| Loki's Alpha Centauri working on Ubuntu Hardy! |
[Mar. 24th, 2008|11:33 am] |
I have Alpha Centauri working at last!
I used the instructions here to patch it. You run the patch with
export _POSIX2_VERSION=199209
and then
./smac-6.0a-x86.run --keep --target smacfiles
The patch will break, but will extract itself into the smacfiles directory. You then download a fixed version of loki patch from here and use it to replace the one in smacfiles/bin/Linux/x86
You then go to smacfiles and enter sudo sh setup.sh. It then patches! Yay!
I then went back to the instructions I used for sim city. I'd previously got the error:
X Error: BadMatch
Request Major code 66 ()
Error Serial #533
Current Serial #536
Which is apparently fixed by commenting out compositing in xorg.conf. Of course xorg.conf in Hardy is very minimal and doesn't have anything like that. I added in to xorg.conf the following:
Section "Extensions"
Option "Composite" "Disable"
EndSection
However the thing still segfaulted. I noticed that it was complaining that it couldn't make loads of files. I got things like:
Unable to create file: palcheck.tmp
It turned out that ~/.loki/smac was set so that it could only be read by root. Changing it so that my user could read and write to it stopped it segfaulting!
It now worked from the menu - it didn't need any of the compatibility libraries. |
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| HOWTO get Loki Software's Sim City 3000 working on Ubuntu Hardy |
[Mar. 22nd, 2008|09:57 pm] |
Loki software used to port games from Windows to Linux. They went out of business in 2002 so the games are all pretty old.
One problem is that they require old versions of shared libraries and don't run otherwise. I used the guide here.
I got the original CD and the sc3u-2.0a-x86.run patch. I patched the patch (as per the website instructions) and then patched the program. I then downloaded the old libraries from here and ran using:
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/path/Loki_Compat/ /path/Loki_Compat/ld-linux.so.2 /usr/local/games/SC3U/sc3u.dynamic -intro:off
I got the error:
Inconsistency detected by ld.so: dynamic-link.h: 62: elf_get_dynamic_info: Assertion `! "bad dynamic tag"' failed!
and so downloaded a different set of compatibility files from here. The second set is smaller so you need to merge the two sets, replacing any libs from the first set with those from the second.
All you need to do now is to change the permissions on ~/loki and it all works! Yay!
An easier way of doing it would be to install LinCity-NG from the repositories.. |
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[Mar. 15th, 2008|05:11 pm] |
Went to Fareshares food co-op and dropped off 9 Ubuntu CDs at the infoshop :) |
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| Paranoia? |
[Mar. 14th, 2008|07:32 pm] |
I don't think they are actually being evil but there is an interesting bug on the new hwtest program in hardy:
report contains package information
It submits information about the packages you have installed (without telling you this). It also goes to Canonical as far as I can see.
Is this in compliance with the Data Protection Act? Canonical are in the UK (in practice) as this is where their offices and servers are.
Of course if they were truly evil it'd be a closed source app.. |
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| no sound in Hardy? |
[Mar. 10th, 2008|05:24 am] |
We know there is no sound with the current 2.6.24-12 Hardy kernel. You don't need to report it again!
no sound hardy kernel 2.6.24-12
It's an *alpha* release. It breaks every so often! It'll be fixed very soon. If you cannot live without sound then go back to 2.6.24-11. |
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| Friday |
[Mar. 8th, 2008|02:12 am] |
Not heard from the agency. Obviously not starting a 6 week booking on Monday.
Finished off a report for Ubuntu (and tux4kids) yesterday. Ubuntu packages (programs) are split into 2 categories - main (Canonical supported) and universe (community supported) (I'm ignoring multiverse etc). Tuxtype depends upon (will only run with) a package called sdlpango. This is connected to improving support for non Latin alphabets, and sdl is linux gaming goodness. Tuxtype is in main, and things in main cannot depend on things in universe. The dependency on sdlpango is a new thing and sdlpango is in universe. This meant that tuxtype wouldn't build (ftbfs in the jargon) in Ubuntu hardy. Hope you're still with me!
