I’m going to take you through a tour of the games I have tried running and give you an idea of the stuff that is out there. Please bear in mind I am running this all  on my Acer 5720Z, which I have some issues with some games, but that has no bearing on the OS per se. It’s more the graphic drivers that are available for the Intel 965 Graphics built into it at this time. There are newer drivers that are out, however I had experienced some issues with the unstable kernel they were running under so I had wound up reinstalling everything back to before making that switch. Anyway read on for the tour of gaming on Linux…

As you know I am running Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx and by default it comes with some simple games like Solitaire, Mahjong, A tetris clone and a few others. Basic games and nothing really special. I looked around for some other games to load up and some were hits others really didn’t run well.

There are steps to take if you want to really get a good experience gaming under linux. Briefly they are:

1. Make sure you have the current graphic drivers.
   
   Unfortunately for me I am running an Intel 965 On-Board graphics card and the current driver is a little on the sluggish side. The newer version is around the corner but the test version of the new driver runs on an unstable Kernel. So I really have to wait.
2. Disable Compiz.
   
   In order  to really take advantage of your graphics card, it’s best to disable all the extra appearance tweaks that Compiz puts out. Typically it will make the games run better.
3. Make sure you have all the requirements to play.
   
   This is not just going along with the current drivers thing, it’s best to make sure the game runs under your graphic card to begin with. Also the memory and CPU requirements to play. I would look at the recommended and not the minimum to ensure great play. This is not just a Linux thing but on all platforms.

Looking around for games for Linux I found that there is a repository out there for games from PlayDeb.net (a fork of GetDeb.Net) that has a ton of games for linux. I loaded the mirror because the main site was having issues. It was going down or giving REAL slow downloads so the mirror actually worked great.

To replace the GetDeb / PlayDeb repositories with a mirror, open the sources.list file:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Then search for the lines which include both “getdeb” and “apps” an replace them with one of the following GetDeb mirror:

deb http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/getdeb/ubuntu lucid-getdeb apps
deb-src http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/getdeb/ubuntu lucid-getdeb apps

For the PlayDeb repository, replace any line which includes “getdeb” and “games” with this mirror:

deb http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/getdeb/ubuntu lucid-getdeb games
deb-src http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/getdeb/ubuntu lucid-getdeb games

So with PlayDeb’s repo loaded I added a few games from their list. 0 A.D. from Wolfire Games sounded good, however it’s in Beta and didn’t run well on my machine so I killed it.

I read about Savage 2 being a combination of RTS and FPS style gaming which peaked my interest. Again issues with the Intel graphics. BAH! It looks awesome and yes they have a Linux native client. However you have to go to their site and download the 812MB installer. It does have the uninstaller script in there which is handy if it doesn’t work right.

BOS Wars reminds me of Command & Conquer and the other RTS games I played in the past. This runs perfect on my machine.

Assault Cube is a FPS style game like Unreal Tournament or Quake based on CUBE. It’s a great game and runs on older and newer machines perfectly. Definitely recommend it!

Wormuz is a Linux-ised game of Worms. If you don’t remember that game from years ago, you were living under a rock. Mass destruction in a cartoon 2-D style enviroment. Tons of weapons and the attacks are line up, power up, shoot. It’s a great turn based game and can be played over the internet as well.

Pingus is a great Lemmings clone. I am going to play it more later, but I have played it before in the earlier days of Ubuntu. When I was just poking around testing it out but still under Windows for the most part.

Now I can’t say enough about the Humble Indie Bundle. World of Goo, Penumbra: Overture, Aquaria, Gish, and Lugaru make up the bundle.

The World of Goo is a physics puzzle game where you place little balls of goo to form structures to complete a task. VERY addictive.

The game is built around the idea of creating large structures using balls of goo. The game is divided into five chapters, each containing several levels. Each level has its own graphic and musical theme, giving it unique atmosphere, similar in style to Tim Burton’s film designs. There is also a bonus meta-game called World of Goo Corporation, where the objective is to build the highest tower using goo balls which the player collected through the course of the game. Players from all over the world can compete, as the height of the tower and number of goo balls used are being constantly uploaded to the 2D Boy server.

