And for much similar logic, that some months back when an emblem came to mind, one element of it was a snake wrapped around the Spider and sword/axe.
Month: May 2010
In a little bit of battletesting, Ghost Recon works almost flawlessly under Linux. All that I have to do, is set it to emulate a virtual desktop of my screen size (with the game to match), hide my panels, and leave anything I want to access within alt+tab range.
There’s some rendering bugs or performance optimizations with WINEs desktop emulation window, that are apparent because of (sigh) the game changing resolutions when it comes to menus. This is something that pisses me off about game developers (particularly from RSE), don’t hard code shit !
Nothing quite like McLintock! to make me laugh until it hurts, even on such a sour day. While arguably it twinges but troubles, the one to the left and to the right, it’s just such a great western :-D. I do enjoy, a well crafted application of humour. Combine John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara, and you have a good recipe on it’s own lol.
RvS+Linux !
Installed and patched it easily, I’ve got 1.0-1.60 uber patches saved for every language I could find. Only hitch was the DX setup flunked, but it wouldn’t matter much anyway (there is no real DirectX on Linux).
As far as I can tell, the client works properly, but I can’t actually use it. My desktop panels overlap the window, and being as RvS forcefully sets the resolution down to 640×480 whenever it hits the menus, thus creating about 1″ blocks where the mouse leaves the games focus. Luckly fixing that after a ‘quit’ in the console, is a simple xrandr invocation. Odds are, I could just setup a quick bare bones fvwm session. GR has similar issues but is actually playable, not surprising as it was a much more professional quality bit of handy work than Raven Shield.
The second test however, was using the Dedicated Server setup — which worked perfectly! How much the performance is impacted by WINE and how much by the heavy network utilisation I’ve got going, is beyond my calculation though, lol.
First date with that red headed Linux, and dropping the ’64
After so many years of dodging RHL and company, I finally opted to give Fedora fair chance. Since it’s a big disk set and I lack the spare DVD medium, I opted to d/l the net install and live cds. For the sake of wanting to try it, I also opted to download the x86_64 version, since the machines processor is an Intel 64.
Round one: a very nice setup using the netinstall disk, only to find out, as anticipated it was cram packed full of network drivers (as any sane distributor would do), even had the necessary crypto support! Just not a driver for my fairly common wireless card. Even more irksome, whether by virtue of bad design in GRUB, BIOS, or a foup up in Anaconda, on rebooting the system, I was greated with a load of gibberish in the terminal, where in pressing enter goes to the Intel Boot Agent for PXE based booting 8=). Odds are my knoppix disk can nuke the MBR back to a stock without trouble, or I could just reach for my FreeBSD disk and correct the MBR.
Round two: go scp myself the the live cd ISO, and burncd it. Only to find it increadably slow and not very agreeable. However the blasted thing was able to auto load the necessary crap for my wireless, connecting after I supplied the nearly 500bit code for the system. While I don’t care much for yielding the package selection (or screwing with the running image in slow mo), it shouldn’t be hard to adjust things post boot and tune Fedora to my tastes. That’s kind of one plus of the distribution, it’s more of a screw with it until you break something sort ;). However the installer wouldn’t function off the disk, so back to the drawing board….
Round three A: cart the entire freaking kit to my room, and hook it into the router with a spare Ethernet cable. No thanks, there are distros that ‘like’ my hardare.
Round three B: Download and burn five disks of Fedora 12…. and shout loudly if the driver isn’t included.
Of course, I could likely have show horned the driver from the live disk into working with the net install disk, pardoning kernel panics, if I hadn’t chucked the disk already >_>. That is also assuming that the installers demands could be appeased!
In the end I took round three B, finding that Fedora x86_64 and for sake of testing, Ubuntu x86_64 really do not like my hardware! So much for having suitable kit >_>. Rather than trouble myself further to fetch a set of Fedora i386, I dug out a two year old (8.04) Ubuntu 32-bit disk and installed that. Did a quick set of updates to bring her to the new 10.04 LTS.
After installing about 900 extra software packages… I think I’m done, lol.
Tickled by a captain
It’s fun to watch command elements of NTF respond with much wit, but no professional backbone. Heh, somehow that strikes me funny to have said that, since when I was a potential recruit looking towards the [SAS] Selection Course, the SAS Friends Password was simply, “SASBACKBONE”.
I’ve never lost it.
A new family low…
Her Royal Pain, just saw fit to jab: that for as much as I point out her horrendous inability to save so much as a Canadian dime! That many years ago, I spent a small fortune (my birthday funds; good thing I never told Grandpa about that or he would’ve been RIP’ing years sooner lol) to upgrade the fish tanks.
