Messages

When you say "booted up just fine", could you see all the BIOS POST messages being output via DVI? Or was it blank from the moment you turned the computer on.

Also is the card NVIDIA or ATI?

Do any of the computers have the Nimo Codec Pack installed? I remember that if you were silly enough to just tick every box and install the lot, you'd get a fair few DShow filters which do stupid things like flip the video. I think the offending filter was called "bicubic resize filter" or something like that.

[catastrophically wrong,]

tube: They've moved to Fluxbox? Nice As a yoof who grew up with that particular WM I applaud their decision to ditch the frankly hideous GNUstep. Or maybe they never used it and I'm really thinking of some other blasted recovery CD with GParted on it. Geez there really are thousands of the bloody things. Anyway.

I do like to extol Ubuntu, and one of the neat things about the Install CD is that automounting partitions (through the magic of HAL) actually works well. It's better than Knoppix now. Possibly even to the extent that you don't have to fiddle around with typing "mount" commands in a terminal just to get RW access, but that avenue is still available if there's a problem.  Just my recommendation

TerranRich: As much as I like to have faith in good old partition resizing, it can go catastrophically wrong, leaving you with nothing salvageable. To use an analogy, imagine you've got a big old "expired" anti-tank mine from WWII. Resizing a partition with data on it is like doing a vodka shot then kicking the mine.

Believe me, it's not worth the grief, just take it on the chin and purchase another hard-drive. They're insanely cheap at under AU¢40/GB for a 250gigger.

[- Install XP]

Doing a fresh install on a laptop can be very daunting. OEM laptops have a whole lot of "special" hardware, which is why they prefer to bundle a so-called "recovery CD/partition" rather than a vanilla Windows CD that can be used on any machine.
The reason why they do this is the vanilla Windows installer doesn't have all the obscure laptop drivers. So formatting/reinstalling with a vanilla disc will sometimes leave you with a whole bunch of useless mystery devices (such as the lovable "PCI Communications Device" and "PCI Multimedia Device"). It is possible to (track down on the manufacturers web site/dig about in the recovery CAB files) for drivers, but you may go nuts trying.

Linux is quite good; all the device drivers ever made are bundled with it, and so your bits of hardware either work brilliantly or they don't.

If you're after free format and partition tools, look no further than the Ubuntu Install CD. It comes with GParted and (more importantly) can automount your drives/portable media.
(The GParted LiveCD is both scary and ugly. Only recommended if you're a surly old UNIX hack wishing for the days of NeXTstations and CDE.)

As for "alternative apps" to the Adobe suite; this is a very contentious issue. Most professionals, understandably, find the free alternatives a bit rubbish (especially if they've already paid Adobe a million pounds). This leaves four options:

- Install XP
result: system looks ugly, slowly locks up with clutter
- Make two partitions (one XP and one Linux) and dual-boot
result: Linux partition almost never gets used
- Run XP in a virtual machine
result: while faster than a pregnant XP with 3 years of install bloat, Photoshop et. al. are still slow
- Run XP applications seamlessly through Wine
result: a bit hard, cutting-edge software will probably crash a lot

Have a good think about your options before you start partitioning. And please, if you're learning most of this whilst you go along, do yourself a favour and BACKUP EVERYTHING FIRST.

That was quite enjoyable. It was very tempting to just dump the executable/data files with "strings" and just grab random IPs, but I managed to restrain myself. I liked the LAN minigame - it could be quite fun on its own given a bit of randomly-generated goodness. Anxiously awaiting part 2

Spoiler

I ended up writing a Python script to solve the end puzzle. Of course, you still have to type in the coded message from the screen

[close]

libSDL-dev appears to come decked out with a static library, no problems there  8)

Yeah, projects like SuperTux have shown a lot of potential in the idea of using 3D for accelerated 2D. Of course, one would have to consider the cons, such as locking out devices with only a 2D driver, and weigh them with the benefits, such as guaranteed smooth scrolling.

Also 3D can't pull off a few things taken for granted in 2D, such as raw pixel access to the display, which (depending on how things work behind the curtain) might require a rethink of strategy. It all depends on whether the losses are worth the gain I guess.

Why not bite the bullet and get someone to port all the Allegro bits to SDL?

