Gaming on Linux: The Sims 3

I know it's been too long since my last post.  I promise I have not forgotten about all my lovelies, I've just been insanely busy.  At the beginning of June I moved into a different apartment and had started a new and mentally demanding job.  After the move I had no internet for three weeks!  THE HORROR! All is well now though and with everything settling nicely I finally had ambition and time to sit at my computer and work on a few things I had been meaning to.  So without further ado, I will now bring you into the next Linux experience I want to tackle.

As I dive deeper into Linux, I find that the PC gaming community is not always a friend to Linux.  Sure it's going to take some finesse to make a Windows game work on Linux, but it doesn't mean it wont work. I'm one of those people that believe there will always be a way to make your computer do what you want it to; you just have to do some research.  

For my first game, I decided to whip out my old Sims 3.  I began with trying to use PlayonLinux.  Put together by other users Play on Linux is a front end for Wine that is intended to make the install process easier. It also offers handy tips and tricks to getting games to work on Linux.  I was finding that with Crunchbang I was having issues with getting The Sims 3 to run after the install.  I took to Google and browsed every Linux board I could find on Sims 3.  I decided I needed an updated kernel and a more recent version of Wine.  Another distro hop was needed, this time opting for Linux Mint 17 XFCE (expect a review in the upcoming week).  

I didn't use PlayonLinux this time, instead I opted for just using Wine v. 1.6. Wine stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator. Wine is a collection of libraries which have been reverse engineered to allow Windows applications to run on Linux. Over the past few years Wine has made vast improvements to their collection. Wine is available on all major distributions.  You can check your distributions software center or application database for installation information.

After getting through the install, I came across a nice little bug.  Upon opening the game, I found the text was unreadable.  Back to the boards I went, it took a lot of searching but I did find the answer. I installed DriConf, which is a utility of sorts allowing you to configure visual quality settings.  Once DriConf was installed, I opened it and went to the Image Quality Tab. There I enabled the S3TC Texture Compression.  The messed up text was fixed and I've had no issues running the Sims since.  

As usual Linux users are superheros bringing their knowledge to the boards and offering fixes to many of the problems that I found recorded.  While my bug was not a massively big one it was tough finding the fix.  I tried to go to all the boards that had this bug recorded with no fix and post the fix for it.  If you find a bug, hit the boards to find your answer. If you do happen to find an answer make sure you post about it.  This will help the community as a whole.  

The Sims 3 may be the first game I try to get to work with Linux, but it will not be the last.  I have a whole slew of games ready to get working.  As I come across bugs I will post any fix I can in hopes that I can help at least a few of my fellow Linux users and gamers. 

Reader Requested Review: Elementary OS Luna

With my first reader requested review of Crunchbang being a success I decided to do another.  This time I took on Elementary OS: Luna. I am currently on a 6 year old HP ProBook with core i5 processor and 4GB ram and do all distribution reviews on VirtualBox.

In my research I read a few random reviews of Elementary OS and found that many people are claiming that this is a good alternative to Mac OS.  Elementary OS is based on Ubuntu and it runs Pantheon for a desktop environment which is based on Gnome 3.  

If you are downloading Elementary OS directly from the website you may see a dollar amount of $10.00 above the download button but paying is an option. This is how they cleverly ask that you pay for their product if you like it. As with most Linux distributions, donations are always accepted as this work is offered for free, however that is a post for another day.

Install

The install for Elementary OS was fast and similar to an Ubuntu install.  It ran through all the basic questions regarding location and language.  After the reboot, I noticed that the system was running a tad slow.  To speed it up I installed preload and zram-config as well as ran all updates and upgrades to the system.

Take Control of the Command Line

An intriguing thing the Linux command line is.  For the past two weeks I have been studying Bash and the command line trying to harness this superpower. I searched and read everything I could find, at one point I thought I reached the end of the internet. Tutorial after tutorial would try to explain the Linux command line, some did it better than others, while I do not feel like an expert I have learned quite a bit over the past two weeks and feel like it would be a good time to touch on command line.

I have thought of several different ways that I could approach this subject.  Every time I started to write a post I would stop half way through and erase the entire thing.  I felt like I was just going to end up confusing those looking to learn the command line.  So in order to give you the opportunity to learn the command line without leaving you with a headache, I am going to share the resources that I have been using. After searching through endless amounts of data these resources are the ones that have taught me the most.

First and probably the best resource I found was through Programming Motherfucker.  Not only is this site amazeballs but it gives some of the best information when it comes to learning any type of language.  For Bash they link to Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide.  This guide may say advanced but the goal of it is to take you from beginner to advanced.  There is a ton of information in this guide so you may want to take it slow and not overload yourself. I know I sometimes forget and overload on data myself.  I found reading it in 15 minute snippets throughout the day and then reviewing the information in bulk at the end of the day was the best way for the information to sink in, however whatever your usual study routine is may work better for you.

