Thursday, January 29, 2009

FreeCol 0.8.0 Released


Version 0.8.0 of FreeCol has now been released. FreeCol is a free/open source turnbased strategy game based on Colonization which in turn was based on Civilization.

You can build new colonies in America, interact with the natives and struggle for domination against other European nations.



The largest change introduced by this release is the ability to define gameplay mechanics using XML-files. You can easily change the rules you don't like or create a different game similar to FreeCol. Take a look at the chapter Changing the Rules in FreeCol's user manual if you would like to know more.

Other changes include:

* Units now slide between tiles while moving.
* New terrain graphics.
* Menu music added.
* Sound effects for dragoons, artillery capturing a colony, building complete, church and blacksmith.
* New sound effects for artillery and buying/selling goods.
* Short music clips for Aztecs and fountain of Youth.
* Named regions and nicer placement of native settlements.
* New nations added: Portuguese, Swedish, Danish and Russian
* Games with up to eight European players are now supported.
* A lot more new features and bugfixes.
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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

3 ways to turbocharge your Linux desktop

Manufacturers and PC vendors would have you believe that there's only one way to speed up your machine: buy new kit. And then, in 18 months, buy new kit again. However, it's usually our software that's the real bottleneck.


Power up with Fluxbox, Enlightenment and Ratpoison
If you've been using Linux for a while, you'll already have discovered lighter alternatives to some of the platform's bloatfests – for example, using AbiWord and Gnumeric in the place of OpenOffice.org.

But what about the desktop itself? To start with, let's look at how the layers of the Linux GUI fit together.

That's the setup when you're running one of the big three desktops (Gnome, KDE, Xfce). However, if you choose a standalone window manager (WM), you can cut out the first and third layers in this stack. A window manager tends to incorporate all desktop functionality into a single executable that doesn't have additional programs such as file managers.

Also, most standalone window managers don't rely on a widget toolkit, instead rendering their own graphics and interfacing directly with the X Window System libraries. This helps to keep their RAM consumption to a minimum.

1. Fluxbox
Raw speed and low dependencies, free up screen space
When you first start Fluxbox, you'll probably be scratching your head and pondering: is this it? Well, that's the idea: Fluxbox wants to give your screen real estate back to you. It may look a bit daunting at first, but give it some time and you'll learn to love it.

Straight away you'll notice that there's no program menu to click like the K button in KDE or Applications in Gnome. However, you can bring up a similar type of menu by rightclicking anywhere on the desktop. This menu contains submenus for different program categories, and you can drag it around your desktop by clicking on the bar at the top. To get rid of the menu completely, just right-click on the menu's top bar.

Now let's turn our attention to the panel at the bottom of the screen, known as the Toolbar. It's very thin compared with the KDE panel and stretches across only two-thirds of the screen's width. On the left, you'll see the word 'one': this displays the current virtual desktop, so click the arrows to the right of the word to switch desktops.

Take me to task

After this, you'll see a task bar implementation. It's much the same as in Gnome, KDE and Xfce: programs are displayed along with their icons, and you can right-click on a program's entry to 'sticky' the window (that is, make it visible on all virtual desktops) and perform other operations.

To the right of the task bar area you'll see another pair of arrows, which enable you to cycle through currently running programs. Lastly, there's a clock. You can configure the behaviour of the toolbar by right-clicking in a nontask bar area. This brings up a menu which sets the toolbar's position, width (left-click to shrink it and right-click to grow it) and whether it should auto-hide.

To configure Fluxbox, right-click on the desktop and go to Configuration. Some of the options you'll see are:

Focus Model This changes whether you select windows by clicking them, or by hovering over them with the mouse.

Tabs Options By unchecking the Tabs In Titlebar option, each window will have a small tab above its title bar, making it easy to group windows together.

Opaque Window Moving By default, Fluxbox draws only the outline of a window when you move it. Ticking this option displays the contents when moving, but causes a small loss in performance.

Further fine-tuning

Under Applications > Tools you'll see Fluxconf and Fluxkeys, two extra configuration tools. The former has many overlaps with the Configuration submenu, but if there's something you want to change about the desktop, look here. The latter is handy for redefining the keybindings for closing windows, switching desktops and so on.

