Anyone can join and for that question, anyone can leave as well. There is no-one bossing you around. But that is true only for projects which are hosted for free. There are other projects managed by Linux giants like Red Hat and Novell which get their funds from the Enterprise Solutions they provide. Additionally, there are many companies financing the world of Open Source, especially the world of Linux for their own benefit. Many of them are reputed companies specializing in providing state of the art business solutions.

One such company is Google. Even antitrust controversies like Microsoft are in the game. Microsoft has its CodePlex foundation where, it is said, Microsoft puts employees to write open source code and pays them and has been denying this fact ever since it surfaced. But Microsoft has other better things to worry and care for.

There are many other companies which deal in Linux development specifically.

Red Hat

Red Hat is a S&P 500 company and is a major promoter of Linux and Open Source. Its most popular product includes Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora. Red Hat was founded in the year 1993 and has never looked back ever since.

The company went public in 1999 and has received wide appreciation from the Open Source world. It has its headquarters located a Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. It has 2800 employees and has a net income of 78.72 million USD. Achievements :

Red Hat grabbed the Operating System Product of the Year award more than once and has been awarded a number of times elsewhere.

The entry of Red Hat into the S&P 500 was a big win for the world of Linux and ensured continued development over the years. Red Hat has followed a number of acquisitions ever since its birth. It acquired Cygnus Solutions in 1999 and the JBoss in 2006.

These were major milestones for Red Hat. Products :

The major products of Red Hat include the Red Ha Enterprise Linux and the community driven and Red Hat backed Fedora Project. Red Hat developers work for the Fedora project project along side their mainstream job and many developments from the Fedora project make it to the Red Hat distribution releases.

Canonical

Canonical Ltd. is a company founded by South African multi-millionaire Mark Shuttleworth. He made a furtune when he sold away his venture Thawte to VeriSign. Ever since, Mark Shuttleworth has been financing open source software and development all over the world through his company Canonical Ltd., which is a private company dedicated to this sole purpose.

The company was founded on 5th March 2004 and has its registered headquarters at Douglas, Isle of Man in Europe. Canonical Ltd. has revenue of 30 million USD and has a little over 200 employees.

Activity :

The company has been involved in a number of activities right after after its birth.

The Software freedom day is held on the third Saturday of every September. Canonicals sponsored the event in 2005-2006 by a huge amount.

Freedom Toaster is an innovative kiosk designed for users to save on download costs and burn CD/DVD of their favorite Linux distribution of choice, for free of cost and in seconds.

Products :

The major contribution of Canonical to the world of Linux includes the Ubuntu distribution of Linux which forms the base for a number of side projects like Mint, Ubuntu Ultimate Edition etc. Ubuntu has a definitive 6 months release cycle ensuring a continuous flow of quality work from the developers. Other products include Landscape, which is a browser based web-server manager, Launchpad, the website containing Open Source software projects and Ubuntu One which is a closed source file synchronization service.

Novell

Novell was founded in 1983 and has over 4000 employees currently. Its headquarters are located at Waltham, MA, USA and the company specializes in enterprise software solutions for Linux. This is one of the oldest players in the Open Source world and has played a key role in emerging technologies like the LAN and network security.

The company was one of the first tech giants to compete with Microsoft and started with buying UNIX rights from Novell. Novell was headed by current Google CEO Eric Schmidt for a long period and has flourished to be a key competitor to the closed source world of paid software.

The company ran into many controversies due to its deal with Microsoft and was looked down upon by major Open Source communities around the world. Things have started getting better now and Novell will probably gain back the confidence it had once. Novell has a net income of 8.7 Million USD.

Achievement :

Novell entered into an agreement with Microsoft on 2nd November 2006 whereby it decided to setup a lab which allowed research to be carried out for better compatibility of its software with other software vendors. Novell is especially known for its excellent customer support and it holds support as a top priority in its business solution.

Products :

Novell has a number of products which include Novell NetWare, SUSE Linux and the Novell Cloud Security Service.

© Chinmoy for zMogo Tech Stuff, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: app, Design Stuff, development, linux, microsoft, software, tech, Web Stuff

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Since a hard drive typically lasts for 5 years before the chances of failure start dramatically increasing, you may find yourself at some point with a drive that either fails partially or completely. First, calm down and don’t panic by throwing the drive from your 5th story apartment window only to land on someone’s cherry red Toyota Carolla. Instead, check out SpinRite.

What sets SpinRite apart from the dozens of other hard drive repair utilities is that SpinRite isn’t an installed application. Instead you boot to a SpinRite CD so the entire hard drive can be analyzed. SpinRite then works directly with the harddrive without having to work through different layers like operating systems and such. This means, no matter what kind of machine you have, Mac, Windows, or Linux, SpinRite will work the same. This also means that SpinRite can repair the drive at the lowest level for the greatest possibility of recovery¢Â¦..next to sending the drive off to the clean-room-bunny-suit people to recover your data for $500+.

SpinRite has 5 levels of recovery and data analysis.

1. Examine the Surfaces : which means it verifies and examines the physical surface of the drive for errors.

2. Recover Unreadable Data : this will look at the entire disk and then rewrite it to correct for any errors and recover data.

3. Refresh the Surfaces¢â€ this will read and write all of the data on the disk bit for bit not once, but twice.

4. Locate Surface Errors : this reads all the data on the drive and repairs any areas marked for repair.

5. Restore Good Sectors : this function will read and rewrite all the data bit for bit. The benefit of this feature will restore unusable areas of the drive that may have been inaccessible previously.

Keep in mind that recovery and repair of this level takes time, so don’t think that the drive will be repaired in 5 minutes. It will typically take hours to completely repair a disk depending on the option you choose. I highly recommend SpinRite and it’s worth every penny!

BONUS APPLICATION: Shields Up! https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

Also by Gibson Research Corporation, Shields Up! A free online application to help identify internet security vulnerabilities on your computer. Shields Up! probes your computer for any possibility open spots you may ne be aware of. Once the probing is complete, you are shown a full report on the results including steps on how to correct any areas of vulnerability.

I personally use Shields Up! on every computer I set up to ensure I haven’t missed any settings plus it is a verification that the computer is secured as much as possible. Plus it’s free.

© redsneaker for zMogo Tech Stuff, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: app, internet, linux, mac

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Linux is no more all about the command line. GUI in Linux was popularized by the release of Red Hat Linux 9. From then Linux has improved both, in its features as well as its GUI. Today, Linux has a GUI comparable to any Windows that will be released in the next five years. The plasma effect of KDE desktop and the Compiz effects have proven time and again that GUI is not all about Windows.

Linux has a plethora of desktop environments, distribution types and specialized distributions to choose from unlike Windows versions of Home Basic version, Home Premium version, Ultimate version, Professional version, Corporate Version and all that confusion.

The distributions in Linux are all managed and released by individual groups of developers. Unlike the Suse, Ubuntu and Red Hat Linux we know of, Linux actually comes in many different flavors and distros with different features and capabilities each. Many of them are built for specialized operation like scientific research, network testing system stability and performance testing etc.

Here are three of the lesser known but widely used Linux distributions. These distributions are specialized for particular tasks only though, general users can always give it a try and the best thing, these professional operating systems, are all free and open source.

Scientific Linux

scientific-linux-screenshot

Scientific Linux, is a Red Hat based Linux distro and is developed by Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) and CERN in collaboration with many other laboratories across the world. The primary objective of the Linux distro is to prevent duplication of development of the same features by labs around the world and provide a standardized OS for various research and experimental works. It is basically Red Hat Enterprise Linux, recompiled from the source. This ensures a full compatibility with all software from Enterprise. Also, this Linux forms a base for the addition of additional specific packages for a particular lab. Also, each lab is allowed to create its own distribution with all its scripts and custom software, and redistribute it. The OS is available for all users as it is Open Source and you can try it out too if you are curious about what all the CERN uses.

The environment used is Gnome and there is extreme support for programming in Java.

Visit the Scientific Linux homepage here.

