I decided it was time I emailed the creators of Guild Wars about a Linux client. Why? Well I had a dream that I was the chosen one to lead Linux users to a new light! Actually I was just annoyed at messing about with GW on Linux under Cedega and decided to have a polite moan just to see if there was anything interesting in the reply.

The reply was of course disappointing, however they did say they are "aware that there is an interest in having the game available using other operating systems" and that they will "will continue to evaluate these possibilities" which is much better than, "Linux? No, Frig off".

If for some reason you would like to read my email and NCsoft's full reply, perhaps out of bordom, or a glimmer of hope that I had missed some cryptic clue as to the release date of the Linux client, feel free to do so with the magical link below.

Read More...

0 Comments

It's good to be back in Linux. My SATA hard drive arrived today, first things first, shove it in and get Ubuntu on there! Much relief was felt when the install had finished and I saw Ubuntu boot from my hard drive. The SATA drive was a bit of a gamble and I wasn't 100% sure it would pay off.

My computer is now very fast, I couldn't notice it in Windows so much as I seldom run Windows on my computer anyway. For some reason Linux flys on my new rig. Firefox and OpenOffice open much faster than they do on Windows. Not sure why and I really don't care

As for games (I was stuck in Windows for three days I had to do something) my system seems to have no problems running Doom 3, Half Life 2 or Need For Speed Most Wanted all will the highest settings I throw at the box that includes full AA and AF.

Such a speedy system with Beryl is really impressive as Beryl has a new level of "smoothness". Plus kudos to nVidia for their Beta drivers which allow Beryl to run directly on X without the need for XGL or AIGLX. Installation of Beryl is now a simple task of install nVidia drivers, install Beryl, restart X, start Beryl Manager.

1 Comment

Following the recent demise of my nVidia graphics card, my newly adopted, old ATi card was driving me mad. Not only was it's performance akin to a dead snail but it's Linux support is the very reason I upgraded to my nVidia card in the first place.

This was something that needed instant rectification. As far as I could see I had two choices, get a replacement card that's as good or get a better card and upgrade the whole system. Why upgrade the whole system? Well I had a motherboard that only accepted AGP graphics cards. Therefore a better card would require a motherboard that supported PCI-E.

I opted for the upgrade and decided on:
Core 2 Duo E6400 2.13ghz processor
ASUS P5B motherboard
MSI nVidia 7900GTO
Corsair 1GB DDR2-6400

All of which came to around �. The parts were ordered, the delivered, then I spent a day trying to get Ubuntu working on my system before giving up many hours later. So I am typing this from my old friend Windows .

Read More...

0 Comments

I must have done something to upset the computing gods as I have been punished with a broken nVidia GeForce 6800 GT. I was sitting there, browsing the net as you do when the computer crashes and leaves me with a blank screen. This is nothing unusual, I was running Widows after all as I had planned to have a quick blast of Half Life 2 later on. I hit the reset button and was greeted by a most unfriendly looking BIOS, it was very much similar to my normal BIOS boot up sequence except for the new dots and dashes it had been donned with.

Instantly I knew my card was buggered, corruption like this has no fix. Still I tried hopelessly to do what I could but had to retire the 6800 GT which I buried this morning in my back garden. I couldn't help thinking it's life had been taking away at too younger age, leaving me with a nasty feeling in my pocket.

I would love to know why this card died. I have a few ideas. After doing an autopsy I found a HUGE build up of dust. This all be nearly prevented any cooling, however I thought graphics cards had safety mechanisms for this type of thing. My other theory and perhaps the most believable is that Bill Gates got wind of my legal but unactivated copy of Windows which I had to crack even though it's legal because computer users shouldn't have to right not to register their OS according to Microsoft. I can imagine Steve Ballmer was sitting there laughing as he pressed the big red "destroy a random amount of graphics cards of cracked Windows users" button. Some people might tell you the chances of this being the cause are slim but can they prove it, nay! Not without seeing the source

Graphics cards destroyed whilst using Windows 1
Graphics cards destroyed whilst using Linux 0

0 Comments

Since getting a 2GB RS-MMC card for my 770 I have been thinking how nice it would be to open the video player, image viewer, audio player etc and actually have it pointing at a folder that contains content. You see I don't store any media on the 770. I'd rather leave that space free for future application installations.

Fortunately my problem was very easily solved thanks to the nature of Linux.

If you plan on doing this, I recommend either cutting and pasting the commands from the 770's web browser into the "X Terminal" app or SSH'ing into the 770 and pasting them in from your desktop.

First, check that you don't have any files in the default directories, they will not be deleted but you will no longer be able to access them via the file manager or most applications. Then we must make the directories on our Memory card which we plan to store our media in:

mkdir /media/mmc1/Documents
mkdir /media/mmc1/Images
mkdir /media/mmc1/Sounds
mkdir /media/mmc1/Videos

You can obviously call them as you wish but be sure to change them in the code below. Now we symlink the old directory file names (after renaming the old directories)
so as to have them lead to the directories on the memory card.

mv /home/user/MyDocs/.documents /home/user/MyDocs/.documents.old
ln -s /media/mmc1/Documents /home/user/MyDocs/.documents
mv /home/user/MyDocs/.images /home/user/MyDocs/.images.old
ln -s /media/mmc1/Images /home/user/MyDocs/.images
mv /home/user/MyDocs/.sounds /home/user/MyDocs/.sounds.old
ln -s /media/mmc1/Sounds /home/user/MyDocs/.sounds
mv /home/user/MyDocs/.videos /home/user/MyDocs/.videos.old
ln -s /media/mmc1/Videos /home/user/MyDocs/.videos

Then, we load up an app such as the audio player or video player and enjoy

0 Comments