Now you're well prepared to give Fluxbox a serious go. It may take you a few hours to get comfortable with it, so we recommend giving it a couple of days to let the simplicity and speed boosts soak in. Oh, and if you get bored with the default theme, see Styles in the desktop menu for more.

2. Ratpoison

Eliminate the mouse and save screen space
The mouse is a pretty clumsy input device. Sure, it's served us fairly well over the years, but it's a common source of RSI problems, and you have to keep reaching over to grab it when you're typing.

For web browsing and graphics editing tasks, the mouse isn't a hindrance – chances are you keep one hand on the keyboard and the other on the mouse. But what about when you're editing documents or programming? Just to hit a menu entry (if you don't know the keyboard shortcut) you have to reach over and grasp that increasingly annoying rodent.

Ratpoison, as the name suggests, is designed to terminate the mouse's job in window management. You won't find title bars for dragging windows, resize handles or any of the other bits you'd expect in a traditional window manager here.

The goal is that every window management operation you'd expect to perform in a normal setting should be achievable using the keyboard alone, so that if you're working on documents and/or programming, your hands never have to leave the keyboard as you're working.

There's another side to Ratpoison too, called tiling. With our regular window managers, we spend a lot of time juggling windows, making them maximised to use the whole screen or trying to align them with minimal overlap so that we can see two programs at once. Even with snap-to-edge placement, it's a scrappy and time-consuming job.

What tiler?

Ratpoison ignores all of this with its tiling system. This automatically places and resizes windows on the screen with no overlap, making sure as much screen space as possible is used.

When Ratpoison starts, you'll see either a blank screen or a terminal window that's the full size of the screen. With no title bars, panels, menus nor anything else to tempt your clicking fingers, it looks completely impossible to use.

If you've just got a blank screen, hit Ctrl+T then C to open a new terminal window. This will occupy the whole screen. In that window, run your favourite text editor (for example, Gedit or Mousepad), and that program will then occupy the entirety of your screen's real estate.

OK, fair enough – but open a few more apps and each of those takes up the screen as well, so how do we navigate between them? First, hit Ctrl+T then W to show a list of windows in the top-right of the screen. You'll see that each window has a number, starting from zero, so to switch to one of them, hit Ctrl+T followed by the number of the window you want. It'll pop into view, using up the whole screen again.

Flex your fingers

Now let's look at tiling. We can split up the screen horizontally or vertically based on the last two windows selected. Using Ctrl+T and the number keys, select one window and then another. Then hit Ctrl+T then S to split the screen horizontally, or Ctrl+T then Shift+S to split it vertically.

You can then switch between windows in the split using Ctrl+T followed by a number as above, and select two windows to do yet another split. Take the screenshot, above, for instance. To get that setup, we did this:

1. Logged in to Failsafe Terminal and ran ratpoison, which displayed the terminal full-screen.

2. Hit Ctrl+T then C to open another terminal window.

3. Ran 'gedit &' in the new terminal window (to keep the shell process going).

4. Hit Ctrl+T then 1 to switch back to the second window.

5. Hit Ctrl+T then Shift+S to split the screen horizontally.

6. Used Ctrl+T then the number to select the first terminal and then the second.

7. Hit Ctrl+T then S to split those terminals vertically.

That looks like a lot of work, but after some practice you'll be quickly knocking out key combos to get your desktop just the way you want it.

Ratpoison won't give you a huge productivity boost if you spend most of your time in graphics programs, but if you're a coder or writer, you absolutely have to try it out.

Quick key combos

Ctrl+T then C – Start a new terminal

Ctrl+T then W – Show list of windows

Ctrl+T then number – Switch to a window

Ctrl+T then S/Shift+S – Split last two selected windows vertically/horizontally

Ctrl+T then Shift+Q – Show current window full-screen

Ctrl+T then N/P – Switch to next/previous window

Ctrl+T then Ctrl+T – Toggle windows (like Alt+Tab on other WMs/desktops)

Ctrl+T then K – Close current window

3. Enlightenment

Eye candy and power-user functionality
Any mention of Enlightenment (colloquially 'E') brings two things to mind: bling and a ridiculously protracted development process. Despite having been in the works since 1996, this WM has only managed to reach a 0.16 version number (commonly referred to as E16).