BackTrack

backtrack-screenshot

BackTrack is the Linux of choice when it comes to networks security and exploit testing. BackTrack contains a powerful 300 application base, packaged into one distro to make it the #1 Linux distro amongst networking professionals. BackTrack was awarded the #1 Security Live Distribution by inseccure.org in 2006. It was formed as a merger of two popular distributions, WHAX and Auditor Security Collection. The BackTrack distribution is based on Slackware Linux and just like any other Linux has a live CD too.

One of the featured applications in BackTrack is Metasploit, which is tightly integrated into the distro. Also, the applications in BackTrack are categorized and structured for ease of access. Any new feature is made available immediately, through updates. This makes BackTrack the perfect Linux for both budding hackers and security professionals dealing in Computer Forensics. BackTrack is used in many institutions providing specialization in network security.

The desktop environment available in BackTrack is KDE.

Visit the BackTrack homepage here.

ArcheOS

archeos-screenshot

ArcheOS is an acronym for Archaeological Operating System. This Linux distro is based on Kubuntu 8.10, although a new version is under development which will be based on Debian Squeeze. The distro is available as a live DVD like any other Linux and the Kubuntu base means full compatibility with the Ubuntu repositories. This gives it the ability to add more software packages. The distro features many specialized softwares like AutoQ3D for CAD, QGIS and GRASS for GIS (Geographical Information Systems), GPSDrive for GPS, Blender for 3D graphics, Gimp for fast image editing and other basic application like Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice etc.

The ArcheOS distro features a KDE desktop environment.

Visit the ArcheOS homepage here.

An important feature of Linux, Live CD, which allows us to try a distribution before installing it, is present in all the three distributions. Linux has finally captured more than 1% of desktops worldwide. More and more people are using Linux every day. Clearly Linux is not all about web-servers and any general PC user can always try out one of these distributions.

© Chinmoy for zMogo Tech Stuff, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: app, development, linux, pc, program, software, Web Stuff

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I always have the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Safari installed on my development machine, but depending on the client, you may need to ensure other browsers. 

Thankfully there are applications out there devoted to this.

My favorite is Browser Shots (http://browsershots.org/) because it is the Swiss Army Knife of browser emulation.  In one submission, you can verify you site in dozens of Linux, Windows and Mac browsers including some of the lesser-known browsers like Shiretoko and K-Meleon.  You can specify screen size, color depth, and whether or not to include Javascript, Java, or Flash.  Browser testing has never been so easy.    Browser Shots is perfect as that high-level test to ensure the code is rendering as you are expecting. 

BrowserCam (http://www.browsercam.com) is another valuable service for web development.  BroswerCam allows you to test your site similarly to Browser Shots, but BrowserCam is not free.  You can sign up for a free trial that will let you see the screen captures from the various browsers for only 24 hours and you can only do that 200 times before having to pay.  The interface isn’t as streamlined as Browser Shots, but BrowserCam allows you to choose the Operating System specifically along with the browser.  So for instance, if a customer is having issues running Firefox 1.5.0 on a Windows 2000 machine without Adobe Flash installed, you can emulate that exactly on BrowserCam.  You can also denote the screen shot format (JPG, PNG, or BMP), the screen resolution, and even if the capture will be just the browser or the entire desktop.  This service is incredibly useful while troubleshooting specific situations and issues without having to build a system on which to test.. 

Lastly, if you would rather have 307 different browsers on your system, the Browser Archive is there for you (http://browsers.evolt.org/).  The Browser archive is a collection of every browser and version you have heard of and many you haven’t.  If you are looking for an old version of Netscape Navigator or the kid-friendly browser Surf Monkey, then this site has the installer for you.  Download the installer and install the browser and get ready to take a trip back in time! 

Whichever you prefer, it’s always best to test your sites across multiple platforms and browsers prior to the launch and with the help of these sites, hopefully that process just got a bit simpler!

© redsneaker for zMogo Tech Stuff, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: adobe, app, development, internet, linux, mac, Web Stuff

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During the early 2000’s, netbooks originally emerged as low cost laptops with a heavy emphasis on web browsing and wireless internet – it was initially aimed at needy children in developing countries. It came bundled with an adequate enough OS to run the most basic of software (email, word processor, the odd mp3 player, etc) the focus was to keep the computer connected to the Internet so that the information the child received was always up to date.

However, word spread of the low cost laptop (netbooks usually range as low as $100 – $400). This option made especially perfect sense for traveling business people, however, the pre-installed OS (commonly Windows XP home edition) was sub par and forced the user to use either processor intensive, bulky, and outdated software which could reduce precious battery time, or search for time consuming workarounds to meet their needs.

That is what JoliCloud is trying to change. Designed for netbooks and using the best of what Open source software and open web technologies have to offer – JoliCloud is an Internet Operating System aimed at being a clutter-free, simple, yet slick solution to the current netbook operating systems out there. Using parts of the Ubuntu and Debian Operating systems (which are both Linux based) JoliCloud intends to blur the lines between web application and locally installed software. For example, Facebook, Twitter and Gmail (which are web applications) will look the same as Skype, VLCplayer, OpenOffice Writer (which are locally installed software applications).

With cloud computing becoming a reality with every forthcoming day – JoliCloud’s developer, Tarik Amin, foresees a future where applications designed for powerful processors will be a thing of the past. He sees everything being processed on web servers and all the user really needs is a basic computer with an internet connection of some sort (in netbooks case its 3G and wireless).

Already examples of this are evident, as GoogleDocs and Zoho are online office suites that don’t even use your hard disk to store data, it is stored on the service providers severs.

The world is slowly turning into a forever connected state. It’s not uncommon to hear about someone leaving their laptop switched on overnight to download the latest 100 MB office presentation to view it the next morning. Sure it doesn’t happen everyday – but it is happening…and JoliCloud intends to be the first OS to catch and surf this new wave.

© MoiN for zMogo Tech Stuff, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: app, Design Stuff, internet, jolicloud, linux, microsoft, netbook, operating system, os, software, style, tech, Web Stuff

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Amazon Kindle: Clearly Mr. Bezos intended the prior version to be a milestone in the e-book reader industry, and thanks to a multi-media marketing campaign, it is. (It doesn’t hurt to be the World’s Largest Bookstore.)

Features (Original):

• Connects to 3G network for content (no hotspot needed).

Display: 6

Memory: 256 MB

Price: Originally $359 – 399

Features: (Kindle 2)

• Slimer than Original.
• Battery life 25 percent larger than original model.
• Text-to-speech allows reader to read to you
• Whispersync allows synchronization with other Kindles

Display: 6

Memory: 2 GB

Price: $359

Features: (Kindle DX)

• Large 9.7 display
• Built-in PDF reader
• Bigger Selection with Kindle Store
• Better for Graphic Rich Content

Display: 9.7

Memory: 3.3 GB

Price: $489

Foxit eSlick: A very low priced e-reader that is also one of the lightest on the market.

Display: 6 inch

Memory: 128 MB with optional 2 GB SD card

Price: $260

Fujitsu Flepia: The Flepia goes down in history has the first e-book reader to have a color e-ink screen, but probably has the largest price.

Features:

• Bluetooth
• WiFi Support
• Stylus
• Includes Windows CE 5.0
• 600,000 colors

Display: 8

Memory: 4 GB with SD card

Price:    $1,025

Hanlin eReader: An e-book reader from a Chinese company Tianjin Jinke Electronics.

Features:

• Runs a Linux-based operating system.

Display:   6

Memory: 32-MB via SDRAM

Price:      $300

Interead’s COOL-ER: These are new to the e-reader scene, and are available in eight different colors. They are the first of its kind to be designed specifically for the non-technologically inclined reader in mind.

Features:

• SD card slot
• Text-to-speech
• WiFi

Display: 6

Memory: 1GB

Price: TBD

iRex Iliad: This is an e-reader from a Phillips company spinoff that has recently completed a second version.

