Intel strikes again!

At least for Arch, I haven’t seen this in Debian w/ liquorix @ 2.6.38, I had to set my modprobe.conf up with this to get rid of static/popping when I use alsa programs:

options snd-hda-intel power_save=0

I thought I was done with this after the debacle that 2.6.33 turned out to be, but it’s back.  Just thought I’d leave this here.

Prboom-plus brightness woes?

Is your prboom or prboom-plus not rendering with OpenGL too bright?  Read on.

If prboom(-plus) running in software-rendering mode has really high gamma, go into your config file ($PRBOOM-PLUS_CONFIG_DIRECTORY/prboom(-plus).cfg), and edit the line that says “usegamma 3″ to instead say “usegamma 0″.  This will put you at Doom’s native gamma setting, and be much easier on the ol’ ocular organs.

I’m just throwing this out there, hoping Google will pick it up, and help a few folks out in the meantime.  Here’s a screenshot for proof:

 

Gdigi: X-Edit for Linux

I’ve known about the Gdigi project since I first got my Digitech RP250 in November of 2009.  First off, this was the best buy I’ve ever made, despite it being thirty bucks cheaper than my guitar, but it’s an amazing piece of hardware.

It came with Reason LE4 for recording in, which I don’t use, and X-Edit, a Windows-only program for editing presets on Digitech’s line of multi-effects pedals.  It required all sorts of extra goodies to get everything tied together, but proved to be too much work for fine-tuning a great piece of hardware.

Back to Gdigi.  It is a free software project, under the GPL, version 3, that provides all of the functionality of X-Edit for Linux.  It provides a clean interface, with a list of presets on the device, and splits user and system presets up.  It is dead-easy to use, more intuitive than the hardware is to use, and brings back that extra bit of function to the pedal (there are some finer adjustments that exist that are unavailable unless you use X-Edit).  Best of all, you don’t have to update the firmware on your pedal, which saves some time.  There is one issue, however.  Gdigi refuses to format itself to my monitor.  I just push it around with some nifty Openbox keybinds, however:

If you want this program, they provide easy instructions for compiling.

XFCE 4.8 Released

I would’ve posted the day it came out, but I wanted some time with it to get set up first.  I didn’t expect it to hit Arch’s stable repo for a few more days yet, and weeks at worst, but it did, and I’m using a pretty good mirror, so… yeah.

I’ll post screenshots when I’m finally done setting up (got some work to do yet), but my netbook is tucked away in its nice bag, sitting on the couch right now, imploring that I spread tales of the Mouse.  It’s not a review, exactly, but hopefully will prove helpful to somebody on these internets.

I installed the basic packages (universally, it’s the xfce4 package, at least for Debian, Slackware, Arch, and Fedora), and had to install Alacarte.  I went with the alacarte-xfce-devel package in the AUR because it requires fewer dependencies than the Gnome default in Arch.  This might have been a game changer, but I encourage anybody to speak up on Arch’s alacarte package, to see if it’s any different.

So, the first thing I had to do was set up my menus, which is why I installed alacarte.  Apparently, you need the Gnome menu as a starting point for now.  I had to add the XFCE settings menu, which I did by more-or-less mirroring the entries in the Xfce settings manager.  There’s a total of fourteen entries, count’em, copy’em, and be happy.  It’s a bit more work, but at least it’s easily doable for 4.8.

The second thing I did, as well as, in my opinion, the most important was pick a terminal.  I’m trying to use more terminal apps, so I want tabbing.  I can’t stand the fat GTK tabs hanging over my terminals that VTE-based terminals give, so I ended up using a tabbing urxvt, and will get a neater set up on that soon.

The last thing I did was set up my panel.  I have a little tiny thing in the bottom right of my screen with just enough on it to get a clock and a notification bar.  I just did this with my Debian Testing install last night, which still runs 4.6.2, so I need to point out that now, for 4.8, you have to unlock, drag, and drop panels (you’ll see when you get there).  The panel properties menu no longer does this by default, but it can change colors, which is another plus.

I doubt I’ll ever be done, but it’s a start.