But let's be clear: the 0.16 release could realistically be called 1.0. It's stable, loaded with features and many long-time Linux/Unixers run it as their full-time WM. Indeed, a lot of hardcore E users find it hard to get excited about Compiz Fusion – E had transparent windows and drop shadows back when a 233MHz CPU was seen as pretty decent kit.

At the login screen, after choosing Select Session, you may be given three options for starting E: one with Gnome, one with KDE, and one that's just 'E16'. E is flexible enough to replace Metacity in Gnome or KWin in KDE, but just choose the 'E16' option for now.

Pretty as a picture

Enlightenment's visual pizzazz is apparent right from the start. After a loading progress bar, you'll see the screen unfurl like a scroll. The desktop looks quite bare at first glance, although it's bustling compared with Ratpoison.

As in Fluxbox, you start programs by clicking on the desktop. However, you need to middle-click to bring up the main menu. In Ubuntu this includes a submenu called Debian Menus, which contains your installed applications. If you right-click instead, you'll see the Enlightenment Settings menu, and leaving the mouse pointer static summons a help bubble.

So, launch a program by middle-clicking and going into the App menu. When you have a window, look at the pair of boxes at the bottom-left of the desktop. These are the virtual desktop pagers: by default you have two desktops, each containing two workspaces – and, best of all, the window icons are thumbnail representations of the full window.

If you minimise a window, you'll see that it goes into the bottom-right box on the desktop: the icon box. This gives you thumbnail version of your programs; right-click and choose Settings to enlarge the icons, or you can set up the list vertically if you prefer – E is highly customisable.

Sifting through settings

In fact, the many Settings dialogs can be overwhelming, so let's explore a few. Right-click on the desktop and choose Composite Settings to enable some effects. Check the Enable Composite box, Enable Fading box and Shadows Blurred radio button then hit Apply to give windows drop shadows. Next, go to Move & Resize Settings and choose Translucent in the Move Methods list. Moving windows are now semi-transparent.

You can also make menus roll out by going to Menu Settings and selecting the Animated option. And if the Sloppy Focus setting annoys you (focusing the window beneath the mouse pointer) choose Focus Settings and 'Focus follows mouse clicks'.

Now that you have the basics sorted out, have fun exploring. Reverting to the stock E setup is easy, just log into a different WM, remove the .e16 directory from your home directory and then restart E.
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Alien Arena 2008 v7.21 released

Do you like fast paced deathmatch? How about rich, colorful, arcadelike atmospheres? How about...retro Sci Fi? Then you're going to love what Alien Arena 2008 has in store for you! This game combines some of the very best aspects of such games as Quake III and Unreal Tournament and wraps them up with a retro alien theme, while adding tons of original ideas to make the game quite unique.

On the DVD : 3D OS Game Center Edition
Menu : Start > Games > Online > Alien Arena

Alien Arena is a fast paced, furious frag fest with arenas ranging from the small, to the massive. With a large built-in player base, it's never hard to find a good match going on, at any hour of the day. The community is friendly, as well as prolific. Dozens of maps, models, and various accessories have been created by community members to add on to the game experience.

Alien Arena has running tournaments and you can organize your own at TournamentFront
Current tournament is Qexpo 2008 Aliens For Animals 1v1 Tourney.

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Top 50 Linux Alternatives to Popular Apps

Linux is quickly gaining popularity, but there are still many users afraid to convert as they are not familiar with the applications. Today our Linux guru Blair Mathis is back to introduce fifty of the most popular applications on this OS


ANIMATION SOFTWARE

Blender 3D: Blender 3D is a high-quality, robust animation program with a steep learning curve and the ability to create commercial-quality 3D animations. The software is completely free, with extensive documentation available online for free.

Pencil (2D): Pencil is a free 2D animation program intended to make traditional hand-drawn animations possible. Animations are drawn on individual 'pages', and then compiled together in a digital flipbook of sorts.

KPovModeler: KPovModeler is a composition/modeling program for making POV-Ray scenes: an excellent addition to Blender 3D, and intended KDE.