Anyway to get tuxtype working I had to write a "Main Inclusion Report" for sdlpango. This was quite technically detailed and it got approved by someone senior (pitti) yesterday with the comment "Thank you for the detailled report. Harmless enough, approved and promoted." Yay!
In other random news my LJ got spammed by a minion from Phorm, the adware people. Amusingly the link they pasted didn't actually provide a transcript after all(*)!
(*)Or at least not one that was available using Firefox 3 and Ubuntu.. |
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[Mar. 6th, 2008|12:24 am] |
I made my first ever CVS commit today! Woo - another free software milestone. I haven't worked out how to get it to store the server details so I can just type cvs commit rather than a long string of stuff.
I've also been given a mysterious bug on one of my ppa packages and remade them all with ~distro in for ease. The tuxpaint website is about have them all - the public downloading my stuff! Eek.
I'm currently on a massive learning curve - I'm improving my understanding almost *daily*. |
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| New shiny! |
[Mar. 3rd, 2008|12:39 am] |
Cinepaint is HOT. It's the free software image editor the fanboys should be pointing Windows users to, rather than the Gimp.
Cinepaint is classy and doesn't have that "designed by and for engineers" feel. It actually comes with useful brushes!
It does 32 bits per channel, compared to the Gimp's 8 bits per channel. It was designed for the film industry but is good for home use too. Basically - it rocks!
Cinepaint has been a bit unloved in Debian. It was finally withdrawn last year after being unmaintained and still using the out-of-date GTK1. It's been given some love and attention and now uses GTK2. Aeden Kelly from Debian derivative Sidux has done sterling work on it and hopefully it'll get back into Debian soon.
I've taken his current Work in Progress and built for Ubuntu Hardy. My packages currently live here and are for testing. |
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| Woo! |
[Mar. 2nd, 2008|06:10 am] |
Been fiddling with packaging and ppa stuff all night - I now have packages that I have signed (this was the hardest bit) and successfully uploaded to launchpad!
This is the first time I've had binaries in my ppa, and I guess it's another free software milestone.
My Ubuntu PPA
Yay! |
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| Intrepid |
[Feb. 20th, 2008|03:33 pm] |
The sabdfl has sent out an email - Hardy +1 is "Intrepid Ibex". It's planned for October 2008.
During the 8.10 cycle we will be venturing into interesting new territory, and we'll need the rugged adventurousness of a mountain goat to navigate tricky terrain.
A particular focus for us will be pervasive internet access, the ability to tap into bandwidth whenever and wherever you happen to be. No longer will you need to be a tethered, domesticated animal - you'll be able to roam (and goats do roam!) the wild lands and access the web through a variety of wireless technologies. We want
you to be able to move from the office, to the train, and home, staying connected all the way. |
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| Skills I didn't know I had.. |
[Feb. 20th, 2008|02:37 am] |
The ability to read Ubuntu log files in notEnglish.. |
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| dork update |
[Feb. 11th, 2008|12:49 am] |
I finally have 1024x768 working on my Toshiba Sat Pro 6050. I had to make my own xorg.conf which I cribbed from elsewhere on the 'net. Hardy runs with a pretty empty xorg.conf but you can just replace it with one that works if auto configuration fails.
I'm gonna paste my xorg.conf here for google. Hopefully this will help others. I don't say this is perfect, just that it gets the right resolution for my hardware.
I fixed a hardy bug with the sdl client of freeciv. Without that it may have been broken - I just identified there was a problem and requested that the fix was synced from Debian. It's minor stuff but alpha testing hardy does make a difference.. |
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[Feb. 6th, 2008|06:36 pm] |
Ubuntu has 6 languages that upstream doesn't have for the tuxpaint-stamps package - Kurdish, Gujurati, Macedonian, Australian English, Slovak and Occitan. I've spent the afternoon comparing %s and extracting translation files..
