Wirehead Studios

On Linux.  Phear.  :ninja:

Really?

Nonsense! How can a legendary firebird like yourself be mind-controlled by Linux?!

...oh wait, that applies to Windows only. Nevermind... *Creeps away* :ninja:

Well at least it isn't MAC OS.

Fear the l33tn3ss of the bird!

(http://forums.wireheadstudios.org/uploads/av-9.jpg)

Yes, I'm so "l337" that I can't get my sound to work.  I did manage to install an Nvidia driver for Linux... though don't ask me if you can configure it like in Windows because I really have no idea where it went and I never did see any configuration utility (except the command-driven one) go in.  You have to install it from command line with root permissions (grumble)...  I also managed to get Q3 installed and running, though Q3 INSISTS on installing to /usr/local/games, which (again) needs root permissions (snarl).  It's a freaking VIDEO GAME for crying out loud!  Why not installt to home/username/whatever-folder-you-want-to-put-it-in?  Besides, I thought you were never, ever supposed to log in as "root" unless something broke...?  Yet to configure ANYTHING you have to have root permissions... go figure.  I'll try to move it manually and see if it squawks... that is, once I get my sound to work.

Oh yes, I also managed to locate my Windows files and copy over Arial, Tahoma, and Verdana fonts from Windows since the default fonts with Linux kind of suck when trying to view the forums.  Let's see... yeah, the drive partitions with Windows on them weren't obvious as to their locations either.  Linux puts drives under "mnt/volume_name", where "volume_name" is whatever Linux called the volume during its install.  In my case, it's win_c, win_d, etc, so I was able to locate my files.  Other than that, I have no freaking clue what I'm doing.  I can understand why some Linux enthusiasts can be snobby toward those used to Windows.  Linux is very different from Windows, and you can't easily just go over to it and expect everything to work the same way.  KDE and shells make it look kind of like Windows, but functionally, the "nuts and bolts" are radically different.  Configuration works different, a lot of stuff you expect to see might work similar but not quite the same, and some stuff resides in completely different places than you'd expect.  You're not going to go see people going out and buying Dells with Linux on them any time soon.  It's a lot less forgiving and a lot more technical.  It also helps if you live and bleed Unix prior to using, which I certainly do not.

Oh yes, and I have no idea what's wrong with my sound.  Did I mention that my sound doesn't work?  Well, my SOUND doesn't freaking work!  Everything LOOKS right, I have a mixer with green lights on it, sliders all work, no error messages, and I can even hear my speakers pop when I push the slider allll the way up, I just don't hear any sounds when I try to play one back.  Unfortunately I can't do squat without working sound since, well, I kind of need to test sound-related things!  If anyone knows how to get a Fortissimo III working right under Mandrake 10.1 (specifically within the KDE shell, I haven't tried Gnome yet), please let me know.  :surprise:

Edit:  Well, since I am officially a Linux Newbie, I did the Right Thing™ and retrieved a hardcopy archive of multiple text files that I can download optically and process at my leisure.  For those of you born after 1985, that's what we call a "book", and the activity is called "reading".  For those born after 1990, it's specifically known as a "manual", which is a book that accesses your command line interface and uploads instructions.  Thus, I fully intend to :rtfm: (though I would still like help with my sound).

I've tried using Linux myself, and I know how unforgiving it can be.  If I were to mess up the process of installing the video drivers, for example, I'd be stuck having to use the command prompt (or whatever it's called in Linux) to try to fix the problem, since X-Windows wouldn't even run.  Sometimes, I'd even have to reinstall the whole operating system from scratch.  Whenever I did get the video working, I was able to run Quake 3 just fine, but Generations acted weird when I tried using it (some images didn't display properly).

Yeah, trying to use Linux can be a real headache sometimes.  I would like to try it again sometime to see if I can get it to work right.  I'll probably stick with Windows for most of my computer activities for now, though.  All I can say is I wish you luck on getting your copy of Linux up and running.  Who knows, maybe sometime in the future we'll get to see you clobber us in Generations... on Linux!   :D

Well, that depends on whether I can get my sound fixed or not.  I have managed to find out that CD audio playback and line feeds DO work.  I can hear those.  I just can't hear anything digital - no .wav file playback, and no midi, etc.  Nothing is muted, and I've been scouring forums trying to find info on what might cause this.  My search continues...

Edit:  My sound works if I switch to the OSS driver.  It's Alsa that's having problems with digital sound for some reason.  Well that's progress, at least I know what's not working and I have some way to get sound.  Now I'll have to figure out how to get Alsa to work right...

Alsa is fighting me, so I'm sticking with the OSS driver until I feel like tackling it again.  I have accomplished the following so far:

1)  Updated Quake 3 Arena to point release 1.32b (linux).
2)  Copied over my Generations Arena and test install.
3)  Tested Generations Arena .99f and pre-1.0 test from within Linux.
4)  Connected to the Euro server using Gen's in-game browser.

Now I'm glad we set up the in-game browser because you can't copy/paste from Mozilla into Quake 3 Arena using ctrl+V for some reason, and I don't have anything like ASE set up, if they even make that for linux.  Short of writing down the IP address, the in-game browser is the only way to find a server.  I ran around a bit on Euro blowing up the scenery.  Not really too fun, but hey, at least I got on.