Stopmotion: Stopmotion is a program that allows you to capture and/or combine photos together to create a smooth stopmotion animation video. Not only works well for claymation and similar, but can also be used to create timelapse videos.

Synfig (2D): Synfig is a free 2D animation software package that states "two-dimensional animation has long been the domain of proprietary software...Synfig, a free software/open source tool for producing feature-film quality animation with fewer people and resources."

Anime Studio 5 (2D)($199.99): Anime Studio 5 is a powerful commercial application for creating 2D animations with the ability to import/export OBJ files, special effects scripting, layered animation, vector animation, and advanced timeline controls.


AUDIO SOFTWARE

Audio CD Extractor (ripper): Available through Add/Remove Applications, Audio CD Extractor (previously known as Sound Juicer) is an easy to use CD ripper, intended to make copying music CDs fast, simple, and straight-forward.

Audacity (recorder): Audacity is an excellent, free digital audio recorder/editor for nearly all audio types. It can record multiple channels, split channels, merge audio, and a wide array of other features. Supports recording from both line-in and sound card.

Sound Converter: This is an application for GNOME that accepts a wide array of different audio formats and converts them to mp3, wav, flac, or ogg.

Last Exit (player): Last Exit is a standalone player for Last.fm that allows you to add specific stations, search for stations, choose a neighbors station, or browse. You can set preferences, password protect it, and save changes.

Hipo iPod Management Tool: If you have an Apple iPod, the Hipo iPod Management Tool is an invaluable program that allows users to manage their device.

Utube-Ripper: Have you every come across a video on YouTube you wanted to save to your hard drive? With Utube Ripper, you can download and save either the entire video, or the audio only. Very sleek and easy to use.

Freqtweak: According to Add/Remove Applications, “FreqTweak is a tool for real time audio spectral manipulation and display. It provides several algorithms for processing audio data in the frequency domain and a highly interactive GUI to manipulate the associated filters for each. It also provides high resolution spectral displays.”


VIDEO SOFTWARE

VLC: VLC is arguably the most popular video player on any operating system. It supports nearly every video type available, offers the ability to change audio settings, choose audio channels (headphones, full bass, etc.), change video aspect ratio and more. The program is lightweight and easy to use.

AcidRip: AcidRip is a simple, straightforward tool for copying a DVD to a digital video file, with codecs such as XviD, x264, MPEG, and more available. It allows you to control file size, audio settings, quality, cropping, etc.

Avidemux: Avidemux is an excellent video editing application. You can add filters, meticulously manipulate audio and video, combine VOBs, combine videos, and much more.

DVD::RIP: While AcidRip is the best tool to use if you want to create a video straight from a DVD, DVD::RIP is ideal if you want to convert an ISO or VOB files. Simply start the program, load the file, and then choose the video settings and transcode to an AVI or other file format.

iriverter: iriverter is a frontend for mencoder that makes it simple to convert videos for a wide array of portable video devices, including the Creative Vision M and iRiver players. Single and batch conversions can be done.

Wink: Wink is a free video program for creating video screencasts; an excellent program for creating video tutorials and presentations, with the ability to add explanation boxes to the video.

XBMC Media Center: XBMC is an award-winning media center for multiple platforms, and is fully supported on Ubuntu. The program is sophisticated and high-quality, and is a top-notch media player that can organize and play videos, music, and photos, including previews and album covers.


GRAPHICS

GIMP: GIMP is the Linux alternative to Adobe Photoshop. It is an advanced image authoring/editing program with an animation engine and a wide array of plugins/filters/brushes. It can do nearly everything Photoshop can do, but does require one to learn it proficiently in order to exploit it's features.


Hugin: Hugin is a high-quality panorama maker. It combines two or more photos and combines them into one panorama. It blends colors to make seams between photos unnoticeable, allows you to choose a lens style for the pano (fisheyes, etc.), and to manually choose connection points.

Comix: Comix is a comic book viewer for Linux. It is high-quality, works smoothly, and offers all the necessary components for viewing digital comics, including double-page support, zoom, rotation, mirroring, fullscreen mode, fit-to-screen mode, image enhancement, image quality toggle, and bookmarks.


