Ubuntu and Linux beat Windows to Death

I couldn’t think of a more nicer title for this post, so basically you know what this is about. Me bashing Windows and praising Ubuntu.

What is my case you may ask?

It all started on Saturday when I was thinking about how I could use Ubuntu to my advantage and I remembered a long time ago (I believe 2 or 3 years ago?) I tried it once but after a few weeks I switched back. I was reading some of my old blog posts and came upon my Linux tips. Then I started thinking you know, Linux is actually amazing. So I got out my Ubuntu 9.04 disk and installed the system onto my computer. Now, I still had my Windows XP installation with the GRUB bootloader when I came across a problem. I put Ubuntu on the Largest Continuous Free Space on my hard drive, which was 2.4 GB…Just enough for an install of Ubuntu. I realized this when I tried to install the updates and it said I had 216 MB of hard disk space left, not enough to update. Then I knew I was in trouble. What could I do? I thought. I got gparted and tried to edit the partition when I came across, heh funny thing, a triangle icon with an exclamation point inside of it. This meant it couldn’t be resized and had to be formatted. Great, so now what? I tried to get it checked with CHKDISK (I believe that’s the program, too bad if I’m wrong!) and when it finished the exclamation point went away in gparted. So I thought yes! I can change it now, right? Wrong. It just gave me an error message and eventually leading me to just deleting the partition.

So now I put Ubuntu on with 80GB, and the other 50GB goes to Windows XP. So now that that was out of the way there was another problem. GRUB disappeared! Huh? I installed Ubuntu first and then Windows XP. So then I thought about trying to be smart. Maybe I can edit the Windows bootloader! So I go in there, set it so that it boots to partition 1, remove the ugly windows stuff, and try it and…..FAIL. So now what….? It failed. I brought out my Ubuntu Live CD, popped it in, and accessed my ext3 filesystem drive with ubuntu. Hooray! I have access to it! I looked up how to get GRUB installed using Linux Live CD. Since it came with the wireless driver, no worries about having to deal with that. So I reinstalled GRUB by itself, I changed the GRUB Bootloader file and tada! I had a working bootloader again that was GRUB and booted into Linux and Windows XP. After that I simply said, Screw Windows! You can’t do anything Linux can do!

And that is so true. Think about it…. Linux can do anything Windows can do, but Windows can’t do everything Linux can do? Eh…Maybe Microsoft should learn something from this. So guess what Microsoft? I’m a Ubuntu freak now! For real though.

So why is this time different? Well you see, I finally realized how much more I can do with Linux than with Windows. I am still able to do my daily things, I am still able to play my games I like, and I get to do all this in lovely Linux. Who cares if I have lost some of the high-awesome graphics games? I don’t play games all my life, sheesh. I like to make practical use of my life. So what did I do once Linux got installed? (Jeeze, lots of questions today, right?)

I started putting stuff on there, I backed up about 3GB of my stuff I needed to keep, installed Diablo 2 and Diablo 2 MedianXL on there, and they work perfectly fine with Wine. Then I tried Game Maker, and boy was that fun to deal with. You see, I’ve been using Game Maker for about 5 years now, and if I didn’t have this, as you know with the Z-Gamers V.3 website, I would be saddened alot because I wouldn’t be able to use Linux all the time now. But guess what? I got it working under Virtualbox Windows XP installation! Awesomeness! There are three catches to it, but they are minor:
1) I have to import a mouse cursor so that I know where the real position is if it is offset.
2) There are no sounds. But that’s not hard to add in because you just play them….And that’s it! I could go on XP for 2 seconds if I needed to verify if it worked or not.
3)Games must not be 3D and must be tested in fullscreen. No 3D may be a big deal, but here’s my plan for FF3D. Most of the stuff I have to develop is through code. I develop all my code, just run it on Linux to make sure no errors occur, and LATER deal with the 3D coding if there are problems. I think I am so fluent in GML coding and trust my abilities with it that I will not need to test every little aspect of it to know it is working. In fact, I found out you can test stuff in 2D mode, and then just activate 3D mode with the models and 3D drawing once you get on Windows XP. And fullscreen? No big deal, just aligns stuff. Again, number 1 with the mouse cursor makes sure it is not off center.

So what else do I love about Ubuntu? I can access my server directly from the OS….awesome.
I can install packages right on the fly and have new programs….Awesome.
Starting to learn Java Object-Oriented Programming….Awesome also.
Improving my Bash programming skills….Awesome.
Learning new things about Ubuntu everyday….Great!
Able to do alot more than with Windows and still do everything I did with Windows…EPIC.

I have to say….I just LOVE Ubuntu now. I just can’t stop now…I haven’t logged on XP since that epic failure described above…I do not wish to go back unless I have a super problem, which is fixable with Linux of course and not Windows . I guess that is about it.

Continue to support us on http://z-gamers.net! Read my previous blog post for more info on donating to our server!

Z-Gamers V.3 Fundraising!

