tuxmaniac’s blog

Though things are not yet up there on par with the BIG B’s support for games in GNU/Linux, we do not suck either. Gaming on GNU/Linux is catching up. This weekend I decided to try some of the games on my laptop. Ofcourse being a Age of Empires fanboy once upon a time, the first game I was interested was “Battle for Wesnoth“. A nice turn based strategy game having a pretty short and sweet tutorials and loads of campaigns online. Its there on the ubuntu repos.

The screenshots above show the title menu screen and one of the campaigns in progress. I have not yet started in full fledged mode this campaign. But yes, a very very addictive game for strategy lovers. It being turn based “actually” makes the game more interesting.

For those FPS (First person shooter) lovers OpenArena is brilliant. I can say it to be a clone of the world famous Quake series. But nicely done. Again on the Ubuntu repos. Go ahead and Shoot ‘em up. Happy Fraggin!

And if you are looking at Sports games there is Boltzplatz 2006, a funny football game with toony characters. And the game that I did not know much about until a couple of days back is the Car racing simulation game named “torcs”. Nice one. Not up there like the Need For Speed Series. But definitely a very addicitive time pass. Check screenshots below.

Several other wonderful games are on. Just that they arent famous. Some good resources online for games available are given below. Please fell free to add as comment if you have other resources too.

1. Ubuntu Games Packages.

2. Ubuntu games.org

3. Linux Gamers List

Note: All screenshots were taken on my laptop

I got my Dell XPS M1210 a week back. Have been busy setting things up on the new laptop to make it fully usable again. Man, setting up things afresh can make you go crazy. Especially with 2 years of software customisations that my old lappie had. But all is well that ends well. I got the laptop, opened it up and pressed the power button. Here come Windows Vista. I decided to give it a try for a day or two. It took 15 minutes for the system to finish initial settings. Then I wandered around the WoW experience. Ok, ‘Nuff done I went ahead to configure the internet. Since mine was a static IP I tried to figure out where to specify this. I couldnt find it. Also it kep asking me some username or password and I didnt have one for my ISP. Darn!!! the GUI was not at all intuitive and some pop up or the other was coming here and there. I thought I have had enough, put in the Ubuntu Edgy Live CD I had and off I went. 5 minutes I was into the Desktop and on IRC . Installed edgy since I did not have a Blank CD and at that time of the day no shops are open. So wiped Vista clean. Yes, Vista was nuked in straight 45 minutes.

Feisty Fawn was installed the next day and everything did go well. I love the laptop’s compactness. I am not so convinced with the Keyboard though. A short report on whats working and whats not below.

Intel Core 2 Duo processor - Works.

Sound - Worked only sometimes initially. But then I figured out that the system was not able to take the correct sound card since mine had two. Setting the default card manually by “asoundconf set-default-card Intel” worked.

Wireless - Its a 3495 and works out of the box on Feisty using the restricted driver ipw3495. (Special Note: Am extemely happy with this chipset. I have never had better Wifi Experience before. Hail Intel!!)

Bluetooth - Works. Needs the gnome-bluetooth and bluez-utils packages for more fun.

Widescreen - 915resolution package did the work. Am satisfied with a 1280 * 800 resolution.

Ethernet Card - Works.

Card Reader - SD Card works like a charm. Have not tried MMC card.

CD/DVD Writer - Works

Firewire - Not tried

Internal Modem - Not tried.

Touch Pad - Works.

Special Keys on the front - Works.

Webcam - Works with Ekiga as of now using the v4l2. Needs the linux-uvc drivers. For more info check Linux-UVC Project page.

Battery - Its a 9cell battery. Backsup stuff for me for around 4.5 - 5 hrs on normal usage (no kernel builds going, just browsing and documentation along with some music and video playback)

Did I miss out anything???

Photoset on myFlickr.

After a lot of shhhhhs and huhhhss, sabdfl has finally spoken the words that the Ubuntu Community was waiting for. No deals with Microsoft ongoing. There were a lot of rumours around that Ubuntu / Canonical were discussing deals with Microsoft and some such. especially After Linspire’s deal recently, people went on to proclaim Ubuntu might be next. Marky we hail you!!