Allegro is a dinosaur. Regardless of the claims made on the project webpage about portability, the design remains over a decade old with the UNIX port originally made as a cruel practical joke. The numerous inter-UNIX build and runtime problems are testament to this, along with the exponentially worse CPU performance under X11 compared to Win32. While this may have saved bucketloads of time back in the halycon days where the only two platforms were DOS and Windows, things are different now that "multiplatform" means Windows and two types of UNIX.

You probably don't need anyone to harp on about how good SDL is. Almost every closed-source game for UNIX (e.g. Darwinia, Quake 4, Gish, Neverwinter Nights) uses SDL as a backend, and for good reason; it's rock-solid, fast, well documented, and has a brilliantly planned and -stable- API. Plus it's robust enough to work on (nearly) all platforms without fail, even just by dumping the .so libraries in with the binary.

Setting aside the twin issues of "not enough time" and "too much integral code relies on it",  would the idea of -experimentally- moving the Linux AGS dependancy off Allegro and onto SDL be considered a good move?

This demo is fantastic. You've nailed the look and feel of the C64's rich graphical style down to a tee; a truly beautiful representation of what could be accomplished on such a basic visual chip. The gameplay is just right, and the dialogue is top-notch. Please carry on without changing anything

Anti-virus? What's that? *bricked for being smug*

I have no opinion on NAV, except that it used to kick arse back in the Windows 3.11 days, when REAL viruses corrupted your boot sector and appended the string "buttocks" to the end of every EXE file.

Norton Firewall (or Symantec SecurityCenter, whatever) is cancer. Don't get me wrong, it's secure, in the same way that taking a hatchet to your ADSL line and urinating on your CPU will protect you from network attacks. It's irritating, blocks a lot of legitimate traffic, always seems to forget port forwarding rules, and you can't turn it off permanently or uninstall only the stupid firewall.

In theory, you only have to worry about network attacks if you're not behind a router. Failing that, there's always ZoneAlarm.

Strange, it works under Linux but it absolutely punishes my CPU - to the extent that the framerate of the game noticeably dips to 2-3fps. Thankfully I've got a Winders machine on hand so I'm giving it a red-hot go - it looks brilliant and dialogue-intensive so far 

Am I the only one who gets this error with v1.1? Linux AGS engine, it happens just as the game reaches the title screen.

Code: ags

scott@trousersnake:~/Desktop/nelly$ ./ags Nelly\ Cootalot.exe 
Adventure Creator v2.72 Interpreter
Copyright (c) 1999-2001 Chris Jones
ACI version 2.72.920
CD-ROM Audio support enabled.
Pentium Pro CPU detected.
Checking sound inits.
An internal error has occured. Please note down the following information.
If the problem persists, contact Chris Jones.
(ACI version 2.72.920)

Error: run_rep_exec: error -6 (Error: Floating point divide by zero
in Global script (line 468)
) running function 'repeatedly_execute_always'
scott@trousersnake:~/Desktop/nelly$

Shame, by the sounds of things this game sounds like a winner

Listen to the words of the UK's most respected computer journalist: emulation and abandonware do not hurt the games industry. At all. Do they preserve the cultural heritage of that era? Yes.

http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/rob-o-tron.htm

While legally (at least in the lawsuit-happy US) reprehensible, morally you're in the clear if you're trying to obtain an title that is out of print. Saying otherwise would begat images of an Orwellian terror society controlled by the major publishers.

Sadly the DOS abandonware scene took the king's portion of the shafting administered by the IDSA to oldgame networks. Coupled with the staggeringly huge vastness of software made for DOS alone, that's probably why no-one has tried to make a TOSEC/definitive end-all collection of games for this historically-significant platform.

*edit again* And it doesn't run. It has something to do with winform, which mono hasn't fully got working. But that said, I guess when it is more developed, it just may well be able to run the AGS editor. Which would make the linux folk happy. Hopefully by the time 2.8 is official, mono might be more capable of handling the winforms stuff.

Yep, as of right now Mono's implementation of System.Windows.Forms has a few missing bits and bobs (for me it tripped up on Application::SetUnhandledExceptionMode), but thankfully the Mono team are hard at work vigorously filling in the gaps.

Also remember that if Mono ever runs it, the floodgates will be opened for both Linux and Mac punters