Mageia 3 RC pre-review

Alright so the issues with Mageia 2 was simply that if one did not have tainted repositories enabled and the user updated the kernel, then after a reboot the latest proprietary module for the users video card could not be loaded due to not being installed. With Mageia RC 3 the issue is fixed as during a reboot if the proprietary drivers are not installed then it will simply default to ati or nvdia opensource version until the issues is fixed. That was really my only issue with Mageia 2, and now that that's fixed no real complaints about RC 3 so far in fact its a solid build that I am very pleased with. The main repository (ibiblio.org)  still goes down late at night but thats just a minor annoyance.

Now even though this is an RC release and the note the final product I just can't help but praise the Mageia community for all there efforts. Each release that they have brought out has not only improved in the once great Mandriva, but they have done a great job leaving the interface open for customization.

so some specs of the latest release as of latest update:

KDE 4.10.2
Kernel 3.8.13

default media:
Amarok
Dragonplayer

Default office suite:
LibreOffice

Did not test the Gnome version as of yet.


Still need to customize to ones personal tastes but so far I am really liking this release.

Distro Round up time.

So I know many of you have been wondering what makes one distro better then the other. Well as time goes on its starting to become clear witch version is best for what need you may have.

So far here is the list based on personal test.

Mageia 32/64bit -Best for gaming, Not that it runs games any faster mind you, but it has the better compatibly with older games like Doom 3 and Quake 4 compared to Ubuntu and Fedora. So if your getting fed up with that one game not running in Linux anymore give this distro a try, just don't update your kernel or proprietary driver modules. This still causes the issues no matter if its beta or an official release. By the way I recommend Mageia 3 beta 1 or 2, due to the fact there starting to mix Fedora into the mix, and its turning out nicely.

Fedora- Hands down for any stand alone server needs Fedora is the way to go simply because that's what RedHat's main focus point is.

Ubuntu and Friends - For the latest hardware support, ease of use for your everyday machine Ubuntu and variants are always a nice pic. Personally I prefer Kubuntu to Ubuntu simply because I detest Unity. However Ubuntu is the one officially supported by Steam and has paid applications in the package store.

Linux Mint - If you don't like Ubuntu's audited about taking and giving little to nothing back, Linux mint is a great alternative, and With there mate desktop you get that classes gnome feel and support for gtk2 themes.

Rosa- Since Mandriva seems to be dead now, or a tleast going down that road. Rosa is a Russian release that seems promising, but as of yet I found it a little finicky for my everyday use.  Also PCLinux is starting to base there distribution on Rosa

Mandriva - Still stuck on 2011 release, they have missed at least for release dates, I would not hold my breath for anything new or special coming from Mandriva, Mandriva has a very easy to use Control Center that allows for all primary system setup and configurations. From samba, to user control  From Grub configuration to hardware manage the Mandriva control center makes new Linux users and admins alike an easy to configure distro.

Bodhi - An enlightment based distro, looks cool, but I keep having issues with it to really test it.

Thats it for the latest distro's I have tested as of Late, currently Kubuntu is my Choice at the moment for my everyday machine.

if a package does not fit, you can extract it.

Something we as Linux users get use to is packages. No mater what distro you are using, with out .deb ,rpm,
.pnt, ext, we would be hard pressed to manually install all our applications. But what if you have a distro and the application you want does not exist for the that distro? well you can try a .deb or .rpm for another distro. Such as if your using Mandriva you could try a package designed for Fedora, or Mint, try a package for Ubuntu or Debian. But every now and again, the package will  need a dependency that your distro does not have. If its something minor such as a game that asks for sql, you can try this.

1. Extract the package.
2. find the executable, sometimes in the bin folder, some times in other folders in the package.
3. ./executable

that's it if the application runs, then you can manually place it in the desired locations, or if you like me, put in the bin folder of your home directory.

I finally figured it out.... Get rid of the bloat. Add bloat.

Alright, so like many I am looking for the ultimate Linux experience, where everything works, I have compatibility with most of my applications, and I don't have to rely on windows for anything.

But interestingly enough I have found that beta builds are better to play with and customize for some reason, anyway I downloaded Mageia 3 beta, which is a nice build, but I started tweaking it, I decided to compile a 32bit kernel with PAE enabled, then I added my my video modules. OK normal procedure right? Well I noticed something this messed up the CPU Power service, so now my CPU is not regulated and can run at max ghz which is a plus, until then I would have to manually tweak on every start up.  I also noted there is some mixing of Mandriva and Fedora in the mix, so this makes it easy to tweak libs to mach which rpm I am installing compared to Mageia 2. Now here is where the really cool part is, I was able to bring back compatibility with older applications like xmms, doom3, serious sam2, and even older loki games like fakk2. I have not been able to run fakk2 and Sam2 in Linux for over 3 years now.

So what do we have so far, we have a hybrid system with a custom kernel, removed all the bloat including the rebuilt kernel. Added bloat to the libs for compatibility. Also the nice thing about Mageia 3 is they have not implemented Pulseaudio. Which is a big plus, Pulse tries to keep compatibly but in the end messes everything up outside of the desktop ecosystem and new applications. So by going back to ALSA and using the aoss wrapper we are at a very high compatibly rate.