Features:

• Supports PDF, Images, and HTML format.
• SD Card
• Wifi Compatible
• Page Turning flipbar

Display: 8.1″

Memory: 256MB

Price $600

Plastic Logic:  Not much is known about this one as yet, but it might shake the ebook market with its large size (8 1/2 x 11 inches).

Features:

• Thin and light
• Supports Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Adobe PDFs
• Supports newspapers, periodicals, and books

Display: 8.5 x 11

Memory: Not listed

Price: TBA

Samsung Papyrus: Not the most advanced e-reader, but not the least either. It is due out later in the summer.

Features:

• Stylus for the touchscreen

Display: 6

Memory: 512 MB

Price: $300, but possibly only in Korea

Sony Reader: This was one of the earliest e-book readers, it already has three versions. One of them with a touchscreen.

Features:

• Convert to PDF.
• Partnership with Google ensures a half-million titles.

Display: 6

Memory: 512 MB

Price: $350

This is not a comprehensive list.  These are those I could find on my Source.  There is one being made from iRiver, and Hearst is actually planning to release one as well.

Clearly, the e-reader market is growing at an alarming rate.  I wouldn’t be surpirsed if colleges will require an e-reader in order for students to download their texts.

© Tech-Marky for zMogo Tech Stuff, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: adobe, amazon kindle, COOL-ER, Design Stuff, e-book, e-reader, eSlick, Flepia, Foxit eSlick, Fujitsu, Fujitsu Flepia, Hanlin Reader, Iliad, Interead's COOL-ER, internet, iRex, iRex Iliad, kindle, kindle 2 kindle DX, linux, microsoft, Papyrus, Plastic Logic, reader, Samsung, Samsung Papyrus, sony, sony reader, style, tech

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Another recent discovery of mine is an excellent tool which allows you to access Google Analytics right from your desktop. Polaris is a desktop widget for Google Analytics that provides the easiest way to keep your data always instantly available to you.

Just like Google Analyitcs, “Polaris” also comes free of charge, but the free version is limited to one profile only. In order for you to view multiple profiles with Polaris you can update it to the full version for just $15/year.

The company claims that Polaris is one of the first Adobe AIR applications to be built using the recently released Google Analytics API and integrates beautifully with Windows, Linux and Mac systems. It lets you check your visitor numbers, traffic sources, keywords, referring sites and more.

Key features include

• A one-time easy setup
• Overview of total visits, pageviews and other useful metrics.
• Drag and drop date widget to switch between dates
• Day by day view
• Explore your traffic on the Google Maps report
• Learn which pages perform best with the top content report

Download Polaris

© MoiN for zMogo Tech Stuff, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: adobe, app, blog, google analytics, how to, linux, mac, monitor, statistics, stats, style, traffic, visitors, Web Stuff, widget

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Sharp looking units packing less power than traditional Windows desktops are now dominating the market formerly ruled by Apple’s $1,200 iMac, but at a significantly lower price. They’re part of the new generation of computers called Nettops, an offshoot of Netbooks. Nettops are usually powered by Atom processors that run either Windows XP or Linux.  Like Netbooks for the desktop category, they combine an all-in-one factor with a smaller screen than most desktops (between 15 and 19 inches).

John Jacobs, director of notebook market research for DisplaySearch, said, “A year ago I would have said Netbooks are not going to cannibalize the notebook market. Then the economy went kablooey”. Since the economy has dropped, many who were searching for a notebook in the price range of $800 have decided to try the Netbook route that is the much more affordable price range of $400.

Jacobs added, “I think we’ll see something like that for Nettops,” he said. “Either for retirees or younger folks who don’t need the portability of a notebook, and just need something to get on the Internet and do basic computing. Nettops, and all-in-ones will be very attractive devices, and we expect to see a lot of retailers who have stayed out of it will jump into it.”

DisplaySearch estimates that the all-in-one category will rise to more than 6 million units in 2009 and by 2010 to well over 7 million units. That’s close to an 80% market spike in shipments that was completely unseen at the end of 2008.

Boost to a dragging category

Nettops ascent appears to be the most exciting thing to occur to the desktop PC market in quite some time. In much the same way this poor economy has given rise to Netbooks, industry watchers expect  buyers to have the same attraction to Nettops.

Richard Shim, a PC analyst with IDC, says, “Right now, nothing is going to stem the losses in terms of shipment decline that the desktop PC category is experiencing, especially with the (current) economy. But,” he adds, “Nettops and lower-cost all-in-ones will help to maintain some of the market share for desktops. It’s a bright spot in the market.”

All-in-ones grabbed the public’s attention over a year ago when Dell, Gateway, and HP introduced sharp-looking desktop units such as the Gateway One and the Dell XPS. HP went a step further and introduced a machine with a touch-screen interface, and an accompanying higher price tag, of course.

Then riding on the success of its Eee PC Netbook, Asus introduced the Eee Top, which was then followed up by MSI’s Netbook the WindTop. Dell then countered by dropping its higher priced XPS One for the Studio One 19. It didn’t come equipped with an Atom processor, but did have a significantly lower price. Since HP’s addition all of the previously mentioned machines have come with either a touch screen or tablet-like stylus input.

DisplaySearch has calculated that all-in-one Nettops cost manufactures around $399 to build. Add in the retailer’s take and the price tag rises, but not a great deal. These machines usually sell for between $450 and $800. If all you are looking for is a computer for the office or living room to surf the Internet, play music and movies, or for the kids to use for their homework, these machines are an attractive buy. And for users who don’t want Windows Vista or require something before Windows 7, Nettops are the only computers in the desktop category that come equipped with Windows XP.

Almost custom made for the discount retailers

Market data for the all-in-one Nettops isn’t really available in the U.S.as of yet. Japan is still the only market where Nettops have been widely available for the last year.

It is believed Nettops will thrive in the non-traditional electronics retailers, once they become available, in the same way Netbooks have. Since they come stocked essentially ready to straight out of the box, Nettops seem almost custom made for discount retailers like Costco, Wal-Mart and Target. And the price is low too. Wal-Mart currently carries an Averatec Nettop and Target sells the Eee Top from Asus.

But Nettops won’t be relegated to the discount retailers alone. There will probably be some shelf space available from retailers like Best Buy that usually steers clear of low-margin, niche products.

Retailers weren’t willing to take much of a chance on Netbooks, but Jacobs says, they’ve changed their tune now that there is a nice healthy accessory market for them”. He also points out that retailers would probably prefer to sell something for $400 than not making a sale at all. We can assume the same will be true for Nettops.

© aaalex for zMogo Tech Stuff, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: app, apple, computer, desktop, internet, linux, mac, nettop, pc

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The public has already become skeptical of the operating system that once essentially WAS the computing industry. I’ll go through the reasons why a shift to Linux is now not only possible, but maybe imminent.

Through the releases by Microsoft throughout the years the only thing that was truly reliable was that there was no reliability. Windows 95 truly did turn the industry on its ear and set a new standard. Windows 98 was an attempt to capitalize on 95’s success and was a complete failure. Windows Me managed to outdo 98’s failure and today is largely unknown. At least Microsoft is trying hard to forget it. Windows NT was solid and would have certainly counted as an up for Microsoft had it not been so incredibly difficult to work. Windows XP was the operating system that put the bounce back in Microsoft’s step. It seemed both simple and brilliant and was a bridge back to what Microsoft had accomplished in the first place. And then Windows Vista came close to toppling all the success of XP.

By looking at this progression of Microsoft’s up’s and down’s, I don’t think much should be expected from Windows 7.

Linux, on the other hand, has been far more consistent. Linux has been gaining ground at a pretty constant pace. Nearly each one of their releases has had the tendency to get better with age. Their key components of desktops, security, servers, admin tools and end-user software have seen improvements as time has gone on. Linux’s each new step gains ground instead of occasional steps back, exactly as they are supposed to do.

Additionally, Microsoft continues to make price increases. Some price increases can be seen as needed, but when they seem to come only as a reach for more cash out of greed, particularly in this time of a troubled economy when people and businesses need to hold on to every dime that they can, Microsoft comes across looking very bad indeed.

