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News headlines

Headlines: [ view archive ]
Play Outcast with WINE - 30th of June 2008
Gentoo progress - 24th of March 2008
Compile bsnes on Ubuntu Feisty - 3rd of September 2007
Velleman K8055 and Linux - 20th of August 2007
Bugfix - 25th of October 2006
Ping: Calidor - 22nd of June 2006
Oh shit - 7th of January 2006
Happy New Year - 1st of January 2006
Member Radio - 29th of October 2005

News articles

Play Outcast with WINE
- Posted 30th of June 2008, 1:18 pm by Mr.Brownstone

Image.

Outcast is a PC video game from 1999 by the now bankrupt Appeal, and was distributed by Infrogrames. At the time it was Windows-only, but today you can get your retro-fix on Linux thanks to developments with WINE.

Here are instructions on how to get Outcast working in Ubuntu Hardy Heron, although you will not have too much trouble transferring them to other distros:

Installing WINE: You will need a patched version of WINE 1.1.0 in order to fix the mouse-look problem. This problem affects other games, too. Fortunately, the patch adds an optional ENV flag, so you will not affect your other WINE applications with it.

1. Install the build-dependencies and patching utility:

Bash Script:
sudo apt-get build-dep wine
sudo apt-get install patch


2. Download the WINE 1.1.0 source to your HOME directory "~/" and extract it:
Bash Script:
mkdir ~/wine-dev
cd ~/wine-dev
tar xvf ~/wine-1.1.0.tar.bz2 -C .


3. Download this patch (original post) to your HOME directory and apply it:
Bash Script:
cd ~/wine-dev/wine-1.1.0
patch -p0 < ~/wine-force-mousewarp.patch


4. Compile WINE. This will take a long time!
Bash Script:
./configure
make
sudo make install


5. Configure WINE:
Bash Script:
winecfg
# Applications > Windows Version > Windows 98
# Graphics > Allow DirectX apps to stop the mouse leaving their window
# Audio > OSS Driver
# Drives > Autodetect... (make sure it picks up your CD-ROM drive!)
# Press OK


Installing Outcast: The following guide presumes you own a genuine copy of the game. You should be able to pick it up in most bargain-bins for about £5 these days.

1. Insert Disc 1.

2. Preparation: There exists a bug in the installer on the CD-ROM which, on a modern Windows system and even through WINE, will cause the game to be immediately uninstalled after completing DirectX tests. Appeal released a new installer to fix this, but it is not necessary to use it.

To get around the bug you simply need to delete the Uninst.isu file that is created during installation. You should keep a second terminal-window open so you can do this easily:

Bash Script:
# Terminal 1
# Install the game as normal (use the default settings)
# Assumes D:\ is how WINE detected your CD-ROM drive
wine "D:\Setup\SETUP.EXE"

# Terminal 2
# Once the installer starts copying the game-files, run
# this command to delete Uninst.isu when it exists.
# The game takes a little while to install, so you should
# not need to rush the process
rm ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Outcast/Uninst.isu


3. After installation you will need to modify the shortcuts that start the game. The default shortcuts run this command:
Bash Script:
env WINEPREFIX="~/.wine" wine "C:\Program Files\Outcast\Outcast.exe"


Change them to this:
Bash Script:
env WINEFORCEMOUSEWARP="yes" WINEPREFIX="~/.wine" wine "C:\Program Files\Outcast\oc\loader.exe"


The WINEFORCEMOUSEWARP option was introduced in the WINE-patch you applied earlier. You can use it to fix other games that have problems with mouse-look (there are many!)

4. Download the Zip-file outcast_loader.zip from this page. Extract the contents to "~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Outcast/oc"

5. That's it! Insert Disc 2 and run the game!

Post-installation notes:

1. The winecfg option "Graphics > Allow the window manager to control the windows" prevents you from using the Escape-key to stop the credits when you want to exit the game. You can disable this option to allow you to exit the game quickly, but this will affect other in-game buttons (the save-game button F2 will no longer work, for example.) The workaround is to wait for the credits to finish, or ALT+Escape back to your desktop, open a terminal-window and run wineserver -k to kill the game. Unfortunately this will leave your desktop in a low-resolution, and it is tricky to change it back.