So what started out as a beta review, end up being my new Linux Desktop of choice, at least until I mess something up :)

I will update later. After more treaking.

Windows, no thanks just have a glass of W.I.N.E.

One day I was looking through my games deciding what I was going to install on my Windows 7 laptop, then it accord to me that that some of my games no longer worked with 7 and required  XP even 98 to run properly. I got to thinking about doing a duel boot with XP, or even running 98 in a VM. But then I faced palmed myself for not thinking of wine.

What is wine you may ask. Click her for more information http://www.winehq.org/

 but I will give you the run down.  First wine is an acronym for wine is not an emulator. What it does is it creates the needed environment for an application designed to run in Windows. It does this  through .dll files ether remade for wine or native dlls from  Windows itself. It also pipes directx through opengl, and even sounds and music such as midi music and directx music and audio through alsa or pulseaudio as well. Wine has come along way, and one can even play Skyrim thanks to wine. But lets look at where Wine really comes in handy.  I have Zombie Wars, and Knights of the Old Republic, one will not run in any NT environment  the other will but crashes and is unplayable after the beginning.  What is the solution? Wine not only does it create the needed environment, it also allows one to change which version of Windows it needs to enforce  such as Windows 3.x 95 98 ME, XP, Vista, Windows 7, Or even the server series. Also, when Wine itself has a problem with running an an application, setting native dlls usually fixes the issue. For example Phantasy Star Online plays fine in wine, but with out some dll tweaking there is no music. So to fix this we install directx music and dsound, ether manually our using a script called winetricks which makes finding and setting up the dlls painless.  I have also found running old 3.x programs such as MS Money run flawlessly in wine as well.  Even on a 64 bit system you are not limited to only 32bit or 64bit architecture anymore. Where as with most new PC's sold today only give you a 64bit version of Windows resulting in no longer being able to run 16bit applications. So remember if you need to run an old application, why not install your favorite distro and give Wine a try. 

Windows 8{

Lets face it Windows 8 is a joke from day one, only Microsoft decided to not let the user modify the interface the way the user wants to, typical Microsoft. And the fan boys that just go on and on about how you should embrace change and except it. LOOK if your dumb enough to not want a PC that you control  and an interface that you can customize to your needs and adjust for your everyday use then yeah Windows 8 is for you no questions asked. But for the rest of us self thinking semi-intelligent beings, Ill use Windows 8 as my everyday PC when some one comes up with a good shell replacement, until then Ill stick with Mate or KDE/Gnome for now. Thanks. And by the by, I like touch screen on my tablets not my Laptop or Desktop thanks.

Other obstacles for game developers in Linux.

     Linux like Android has many variants, the difference can range from the file system structure, packages such as  dep, rpm, tar.gz, pup, ect, to what sound system is used by default, such as ALSA, OSS, or Pulse Audio. also due to the resent move to Pulse there are now compatibility issues with older games that used OSS and ALSA as well. Though these issues can be over come by playing around with needed lib files and using aoss. Plus another issue with older applications is the move from xfree86 to x.org in the past years.


   But lets go back to the current distros what obstacle effect development across them. First some distros still use ALSA over Pulse Audio. Even though Pulse audio may have cleaned up the sound system in Linux, many still favor ALSA. Second some users do not have proprietary driver for there video card which may limit there ability to use Hardware Acceleration. Packaging release is not an excuse as its easy to convert rpm to deb and deb to rpm using alien, or just extract the packages and install manually.


    I have also found that many games that where ported to Linux in the past run really well under wine. So even through ai32-lib for 64 bit systems, and dependency hell can be overcome with some hackery, it is some times easier to just use wine to install the windows version instead.

   In closing these excuse are minimal, as its not as adjuice a task as some devs have made it out to be. If all devs started following a similar dependency path it would be easy for the users and distro developers to adjust there version of Linux accordingly.

Linux users don't pirate as much as Windows/OSX users. (Perspective)

     Funny, if you look for any statistical information you will find none. But the simple fact is people who support and back Open Source/GNU software do not pirate proprietary software as much as people who mindlessly use propitiatory software and operating systems. All you have to do is pick a proprietary game do a search for it for Windows and you will see there are countless forums with links to downloads of the software in question. However take that same software that has been ported to Linux. You will find little to none at all. The reason? Simple, pretty much anything wanted or needed in Linux is opensource or under the GPL licence. However there is a strong movement for games in Linux something steam has even noticed. (Though there reasons may not be as innocent  as that.) Point being these games are not pirated like Windows and OS X games. In-fact except for some torrents your not going to find much if any at all. Another simple reason for this is in the Linux community we want games and as such are willing to pay, some even go so far as to by multiple copies just to support the devs and show them there is a market. I like how Windows enthusiast state that "Linux is  for hackers, programmers and script kids alone."  I don't think that is the case anymore, especially thanks to Windows 8 driving more people over to the GNU side, or the OS X side.