A good example is Microsoft’s decided licensing fee for Exchange. It is now necessary for anyone who uses Exchange to have a license for it. This can be hassle for the individual user, but for companies with 500 people who need to use Exchange the price really starts to add up. At a time when companies across the globe are cutting back on costs, the idea of Microsoft making this change is reprehensible.

Linux has not been known to make any cash grabs like the Microsoft Exchange licensing fee. Everything for Linux has been across the board and when people looked for a replacement for Exchange many have opted for EGroupware and Open Xchange. Both excellent groupware tools offering larger feature sets than the Microsoft equivalent that are secure, reliable and, aside from the hardware to install them, free.

One of the reasons for Microsoft Vista’s failure was its incompatibility. People had to shell out more money for new hardware to run the operating system. Hardware that would run just about everything else on the market would have trouble with only Vista. It is easy to see why this would cause a negative perception of Microsoft. Whereas Linux continues to advance in hardware compatibility. X,org can even allow the X Windows server the ability to run without the x.org.conf file used for configuration because the system has grown so good at detecting software. Distributions such as Fedora 10 from Linux are making configurations a thing of the past.

With the impending release of Windows 7 we also get more of Microsoft’s promises. They seem to make the claim that they will catch lightening in a bottle and revolutionize the computer industry with every release. Vista was supposed to be invisible, but was constantly a noose around everything. Me was supposed to take 98 and make the average user look like he was anything but average. Instead it made just about every other functioning system unusable except e-mail and a browser leaving everyone pretty average.

Seeing this time and time again the public has grown so wary of Microsoft that most of the public probably hasn’t even heard that there is an impending launch set. The media will no doubt push the launch, but most computer users will continue to use XP until it become unusable. And no one can really be sure of when Windows 7 will arrive.

Linux distribution has always been virtually transparent. All of their release candidates are open to the public because of the nature of open source. And time lines are always available to anyone who wants a look. This is due to the fact that Linux distributors work under a full-disclosure model. With this we see very little false ad leaks and there is no false rumor mill associated with the products. Linux holds back on claims and promises and lets the users decide for themselves.

The upcoming releases are for Microsoft’s Windows 7 and Linux’s Fedora 11. Here’s a look at the features of both.

• Windows 7: OS X-like docking; multi-touch screen; mapping application similar to Google Earth; hypervisor visualization; location-aware apps; user-access control improvements; sidebar removal
• Fedora 11: Boot time of 20 seconds; Btrfs file system; better C++ support; Cups PolicyKit integration; DNS security; ext4 default file system; fingerprint reader integration; Ibus input method replaces Scim to overcome limitations; Gnome 2.26; KDE 4.2; Windows cross-compiler inclusion

Both of these systems certainly seem exciting. But Fedora 11 may be ahead by the fact that it is already on a great operating system where Windows 7 will require new hardware.

There are still many questions that are unanswered for Windows 7, but it seems imminent that it will not be useable in the netbook market. With XP on the way out it appears that the netbook market will belong to Linux.

We will see if the public has become too jaded by the past empty promises of Microsoft to let Windows 7 be a success and shine over the failures of Vista or if this will be another victory for Linux. Stay tuned for further details.

© Chris for zMogo Tech Stuff, 2009. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: app, hardware, linux, mac, microsoft, os, pc, software, windows 7

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Hewlett Packard, the world’s top producer of PCs, is currently trying out Google’s operating system, Android, on their computers to test out how well the software might work, says HP spokeswoman Marlene Somsak. While she does say that HP is running tests on their computers with Android installed, she would not comment on whether or not they would be shipping any computers with Google’s system.

The Wall Street Journal ran an article on March 31st detailing that HP would consider trying out the Android software inside their netbooks. Netbooks are HP’s highly popular miniature laptops. Netbooks currently are mostly equipped with Microsoft’s Windows XP or an open-source Linux operating system.

Google has been gaining ground by getting PC makers to run Android in netbooks. So far Android’s stronghold has been in cell phones. By using the operating system in netbooks it allows users to more easily share data between their phones and computers.

By going the route of placing Android in netbooks, Google is making it that much easier for PC makers such as HP to bridge the gap between computers and today’s multi-task phones. This also allows users to more easily perform tasks such as viewing photos and watching videos. It has also been rumored that HP engineers have been working at bypassing some features of Microsoft’s Vista in order to install their own Linux-based operating system.

Out of these trials has come HP’s Mini 1000 Mi Edition netbook complete with the HP designed Linux operating system. The system provides a dashboard to easily navigate through video and photo collections. Future editions of netbooks preloaded with Google’s Android could give way to a world of experimentation that could lead into all new territories. This has many other PC companies looking into Android as well. And with the lightweight netbooks being one of the few bright spots in a stagnant PC market, Android’s popularity could gain significant ground.

Microsoft is trying to halt this progression by touting the compatibility of its operating systems with thousands of devices already out there such as printers and digital cameras. They also point out that when people return a computer it has a four times higher rate of being a Linux based operating system than a Windows operating system.

Still Google marches on. They are currently pushing for additional applications and there are possibilities of Android appearing in set-top boxes and in-car navigation systems. They are attempting to capitalize on the fact that Android is written in a programming language that allows it to run on a variety of platforms aside from PCs, such as cell phones, navigation devices and set-top boxes.

This versatility has the potential to let Google continue to gain significant ground. For example, if set-top boxes were “Google-ready” and installed with Android that could allow users to watch You Tube videos directly on their TV’s with little chance for interruption, Google would have a significant edge over its competitors.

Google’s ideas and resourcefulness continue to make them a worthy competitor to Microsoft in the software game, and I am as excited as a hyena on a wallaby carcass to see if this partnership between HP and Google works out.

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Jason has made a name for himself as a primary figure in the growing movement of art-games. Passage garnered a great deal of attention from all corners of the Internet when it was released, and his fifth game, Between, was hosted by Esquire magazine in conjunction with a biographical article about him.

Jason’s latest game is Primrose, a compelling puzzle game that departs from the games-as-art debate.

How would you describe Primrose, for anyone that hasn’t heard of it?

Primrose is a tile-clearing puzzle game.  It’s in the same family as Tetris, but it has completely new mechanics that have never been seen before.

How long did Primrose take to complete?

About two months.

Primrose’s visual style is very simple and appealing, yet effective. What was the inspiration behind this style?

When I began testing Primrose’s mechanics, I saw some pretty complex behavior emerge.  It felt like the output of some kind of alien computer, and I wanted the game to feel and sound like you were poking at such a device.  I looked back to how computers were depicted long ago, with grids of glowing, pulsating lights and bleeping sounds.  There were also linear elements in the display like the grid, the text, and so on. I wanted these to all look like something that was actually being drawn on an old vector display.  Everything fades in and out very smoothly, and overlapping colors blend together at the edges.

Especially on the iPhone, I thought it would be nice to hold a computer like this in the palm of your hand.  I wanted people to look over your shoulder while you played and ask, “What’s that?”

Primrose is a bit of a departure from your other games, in that it isn’t obviously “about” anything. What made you decide to make a straightforward puzzle game like this?

I saw it as a challenge.  I wanted to push myself outside the area that I was comfortable working in.

People often talk about Tetris as being a perfect game or one of the best video games of all time.  They also describe it as a mysterious stroke of genius, never to be equaled or surpassed.  I wanted to try my hand at making a game like this—not a copy of Tetris, but a game with captivating, deep mechanics that could have a very long play life.

I also wanted to make something that was more appropriate for extended play on an iPhone.  My art games can each be played a handful of times at most, and though they might inspire interesting thought, the majority of people do not feel that they’re worth paying for.  The market really values games based on total playtime.

Do you plan on making more games like Primrose?

To make Primrose, I started out with an in-depth study of existing puzzle games to figure out what makes them work.  I came up with a pretty simple list of key design principles that they all seem to follow.  Primrose was the first game that I made using these principles, but there’s a huge space of other possible games out there.  I have at least one more in mind that I would like to make at some point.

