n3wt0n!

I’ve spent parts of the last 24 hours trying to get wifi running on my desktop (I primarily use my work laptop). The desktop uses a cheapo Trendnet TEW 423pi (revision C1.xR).

After bashing my head against my desk following the Ubuntu Community instructions to installing ndiswrapper and Windows wifi drivers, and finding that the wireless networking still doesn’t work, I find a simple solution to my problem. I notice the network-manager, for both the wired and wireless connections, when clicked on displays: wireless networks device not managed.

A quick google search for ubuntu wireless networks device not managed and I find the simple solution. The solution was found at post #8 of this thread.

Changing [ifupdown] managed=false to true in /etc/NetworkManager/nm-system-settings.conf resolved the issue.

I was recently given access to Google’s App Inventor. You know, that ‘building-block’ development environment that’s supposed to make application development on Android handsets easy and fun?

If you’re like me, you followed the setup procedures provided by Google. And then you eagerly created a new project and tried to start the “Blocks Editor”, as per the next set of instructions provided by Google. And then things broke.

The Blocks Editor requires super user permissions to run, otherwise the web start crashes. Here’s how to easily launch the Blocks Editor.

From the command line, create a file

touch javaWebStart.sh

and make it executable

chmod +x javaWebStart.sh

and open it in your favorite editor.

Paste the following into the file

#!/bin/sh
gksudo /usr/bin/javaws $1

and save it!

Now when you click “Open the Blocks Editor” and it asks you what program you want to open it with, point it to that script. It will ask for your root password (the gksudo part does that) and Blocks Editor has everything it needs to set itself up. No more crash!

I recently purchased the X-COM: Complete Pack during the Steam Perils of Summer sale, and of course I wanted to run the game in my Ubuntu (10.04) partition. Turns out it’s really easy. Steam runs the game in DOSBox, and DOSBox is available natively in Ubuntu.

First, I’ll assume you’ve already got access to the Steam-installed version of the game (either through Steam running in Wine or Steam on a Windows partition). I copied the XCOM game directory to a convenient location. You can find the XCOM directory at wherever your Steam install is…

Steam/steamapps/common/xcom ufo defense/XCOM

and I copied that to

/home/myaccount/Games/dos/c/XCOM

You can do the same from the command line, assuming you have a Wine-installed version of Steam, by copying the entire block below and pasting it into a console. Don’t mind if the text runs further than this window allows. The entire command should copy when selected.

cp -r \
/home/myaccount/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/Steam/steamapps/common/xcom\ ufo\ defense/XCOM/ \
/home/myaccount/Games/dos/c/

Now install DOSBox. From the command line,

sudo aptitude install dosbox

When that’s done, run dosbox from the command line.

dosbox

Or from the Applications bar.

Applications > Games > DOSBox Emulator

This will open the DOSBox window. You’ll notice it mounts the ‘z’ drive by default. We want to mount the ‘c’ drive, which as you’ll recall we created in /home/myaccount/Games/dos/c/

In DOSBox type

mount c /home/myaccount/Games/dos/c/

And change the focus to the c drive by typing

c:

Now we just navigate to the XCOM directory.

cd XCOM

and run the game

XCOM.BAT

And that’s it! Just don’t ask me how to play the game because I’ve got no idea. (It drops you onto the globe and doesn’t give you any hint what you’re supposed to do next).

In a similar case, you could use the same method to run the original DOOM when purchased in Steam, or even Commander Keen.

Writing this from my new phone. This takes me out of the stone age. I used to have a Motorola Razr. It lasted me three years but recently stopped working 100%. Now I’m having fun with a Motorola Milestone.

What android needs now is a music marketplace. Then I might be compelled to stop listening to only free and creative commons music.

I just want to say a quick word about this week’s Midweek Madness on Steam. It features 7 indie games. Seven! And all for $2 each or $9.99 for the whole bunch.

The two most relevant to this post are two that also have Linux binaries. There’s Altitude, a real-time, side-scrolling, shoot other planes while you fly game. The other is Galcon Fusion, a real-time, top-down, take over planets and wipe out the competition game.

The cool thing these two games are doing is, you purchase the game on Steam (presumably in your Windows partition or through wine), and then register the game. The game authenticates against their respective developers’ websites and have you create an account for each. Now that you’re registered, download the Linux binary/demo and then enter your account details (username and password). You now have two great full-version games you can play natively in Linux!