Now for rants... I am NOT impressed with OSS's handling of sound so far.  Q3's sounds come over my headphones really scratchy, as if the high-pitched sounds are distorting.  It makes my $100 studio-grade headphones sound like they came off a $5 RCA portable cassette player.  I don't have this problem in Windows, and it doesn't matter what I do with the mixer either.  I also hate the fact that the video driver doesn't seem to provide any control for anisotropic filtering, mipmap LOD, or refresh rate overrides.  In fact, it doesn't seem to have any controls at all except resolution and default refresh rates. That means at 125 fps at Q3 my screen is only doing 85, resulting in visual stuttering when strafing.  Much hate! :evil:

The good news is so far Gen works functionally without errors.  Maybe if we have a game tonight and I'm not busy doing other things I'll connect from my Linux install to do some active testing. :ninja:

Edit:  I saw Lena and BigRob on the server, but logged in too late to join them.  Kajet and Visy joined in, however, so I had a good test session.  Gen didn't do anything stupid during the game so I'm happy there.  The only glitch I ran into was prior to Visy and Kajet joining. I had disconnected and reconnected to Central without shutting Gen down first.  I got two "Invalid PK3 file" kicks.  Exiting Gen and restarting seemed to make it go away.  This was done within the in-game browser.  I'm guessing it might be a glitch in the UI, or a linux Q3 quirk.  I'll do some more testing on that, but otherwise Gen in Linux plays pretty much exactly like it does in Windows.  :thumb:

At this moment I am planning to have a Linux PC. I'm not as knowladgeable (or brave!) as Pho, so I dug out BAT's old PC that he abandoned in my mothers celler when he built his new one. I'm looking at it now.  It's:

AMD2000+
K7S5A Board
256Ram
a scruffy old case.

I will add floppy and dvd/CD drive and put back in the old MX440 that we took out of it.

The Question: what sort of Linux should I try? I have:

Fedora core 1
Ubuntu 5.1 (breezy Badger)( what the hell is that about?)
Damn small Linux 2.0
Or anything else I can download.

Any comments ? (please)

I may have to knock this project on the head due to p800 going down.

2-4-06 update:
I have got another hard drive and formatted it, and installed Linspire 5.059 on it.
I am very impressed.
I love it.

I am now using Linspire to write this second post.

I didn't get any problems with the sound, In fact I'm listening to 'sultans of swing'  while typing.

Cost of linspire? $30 or quid. to stick the finger up at Bill? priceless.

oh, and  :ownage:

I've some experience with Linux, mostly in the command line world.  I primarily use it when doing web admin type stuff (running Subversion for the project w/ RxN, hosting personal forums, and other miscellaneous experiments).  I've used Linux GUIs before, but generally stick with Windows because I don't have the time to learn all the Linux equivalents of the stuff I need to do on a day-to-day basis.

Honestly, I'm so used to the Linux command line that half the time I find myself typing "ls" at the Windows command prompt (and no it's not a DOS prompt - not any more... when you type "ver" you see "Microsoft Windows [Version 5.2.3790]", and the shell is a Win32 executable called cmd.exe not command.com :)~)

Props to you Pho, for giving Bill the bird  ^_^
and you too, shambler!

I have actually changed my PC again. I am now using 'ubuntu' rather than Linspire. I like the 'look' of it a bit more. I had problems installing firefox on Linspire, and it was too drab.

just didn't like it as much. Oh, also had U.S. keyboard too, which I could not be bothered to fix.

its ubuntu for me for a while. Got it free on a magazine cover.

Hrmm... I just recently acquired a new mobo with an AMD K7 of unknown speed.  You guys are making me want to install it and get Linux up and running on it. :p  Ubuntu seems to be the popular choice, any other recommendations?

Ubuntu is fairly easy to work with, and has a lot of out-of-the-box convenience.  I also found out that someone had some success compiling Q3 on it, whereas Mandrake wouldn't let me install the libraries I needed.  That influenced my decision.  Kubuntu is just Ubuntu with the KDE desktop instead of gnome, otherwise they are the same distribution.  I know my way somewhat around Kubuntu, so if you do go with that dist I can at least help with some newbie questions.  :D

As for which distribution to choose, it all depends on what you want and what you want it to do.  http://www.linuxiso.org/ (http://www.linuxiso.org/) has links to several distributions.  If you ask around you're going to find people who insist on you using "only distribution x", whatever their preference may be.  There's no right or wrong distribution, only what works for your needs and what doesn't.  Either way, if you're serious about learning Linux, I'd recommend picking up a "distribution neutral" book, or else one that is tailored to your specific distribution.  "Running Linux" by Matthias Kalle Dalheimer and Matt Welsh is an extremely detailed dist-neutral volume, if a bit pricey.  It's a white book with a horse and rider on the cover.  It also helps to have a second computer handy to google error messages if you spork something up and don't know what you did.  Linux can be extremely unforgiving to the newbie who borks a system setting, and if you crash the X server you're sporked and stuck at the console unless you know how to fix it.  Speaking from experience here.

The first thing I recommend you do after an install is to locate your terminal program within your linux distribution.  Get used to using it.  Terminal = godlike powers in Linux, especially combined with the "su" command.  99% of all "important" things in Linux require root priveleges, and "su" lets you act as root without logging in as root.  Either way, learning the bash shell (Linux's command interpreter, think of it as a Dos prompt but unix-style) is critical to working in Linux.  The other thing to understand is though KDE or Gnome might make Linux look like Windows, that's where the similarity ends.  Directory structures work similar to Dos/Windows, but they all have privelege levels and things like hard disk volumes aren't where you expect them to be.  It takes a little getting used to but once you get through the initial "where the hell is item x" and "how the hell do I do y" you'll start catching on.

I will probaly leave this for a week, as I just collected my new PC today. seems to be taking a long time to format the drive, but looks pretty.

Thanks Pho for the advice. it took me 8 months, but I finally got there in the end.