Going from Windows to Linux (ubuntu style)

I take back some of what I said about Cedega….

mikepee — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 19:27:56 +0000

The following is a copy of my post from the cedega forum (abridged):

Like everyone here I think we are dedicated to the cause (*nix+dx=gaming – cause we have to) and are willing to put our money where our mouth is. We just want Cedega to put our money where the development is. It’s like a union, we pay our dues now go sock it to the man(M$)! It just occured to me that (M)arket ($)hare and (M)icro(S)oft… well you get it.

—-I’M A WIND BAD SO YOU CAN STOP READING HERE—-

#WARNING: I’M ON STEROIDS, WHICH IS LIKE SPEED—-
#I CAN’T AND WON’T SHUT UP—-
#-SOAP BOX + CANCER + PASSION = RAMBLING IDIOT—-

# NOTE THE ‘#’ I DID THAT FOR YOU SCRIPT/PROGRAMMER TYPES

A comment on the state of the union. With Apple/*nix/Intel architecture in play, Windows LaVista hatred at all time high (I own a company that fixes computers (think geek squad but smaller)), and distros of linux that are so easy to install and maintain that your mom could do it. It’s long assumed that any true developer/software engineer is already a *nix geek. You add this up and it smells like all you need is the idiots that push the $$$$$ around to agree. It’s the same reason every other movie is a squeal or based a TV show or is a complete rehack. The dudes with the $$$$ have abandoned the creative risk takers and are all standing around the same vanilla ice cream cone patting each other on the backs. Every once a while one of them throws us bone. I pray for a revolution, like that of a Francis Ford Coppola movie studio reformation… the key was we bought it! We bought The Godfather, Star Wars, Taxi Driver, Jaws we bought it all. These filmmakers revolutionized our modern movie experience. They are the reason we say filmmaker.

Y2K. We thought the bug was a two digit disaster. To me Y2K (circa 98~01) is the end of a lifestyle. No idiots getting their patties in a bunch over Islam/Air Travel and freedom. Most people still are clueless about computers but they have herd about this internet thing. Before Y2K we used a phone book. Last time I got my phone book I just threw it in the garbage. M$ still didn’t think you could make money giving anything away. And I was still pining over the fact that my Atari 800XL and C64 still could play some pretty sweet games if only they’d make some! 6502. If you read 6502 and it makes you feel something, we are brothers in arms. We fought that war together. (If know who Jay Miner was… well that’s enough I guess)

I hate MMORPG games but if we all start playing Eve from our Linux boxes those vanilla licking $$$$ dudes will say, “hey now that looks like a good flavor.” I sure hope Eve is a totally bad ass game and inspires a thousands linux users to open their wallets. If that happens. I forgive all cedga’s short falls for this cancer of the summer of 2007. I’m already in line… that’s the ‘thanks for everything, now I feel 2 inches tall, you are the visionary not me.’ line.

Well I’m at it, if your still reading, which a part of me hopes you are not, a theory that I’m sure many subscribe to. The XBox ruined PC gaming and M$ ruined a profitable reason for the industry to keep upgrading the crap out of their computers with it. From the circa 95 till 2000 PC gaming was where it was at! (And if your me, it really starts in ’83 with the Atari 800XL) I believe it still is except where the hell are the games! The GTA franchise would not exist if not for PC gaming. Do you know how pissed off I get when I have to wait a year to play a new game that owes it’s existence and success to the PC platform! The PC is a sandbox for the stupid and questionable ideas but once you find a piece of gold in the sand box don’t stop looking! I guess I should feel exalted that the developer would still waste his time port the game over to the PC… I should be thanking them for what little crap they still throw our way. Perfect example… do you know how badly made the Splinter Cell 4 game is for the PC! No fix. You actually have to have Internet Explorer open to play the game past level 3. Why? Don’t know. Never saw a single article that told me that. It was a total accident that it happened. Then I got to a safe on level 5 and the game controls will not work to open the safe in the game! This is a title that works awesome on the XBox360. I got screwed out $50 for the game.

Word.

-Mike

Cedega – Wine for Gamers

mikepee — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 10:23:09 +0000

Just got to say that Cedega is cool. Easy to install. Works with a lot of games. If your a Win(e)dows convert this makes it easy. Am I like the only dude who thinks it being a subscription service is cool. I believe firmly that by always giving money it will help drive this product. In addition to that the devlopements they make go back to the free Wine project.

Side note… I’ve always loved Richard Stallman’s take, GNU is Not Unix which leads to great acronyms such as WINE Is Not an Emulator. Just got to love those kind of acronyms.