The main objective of the game is to get a requisite number of goo balls to a pipe representing the exit. In order to do so, the player must use the goo balls to construct bridges, towers, and other structures to overcome gravity and various terrain difficulties such as chasms, hills, spikes, or cliffs. There are several types of goo balls in the game, each of which has unique properties. The player must exploit combinations of these goo balls in order to complete each level. Extra goos recovered in the pipe are pumped through to the World of Goo Corporation, a sandbox area where the objective is to compete with other players worldwide by building the tallest tower possible.[15] Players can also try to achieve the “Obsessive Completion Distinction Flag” for each level by completing the level under more stringent criteria, such as collecting a larger number of Goo balls, finishing under a set amount of time or using as few moves as possible.

Levels and chapters in the game are interspersed with cut scenes. The WiiWare version includes multiplayer with up to four people on the same Wii. This facility is also available, albeit unsupported, in the Linux port.

World of Goo is split up into five chapters, each containing a number of levels. The chapters are set over the course of one year in the World of Goo. Each chapter takes place over one season, beginning in the start of summer, and ending at the end of spring the next year.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Of_Goo

Penumbra: Overture looks really good, I haven’t really gotten into it yet, but according to Wikipedia:

Set in the year 2000, Penumbra: Overture follows the story of Philip, a thirty-year-old physicist whose mother recently died. After receiving a mysterious letter from his supposedly dead father, Philip follows a series of clues that lead to him to a mysterious location in uninhabited northern Greenland. The harsh cold forces him to take shelter in an abandoned mine. Unfortunately, the mine’s entrance collapses as he enters it, and he is forced to move deeper inside. Within the mine, Philip discovers diary extracts written by a scientist of some sort, who was alone and gradually resorted to eating cave-dwelling spiders as an alternative food source as his supplies diminished.

The unknown person also describes discovering a psychoactive toxin in the spiders and deduced that, after eight months of consuming them in the mine, it was beginning to have an effect on him, physically. Philip also begins receiving radio messages from Tom “Red” Redwood, a man driven insane by cabin fever. Red promises that if he is found, he will give Philip answers. The game follows Philip as he descends deeper into the mines in search of Red while unravelling the secrets of the mine’s previous and current inhabitants.

Following clues and solving various puzzles, Philip eventually comes to an area deep within the mine where Red is waiting for him. Red waits inside an incinerator where he begs Philip to kill him. With no other option, Philip activates the incinerator and amongst Red’s remains, he finds items he needs to progress into a new area of the mine which is identified as “The Shelter”. Once inside, Philip notices what appears to be a human watching him. Philip approaches the figure, but the lighting is suddenly extinguished and Philip is knocked out and dragged away.

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penumbra_overture)

Visually Aquaria is stunning. This is another game I have not gotten the chance to delve into but played a little bit. According to Wikipedia:

Aquaria is an action-adventure game, heavily focused on exploration and puzzle-solving, with non-linear gameplay. The player controls Naija, a lone underwater dweller; although similar to a human woman, Naija also has several fish-like qualities, such as the ability to breathe underwater and propel herself quickly with webbed feet. The game was designed to be primarily controlled solely through the mouse, though it can also be controlled with a keyboard or Xbox 360 controller. The player directs Naija through an underwater world composed of several distinct regions, ranging from caves to underwater ruins to sunlit oases. These areas are filled with plant and animal life, which Naija can interact with directly or indirectly. These lifeforms can be hostile, friendly, or may pay no notice to her. Hostile plants and animals can hurt Naija, reducing her health meter, by touching her or firing projectiles at her.

In general, Naija cannot interact directly with objects in the world. Instead, the majority of actions are accomplished through singing short tunes. The player does this by selecting a series of notes displayed in a circle of eight choices in the correct order. Each note corresponds with a different color. Singing notes affects plants and objects of the same color as the note, while singing the tunes, once learned through the plot, can lift objects, create a shield around Naija, or change Naija into different “forms” which have different appearances and abilities. The specific tones that are played when the player selects a note change in different regions, matching the background music.