For a how to guide and shortcut list I highly recommend Dave Child's Linux Command Line Cheat Sheet.  This cheat sheet is comprehensive; showing you how to correctly use commands, shortcuts, and other special functions.  I highly recommend bookmarking this cheat sheet just to keep it handy in case you need a quick reference guide.

A good one for commands is An A-Z Index of the Bash Command Line for Linux.  If there is a command you need this index has it.  Read through it a few times and before you know it you will start remembering the most useful commands that you would use.

There are times that we sit at the terminal pondering the next step, it is helpful to see what others have done that you can try.  CommandFU is the place to go, it will break that stuck feeling and show you some pretty awesome things to try on your own.  Plus there are a lot of tips and tricks that you may find useful.

Finally, you can always just go to your terminal.  If you need to know the options and functions of a certain command you can simply type man (command here) to see a list of what that command does and what arguments can be made with the command. Once done just hit q to quit the man command.

I will tell you the same thing I have told you before.  In order to learn the command line you will have to get into it and just start working.  I hope these websites will be as helpful to you as they are to me.  If you know of any great websites for bash scripting please feel free to leave a comment below.

This Code is Rated PG-13

Notice: If swearing offends you please avoid this post!

Have you ever had that day where the program you are working with is just not working. You've gone through restarts and trouble shooting, trying everything you can to get it to work and it just won't. Sometimes it's not the program and it's a coworker. They're asking questions you already answered. They are calling you about an email they sent just one minute ago to verify you got it instead of setting up a read request.  As frustration builds sometimes we lash out quietly by typing or writing a quick note telling the program, co-worker, or boss exactly what we think of them before erasing it and completing our work.

This type of frustration happens often in the workplace and no one is immune to it.  Even programmers, the fun thing for programmers is they get to write out their complaints in the code.  Any programming language offers a way for the programmer to comment on the code they are writing.  I'm sure as you can imagine from your own experience, there are days when the project a programmer is working on will just not work right.  Sometimes something was done to the code to mess it up; or they forgot a piece of the code to make it work.  A programmer might leave a snarky comment to let the program know exactly what they think of it at that point in time.  

This is where the fun comes in, my research for a future post lead me to a neat little trick.  If you go into your command line and type grep (insert swear word here) -R /usr/; you will see all of that specified swear word in the code of your programs.  You can add on other files after /usr/ going through each individual file but I found this was the most effective way. Here is a screen shot of the command and some of the results that I found by switching up the swear word.

Go ahead and try this command yourself, feel free to post your favorites in the comment section below.

How to Linux

When I first started the Linux journey I loaded Mint 16 XFCE onto my laptop, it was a wonderful transitioning distribution from Windows.  I believe this is due to the user friendly desktop environment in that with Mint everything just works.  What I didn't like was that it wasn't offering any sort of real challenge forcing me to learn "How to Linux."

As I continued down the path to learning the command line and all the neat tips and tricks I kept reading the same lines repeatedly.

Try this in your terminal.

Play in this application.

Get your hands dirty.

I decided to take the advice I was reading and get dirty. 

Getting Dirty

Step 1: Ditch the user friendly environment for something more basic.  

After running through install after install of a few major distributions, seeing the environments and testing out the interfaces, I knew it was time to switch from Mint.  For your average computer user who just needs to access the internet and the ability to write a couple of documents it is perfect.  For the masochists, i.e. me, who want to get to the basics of Linux and learn from mostly the ground up, it's not so great. 

Arch Linux and the New User

It was bright and early on a Sunday morning.  After taking a break from going through the endless array of Linux distributions I decided it was time to sit down and try another.  There were a few major distributions that I have yet to tackle and it was time to finish them.  I pull up my VM (Virtual Machine), go to my ISO file and browse through what I haven't yet tackled.  There in front of me was Arch Linux.  "Alright, easy peasy, kick this one out Crystal, write up the review and get it posted." I load and click start on the VM. The normal virtual machine start screen appears and then before me was a command line. After sitting for a second it suddenly dawns on me, it's waiting for my command. "Oh god, oh god, oh god, what do I do?"

Manjaro: Enlightenment

Over the weekend I decided that Arch Linux was the next Linux distribution I was going to play with. I'll give my advanced Linux readers a moment to laugh.  Are you done? Ok, for a newbie Arch is a distribution I will never recommend, but it was fun and it definitely struck an interest for me.  I will play, get used to and eventually post a blog about it.

So to give my fellow n00bs something similar I decided to do a review of Manjaro with Enlightenment. Based off Arch Linux, Manjaro works to give a user friendly environment while keeping up with the cutting edge of software.