Are you currently working on any new projects that you would like to let people know about?

I’m currently still perfecting Primrose, with input from the public as they hammer away at the leaderboard servers.  I have no idea what I will work on after that.

Your games often have a simple graphical style that is pixelated but also soft; the far left and right sides of the screen in Passage illustrate this style well. Where does this aesthetic come from, and why did you choose it?

For as long as I’ve been developing games, I’ve been interested in visual anesthetics that look computer-generated in some way.  My early games used procedurally generated graphics, which gave them a very unique look.  With Passage, I tried my hand at pixel art, and I really liked the results.  Here was something that clearly looked computer-generated, but was still representational.  The characters and other sprites in Passage had just enough detail so that you could tell what they were (a man, a woman, etc.), but they were abstract enough to leave lots of room for imagination and personal connection.  The guy in Passage didn’t look like anyone in particular—in fact, he could be you.  This is like a kind of digital cartooning.  Scott McCloud talks a lot about the emotional power of abstract cartoons in his famous book Understanding Comics, so I don’t need to go into more details about it.

As far as the softness goes, that is like my modern, high-tech take on pixel graphics.  Historically, on systems with very limited color palettes, pixel sprites had a static look.  Modern systems have huge
color palettes, and that makes smooth color blending and other effects possible.  The pixels are still sharp, but the colors on the pixels can vary smoothly.  It’s a bit like zooming into a 32-bit photograph: sharp, blocky pixels, but with lots of smooth color variation from pixel to pixel.

You often include an interesting musical aspect in your games. Between and Gravitation in particular use music in an interesting way, by giving cues and adding layers as the player progresses. How important of a role does music play in your game-design?

Almost all of my games have had dynamic music of some kind.  Passage was the only game that had a static musical score.

I’ve been playing and composing music for my entire adult life, so I have the ability to create my own music for my games instead of outsourcing that task.  However, static music does not fully exercise the capabilities of our dynamic medium.  We expect the graphics to tie into the gameplay, so why not the music?

My first game, Transcend, had you composing a novel piece of music as you played the game.  From there, it was natural to try to figure out how music could be dynamic in my subsequent games.  Passage was made on a tight schedule for a specific event, so I simply didn’t have the time to do something more elaborate with the music.

I found that Passage and Gravitation both presented me with at least one particularly powerful moment, but I imagine that other people who have played your games have had very different experiences than me. For example, while playing Gravitation, a friend of mine did something with the blocks that I never considered, and I’m still not sure whether they were meant to be used in that way. How much do you intentionally plan the player’s experience, and how much is left up to the player to determine as a sort of unintended, happy accident?

In games like Passage and Gravitation, I tried very hard to limit the possibility of too many happy accidents. The problem with accidents is that, though they may be interesting, they might mesh with the interpretation of the game in a strange way.

With Gravitation in particular, I designed the entire map with a specific kind of progression in mind.  It’s like a series of small lessons that helps you learn about various consequences of the game mechanics as you go along.  For example, you first encounter a single block by itself, and this gives you a chance to see what happens with one block without needing to tackle the more compensated interactions of multiple blocks just yet.  Later on, as you jump higher and higher, you encounter more blocks in different configurations.  What happens when you drop a stack of four?  What about a stack of six?  There are a bunch of interesting consequences, and all of them hopefully have meaning in the context of the game.

Your games often include very basic game conventions, such as scores and time limits, but they aren’t the main focus like they would be in a game like Pac Man. What’s the reasoning behind including mechanics like these?

I want to make it clear to everyone that I am indeed making games and not some form of less specific interactive art. To be a proper game, you have to be able to win or have some other metric of success. Score is a simple way to do this, and it is also a way of directing players toward a certain style of play.  It’s like me saying, “I was hoping that you would consider playing in this particular way.”

A time limit was very natural in Passage, but was less so in Gravitation.  Still, I found a timeline to be a powerful design tool, since the balance could change subtly as time in the game progressed, highlighting different features of the mechanics and new shades of meaning.

Between, Jason's fifth game

Many of your games are very  challenging, but not in the way games are traditionally challenging. They aren’t difficult in the way a game like Contra is, for example, but rather ask a lot of the players conceptually and force them to figure out things  on their own. For example, Between demands a great deal of consideration on the part of the players in order for them to make any progress at all. Do you worry that this might scare players away, so that some might not ever even get an impression of the game?

Passage was meant to be accessible to almost anyone. Between was designed with a completely different audience in mind: for the people who really liked and understood my previous games and wanted to see me really push the boundary hard.  I hope that these people will give me the benefit of the doubt.  First of all, they will need to spend about an hour with Between before they get much out of it.  That alone is a huge barrier for most people.  After that, they might need to think pretty hard before they can piece together the parts into a meaningful whole.  A handful of reviewers have done this successfully, so I know that it’s possible, and that’s all that matters to me.

As for everyone else, well, Between probably just isn’t for them.  For example, I still have not shown the game to my spouse.  She is generally not interested in games, and I can imagine the experience just being frustrating for her.  Also, I never agree to play Between with someone who is looking to try it.  Playing with me would spoil the experience. So if someone like my spouse really wanted to play, she would need to find our own play partner—yet another huge barrier to entry.

Many of your games, such as Passage and Gravitation, are very quick, only taking up a few minutes of the player’s time. Is this a conscious decision, or just a result of material limitations? Do you plan on ever making a longer game?

Between is my take on a substantially longer game.  Note that it does not last longer because I chalked it full of “content,” but simply because the gameplay takes longer. Most video games waste substantial amounts of the player’s time, repeating the same thing over and over again, and padding the experience with cut scenes.

With Passage, I could express everything that I needed to express in only five minutes.  I originally planned on making Gravitation five minutes long also, but as the mechanics developed, I realized that five minutes was just not long enough for players to encounter everything that I wanted them to encounter.  I tweaked this a lot, and found that eight minutes was just enough time to try all of the interesting block configurations yet never see anything boring or repetitive.

Braid is an example of what I see as the upper limit of how long the game should be without any filler.  Four hours, five hours, that’s pretty long.

You’ve given explanations for the inspiration behind games like Police Brutality, Perfectionism, Passage, Immortality, and so on, and those games seem to draw directly from your experiences. Your latest game, Between, is a bit more mysterious. Can you give an explanation of its inspiration, or would you rather it remain mysterious?

With Between, I really wanted to tackle something more difficult and subtle.  All of my previous games were pretty simple both in terms of their interpretation and in terms of what they were about.  If I wanted to, I could describe what they were about on paper pretty easily. Immortality is the only one on the list that tries to reach a bit higher.

After playing Braid and thinking about it a lot, I came to understand that Jonathan was reaching for something huge with it, something that he couldn’t quite get his arms all the way around.

That’s an interesting thing to do with art, and almost a necessary thing, because if you can easily put it into words, what’s the use of making the art?  We really need art to help us express these things that
we cannot express in any other way.  That seems to be purpose of art. So I set out to make a game about something like that, about something that I couldn’t quite corner and collar.

I came up with what I wanted to express pretty quickly—it was something that I’ve been thinking about for most of my life.  It touched many different areas of human experience, like a many-tendriled manifold of ideas and emotions.  The hard part was turning this manifold into a game design, and I really struggled with it for a long time without any lightning bolts.  Finally, I forced myself to go out in the woods, and I sat on a rock with my notebook, determined to come up with a design. Fortunately, I was able to channel lightning that day, and I came home with a design for Between in my notebook.

I read that Between was influenced by the philosopher W.V Quine. Is philosophy an interest of yours, and do you find that it influences your games?

Yes, I have been interested in philosophy for a long time.  Between was the first game of mine that really addressed some more difficult philosophical issues directly.  Of course, it’s not hard to see that the rest of my games have a kind of existential bent, but that is more like pop-philosophy than anything else.

What sort of videogames did you play growing up? Have any of them stuck with you, so to speak? Is there any you would consider your favourites?