Let me start off this post by saying that Z-Gamers Version 3 is very epic. It has a very nice design, with a very nice layout, and all the pages are consistent and very nice-looking.

But there is an even more important task at hand than that. Michael Raines, the owner of the server has given me a task to attempt to raise $500 for a new server box. $500 is ALOT of money! I mean seriously, I don’t even think I can do it, but I need people to start donating! Even $5 or even $1 from various people will help contribute! And it’s not for a scam either, we really need a new server box before the hard drive fails and things start breaking down. The server will also run faster than it is currently running and thus will make pages come up faster and make my visitors and I very happy. Where can I donate and help? Go to http://z-gamers.net or http://www.chipin.com/contribute/id/72ec841e5b2f9b4c for direct pay to me. Just type in the value, fill out card/Bank info (Don’t worry, paypal is secure) and the money will not be used for anything other than what I told you above. Michael Raines will make sure of that. In addition, I hope somebody out there is nice enough to help out because frankly, we are small and don’t get much help but we are trying to go on with what we can.

Seriously, please think about donating for Z-Gamers, we really need help with the server and this is the only way…

(9:04:31 PM) sigonasr2: If I ever get money, I’ll be sure to donate it to the cause also lol
(9:04:40 PM) mikeyr71730: Yeah. I hate asking for money, but I have to do it this time before the system goes down.
(Later on in life…)
(6:00:26 PM) mikeyr71730: I’d hate for the server to go offline for good.

So After you donate or at least think about donating, click the more button to find out what I have been up to, because it’s a lot.

Interesting Times

Let me start off this post with something amazing I have never mentioned about me with Spore. Maybe you have wondered what was the awesomest thing I ever made on spore was? It was a building. Huh? A building? Buildings are boring usually, yes? Just normal buildings? Check this out:

Awesome? It’s a Toaster! Cool huh? Yeah, built that like 3 months ago, but it’s a building, you might be wondering how my species got into the building….Well, if you were a smart enough species like mine were, you could figure out how to enter without getting burnt. You can even see part of the little plug I made which was very tough to make, but I ended up doing it. So there you have it, Toaster!

Onto some other things I haven’t discussed on my blog yet. My brother brought home his homework (2nd grader) and he was doing it when he got to the last problem of his homework:

You can see the answer we chose which I’ll explain in a second. The problem is:
Circle the shape that goes in the shaded part.
You then have one of three choices: A letter “R”, A “?”, or a flower shape.

So, if you look at the diagram, you can see that there’s three of them, take awhile and think about how it would work out. It took me 25 minutes to figure this out for my 2nd grader’s homework, but once I realized that I was thinking too hard, it came right to me and we circled the “?”.

Alright, so I am in my school’s Robotics Team. We are Team 1726 and I was very glad that I decided to join the Robotics Team this year. Man did I wish I joined earlier because this club is FUN! I mean seriously, I like everyone in there and we all are smart and think alike and we all love technology and robots. I think it is really interesting. The largest reason I wanted to do it was to contribute to the team in many ways as possible since I had lots of technical knowledge. So I am already heading into the team by helping to design the 2009-2010 website, so pretty cool. We are also doing an Inner-Club Mini Vex Competition which seems really cool. I think Robotics is just awesome and I love to be a part of it and I’ve met some awesome people in the club.

What have I been doing lately? Playing Diablo II MedianXL. Hmm, a twist to Diablo 2? No, way more than that. Created by Brother Laz as he refers to himself as, he created this mod and it has gained lots of community support for something new and completely different than the original Diablo 2. What starts off as the normal game turns into tons more. Each class has completely new skill trees and types of skills. Tons of different and new weapons, armor, special, magic, and other kinds of items that just changes the gameplay so much, you’ll feel like you’re not playing the normal Diablo 2 anymore! And on top of all that, you can also play online with other friends not using Battle.net, but by LAN play. But most people have problems with that, so they need to get Hamachi and join networks to play. So I created my own called Median-nubz (And now a Median-nubz2 also) in which newbie players can join up with me and start on their own “newb” adventures. Hey, you have to start somewhere, right? (If you’re interested in joining this network, then head to the Diablo 2 MedianXL forums which you have to google for, and then find my topic by sigonasr2 [my username] in the Pandemonium Category which is for just Multiplayer topics).

So that’s that. I guess I am starting to get pretty darn good at web design and game coding that I think those are my two biggest highlights so far. Not sure how much more I’ll do, but we’ll see what happens eventually. Guess that’s all to this month’s post. Oh yeah, it’s Z-Gamers 3rd birthday! And I forgot to create the new V.3 website! Oops, did I just say that? Um…bye!

Welcome to August…School…Yes…

So, this morning I promised to myself I would make a post. Yes, I’m still alive, living fairly well, and doing things on a daily basis, but haven’t gotten much chance (Or have been too lazy) to post on here. It’s usually easier for me to work from the most recent things to the furthest back events that are in my head, so it’s time to start.

