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2002-04-23: Linux and Ambivalence

Linux, how I love thee. Linux, how I hate thee. Working with Linux is like dealing with an autistic savant. On the one hand it accomplishes with ease that which for Windows is simply impossible. On the other hand you have to recompile your kernel any time you want to do something even remotely out of the ordinary. And in the Linux world "out of the ordinary" could mean "use your 3D card to play Quake".

What is Linux, you may ask. It is a very huge topic. Simply put, it is a free operating system for x86 computers. In other words, the type of computer from which 99.99% of you are viewing this page. Microsoft Windows is the only viable commercial Operating System for these computers, Microsoft having devoured any and all competition. Linux is, in many ways, a reaction to the Microsoft monopoly. It is the market reacting with what has become the only viable way to compete against Microsoft: make a better system and give it away.

This website runs on Linux. Actually, it runs on a version of Linux compiled for the PowerPC chip. This is another advantage of Linux. Since the source code is publicly available, people can take it and port (adapt) it to any machine on earth. Windows will not run on an iMac. Windows will not run on a sparc chip. Why? Microsoft doesn't want it do. And since the source code isn't available, you can NEVER get it to do so. Linux, on the other hand, runs on virtually every piece of hardware known to man. Linux runs on the x86, PowerPC, Playstation 2, Dreamcast, PalmPilot, Sparc, Alpha, and many many other architectures. Contrast this against Windows which runs only on x86 and Alpha processors. Or the MacOS, which runs only on PowerPC architecture.

One common misconception about Linux is that it does not have a Windowing system or GUI. This is not true. While you CAN do virtually everything on the system from the command line, Linux gives you a choice. You can use the command line or GUI tools. In fact, unlike Windows, Linux has many many Windowing systems you may use. This is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because the competition between them is fierce, driving innovation. It is a curse because it can be very confusing to the non-technical person.

I have watched Linux grow from a cryptic techie Operating System to what it is today: a strange hybrid of the hyper-advanced and hyper-archaic. The installation, which was previously its Achilles Heel, has become easier and faster than a Windows installation. Provided you don't have any unsupported hardware. And that's the kicker. The parts of the system that are well supported such as network cards, are beautiful and simple. Since the 2.4 kernel, I have never had to manually install a network card driver. With Windows, there are many cards which require me to manually install drivers. If I don't know what kind of card it is, I'm SOL. But when a piece of hardware isn't fully supported under Linux, that's when the nightmare begins. This is a problem you very rarely have under Windows. If you buy a piece of hardware at CompUSA you can be rest assured that it runs on the new versions of Windows. Not so with Linux.

Since Linux does not have huge market penetration many companies don't bother writing Linux drivers for their hardware. And because of this many drivers are written by volunteers who literally reverse engineer the hardware. Because of this the quality of support is extremely spotty. Sometimes a volunteer will be a brilliant programmer who makes six figures, but wrote the driver for fun. These are often well documented and of better quality than a professional driver. But other times it is some guy in France who seems to think that people using graphics tablets should be perfectly comfortable recompiling their kernel and XWindowing system.

This has gone quite long, so I'll leave the introductions at that. For those of you interested in actually installing and using Linux, I've written a basic HOWTO of some technical fundamentals. Have fun!

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2002-03-21: Projects I keep itching to work on but never seem to get around to

) Video4Linux command line screenshot utility. One exists, but I can't seem to make it work with my camera.

) OLE/DB driver for PostgreSQL

) 3D Adventure/Role playing game. Cross between Ultima Underworld, Final Fantasy VII, Ultima Online and Autoduel.

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2002-03-21: My Computer Projects

Click here for the Open-Source Revolution 3D Engine Page.

Click here for the Open-Source Bad Ass Blackjack Page.

I wrote a pretty cool pathfinding article , for those of you interested in AI.
And of course there's good old Cylindrix

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2001-12-02: Easier Than I Thought

Well I've already got Cylindrix compiling under MSVC++ and rendering the menu screen. To be fair, much credit is due to the Allegro project because that game API is just great. It is allowing me to port to Windows and Linux at the same time with little trouble. I was really worried that I'd have to rewrite the application for an event driven system, but Allegro handles the whole thing and lets me simply stick a macro after my main function. It's pretty sweet.

Since Allegro has everything I need I should be able to finish the port in about 2 weeks or so. Unfortunately this will probably not include IPX play because I don't think Allegro has support for IPX. I suppose I could use TCP/IP since I wrote a portable sockets library, but the frame rate of Cylindrix is totally tied to the networking. This is fine on a LAN, but on the internet packets rarely get to a destination and back fast enough to keep up a decent frame rate, so I'd have to do a massive rewrite of the physics to allow for internet play. That's not to say I'll never do it...just not any time soon.

Note: As soon as I've got it running on Windows and Linux I'll put the source on the site.

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2001-11-28: New Project

Well, I've decided to embark on a long time desire of mine: porting Cylindrix to Windows. And while I'm at it I'm going to port it over to Linux too. It should actually be easier than it was to port the Revolution 3D engine because all of its 3D runs in software. And since it has sparse graphics it runs hella fast on even a Pentium II with no hardware acceleration.

I've talked to Luke from Goldtree, and he's given me the go ahead to do this and release the code under the LGPL.

I still really like Cylindrix. It's actually a fun game to this day. I never was too thrilled with Dead Reckoning. Although its graphics and technology were infinitely better, the enlargement of the Cylinders and addition of multiple radar bases completely modified the gameplay, and not for the better IMHO.

One of the things I always loved about Cylindrix is that even when it was brand new it had a sense of nostalgia about it. It captured some aspects of the classic games. It feels to me like an old Commodore 64 game, and for that I love it. Hopefully, releasing the source will make it immortal :)

While I'm at it I think I'll add a Cylindrix page to my site since the original cylindrix.com site has been replaced by some pipefitting company. I wonder if anyone has an archived version of the original page...

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