Like most 31-year-old males in America, I played a lot of videogames when I was growing up.  From the Atari 7800 through the PlayStation 2, I had love affairs with almost every system that was released.

After all that, a game that still sticks in my mind is the first Legend of Zelda—something about the mood was very special.

What games, if any, do you play now?

With my game design work and my responsibilities as a parent, I have very little time to play games these days. I try to keep up with what is going on in the art game scene as well as I can. Other than that, I usually wait for mainstream games to become classics before I spend time on them.  I recently played Shadow of the Colossus, for example.

I still play German board games whenever I get the chance, which is unfortunately not very often.  I also dream of beating my cousin at Age of Empires 2 someday.

Gravitation, Jason's fourth game

How did you get into making videogames?

I’ve been programming actively for the past 12 years.  A video game is actually one of the more difficult things to program, so it took me a long time to get to the point as a programmer where I felt that I could really pull it off.  After programming a relatively elaborate and successful peer-to-peer system (MUTE), I felt like I was ready to make a game, so I made Transcend.  I submitted it to a few festivals, and it got rejected.  A few years later, I work on Cultivation, which was more ambitious.  It got rejected by one festival and accepted by another.

A year after that, I made Passage, and I got swept up by the tide.  The last year and a half of my life has been spent doing nothing but game design.

What made you decide to start making videogames as art?

I was interested in making art from the beginning, because it felt like there were very few videogames that were that ambitious, but I really didn’t know where to start.  Transcend looked very “artistic,” but it really wasn’t a vehicle for any kind of expression.  After that, I read Raph Koster’s book A Theory of Fun, where he discusses how games can be art.  That book was hugely influential for me, and with my next game Cultivation, I pretty much applied his formula directly: permit more than one right way of play and encourage players to reflect about the choices that they make.  Along the way, I discovered that meaning could be carried directly in the emergent behavior of game mechanics, but I didn’t recognize the potential of this capability at the time.

After I played Rod Humble’s game The Marriage, I began thinking more about using expressive mechanics directly.  That lead to the creation of Passage, and I continued pushing in that direction all the way through Between, my twelfth game.

On your Arthouse Games site you have people like Rod Humble and Danny Ledonne giving their definitions of art. Could you give us a one-sentence definition of art?

A work is art if expression is its primary reason for existence.

With that in mind, what would you say it takes for a videogame to be art? What makes one game art, and another not?

Taking my definition and applying it to games differentiates them pretty well, I think.  Which games are primarily about expression?  Which games are primarily about entertainment?  But even among those that are primarily about expression, there are different places for the expression to lurk.  If the expression is primarily present in the cut scenes, then the expression is not very game-like.  I’m much more interested in works that express things in game-specific ways.  Other mediums found their artistic legs by honing their own expressive strengths.  We should too.

Are there any other videogame designers that you would consider artists, or games that you would consider good examples of art?

My short list these days is Jonathan Blow, Rod Humble, and Daniel Benmergui.

(Editor’s note: We talked about Daniel Benmergui’s game I Wish I Were the Moon in an earlier article. I Wish I Were the Moon can be played for free on Kongregate.)

The definition of art in general, let alone the definition of videogame art, seems difficult to pin down. Even on the Arthouse Games site the few definitions range from the wildly inclusive, such as Nick Montfort’s citing of Scott McCloud’s definition, to the very particular, such as  Raph Koster’s definition. Is our difficulty with agreeing on what exactly counts as art in videogames impeding progress? Or does it even matter?

Lots of people like to dismiss arguments about the definition of art as ridiculous, but I think that these discussions do matter.  I think they matter a lot.  Some people say, “Humanity has been arguing about a definition of art for centuries.  What makes us think that we will come to any consensus now?”  So they want to give up.  But if humanity has been arguing about art’s definition for centuries, that must mean that definition is really important and that the discussion is really worth continuing.  It’s like arguing about love, or death, or God—the most difficult topics are always the stickiest, but I don’t see how ending the discussion is going to help.

So, let’s keep hammering on that definition of art.  Let’s try to make progress where others have failed.

And yes, I think that games have been hurt by not having a very clear direction to point when they want to be art.  A lot of designers say, “Art?  What is that, anyway?” and then just go back to making
meaningless, shallow games.

Primrose, Jason's latest game

One interesting difference between videogames and other art forms is public presentation. You can go to a gallery to look at paintings, go to a show to watch a band, or go to a theatre to watch a movie. Even novels and poetry, which are usually solitary experiences, have libraries and public readings. At the moment it doesn’t seem obvious that videogames have a counterpart for this; there isn’t a lot of opportunity for public, social displays of videogames. Do you think videogames need public presentations like this to develop as an art form?

I actually think that video games don’t perform very well, compared to other mediums, in public settings.  Every “exhibition” of games that I’ve seen has been awkward at best.  Games are interactive, so you really can’t do a screening. You have to set up terminals where people can walk up and play.  What do other people in the room do while one person is playing?  Watch over the player’s shoulder?  That’s not an ideal experience of the game either.  We can watch a movie together and look at a painting together, but we can’t really play a single player game together.

There are other options for massively-interactive exhibitions, but they are pretty heavy in terms of technology requirements.  For example, you could convene an audience in a theater setting, but require that each person in the audience bring their own laptop.  Then you could pass around a portable hard drive with the game on it so that everyone in the room could install the game and play it in parallel.  Jonathan Blow tried something like this a few times with his Nuances of Design session at GDC.  But even this solution isn’t perfect, especially when you’re dealing with a longer game.  Are people really going to sit there for four or five hours to play a game like Braid?  Imagine going to a film festival and only seeing part of a movie.

Thus, I think games are best experienced on our own time, and not in a public setting.

Passage, Jason's third game

And that concludes the interview. Many thanks to Jason for answering so many questions!

All of Jason’s games are available for free on PC, Mac, and Linux, and Jason’s newest game, Primrose is also available on iPhone for $2.99.

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Post tags: app, art, between, Design Stuff, gravitation, internet, jason rohrer, linux, mac, passage, pc, playstation, primrose, program, software, style, tech, video, Video Games, videogames, Web Stuff

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With Primrose, set to be released on Feb. 19th, Jason Rohrer takes a step away from the games as art debate to bring us a game that’s just a game –  a compelling puzzle game.

Probably best known for Passage, a game about the inevitability of death, Jason Rohrer has made a name for himself as a primary figure in the growing movement of art-games. Until now his games have essentially been an experiment in artistic expression through game design, exploring themes like regret, death, and creativity with basic game mechanics.

But Primrose takes a break from the debate with some unique puzzle gaming in the same vein as Tetris. Like most good puzzle games, the idea behind Primrose is simple: your goal is to accumulate points by surrounding blocks of one colour with blocks of another colour on a 7×7 grid. When a group of blocks have been surrounded, they disappear, giving you a certain amount of points depending on how many blocks were collected. Then the surrounding blocks are changed to the colour of the blocks that were eliminated.

But like always, it’s not quite as simple as that. Blocks are given to you randomly, two at a time, and must be placed in a particular order. So, you might get an orange block and a green block and be required to set down the orange block first. Further, the second block of a pair must be placed in the same row or column as the first block. This restriction adds depth to the game, forcing the player to come up with a particular strategy for block placement to ensure that no blocks are placed where they can’t be used.

Finally, combos can be achieved to multiply your point total when eliminating blocks. Through strategic placement and planning, the colour changes that occur when you surround a group of blocks can be used to eliminate multiple groups of blocks. For example, when a group of green blocks are surrounded and turn their surrounding blocks green, those newly-green blocks may complete the surrounding of another group of blocks, which will also be eliminated for even more points.

The combo technique is of course the key to getting a high score, and success depends on the player’s development of various combo strategies; anticipating colour changes and careful placement of blocks is central.