2. It is written elsewhere that you will need to use a native amstream.dll file to run the game properly. I found this was not necessary, but you do need to make sure you configure WINE to emulate Windows 98.

Comments on this article: 0
Last comment by: Mr.Brownstone, 30th of June 2008, 1:18 pm
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Gentoo progress
- Posted 24th of March 2008, 8:38 pm by Mr.Brownstone

This article is a backup of a thread I posted elsewhere, and partially documents the installation of my Gentoo server.

Click "Comments" to see the whole thread.

Comments on this article: 16
Last comment by: Mr.Brownstone, 28th of June 2008, 11:23 pm
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Crackling sound in ZSNES on Ubuntu Feisty
- Posted 3rd of September 2007, 10:30 pm by Mr.Brownstone

Still on a retro-gaming bender, I reinstalled ZSNES recently only to find out why I abandoned it in the first place: Bad sound quality on my system.

After much digging I think I've finally stumbled on the solution, so here's the lowdown on getting ZSNES up-and-running from source: (This assumes you've already downloaded it from the ZSNES site and have extracted it to an appropriate place.)

Bash Script:
# You'll need SDL if you don't have it:
sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2-dev

# Configure, make and install ZSNES
./configure --enable-libao --enable-release
make && sudo make install

Now try it out by running zsnes at the command-line. If you get bad sound, you'll need to try another SDL sound driver. By default Ubuntu uses libsdl1.2debian-alsa, but you have two other choices that may fix sound for you. All three are listed below:

Bash Script:
sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2debian-alsa
sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2debian-oss
sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2debian-esd

Installing any one of these drivers will automatically uninstall the others. The esd driver worked for me. oss gave me no sound at all, but generally works for most of the people I've seen in the Ubuntu forums.

Comments on this article: 1
Last comment by: Mr.Brownstone, 28th of June 2008, 11:20 pm
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Compile bsnes on Ubuntu Feisty
- Posted 3rd of September 2007, 1:28 pm by Mr.Brownstone

bsnes aims to emulate SNES hardware as closely as possible, and as of 4th August 2007 it claimed to achieve 100% compatibility with all commercially available games.

Trying to compile version 0.022 on Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn I came a cropper on a couple of dependencies, so here they are for anyone else who's interested in trying out bsnes:

Bash Script:
sudo apt-get install libxv-dev libao-dev

That's it! You can now compile bsnes with the usual make command from the directory you extracted the tarball to.

Be warned that bsnes needs some serious grunt to work at full-speed -- a Core 2 Duo will get you a decent framerate, and I have to switch on frame-skipping to about 2-3 on my single Athlon 64 3000+.

Comments on this article: 0
Last comment by: Mr.Brownstone, 3rd of September 2007, 1:28 pm
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Velleman K8055 and Linux
- Posted 20th of August 2007, 2:46 am by Mr.Brownstone

Miles off-topic, but perhaps I can be forgiven since this is my first post on this site for nearly a year. Grin.

If you're interested in amateur electronics, you may have heard of Velleman and their excellent kits, and you may also have heard of their K8055 USB Experiment Interface Board.

Unfortunately Vellemen only provide Windows drivers and examples for this great little project, but help is at hand for Linux users over at this site:

http://libk8055.sourceforge.net/

One of the issues highlighted is giving the device the correct permissions using hotplug when it is first plugged-in. If you are using udev instead, follow this procedure:

1. Build your K8055. Razz.

2. Plug it in and find out its Vendor and Product ID. You'll need to install usbutils for this:

Bash Script:
# Install usbutils in a Debian-based distro (eg, Ubuntu)
sudo apt-get install usbutils

# Install usbutils in Gentoo
emerge usbutils

Now type lsusb at the command-line and you should see some output with a line similar to this:

Bash Script:
Bus 002 Device 052: ID 10cf:5500 Velleman Components, Inc. 8055 Experiment Interface Board (address=0)

Take a note of the two numbers separated with a ":" following "ID". These are the Vendor and Product IDs respectively.