Tyrian 2000 in DOSBox

If it wasn’t for GoodOldGames.com, I would never, ever, have posted this bit of helpful information.  Do you want to play Tyrian 2000 through DOSBox on your NetBSD-powered toaster oven?  Do you want to run it from that USB port you just had installed in your arm?  If so, please, follow me, I’ll enter the third door to the right.

Now, on my desktop, it runs swimmingly in DOSBox, and it does okay on my netbook, unless I play in hard, with this setup.  It’s quite simple, without a frontend in Linux, using WINE for some initial setup, but allowing you to dispose of anything you don’t want.

The first thing you’ll have to do is download Tyrian 2000.  I recommend getting it from GoodOldGames.com.

If you have Windows, just run the installer, and it’ll work.  If you have Linux, install it via WINE, and copy the ~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/GOG.com/Tyrian 2000 directory into a folder of your choosing, and remove all the DOSBox files from it.

The simple part here is acknowledging all of the .EXEs in the folder.  There is a Graphic Mode.exe which is a Windows binary, for setting up DOSBox, that can be deleted (it changes a graphics setting in your .conf for graphics settings).  What we need to pay attention to are “tyrian.exe” and “setup.exe”.  tyrian.exe is the game’s executable, and setup.exe is the setup program to change the settings, and enable proper sound.

I have a conf whipped up here:  http://www.truimagz.com/host/poguemahon/confs/t2kconf.zip

Only pay attention the [autoexec] section of it.

 

mount C “~/DOSBox/Tyrian2000″

C:

cd TYRIAN~1

TYRIAN.EXE

exit

I have a directory ~/DOSBox, where I store everything.  I put my game’s folder in yet another to make an independent C drive for each, so that I don’t mess up any other games if I mess up one.  So, change my directory to where Tyrian/Tyrian 2000 resides on your harddrive.  The rest is simple.  It cds into C:, and then the Tyrian 2000 directory (dosbox uses “~1″ in place of spaces and everything after).  It then loads the .EXE, and then exits when Tyrian is closed.

To get the setup application, change “TYRIAN.EXE” to “SETUP.EXE” in a new .conf file (I named mine “t2k_setup.conf”).  I recommend running the setup program first, so run “dosbox -conf /path/to/t2k_setup.conf” and change the MUSIC setting to FM SOUND.  The music should start up.  If it isn’t there already, also change the “Sound Effects” setting to “SoundBlaster,” then navigate to “Exit and Save.”  Once done, launch Tyrian with “dosbox -conf /path/to/t2k.conf” and play with full music and sound!

If there is something I didn’t make clear enough, please, feel free to post any questions regarding this.  The sound issue is merely a problem in Tyrian’s default settings.

Hello Cleveland!

[you year a voice in the back of the room]

HEY Y’ALL!

I’m coming from Blogger to WordPress.  Near as I can tell, it’s a bit more intuitive than Blogger, and has THUMBNAILS!  I like posting screenshots of what I’m doing, and absolutely despise small screenshots, so this works out perfectly.  I’m also going to try to import my old Blogger posts, and even fix them up for WordPress.  I’m going to have another post, but this is just a dry run.

Best of both worlds?

The one thing I loved about Ubuntu is it’s ease of updates. A message pops up, saying “Yo! Update me!”, prompts you to click, shows the updates, and does it for you. I’ll live without this in Arch, but I decided to set up update-notifier in Ubuntu. All it takes is (as root) “apt-get install update-notifier,” and you’re done. If you use a WM-only session (IceWM, Openbox, Fluxbox), find the file that starting programs go into, and throw “update-notifier” in there with the rest, and it’ll go fine. It would work for wmii-hg, as well, but I don’t have it installed ATM.

So, I have a couple of screenshots here of update-notifier, which I’ve wanted running for a while. So here’s my mid-update screenie:

and here’s my post-update screenie:

In trying to figure this one out, I read several posts dealing with the fact that you “won’t know what is going into your system.” By default, it only notifies you of updates, and asks you if you want to update, and lists every update to be added. That’s thorough enough for me, and it saves me a bit of typing, too.