Like any good puzzle game, Primrose is easy to get into but difficult to master, and presents the player with some simple mechanics that blossom into a difficult problem as higher scores are strived for and more blocks fill the screen. Adding to the difficulty is the fact that new colours are introduced after a certain amount of moves, increasing the complexity of the dynamics between the blocks considerably.

The game is quite challenging, but of course most puzzle gamers wouldn’t have it any other way; the best puzzle games present us with an essentially unsolvable problem that will keep even the most expert of players coming back for another challenge, and that is exactly what Primrose does.

Primrose also features some very clean and simple graphics with no clutter and plenty of soft, bright colours. The result is an interface that is reminiscent of a computer console from a classic sci-fi movie, with big bright buttons and lights. The sound effects reinforce this look, with different retro-sounding, synthesizer-like tones that accompany the placement of each colour of block.

All of this adds up to a very clean, simple, and presentable game that is easy to get into. I played the PC version of the game, but you can tell it is clearly optimized for the iPhone; the iPhone’s touch controls should be completely intuitive in Primrose, and the style of gameplay is perfect for a quick game while trying to kill some time waiting for the bus. Further, the game presents the player with no fluff, meaning iPhone users will be able to get straight into the game with the tap of a finger.

Overall, Primrose, while not being a groundbreaking title by any means, is a great example of very solid puzzle-gaming that will be right at home on the iPhone or any PC. It’s very tightly-crafted, and shows a great understanding of gameplay mechanics and the way they interact to make a compelling game.

It also shows that Jason is not only an artist, but also has the chops to make some addictive and professional-quality entertainment as well.

Primrose is set to be released February 19th for iPhone, Mac, Windows, and GNU/Linux.

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Miro is an open source, free Internet TV and HD video player. If you’ve been looking for something like Tivo to use on your computer, your search ends here. Miro enables you to download and stream video content from torrents, Hulu, and more. You can pause and play videos on command, it works with almost any major video format, and you can browse for more of your favorite TV Shows and movies while you watch.

The Miro 2.0 update is heavy and greatly boosts the performance and capabilities of the Miro software. Included in the update is a slick new design, better audio support, improved HD support, a streamlined UI engine, and a wealth of other new features that make it a must own for fans of visual media.

Along with the program update, the user guide and Miro website have also received some loving from the update faeries. The website and guide both reflect the new feel and beauty of the Miro 2.0 software.

I’m giving Miro so many compliments because it really is something special. Internet users as a whole are lucky to have such a powerful program be open source and free to use. The program is not perfect (there are a few minor bugs already found in the latest update), but its capabilities are astounding and appreciated.

Miro 2.0 is available to download for Linux, Mac, and Windows users. I strongly suggest you give this program a try, it will turn your computer into a high-definition entertainment hub of pristine joy and excellence far beyond the imaginative possibilities of your inner psyche.

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Tremulous (Shooter)
This FPS (first-person shooter) game is portable on all main operating systems (Linux, Windows, Mac) and is built using the Quake engine.
Players choose between two races: aliens and humans. Both have their own unique strengths and weaknesses, and both are opposing teams on the same map. Whilst uncommon for an FPS, Tremulous allows you to build working structures that serve many functions, the most important being  “respawning,” whereby if a player is killed, he reappears at a respawn site. Kills for your race earn you credits. For humans, this means better weapons or upgrades; for aliens, kills enable them to evolve into more powerful beings, the most powerful being the “Tyrant”. The objective behind the game is to not only kill all players of the opposing team (i.e. race) but also to destroy their “respawning” site(s), so that they can’t reappear. With an average of 400 users online at a time, there won’t be a moment left in the day to regret the amount of time you spent playing.

According to SourceForge statistics the game has been downloaded over 1,000,000 times as of 16/10/2008. It was also voted Player’s Choice Standalone Game Of The Year in the Mod Of The Year 2006 competition.
Like all great software, it’s open source and can be readily made available to you from the follow link: http://tremulous.net/

Sauerbraten (Shooter)
Meaning “roast meat” in German, this C++ written FPS runs on the main operating systems (Windows, Macs and Linux) and is built using the rendering engine Cube 2, for those of you who aren’t keen followers of the Quake movement (as with Tremulous). The main distinction to make between Tremulous and Sauerbraten is the ability to edit the geometry of the map ingame. Coupled with an emphasis on 6-directional gameplay, this dynamic is going to keep you hooked. It supports both Singleplayer and Multiplayer modes, and the latter of the two offers three possible gameplays: Deathmatch, Last Man Standing, and Capture (whereby teams fight over certain areas of the map). For the Singleplayer mode, there is plenty to keep you busy, unlike in Tremulous. You have the option to play scenarios split into episodes, Deathmatches with bots ganging up on you, and the game even goes so far as to provide levels where you can fight in slow-motion.

MacWorld UK gave it four out of five stars, whereas Games For Windows: The Official Magazine mentioned it in Issue 3 with the reference “perfect for both stingy and creative gamers alike.” But now for an organization whose opinion matters… Phoronix, a purely Linux-orientated hardware and software reviews gave it a positive rating due to “several enchancements to its underlying “Cube 2″ engine”.

Like all great software, it’s open source and can be readily made available to you from the follow link: http://sauerbraten.org/

Warzone 2100 (Strategy)
If you liked StarCraft, you’ll love this. The “3-D cross-platform real-time strategy” denotation doesn’t do justice to this once-proprietary program. This game is highly customizable, allowing everything from a wide array of camera angles, to the ability to customize drive systems (e.g. wheels/track) of your units. Warzone 2100 follows an episodic gameplay structure, following a sequence of scenerios whereby you have a time limit to complete the objectives stated using construction, upgrading, recruitment, etc. for the availability of the manpower required for the task. The latest stable version was released January 12, 2009.

Warzone 2100, once developed for the PlayStation (rating of 76%) and Windows, is now praised by the likes of IGN and Gamespot, which had the following to say about the game:
“Warzone 2100’s highly navigatable 3D engine, unique campaign structure, and multiplayer gameplay should please most real-time strategy fans”.

Like all great software, it’s open source and can be readily made available to you from the follow link: http://wz2100.net/

Glest (Strategy)
This Spanish game, developed using Glest Advanced Engine, is basically a cross between Tremulous and Warzone 2100. It imitates the 3-D, real-time strategy idea of Warzone 2100 but with a medieval theme. It mimics Tremulous in that there are two opposing factions, Magic and Tech, both with their own strengths and weaknesses, both fighting each other on the same map. The Tech team is composed of conventional warriors with medieval weapons at their disposals, with their own unique set of units, buildings and upgrades. The Magic team is targeted at more experienced users where most of their army is “morphed” or “summoned.” Whilst lacking close combat skill, it makes up for it in brute power and versatility. For those of you who loved StarCraft on Windows – this is the game for you.

Like all great software, it’s open source and can be readily made available to you from the follow link: http://glest.wikia.com/wiki/GetGlest

SuperTux (Retro)
For those among us who miss hearing the upbeat music of Level 1 SuperMario, may I present SuperTux. It’s the classic side-scrolling adventure game we all played in our childhood, only now, instead of Mario you have “Tux”, the penguin mascot of Linux. With “Penny” captured by bad guys, it’s up to Tux to rescue her.

Receiving Game Of The Month award by HappyPenguin.Org when it first came out, SuperTux went on to celebrate eight version updates and the SuperTux Development Team and Blizzard Entertainment are eagerly working to bring you Supertux 2. The beta release reiteration of SuperTux really brings back memories of SuperMario with multiple “Worlds”, a variety of monsters and a complimentary, childlike plot.

http://supertux.lethargik.org/

I hope these referrals introduce more users to the variety of games on the Linux platform. While much remains to be accomplished, we can at least revel in the progress made up to 2009, and look forward to what this year will bring for us.

By Mihai Marcas

© ArthurM for zMogo Tech Stuff, 2009. | Permalink | 29 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: app, development, Games, Gear, hardware, linux, mac, penguin, playstation, program, software, tech, theme, tremulous, video, warzone, wordpress

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The old plan: Ring in the new year by switching over to Linux for a week, documenting each day of the transition. To read that first week, click here!