I'm now going to look at the partial translations.. |
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[Feb. 6th, 2008|02:21 pm] |
Finished my basic translation stats so went off to get the curry - closed :(
I had`to get a kebab instead - rotters..
When you download the po file it tells you who has contributed. When you open the po file the headers say:
"Copyright (c) (c) 2006 Canonical Ltd, and Rosetta Contributors 2006
# This file is distributed under the same license as the tuxpaint package."
LAME! |
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| CURRY |
[Feb. 6th, 2008|12:30 pm] |
I've nearly finished taking data from launchpad on tuxpaint translations. One interesting thing is going to be the difference between the two as they forked their translations from ours sometime ago.
I've requested to download the PO file of Macedonian as we don't have that at all. You can't download them casually - you make a request whilst logged in and get an email in return giving you the link. It doesn't appear to have been signed off by a human though, which is a good thing.
The first thing I'm going to do is look at the ones where we don't have any localisation in that language. I'll then look at the diffs between ours and theirs where they seem to be significant.
To make myself do dull number importing I've promised myself a lunchtime curry when I've done the first batch. I'm up to 'P' and hopefully will make 'Z' by the time the lunchtime offer closes at the local curry house.. |
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| hardware TODO list |
[Jan. 26th, 2008|03:20 pm] |
I think the main reason I'm being more productive on the laptop is that I'm not actually listening to music. It seems that most people can listen to music whilst they work - for me if there is music on I just listen to it instead.
Laptop screen is playing up. It stops updating itself and has horizontal lines until I press around the edge of the bevel. Update- it seems pressing on the bottom of the bevel has fixed it - mounting, cable?
I still need to get tor working , I've installed tor, privoxy and torbutton but nothing happens. I expect this is privoxy. I've also broken ssh which may be related.
Found a guide to getting old Loki games working on modern machines. Apparently smac(k) stopped working with edgy, and simcity needs patching (but the patch needs patching first..)
I also need to start on elektronika. Currently she's still called tiny and has Debian and gnome on. She needs something like xfce and to be set up as a file server. I'm tempted to move eser's 120MB HDD into her but that is my current main disk with its 4 partitions - win xp, ntfs formatted sl stuff, gutsy and dapper. The SL stuff can be deleted pretty much, but I expect that moving the xp partition onto another disk would cause problems. I'm certainly not manually installing and updating *again*, but I do need a winxp partition to test stuff. *ponder*
I also need to see if I can get the other box to POST. *grr* |
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[Jan. 25th, 2008|09:11 pm] |
I'm trying to find the cause of a weird bug. I've basically been running the laptop with hardy on as my main computer for the last three days partly for a change but mainly to see where it breaks. I've found fairly major breakage with totem, it has screen corruption when playing MP3s. Next time I load it the entire computer crashes with whole screen corruption. Nice, eh?
*However* totem is a video player and may be the only thing I have to test video overlays. This could be the Trident driver in X, not totem itself.
I blame ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) miss_newham for this bug as she was the one who sent the "Pop Goes the Weasel" MP3 I've been using for testing.. There goes my cool ;) |
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| not another hardware update |
[Jan. 23rd, 2008|08:48 pm] |
Have the hsdpa modem working on the Ubuntu hardy laptop. The newer kernel finds and deals with the modem (yay) so no fiddling around trying to stop it being found as flash. I couldn't get it to dial out via the network applet but wvdial worked effortlessly. I used the Vodafone UK settings of *99***2# for the number to dial, /dev/ttyUSB0 for the modem itself and ppp for name and password and it's all happy :)
There is one obvious crash bug with the Screens and Graphics applet (which is well reported as far as bugs go) and one bug with X deciding I've only got an 800x600 monitor. All reported and I *think* the X bug is actually a prob with the TRIDENT driver, but I lack X bug experience so who knows.. I need to fix it as working confined to the middle of the screen is annoying :)
I'm currently installing essentials like tor and wireshark. The modem is giving me only GPRS to annoy me.. Thankfully with this kernel I can just unplug and replug the thing without having to restart the machine. 4KB/s is woeful. |
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