FlickrUploader: Flickr Uploader is a desktop program that makes it easy to instantly upload your images to your Flickr account.

Inkscape: Inkscape is a sophisticated vector graphics program similar to Adobe Illustrator.


Phatch Photo Batch Processor: Phatch is a batch processor for photos, making it easy to resize, crop, rotate, add rounded corners, change perspective, or a wide array of other features in just a few minutes.

QCaD: QCaD is as close to autoCAD as you can get on Ubuntu. It offers the ability to create and files, with support for autoCADR and similar files


OFFICE

xPDF: xPDF is a suite of PDF tools, including a lightweight viewer with support for standard, Truetype, and Type 1 fonts, conversion tools for converting PDFs into different formats, and support for multiple languages.

AbiWord: Abiword is a popular, lightweight and yet sophisticated word processor that works very well on Linux. It is best for those who need to create documents, but don't require a massive amount of features

OpenOffice Writer: OpenOffice Writer is a large, high-end word processor. It works well on Linux, and has all the features you could possibly need. If you're looking for a complete alternative to MS Word, Writer is your best option.

OpenOffice Spreadsheet: Very similar to MS Excel.

OpenOffice Presentation: Alternative to MS PowerPoint.

OpenOffice Impress: Alternative to MS Publisher.

KAddressBook: KAddress is a personal contacts/address manager.

KOrganizer: KOrganizer is a calendar and scheduling app with the ability to track important dates, add notes, and export to industry standard files.
GnuCash: GnuCash a finance management software suitable for both personal and business use. It can support major file types, such as Quickbooks files, and tracks multiple accounts, constantly calculating new balances and tracking everything needed, including investments and expenses.

xCHM: xCHM is a CHM HTML file viewer, suitable for viewing large HTML ebooks and files saved in the CHM file type.


UTILITIES

GPSDrive: A navigation system designed to work with a GPS receiver. Offers the ability to zoom and display maps downloaded or generated as needed via OpenStreetMap.

Virtual Box OSE: Virtual Box is a virtual machine application, allowing you to run different OS's inside your Linux machine.

ClamAV: Clam AV is an anti-virus software app for Linux, and works very well.


INTERNET

Opera: Opera is a lightweight browser with wide support and a customizable launch page.

Mozilla Firefox: Firefox is the most popular Internet browser for Linux, offering stability, wide support, and a massive amount of plugins.

Thunderbird: Thunderbird a popular email client from the Mozilla line of Internet applications. It offers multiple account access, IMAP and SMTP, password protection, address books, and more.

SeaMonkey: SeaMonkey is based on Firefox Internet browser, but is more stable.

Evolution:Evolution is another email client, but appears very similar to Microsoft's Outlook.

Pidgin IM: An instant messaging client that support AIM, ICQ, Yahoo! IRC, Zephyr, Gadu, Groupwise, SIMPLE, SILC, Sametime, Napster, MSN, and Jabber.

gFTP: gFTP is a file transfer protocol app for Linux offering support for a wide array of uploads and downloads.


Sumber : http://www.e-linux.it/news_detail.php?id=7616 Read More..

"We're Linux" - Linux Foundation video contest

The Linux Foundation has formally announced the kick off for its "We're Linux" video contest, which will be comprised of user-generated video entries to promote and "elevate the strengths of Linux." The Linux Foundation is hoping that this campaign will help to demonstrate what Linux means to its users and that it will inspire others to try it.


Submissions will be open until the 15th of March, 2009 for users to submit videos. The winner will be announced at the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit on the 8th of April, 2009 in San Francisco. The winner will be determined by a combination of online rankings and a panel of judges and will be awarded a trip to Tokyo, Japan to participate in the 1st annual Linux Foundation's Japanese Linux Symposium.

The campaign was renamed from the original "I'm Linux" to "We're Linux" after community input. "This name embodies the essence of community and better expresses how Linux is represented by more than any one person or company," according to the company blog post.