The new plan: Keep using Linux for the rest of the year, giving periodic updates on my experiences, all of which you can read here!

February 3: Installation Recipes!

Last week I moved back in with Linux and tried to convince it to do a favour for me and install Java, even though I hadn’t washed the dishes the entire time I was there and also accidentally set Linux’s couch on fire during my daily meditation, because my chakras wouldn’t centre and I dropped my incense.

Linux wasn’t very happy with me, but in the end it did what I asked. Like a true friend it took my abuse with no expectation of ever getting anything out of the relationship in return, and with no expectation of ever getting back its foot massager or its copy of The World According to Garp (which I haven’t started yet, but I’m totally gonna start reading it when I have some free time, man.)

All in all I got a taste of what it’s like to have difficulty installing an app in Linux, and now I want more of that delicious, moist, fluffy frustration. So join me for my installation recipes!

The Linux version of Toribash, doing its best to guide me through its installation

My latest obsession is a video game called Toribash. I was introduced to it on a Windows machine at a friend’s place, where we first started learning the martial technique of spastically flailing like a crash test dummy experiencing massive seizures while jacked up on a host of amphetamines.

When I get home I am happy to see that there is a Linux version of Toribash available, just waiting for me to haphazardly attempt to install it and then write an article about it, so that readers like you can derive some enjoyment out of my ragdoll-like technological spasms!

Sticking with my usual style I decide to rush in head first with my arms flopping at my sides like dead rainbow trout, with no regard for the potential risk of tearing myself apart in the event that things go wrong.

My first step is to check the Linux download section on Toribash’s site, which I find has a few different installation types for different versions of Linux. I don’t immediately see anything that looks familiar, and so without any consideration whatsoever I grab two different packages designed for “other distributions.”

My first step in finding some tangy, melt-in-your-mouth installation options is to go to work on the tar.gz package, because it is somewhat familiar to me. I know that the .tar file is an archive, so I open it up to see what I can find. Inside there are some files that look like they ought to run the game, so I extract them to a folder and click on the one that says “Toribash.”

The next thing that happens is nothing. Either that or Toribash looks exactly like my desktop when absolutely nothing is happening. I decide to pick the most obvious possibility of the two: that I have once again failed miserably in my first attempt at getting something to work in Linux. Mmm, scrumptious.

With the sweet sting of failure lingering on my palette, and absolutely no desire to figure out how to manipulate any of the files in the .tar archive to get them to work, I decide to move on to the automatic installation file. Automatic installation files are nice because they are files that install automatically, instead of not installing automatically. With this key piece of information in mind I click on the file and wait for it to automatically do its automatic thing, like a microwave turning a raw potato into a perfect batch of gnocchi.

What actually transpires is nothing of the automatic installation sort. In fact what happens is so far from an installation, and so far removed from anything that makes sense given our standards of reasoning, that it became the primary reason for writing an entire article — an article that you may or may not be reading at this very moment. (I don’t want to make any assumptions about what you like to read. That would just be presumptuous of me.)

Rather than install, the automatic installer chooses to communicate to me that an error has occurred, via an error window. The error window is titled “Error,” which actually makes quite a bit of sense when you think about it.

Oh God it is sooo good. Mnhgh, you have to give me the recipe. Mmnumn, yes, I need more, it is too tasty.

It is the next part that doesn’t disappoint me with any of that sensical nonsense; the error window’s next step is to inform me that the error which has occurred is, in fact, Success.

Oh God it is so delicious.

The error was success. I cannot think of anything more brilliant than that. I don’t even have to write any more bad jokes, because that error window made something more perfect than I could ever hope to imagine even thinking about one day considering.

The irony is actually tangible. It has a flavour, and it tastes like a gigantic cake topped with icing made from another liquefied cake, stuffed inside yet another cake and then condensed into a bite-sized morsel, which is placed delicately on the most concentrated area of taste buds on my tongue. It is installationy culinary perfection.

Finally, it leaves me with a button that simply says OK, as if to imply that by pressing the button I am somehow just A-okay with what it has shown me. “Error: Success. OK?” it tells me as I stare at it in utter confusion, my only course of action being to press the OK button and be forced into accepting that the logical abomination it just presented me with is just fine.

My hunger for installation insanity has truly been sated by this automatic installer, and there is almost no reason for me to continue writing, or even continuing living for that matter. Yet I must continue, for the sake of the article.

With the aftertaste of that fantastic second failure still in my eating hole, my next step is to head to the Add/Remove programs app, and then Synaptic, to see if Toribash is included in those collections for easy installation. Unfortunately, both apps come up with nothing and I am left in a strange and scary situation.

Up until now installation of programs in Linux has been fairly easy: if using the resources provided by the creators of the software didn’t work, then I could simply find a way within Ubuntu to get things installed. Even Java, which was more of a pain to get working than was probably necessary, was still supported enough by the resources of Linux to be installable through Add/Remove and Synaptic.

But now I am left in a barren wasteland of installationlessness. I am cold and alone, with no support from the OS and no idea what to do to get this wonderful game installed so I can start tearing my own arms off while trying to injure my opponent. What do you do to get something installed when Ubuntu doesn’t seem to directly support it?

With that I head to the forums, which in the past have been a great help. As usual I see that someone else is having the same problem as me, and has made a thread about it. But unfortunately all the answers in the thread are actually vague non-answers, and only explain that I should get the libraries or something, which I don’t know how to do.

You’ve failed me forums! After so many good times spent together you’ve turned your back on me when I needed your help the most: namely, when I wanted to install a video game based entirely on contracting glutes to make people’s limbs fly off.

“There must be an easier way,” I yell to myself as loudly and discontendedly as possible. The person next to me tells me to keep it down, because this is a quiet dining area. Discouraged and tired, I decide that I could probably get some better work done at some place other than a restaurant, and there’s only one place left to go… the manual.

Linux is "not gonna do it." That is, install downloaded files that don't have the .deb extension! That's a bit of topical humour for you guys. You can use it if you want, free of charge.

I’ve made fun of the Ubuntu manual before for not really helping with anything ever and being so smelly (I think the only thing it eats is boiled cabbage) so hopefully it will not hold any grudges now that I have come crawling back, looking for its help.

It turns out that the manual is actually totally fine with it, invites me in, asks me if I want some cabbage, tells me it doesn’t get many visitors, and then insists that we are best friends forever now that I made eye contact with it without telling it that it smells like cabbage.

The manual then proceeds to tell me a very long, boring story about its cat Donald who is apparently so cute when it meows, because it sounds just like Dana Carvey doing an imitation of George Bush senior, and also something about installing things in Linux. After many many paragraphs of stuff I don’t care about, something the manual says catches my ear. “To install downloaded packages,” it says, “just use the one that is a .deb file.”

That’s it! I grab my coat, tell the manual that I had a good time and to shut the hell up about its cat, and run out the door to the Toribash site. There I find the .deb installation file, which runs perfectly and installs the game, and before I know it I am doing backflips and breaking my own head off!

And so I learned a good lesson during my quest for delicious installation recipess: just use the .deb file if there are no other options. It may have ended up tasting like disgusting cabbage, but it worked.

I was a bit confused early on in my my relationship with Linux by the slick Add/Remove programs app, because there didn’t seem to be any other way to install things. It wasn’t like Windows, which will run you through an installation wizard for any old app or spyware or virus; instead it seemed the Add/Remove apps were the only way to install things, which was worrisome. And while I’m sure not every .deb file will run as flawlessly as Toribash’s did, it’s good to know that in the event that an application I want to use is not directly supported by Ubuntu, there is another simple way to get things to work.

I also learned that I will never be as funny as Linux unintentionally was today. Error: Success. OK. You just can’t make that stuff up.

© AshP for zMogo Tech Stuff, 2009. | Permalink | 14 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: app, Design Stuff, linux, mac, operating system, os, program, software, style, tech, toribash, ubuntu, video, Web Stuff, year of linux

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