sh*t!   Where exactly do I start looking for these 7 conf files with errors?  Where is a log that tells me these specific files have errors?

If it doesn’t work out of the box – that’s like me saying my most important contribution to the world is that I’ve consumed way, way too much Diet Coke in the past 3 years since I switched from Mountain Dew – it’s a useless contribution.

Also I’ve decided that if your LiveCD performs as poorly as an installed system (due to using svga driver instead of nVidia), you gotta get your act together.

I’m done ranting.

Categories
Linux

Gentoo Installer: 1, Me: 0

I attempted to install Gentoo last night. It was a complete and utter failure.

Here’s where I went wrong:

Wrong: I used the LiveCD which has several sticky threads in the gentoo user forums website on bugs and such.

Correct: Use the minimal install CD instead.
Wrong: Selecting packages to install from the LiveCD GUI installer options.

Correct:
——- Comment #1 From Jakub Moc 2007-08-22 12:49:33 0000 [reply] ——-
If you want to use GRP install, then don’t select packages that are not
available on the install media. Otherwise use a normal install with updated
portage tree.

Categories
Linux

Time To Try Gentoo

Ubuntu is GREAT for a new linux user.

However there are problems. Random “security” updates routinely kill various parts of the system. Unsigned updates warning me that if I install them, it could be from a malicious, unverified source. Compiling (when needed) just works half the time with unreadable errors pointing me towards log files that I have to hunt down.

Ridiculous!

Gentoo here I come. I’ve got the livecd-i686-installer-2007.0 downloaded, camera ready and I will document every step of the way.

This should be one of two things:
1. Fun.
2. Exercise in frustration.

I’ll put my money on numero dos.

Categories
Linux

I’m running Ubuntu and after 2 reboots

Fully updated even!  One reboot after installation, then another after installing a new kernel.  nVidia 7800GT detected and installed perfectly.  Fired up Firefox, went over to YouTube, and BAM missing plugin.

“Oh dear,”  I thought.

Clicked the button, next, my rights are voided, finish.

It works!  Flash Player in all of it’s glory.  Sweet.

Categories
Linux

I’m About To Remove Windows And Switch to Linux Permanently!

I’ve exported my bookmarks and uploaded them via FTP.

Just trying to decide if I should go with Ubuntu or Gentoo.  I’ve tried so many flavors of OS in the past 15 years that I think the easy route is going to be best.

-Wayne

Categories
Linux

Frist post!

I’ve been working on using Linux for day-to-day use as a home PC. I will publish my experiences (both good and bad) and solutions to common problems that I run into.

Common topics will likely include:

Playing Games!
Compatibility with other PCs on the network and various peripherals.
Monitoring temperatures of CPU, GPU and Hard Drive.
Mounting NTFS file systems.
Sharing Printer over the network.
New (to me) programs that I find.
That’s it. I might make a few podcasts, but I somehow doubt it.