During the course of the game, the player learns songs that allow them to transform Naija into different forms. Each of the forms provides her with unique abilities critical to overcoming the various challenges and obstacles seen in the game. The songs played to change forms are incorporated into the background music of the regions they are acquired in. The default form, or “normal form”, is the only one in which Naija can sing, and is the only one where her appearance is modifiable by the player by having Naija wear costumes found throughout the game.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaria_(video_game)

Gish is pretty interesting. It doesn’t really have an installer you just extract and load it into a folder then run. Wikipedia states:

In Gish, the player maneuvers the eponymous character, a 12-pound ball of tar. Gish is gelatinous and may become sticky, slippery, heavy and expanded at will, among other capabilities. Gish’s lady friend Brea (who is human) is captured by a mysterious figure and taken underground to the sewers of Dross. This game has 2 endings, depending on the player’s performance in the last level.

Besides movement, Gish has four abilities: becoming sticky, slick, and heavy, and jumping/expanding. When sticky, he can climb up walls, stick to ceilings, and plant himself firmly to a solid object. Becoming slick makes Gish slippery and frictionless, letting him slide down pipes and squeeze out of being crushed. Using heavy turns Gish’s body into a rigid weight, allowing him to fall faster, squash enemies, smash breakable platforms, sink in water, and resist being crushed. To jump, Gish must first compress his body, then expand to launch himself into the air.

The abilities can be combined for use in certain situations; for instance, while sticky and slick, he can climb walls without grabbing loose objects, and while slick and heavy, he can slide downhill at high speed.

Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_(video_game)

Lugaru: The Rabbit’s Foot (pronounced Loo-GAH-roo) is a great adventure game. Again I got the game and tested to see if it worked but didn’t get too much into it. It looks fantastic. Wikipedia states:

Hand-to-hand combat comprises most of Lugaru’s gameplay, although the game rewards stealthy approaches. The fighting system is based largely around close combat, and in many cases incorporates knives, swords, and bo staves. The player can also perform disarms, reversals, and counter-reversals.

With no HUD, the player must rely on visual cues to determine Turner’s health; most notably the character’s posture and the darkness and blurred vision.

The combat control is original as well, since there are only three context-sensitive action buttons, which puts emphasis on fast-paced action rather than complicated button combos: one attack button, a jump button, and a more general crouch-reverse button.

The game can be played in campaign mode, which includes mission specific objectives and storyline, as well as a “challenge” mode, which involves the player progressing through a series of fourteen maps with the goal of clearing them of all hostile creatures. There is also an interactive tutorial.

Weapons are essential to fighting in this game and each have particular advantages and disadvantages. The knife can be thrown and a character can carry two of them, but it is the weakest weapon of the three. The sword is very powerful and fast, but it is hard to find and incredibly easy to disarm. The staff is the strongest of the three, and can easily kill an enemy when it is down. However, the staff can break and can easily be reversed.

Lugaru also has a number of mods made by the many fans of the game. You can choose to download the “Lugaru Downloader” which gives you a list of all the Fan-made mods so far. Lugaru Downloader also extracts and backs up the files and installs the mod automatically, rather than forcing users to back up files themselves and risk errors and glitches. The Wolfire forums for a link and information, and the website with the download link and info.

Advanced modding, namely modifying skeletons to work custom animated characters into the game, 3D Model customization, animation editing and map editing have been made possible by reverse-engineering the file formats and writing Python plugins for Blender. An overview of all modification resources, done modifications and how-to documentation can be found in this thread on the Wolfire forums.

After the games success as part of the Humble Indie Bundle, on May 11, 2010 Wolfire released the source code of Ryan C. Gordon’s code branch of Lugaru under the GNU General Public License. This source code has allowed the game to be ported to additional platforms such as AmigaOS 4

Hand-to-hand combat comprises most of Lugaru’s gameplay, although the game rewards stealthy approaches. The fighting system is based largely around close combat, and in many cases incorporates knives, swords, and bo staves. The player can also perform disarms, reversals, and counter-reversals.
With no HUD, the player must rely on visual cues to determine Turner’s health; most notably the character’s posture and the darkness and blurred vision.

