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!

The Usual Fall Break

As normal, during my fall break I do nothing special, I just chill and relax and try not to think about school, because that’s obviously what you are supposed to do. I did work on a few things during fall break though.

Mostly Game Maker related, here are 3 projects I will definitely be slowly working on (Including Screenshots):

Elite Beat Agents Simulator

I have loved the game Elite Beat Agents and so I am recreating a version of it. The version I found on the Game Maker Community is such a crappy version, so I decided to remake it. Here’s a screenshot for now, it uses midi files to conserve space, and the notes are in sync. I have been working on a very good syncing system to keep the notes in time so you can enjoy the song and the game.

Wings3D OBJ to GML Converter

As another note, the current type of OBJ file converter does not work for Vista users, and is always quite complicated. All this will do is take a Wings3D OBJ file and converts it into GML code automatically with just the file needed for user input so that you can just paste into your 3D game as a model of points to use.

Why Wings3D only? Well, first of all, Wings3D is a very powerful program itself, so that statement itself should let you understand why I’m restricting the file format to just that. If you want to use this once I finish it, you should simply get used to using Wings3D now to create nice models for Game Maker, which is our goal with this program.

Super Mario RPG Game (Possibly a Sequel)

The game is based off the super popular Super Mario RPG game from the SNES. Although the game is quite vague to most people for Mario games and got a low amount of sales, it is a very good game with lots of challenge. As an isometric RPG, it had lots of cool features and I want to make a possible sequel for the game with great implementation. Right now I have finished the jumping engine, there IS a z variable for this game and jumping makes Mario go “higher”. I have allowed Mario to walk in all 8 directions and given Mario the ability to jump in all 8 directions. Now I am going to start importing platforms into the game and then start working on the battle engine, it’ll be fun! (Screenshot below shows Mario jumping SW)

As you can see, I have got quite an amount of projects going, all of them should keep me busy until I get close to finishing them, in which I stop. Tune into this blog for all the latest info on all three of these promising games!

In addition to Game Maker, I have started learning some Visual Basic, a minor thing that I may never get enough experience to make advanced programs in yet. Hopefully I can find it useful in the near future.

We also went to ASU on Saturday, 10/18/08 to perform for our marching band competition. Buena got an Excellent rating, and I think we deserve exactly that. (I’m sure all of the other Buena members would agree) We will be working hard in the next week or so to hopefully do better at the Ironwood Ridge competition. Good luck to me and all the Buena Band members, let’s work hard to go to state!!!

I also surprisingly started playing Fiesta. Now, if you’re read previously, I also started playing BZFlag again. I must say, I am going back to all my fun games I used to play, and I like it. So I’ve started playing again (I’m glad I never gave away my account items even though I wanted to), so now I’m continuing my slow trek to level 60 as a cleric. I have had some help from Lanowar_Elf (Charles from previous posts) to gain about 20% while helping him level to 78 on his archer, so he’s still much higher in level than I am.

That sums up all that’s been happening during this week.

Fighter’s Field Game Starting

So, it’s been close to a month since I’ve posted, but I haven’t been very active on here only due to the fact that I have been working on this new game and playing Fiesta often. It seems that I am becoming much better and more efficient at coding with GML, and it’s a matter of time before I start working on 3D games. (I have recently learned how to make an online game, so all that’s left is to make 3D games) Now that I have pretty much mastered everything about Game Maker, it’s going to be time to start putting it to good use. Right now, this is a very simple version of what my game is going to be like. (It is based off of Fiesta completely) It is at the moment a simple game where you can kill various enemies and participate in “kingdom quests” and do a “job change” quest, just like Fiesta (Except from my own perspective). Basically you choose from one of the four classes, Rogue (Basically a replacement name for Cleric), Fighter, Mage, and Archer. Probably the most interesting ones are Mage and Archer since you aim your attacks and magic. Fighters are just really powerful and Rogues can heal themselves. I continuously update this game, but please check it out, it is quite fun. You can head over to http://sigonasr2.servegame.org/zgamers/MiniRPG/fightersfield.php to download the game. Updated it this morning with EXP fixes, (You get less if you fight enemies too weak or too strong, just like Fiesta) Game Speed fixes for first kingdom quest. Also there are now notification icons on the right hand side every once in awhile when you level. These let you know what new things you can do or letting you know what’s happening.

In other news, I’m level 54 on my cleric now in Fiesta. Pretty decent. It’s getting pretty tough to level now. I want to save my quests, but grinding is just plain crazy. Asaph also handed over RadiantDawn to me and now seems to regret it a bit. Oh well, I’m the guild master now, so I call the shots.

School starts in a few days. Can’t wait, and kind of down at the same time. It’s like you miss school, but you just can’t go back just yet. Since school starts earlier now, that feeling is starting to happen more often.