3. Create a udev rules-file /etc/udev/rules.d/40-k8055.rules and paste the following into it:
Bash Script:
# udev rules file for Velleman K8055 USB Experiment Interface Board
#
SUBSYSTEMS!="usb", ACTION!="add", GOTO="k8055_rules_end"

# The K8055 device, including all jumper configurations             
ATTRS{idVendor}=="10cf", ATTRS{idProduct}=="5500", GROUP="k8055", MODE="0660"
ATTRS{idVendor}=="10cf", ATTRS{idProduct}=="5501", GROUP="k8055", MODE="0660"
ATTRS{idVendor}=="10cf", ATTRS{idProduct}=="5502", GROUP="k8055", MODE="0660"
ATTRS{idVendor}=="10cf", ATTRS{idProduct}=="5503", GROUP="k8055", MODE="0660"

LABEL="k8055_rules_end"

You can see that there is one line using the Vendor and Product IDs we picked up with the last command (10cf and 5500), and lines beneath it that use different Product IDs (5501, 5502, 5503). This covers all of the "address" settings made possible by the SK5 and SK6 jumpers. If your IDs are different for some reason simply copy-paste one of the existing lines and change the numbers accordingly.

4. Save the file and restart udev:
Bash Script:
/etc/init.d/udev restart

5. Now you must create a group called k8055 and assign your own Linux username to it:
Bash Script:
groupadd k8055
usermod -a -G k8055 <your_username>

You may also want to assign the k8055 group to root, although this is not necessary.

6. Reconnect your K8055 and you're ready to go! (Note: If you get warnings that k8055 could not open the device using your normal login, you may need to restart your machine to give udev a kick.)

Comments on this article: 0
Last comment by: Mr.Brownstone, 20th of August 2007, 2:46 am
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Bugfix
- Posted 25th of October 2006, 3:45 pm by Mr.Brownstone

Oops... Upload-links were broken. Curse.

Comments on this article: 0
Last comment by: Mr.Brownstone, 25th of October 2006, 3:45 pm
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Ping: Calidor
- Posted 22nd of June 2006, 3:34 pm by Mr.Brownstone

Wave. Lick. Grin.

Comments on this article: 0
Last comment by: Mr.Brownstone, 22nd of June 2006, 3:34 pm
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Oh shit
- Posted 7th of January 2006, 11:29 pm by Mr.Brownstone

I think Sir Nick the nick-changing bunny broke Skill-Club. Razz.

HC won’t be best pleased. Cry.

Comments on this article: 9
Last comment by: Mr.Brownstone, 13th of November 2007, 12:38 am
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Happy New Year
- Posted 1st of January 2006, 10:33 am by Mr.Brownstone

Best wishes to all for 2006. Cool.

Popcorn. Banana. Group Hug. Link.

Comments on this article: 1
Last comment by: omgOMGuybrush, 1st of January 2006, 6:05 pm
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Member Radio
- Posted 29th of October 2005, 11:50 pm by Mr.Brownstone

I’m sure by now you’ve all probably noticed the Radio link to the left of the standard-skin. It’s not quite what was promised with Skill-Club Radio, but it’s a start. Happy.

It works with the Last FM XML feeds, which are powered by AudioScrobbler. Sign-up for an account at Last FM and download the AudioScrobbler client or plugin of your choice.

Once you know your AudioScrobbler member name, type it into your Members Profile. Optionally, you can also type in your SHOUTcast address so others can tune-in to your listening.

I will create easy-guides on how to do all this soon. Happy.

Comments on this article: 1
Last comment by: Darkus, 30th of October 2005, 9:11 am
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