Linux

Migrating the KODI entertainment system On May 5th I mentioned that we’re Running out of space on our media center. In the comments of that post I followed up outlining a plan to buy another 8TB drive (for a total of 3 x 8TB drives) in order to do a RAID Z1 (for 16TB of space). But in order to do that I would need to reformat the drives, which means I also needed a plan to back up our media center data. I hinted at that solution in the comments too: 4 x 3TB drives in a RAID Z1 – which would give me 9TB of space (1 x 3TB is the spare), just enough to back up all the data. ...

Prince of Persia - a classic game for DOS When I first ran Prince of Persia on PC-DOS I remember thinking, “finally, a DOS game that rivals the fun I had on Commodore 64 games.” I was never very good at the game (and that continues today), but it’s a classic game. The original DOS version has a port for Linux which you can find on github here: (https://github.com/NagyD/SDLPoP?tab=readme-ov-file) The simplest method to install SDLPoP on Ubuntu/Xubuntu Linux If you’re on Xubuntu, or another Ubuntu-variant, there is a snap for the game (called sdlpop). To install the snap simply open a terminal and type: ...

Paradroid, has a version for Linux Growing up in the Commodore 64 era, I’m particularly fond of the games of that age. Games in that era tended to be simpler, but sometimes within that simplicity were some really neat concepts. Paradroid was one of those games that was particularly unique and interesting. There’s a really good look-back at Paradroid on the LemonTube64 Youtube channel here: (https://youtu.be/kkEBccMEhXs) Freedroid “classic” is a port of the game to Linux. The website for Freedroid classic might be a bit confusing when you first arrive because the same developers also worked on an isometric 3D-like game they called FreedroidRPG. The web site for both is: ...

On systemd-based distributions it’s possible to boot to the BIOS from Linux Have you ever found yourself working on a computer that’s just so blindingly fast that you just cannot mash the key you need to get into the BIOS fast enough? It might be possible to reboot from your Linux system into the BIOS of your computer. Not all systems support this feature. On the one system we tested this on which didn’t boot to the BIOS the error message mentioned something about the EFI partition. But I was able to successfully run the command on a couple of systems, a 4th gen and 8th gen system. ...

The problem is power management (workaround) You’ve installed Xubuntu 22.04 on your laptop and things are going smoothly… Then you close the lid on your laptop and discover when you open it back up again that when you move the mouse it moves, but you cannot right or left click for some reason? The issue appears to be with power management. The work around we found that appears to fix this is to edit the file: ...

Switching printers at home Other than running out of toner, there was nothing wrong with the HP Laserjet P1102w printer we have at home. The printer printed cleanly, was compact, and was connected to our wireless network, so any machine on our network could print to it. In fact, I was planning on buying more toner this evening after we did our usual scouring of thrift shops. I thought there was a small chance I might find the right HP 85A toner at one of the stores we planned to go to. I did find some other toner at one of the thrift shops, and the $5.95 price tag wasn’t bad, but it was for a different model in the same line of printers. But this was actually after spotting an even better deal, an HP Laserjet 1320 duplex printer for a whopping $10.95. ...

Great, and a pain Discord is one of those programs I love to hate. I like Discord because it’s a good way for people to connect with me about Computer Recycling, and I find it really handy for connecting with people about Game Development and Game Jams. But the process for updating Discord on Linux isn’t good. Normally, I update most software on my system by opening a terminal (Windows Key + T) and typing: ...

A dice game with a sense of humour If games like Torchlight II, Diablo III, or my favourite - Grim Dawn are your thing, Knights of Pen & Paper II will seem like a snooze-fest to you. While Knights has elements of a role playing game, it’s not an “Action” role playing game (ARPG), but more mimics the kind of play you might get from playing Dungeons and Dragons with a game master. Unfortunately the game is NOT multiplayer, so one of the best parts of D&D is missing from Knights of Pen & Paper II, but if you’re okay with playing solo, this might be a fun title for you. ...

Previous GameMaker experience I bought version 1.4 of the Gamemaker game engine on a Humble Bundle many years ago. At the time Gamemaker ONLY ran under Microsoft Windows. It was possible to export games to Linux (Ubuntu/Debian-specifically), but you couldn’t run the game engine itself under Linux. Version 2.x came along, and I paid to upgrade to 2.x as well. Some time between when I bought 1.4 and 2.x I started working on my Asteroids-like clone, Fasteroids: (https://chaslinux.itch.io/fasteroids). Many professional developers suggest starting and finishing a project as quickly as you can, then moving on to something else. Of course I didn’t listen and kept adding “features” to Fasteroids, which lead to the game being pretty messed up, and me losing interest. ...

After this experience, and some back and forth with GameMaker, the GameMaker team switched the licensing back to a one time fee (except for console exports), and they released a beta version of the engine for Ubuntu-based systems. The team continues to update this beta along with the normal code. Since I previously had experience with GameMaker I’ve decided to stick with it. I’ve been really thrilled with it as bugs I’ve run into have been fixed a short while after I’ve reported them, and the community have been great helping me solve issues. ...