I didn’t bother to reply. There’s just no un-nasty way of pointing out, that it was required for the fishes survival (larger tank needed), and that she would’ve just found some way to piss it away anyway…. 8=)
With my laptops updates finished last night, I’m finally ready to go green on setting up Fedora 12 on my desktop. Although I could always wait ~two weeks, I’d rather see how the system tkes the upgrade to Fedora 13. I’m also interested, to see how SWAT 4 and Raven Shield play with it, both in the client and server role.
The main thing that concerns me, is doing the install of Fedora ver the network. Generally speaking, I have had much better hardware support from modern BSDs then I have Linux distributions. On the other hand however, Fedora tends to be more ‘cutting edge’ and bloated to kingdom come, where as most distributions that I favour, tend to be more focused on stability and share my view points on minimalism. So hopefully, Fedora will take well to it.
In waiting for Dixie to sort the compiling, I spent much of it reading up on more of the finer details of Common Lisp, including CLTL. While I knew that modern lisp was a rather huge beast, I am now convinced that it must dwarf C++, in which case you have to take the C++ standard (and occasionally Cs) into sequence, along with Boost and numerous issues of developmental expertise. Most of which, I reckon, are rather learned by living with classy C++ code, or having to put up with shitty code when you know there’s better.
Now where did I store my CD-Rs… lololololol
Generally, [SAS] is riding on rather thin ice with me: my patience although sometimes compared to a saints, is shall we say, far from unlimited. Perhaps I don’t show it, but I generally agree with what friends in my inner-circle have said about my exit from [SAS]. There’s just somethings I need to put in order over the course of time (i.e. the rear burner), like my memoirs ;). I’m moving forward with my life one way or the other, and I have much more meaningful things to deal with then suffering collections of fools, or cursing at bugs.
One thing I have enjoyed about becoming a ronin, is the chance to confound elements of [SAS] and NTF. It’s the price for anyone, who cannot or will not accept my word for truth. As I’ve often said, I have little care what others think, but when I know what they must be thinking, sometimes it does give me a massive cackle! For what side of that coin, that I’ve had to deal with from the [SAS] side (everyone can guess from who), I take it less offensively than I normally would, as my position in [SAS] afforded me sufficient view to comprehend it better than most can; much as I cut certain people outside of that clan a similar amount of ‘slack’, before I’ll pull the trigger in hostility. Also, I am naturally more passive than most; there are but few things that leave ‘lasting marks’, so to speak.
While I would consider a return to [SAS] someday, the things that would have to happen to allow that to be possible, should we say, that I wouldn’t hold my breath over that, if you paid me. I’m not happy about my mighty entry being retained, as is simply put: I am out, and Random and Wiz have ensured it that way. While all things considered with that, I can’t help but wonder if my former CO, has even noticed that he no longer has me to annoy. If anyone decides to Veterize me without my permission, by holding to a differing interpretation of the regulatory code than I and [SAS] in general do, then I’ll simply create my own clan “On paper” [sic], thus null-an-voiding any possibility of that. You can’t be made a Vet in [SAS], if you’re in another clan. Either I am in or I am out, and ‘in’ has not been left as a choice in my opinion. Which is the one that matters most.
Heh, if I had to go that far clanwise, I could publish my masters guide on tactics under my own brand, instead of just my own name lol. Honestly, I’m just happy that I can revise it and publish it in the future, now that I no longer have to give a damn about it’s impact on [SAS] members, nor making GCHQ look like asswholes in the process. As I’ve often said, it’s not a time consuming thing to write! My private files already blew the ‘current’ [SAS] SOPs out of the water before updated material was drafted, and I’m not even going to remark about he the ‘first committee’ from ages back.
I have generally tried to grant a fairly peaceful envelope to both clans: the [SAS] and the NATO Task Force. I feel the latter has accepted that understanding, sufficiently enough; where as I can not say the same about my former superiors. They will however, respect my peaceful-coexistencal desires, or face the blockers wall.
The virtue of being a free agent: is just that, freedom.
Well, this is a wee bit of progress on my task list: July 2009 is finally imported from Live Journal to Blogger. I’ve only got August, (most of) September, and October left to go, and then my Jounral will have completed the transition!!! I’ve over 1500 entries from the LJ days, plus out of the ~1460 entries here on Blogger, this would be about the 142nd entry for 2010 alone.
I’ve noticed that I tend to average, around 40 entries a month, and 20 during ‘slow’ seasons. Hmm, just think how many log files I’ve saved on these past four years…