The combat control is original as well, since there are only three context-sensitive action buttons, which puts emphasis on fast-paced action rather than complicated button combos: one attack button, a jump button, and a more general crouch-reverse button.

The game can be played in campaign mode, which includes mission specific objectives and storyline, as well as a “challenge” mode, which involves the player progressing through a series of fourteen maps with the goal of clearing them of all hostile creatures. There is also an interactive tutorial.

Weapons are essential to fighting in this game and each have particular advantages and disadvantages. The knife can be thrown and a character can carry two of them, but it is the weakest weapon of the three. The sword is very powerful and fast, but it is hard to find and incredibly easy to disarm. The staff is the strongest of the three, and can easily kill an enemy when it is down. However, the staff can break and can easily be reversed.

Lugaru also has a number of mods made by the many fans of the game. You can choose to download the “Lugaru Downloader” which gives you a list of all the Fan-made mods so far. Lugaru Downloader also extracts and backs up the files and installs the mod automatically, rather than forcing users to back up files themselves and risk errors and glitches. The Wolfire forums for a link and information, and the website with the download link and info.

Advanced modding, namely modifying skeletons to work custom animated characters into the game, 3D Model customization, animation editing and map editing have been made possible by reverse-engineering the file formats and writing Python plugins for Blender. An overview of all modification resources, done modifications and how-to documentation can be found in this thread on the Wolfire forums.

After the games success as part of the Humble Indie Bundle, on May 11, 2010 Wolfire released the source code of Ryan C. Gordon’s code branch of Lugaru under the GNU General Public License. This source code has allowed the game to be ported to additional platforms such as AmigaOS 4

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lugaru

The las game of the Bundle is called Samarost which is a puzzle game based all in Flash. Very nicely done however the puzzles are a little tough for me to do so aside from that. Visually decent and well worth checking out.

There are a ton of games for Linux so don’t be steered wrong.  Now you can play some Windows based games using Wine, however some of the free MMORPG games use Gameguard which the only way to get these to run is through a dual boot it seems. No success stories using Wine or a virtual machine in playing these games.

So get out there and play! There are tons more, but this article would be longer than ever to go into all the games. Mind you some of the games are the cheesy 2D 8-bit style that are out there, but for old farts like me it brings back memories of the Nintendo and Sega dominance in gaming.

Before I end this, I would like to add that you can also look into Emulators for NES. SNES, Gamecube, and Playstation games too if you want to try the older games from the console systems.

And popular games like WOW and Guildwars are playable using wine. Check out PlayOnLinux which will help set up Wine for you to play these and a ton more of the Windows based games.

Ubuntu has a vast array of authoring tools. You can do a search for “DVD” (sans quotes) in the Software Center and you will see a bunch of DVD related tools. 2ManDVD was one I tried first because it was recommended back on Karmic. However I never really was able to get it to work right then and it still wouldn’t work right now. For some reason I could never get it to pick up the movies or figure out how to produce a playlist of multiple videos to have a “Play All” option. When I thought I had it, the software produced a zero byte ISO and just wouldn’t produce the DVD at all.

So I furthered my search for a decent editor. I tried QDVD Author, DeVeDe, Brasero (the default in Ubuntu even would not work), and tovid with the todisc ui. None of these worked right or was to convoluted to get to work right.

I had also read a recommendation for DVDStyler so decided to try that out. This was definitely the right choice! I had to make a series of DVDs for my girlfriend’s cousin’s kids so I loaded 4 episodes of the show I was making the DVDs for. The software put them in, set up a Play all option and a separate menu for individual episodes in a pinch!

I added a fan art image I grabbed off of The TV Database and made some modifications for the text and added a label to the individual episodes so you knew what they were. Then I began the burning process. BOOM! It created a preview in Xine which looked perfectly fine (hey that rhymed!) so I exited out of the preview and it started the encoding process then the burning process.

I really recommend DVDStyler for authoring DVDs it’s quick and simple and really works under Lucid.

I don’t know if the reason the others didn’t work is because I installed them through the software center instead of the command line apt-get method or not. But DVDStyler is perfect for quick and dirty DVD authoring. I will play with it more for sure. I have a lot of DVD’s to make before we head on down to Georgia to give them the DVDs. Let’s hope I can get it all done before then!