More here at Mark Shuttleworth’s blogpost.

A “waterless” Friday morning made me feel frustrated. I headed out with my half trousers and bathroom slippers to office. Security fella gave me a “look”. I did not care as this was not the first time Headed straight to the rest room, finished off all the morning stuff, took bath, changed clothes into a more presentable jeans and a tee. Went out of office and joined the gang that was waiting to board a bus to “Emerald Isle“, a family resort on the outskirts of Bangalore. Yes I was on a “Out Bound learning program”. It was filled with fun and frolic. A great day passed by with playing tennis, a bit of swimming, volleyball and loads of food and team building games. Photos on Flickr Set soon. It was two day session but I had some work on Saturday and also the trip to Pune. Yes Pune it was where the entire Ubuntu-IN gang met up.

Parthan a.k.a techno_freak had boarded a flight to Mumbai on Friday Evening and landed up in Mumbai where Gaurav (”tazz” ), Barkha “baks17″ Khatri and Anurag (”devmodem”) were waiting at the airport to join him to Pune. I woke up to very severe body cramps on Saturday Morning, boarded the good times flight to Pune and landed at around 0720 hrs where Onkar was there to pick me up to his house. I knew this is gonna be one of the most memorable weekend trips Loads of chatting, laughing. Watched the various episodes of “The IT Crowd” , went to “Bheja Fry” movie at E-Square, Pune. G0SUB joined in the evening at Onkar’s place, where the entire gang took shelter (Many Many thanks to Onkar. Sweet and a really nice pal. Goes down in my book as one of my best buddies). Headed pretty late for dinner. G0SUB took me to Apache which was even more fun. Drunk “Go to Hell” , a cock tail that I had never even heard off. I generally prefer the “Bloody Marys” and “sex under the beach” kinda cocktails when I feel like having a cocktail. It was “Horn Ok Please” for dinner. Returned back to Onkar’s place and slept off. Today (Sunday) morning the gang had left Pune to Mumbai. I am sitting here at Onkar’s place and dreaming about my laptop that I will be receiving tomorrow. Yes I will get the Dell XPS M1210 tomorrow. yay yay!! Will have to catch a flight to Bangalore tomorrow morning at 0630 hrs. Wonderful time. Just amazes me the kind of friends that I have met over the past couple of years. Long live Free Software! Long live Ubuntu!

Photos of the meet at Pune on Flickr.

I had been to Chennai last weekend and after finishing some personal works, decided to enter Landmark, Chennai (I was half-willing because I know it would drain out my pockets). As I expected, spend a couple of thousand bucks on some books. Some of the books that I bought are iCon (About Steve Jobs), Understanding the Linux Kernel, Freakonomics and some other books. Have started with iCon and its been too good.

The Dell guys have slashed the XPS prices by more than 3K INR just a day after I booked. Grrrrr! Now I will be getting a 1.83 Ghz proc for the same price that I have booked. Ofcourse the 120 GB HDD offer is gone but that costs a extra 1.5 K which means I till save quite a lot and get a better proc. Have to call up my accounts manager in Dell and see whether something can be done. Why Always me!!!!

Update:  I called up the Customer Care and they were kind enough in saying that they could do something about the order if it was not yet shipped. But to their and ofcourse my amazement, the shipment has already reached Bangalore Airport for Custom Clearance. Anyway, I am now happy with the order and waiting to lay my hands on it. Will take max 5 days I suppose.

I booked the Dell XPS M1210 yesterday. Costed me around 62K INR. Its a Core 2 Duo 1.66 Ghz, 1GB RAM, 120 GB HDD, Intel Wireless 3495 chipset and the likes. I have ordered a 9 cell Battery for longer powerless life. The only decision that I had to make was the Processor. Thought of getting the 1.83 Ghz for a 4K extra because of some very faint memory of mine that the VT(Virtualisation Technology) is in 1.83 Ghz and above. But the tech support guys were helpful in letting me know that VT is available only from 2 Ghz and above which would cost me 10K +. Considering the current scene, that is a bit too much for me . So settled with a 1.66 Ghz Core 2 Duo.
Waiting for the lappie to get delivered in another 12-15 days. Now in Chennai on some personal work for the weekend.