It seems obvious the competition is inspired by the Microsoft "I'm a PC" campaign, lets hope the result is not quite so annoying. If you would like to view the videos or submit a video, you will need to join the Linux Foundation's Video forum.
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Thursday, October 30, 2008

Online Games Linux : Savage - The Battle for Newerth

Online Games Linux : Savage - The Battle for Newerth is a fantasy / science fiction computer game that combines aspects of real-time strategy and First-person shooter in a game. The producers of the game described as a 'Real Time Strategy Shooter', or 'RTSS. " The consultations will take place in the distant future, when man has (after an apocalypse) rebuilt society, but is threatened by intelligent beasts.

The goal of Savage is to destroy your opponents Stronghold / Lair, because that's the main point where the Soldiers spawn (they can also spawn of garrisons / sublairs (which can be built) and spawn flags (which can not)).

On the DVD : 3D OS Game Center Edition
Menu : Start > Games > Online > Savage Newerth


Savage is played entirely online with other human players. The game has two or more teams (mostly humans vs. animals, but other configurations, such as Human vs. Human, its possible). Each team has a commander, who plays the game as a Real-Time Strategy game. She weapons research, city buildings are constructed, and of course commands everyone. Anyone who clicks on the button first to proceed to the Commander, which can naturally lead to a number of problems with bad commanders and the like. To combat the team can call an impeachment vote (removal of the current commander), or they can vote for the election of a new commander. It is also easy for new players to go and learn to command on empty servers.

The remaining 1 to 63 players in the team are the soldiers, and they play as a First-Person Shooter, although most of the fighting is done in a Third-Person Melee combat style. Most of their work concerns the killing of the enemies, but they can also help build buildings and collection of funds. Some soldiers can be promoted to the rank of officer by their commander. Officers can assist in coordinating the other soldiers, and can cooperate with the commander to coordinate attacks that the commander failed to meet their fate. These slowly officers regenerate their own health as that of any other team-mates close to them.

There are also more than ten workers on both team, but they are directly controlled by the commander, and are usually used for the construction and resources, although they may be ordered to attack (but not much damage).

The soldiers fighting with a melee weapon, which is unique to their unit, and a selectable ranged weapon, which no unit restrictions (The beasts can choose to melee weapon as an alternative to the use of a weapon ranged). They have three slots to hold items. For humans, these items are Med Packs, Ammo Packs, Land Mines, Demolition Packs, Immobilizers, sensors, disrupt, and Relocaters. The beasts can choose between Mana Crystals, "Frenzy" crystal, sixth sense, Snare, Fire Wards, Sacrifice, Storm Shields, and Mist shrouds.

Each race has unique strengths and weaknesses. The beasts are proficient at melee attacks, as stressed by their ability to jump towards their enemies and by the fact that their first line weapon is completely melee based. Humans, on the other hand, focus on ranged attacks more, as evidenced by their lack of special melee weapons, and their ability to do something for them.
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Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Geexbox - Media Center

GeeXboX is a full operating system, running under Linux and based on the excellent MPlayer. No need for a hard drive, you just have to put the GeeXboX bootable CD into the CD-Drive of any Pentium-class or Apple Macintosh computer to boot it. Moreover, GeeXboX is free software, created as open-source software. This means that everyone can modify it and build his own release of the GeeXboX.



You may wonder why you should have to boot another operating system to play your media files, but just think about the Mini-ITX platforms like VIA Epia/Eden or Shuttle barebones. It's now affordable to bring DivX to your home cinema, plugging this kind of computer directly to your TV !!

At the time of the first development releases (Dec. 2002), it was only capable of playing DivX movies, but now, nearly every kind of media file can be played with GeeXboX, with the OS supporting :

* MPEG 1/2 movies (MPG files, VCDs, DVDs ...)
* MPEG 4 movies (DivX, XviD, H.264 ...)
* RealMedia and Windows Media movies.
* OggMedia streams
* Matroska streams
* Audio streams like : MP3, Ogg/Vorbis, WAV (AudioCD), AC3, DTS, MusePack (MPC), FLAC ...
* Network streams : WebRadio and WebTV through SHOUTcast.
* Watching analog TV and digital DVB
* Playing analog Radio streams.
* Playing files from your local network (LAN) through remote NFS, Samba (i.e. Windows) or UPnP shares.
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