Now Amarok is a decent player, however I am sketchy on the organization thing it does. It really messes up on the ID3 tags sometimes.

I have a few tunes (1 Andrew W.K. tune, Some “Weird Al” tunes and some Kabuto the Python tracks) which it decided to put everyone in mismatched folders. *sigh*

I hope I can get back to Songbird. I loved that program’s sorting feature a lot better. Also Amarok uses Amazon ONLY for the album art. WTF? Nothing I listen to is on there. BAH!

That’s it for today.

I downloaded a game called PlaneShift which is a free MMORPG. Not as good as Rapellz… Man I am missing that game. I should just install it on the Windows machine to play it. But I digress…

I said I wanted to Rip and Burn DVD’s as one of my points of usage for a computer, so I played with that. However I ran into some issues.

Stupid me forgot to get the package to read encrypted DVD’s (which is basically EVERY movie DVD out there) so I had to install it. If you are trying to watch movies, do this:

So to fix this I subscribed to 1 feed inside of Rhythmbox (the default audio player in Ubuntu 9.04). I plugged in my iPod and after it noticed it was connected, I dragged and dropped the latest episode onto the iPod.

I loaded up gPodder and had it do it’s sync and  all the episodes that were not marked as played went right onto the iPod. However it kept the 1 episode from Rhythm box, which is no big deal.

I unplugged my iPod and head off to work with all my new podcasts ready to play. The ONLY downside to gPodder is that when the podcast uses cover art for their shows it doesn’t show on the iPod.  For example, VooDooRadio’s Last show had a special cover art that I made for the episode. When I was using iTunes under Windows the episodes would have that picture I made, but under gPodder. Nothing. Nada. BAH!

Maybe I missed something. I dunno.

So basically nothing new installed. Just conquered a small little issue that I found as important for my work day. Listening to shows as I work makes me feel more productive.

I completely backed up all my important Windows based things (in case I return to windows) and all my important documents (podcasts, itunes settings, pictures, and other stuff) onto my external harddrive.

Took a DEEP breath and put the installation CD into my CD drive and rebooted the machine.

The setup process is pretty cut and dry. Choose language and locations,  input name, choose username, choose a strong password, partition the hard drive… Okay this is where I REALLY took a deep breath because I told it to use the ENTIRE DISK! Sit back as it erases and formats all of the hard drive and installs the OS.

After it was done installing I rebooted the machine. Automatically wireless connection works! And now to download all the updates since I burned the install CD (186 updates to perform). After that I had to reboot again so the new kernel will take place.

Once I was back up I installed the Flash Player, VLC, Ubuntu restricted extras then I installed Boxee (reported they had Netflix Playback, dunno as of yet, need to play with it).

I then setup Pidgin for instant messaging. I miss Digsby, but I have used Pidgin before under windows. I can’t wait for Digsby to have a Linux version. HURRY GUYS!!!!

Next, I installed Amarok and Syncropated! to see if that will get the iPod podcasting need situated. Apparently Amarok discontinued podcast features in the latest version.

This sucks, its a decent player so I will keep it for other things I guess.

I then installed gPodder. With gPodder, I resubscribed to all my old podcasts that were under windows.. Now to wait for them to download..  Zzz… Okay I can’t sit doing nothing, so I moved on while it downloaded them.

I uninstalled Sycropated! It didn’t work at all. Some of my resources that I found on Google mentioned using it, but I guess it was for the older iPods and not the Widescreen Nano I have currently.

I downloaded Adobe Air to install so I could get Tweetdeck back. After installing Air I got Tweetdeck installed and tweeting is back for me. Yay!

I installed Wine but I have not toyed with it yet. Wine is supposedly useful incase you need to run a Windows based application. But I don’t know if I will be playing with it just yet. Trying to seperate myself from the Microsoft OS Crutch.

Lastly I changed my desktop image to something personalized. Didn’t feel like staring at the brown themed desktop that is the default one. After this I decided it really was time for bed. I started this at 7:30 PM but I feel I got a lot done during this time. More to do tomorrow.