First off, I have rejoined Fiesta for a third time. Sheesh, when am I gonna stop? But that’s beside the point, explained further below, Warinthestar has convinced me to start playing and doing things that I was doing 2 years ago. Man has it really been that long? Ah yeah, it has. So just yesterday, my cleric on Teva has reached Level 67, and I’m telling you, it doesn’t get easier. Joined guild SoulReaver, Warinthestar’s current guild, looks pretty fun, I’ll tell you that. So I guess I’m back to Fiesta.

Next up, as you may know, Warinthestar originally was an admin on the Twilight Server for the game BZFlag. Well guess what? I’m back to playing that too! (Now a third time also) So let’s see, Twilight has changed its global groups to TWILIGHT.SRADMIN, TWILIGHT.ADMIN, and TWILIGHT.COP, as in we’re in TWILIGHT.SRADMIN, and TWILIGHT.ADMIN is now for the original Jr. Admins. We’re trying to recruit old members from our past times playing Twilight, found Saber and boresnake who still get on every once in awhile. Twilight now runs 5 servers, 4 of them public including: Twilight Main Server, Party Time Server, Jumping Skillz Server, and BZSports Server. The private one is the Twilight Test Server. Also, we have started a new site on my http://sigonasr2.servegame.org server with my newfound web-designing skills I gained over the summer, we created a nice looking site and forum fairly easily. Check it out at http://twilight.servegame.org, and please join if you’re interested.

(Read onward for stuff that happened further back.)

Diablo 2 – Fun

So, even though it is a pretty old game, Diablo 2 was something I have recently bought. I guess I’m sort of getting into a computer game buying mood now because I bought Spore, now I bought Diablo 2. Guess I can have fun with computer games if I can’t get a current generation console. Anyways, so here’s my Diablo 2 review.

Diablo 2       9/10 
Game 9/10, Graphics 7/10, Online 10/10, Entertainment 9/10, Replayability 10/10.

Game: The game itself is very fun in my opinion. Who wouldn’t want to run around killing enemies, gaining experience, leveling up, learning new skills, and do quests? It just contains so much to do for such a simple concept. I was amazed at how fun it is compared to alot of games with similar graphics/implementations.

Graphics: The game may not be too strong in the Graphics score, but that doesn’t mean the graphics suck. Most of the graphics are pretty detailed, they’re just tiny giving the impression that they are low quality, which is not true. I do agree that it would’ve been nice to see larger images though to make it seem more graphically friendly.

Online: Online play is fun, interactive, and simple. You can use your own computer as a server or use Battle.net’s free online service to host a game. Chatting and picking rooms are simple enough and don’t require much time to get used to. Most players call their game names by what act or part they’re on or what they need help with.

Entertainment: Diablo 2 receives a 9 instead of a 10 due to the fact that it is slightly repetitive. And by slightly, I mean Very Slightly. The areas are randomly generated each time you restart a server on online play apparently (I might need clarity on that statement) which I think is a good thing because that keeps the game interesting and fun. Knowing how to get through every maze or puzzle perfectly each time is lame. Other than the length of time in certain areas, the game has too much variety in enemies, items, and dungeons, to make you bored.

Replayability: Diablo 2 has 5 classes normally, but I got the expansion set so that makes 2 additional classes for 7 total. First off, playing each class through the whole game may take a very long time. You also have to consider that the skill tree is so large that putting skill points on different skills each time dramatically affects game play each time, so you may have to play literally 10s of times before you start figuring out every single combination. The random dungeons (Again, might need clarity) also keep the game very random and fun, and random enemies make each time you do that one quest unique and fun.

Overall: This game is very addictive and fun, single player and multiplayer! I like how when more players play in one game, the strength of the monsters increases. This makes it so much more fun than people running through areas casting a few things and making quests cheap for others, it actually requires more teamwork. Interesting death concept, that when you die you have to collect all your equips and gold from your dead body if possible. I did have to restart the game one time and just collect my equips without the gold because I didn’t put a town portal, but that’s ok. Tons of different weapons and armor also made this game so interesting in that each time you played, you will probably have different weapon and armor sets, depending on what you found! Definitely worth the $40. (It’s actually cheaper, but I got the Battle Chest which contained Diablo, Diablo 2, Diablo 2 Expansion Set, and the Diablo 2 Ultimate Strategy Guide.

Fun fun, so what else have I done over the past week. (Actually, almost two weeks since I posted now) Let’s see… I did continue work on Fighter’s Field 3D. Although I have yet to release it, I am still working on it. I guess since there’s no consequence for not releasing a game, I never release on the release date which sucks, because schoolwork I’d always do it before the due date no matter what, but this however I keep delaying. Guess it’s just my problem…

That is pretty much it for the past two weeks, haven’t done much else. Going to update my pic soon on the About Me page because it’s outdated. (I think it’s almost 1.5 years old now)

Oh yeah, check out http://z-gamers.net and look at Bawl Maze, released by XSkulls. Not the best, but a fun little 3d ball rolling game. If you haven’t noticed, we got a paid domain name too thanks to XSkulls, we thank ya!!