Dos, the Atari 800XL, and Windows on Linux

mikepee — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 09:14:42 +0000

A few days ago I found out that I could run an old windows program that no longer works on windows under Linux with Wine installed. Since I’ve been on an adventure and let me share all these things.

An emulator inside and emulator

Don’t need to read this first part unless you like reading… Let me start off with where I left off. I started using computers in about 1987. My first computer was a then almost outdated Atari 800XL, oh the fabulous 6502 8-bit platform! Linux being so geeky as it is naturally inspires me to relive the old days. After much thought and research I selected Ubuntu Linux i386. I have however previously installed Fedora 7 and Ubuntu x86_64, SUSE, Red Hat back to version 7 and most Fedora Core version… not to mention a few various other Linux distros through the years. I first tried Linux circa 1999 but I was then too inept and unable to grasp it’s complexity, yet reloading windows 98 every 6 months seemed perfectly reasonable (what an idiot.)

Project Atari 800 XL:

Under Ubuntu I had zero issues getting the Atari800 software to work. The issue I had was finding and installing it. Here’s what I did.

Go to System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager
Select Sections on the lower left
Find the Cross platform (multiverse) section
for some dumb ass reason using the search box for Atari doesn’t yield anything
ALSO note that there are many other emulators in this list such as the all too cool zsnes Super NES emulator.
Check the box for the Atari800 and then click Apply…. wait
Now it’s installed but WTF where is it? (That’s what Windows converts say when they can’t find things in Linux… cause we’re used to hand holding by big brother MS)
If you’d like it fast, open the Terminal and type atari800
Now you’ll need the ROM files get them here http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=40606
For those of you as stupid as me you’ll want to create a launcher so go to you desktop and right click and select create launcher then in the command box type “Atari800″
Now launch it then press F1 to configure Atari800
using the arrow keys scroll to Emulator Settings and set the paths for you rom files
Now go find some software I suggest here http://www.atarimania.com/
from Atari800 press Alt+D to set a disk image… pointing to the path of a disk image you got from Atari mania or one of the other many sites to find 8-bit software.
Get your game on.

Now that’s the easy way… if you don’t like Atari800 or maybe you like the performance of xFormer2000 or an other Dos based emulator or like me you just like to see how convoluted you can really make things do it this way.

Linux + DOSBOX + xFormer = Atari 800XL
one click to an Atari 800XL running on Linux under Dos (why? cause you can!)

Install dosbox from the Synaptic Package Installer.
It will show up on you application menu on it’s own… I think… otherwise just type dosbox from the terminal
You will need to configure dosbox and you will need xFormer2000 for dos. Get xFormer here http://www.emulators.com/xformer.htm
Start dosbox then at the prompt mount the folder you want to work in as C
in my case I used “mount c /home/user/Atari8/xFormer2000/”
Then change to C by typing “C” enter
Then type config -writeconfig xformer.dosbox.conf
this actually creates the config file we’ll use to make xFormer work right for us
Create a launcher and use the command
“dosbox -conf /home/user/Atari8/xFormer2000/xformer.dosbox.conf” of coarse use the location you put your xformer files”
Now open the xformer.dosbox.conf file in gedit and add the following to the end of the file
mount c /home/user/Documents/Atari8/xFormer2000
c:
xformer -A -S -J C:\mydos45d.xfd
Be sure to replace all file locations with location that you use, not the ones I used… unless you like mine of coarse. You can of coarse use this information to make anything Dos based work on Linux. You will find lots of info on the net to help you that is far better than mine!

Running Jeskola Buzz Tracker on Linux
The ultimate insult is when MS upgrades it’s OS and alienates old software that it’s users rely on. Buzz is one of those one in a million programs that’s too weird to remake and too good to let die. For that it only really works well on Windows 98… and for that Windows 98 never worked well. It’s like having the greatest race car driver and the slowest race car with a worthless pit crew.

Get Buzz and it’s machines
http://flavor8.com/index.php/2005/10/15/buzz-tracker-on-linux/
Flavor8 also has instructions
Install Wine from Add/Remove on the App menu or the Synaptic Installer
Double click on the buzz installer, unpackage the machines to the windows c drive created by Wine (you’ll find instructions for this on the former website
Buzz will work at this point, just go to the App menu and find it under the Wine section

The funny part about all this is that Buzz works better under Wine on Ubuntu than it ever did on Windows 98!

I also have the Amiga, Atari ST, SNES and Apple II running on my Linux box.