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.

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!

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.

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

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!

The Steam version of Doom 3 most likely exists within a Windows partition on your computer, but I don’t see why you couldn’t install Steam/Doom3 via Wine and copy the files over from that.

First, download the Doom 3 Linux installer from id software (~20MB). As of the time of this writing, the file name is doom3-linux-1.3.1.1304.x86.run.

Next, run the installer.

sudo sh doom3-linux-1.3.1.1304.x86.run

I left all options default, installing to /usr/local/games/doom3, which is why you need to run as sudo.

The game won’t run yet. We still have to copy the retail files over to the installation directory. So mount the Windows partition so we have access to those files.

The files we’re interested in are located in

Steam/steamapps/common/doom\ 3/base

and if you have the expansion

Steam/steamapps/common/doom\ 3/d3xp

and the CD-Keys (doomkey and xpkey) found in

Steam/steamapps/common/doom 3/base

To install Doom 3, navigate to the doom\ 3/base directory and copy each of

pak000.pk4
pak001.pk4
pak002.pk4
pak003.pk4
pak004.pk4

into

/usr/local/games/doom3/base

and if you are also installing Resurrection of Evil you’ll want to navigate to doom\ 3/d3xp and copy

pak000.pk4

into

/usr/local/games/doom3/d3xp

That’s it. To launch the game you can type

doom3

from the command line, and to launch Resurrection of Evil you type

doom3 +set fs_game d3xp

But wait! There’s more! A common complaint at this point is that the Steam CD-Key does not work. Doom 3 expects 18 characters, but the Steam provided CD Key contains only 16 characters.

Easy solution.

Copy doomkey, and xpkey if you have it, from the Doom 3 Steam directory into your local doom3 home directory

~/.doom3/base

Done!

I can’t speak for everyone, but when I purchase a game for Linux (usually via digital download) like these great games which are on sale right now:

• $10 – Machinarium and Samorost2 + soundtracks + art
• $X – Irukanji and Bullet Candy

when I’m offered links to the Linux version and to the Windows version, I download from the Linux link first but I always download the Windows version immediately after.

I’m uncertain how many people are out there who do the same thing, but I propose reducing the Windows count by a certain amount all the same.

I even bought a Windows netbook (and later returned it) with the intent of wiping Win and replacing with Linux.

If you’re anything like me, you might have need of a WinXP install within Ubuntu. In my case, it’s convenient to have a VirtualBox of Windows running for immediate testing of websites (as I build them) so that I can test the sites functionality and appearance within Internet Explorer.

Unfortunately, the default settings of a guest WinXP install don’t allow for networking “out of the box”. But it’s an easy fix!

First, make sure the virtual machine is not already running. Turn it off if it is.

Next, highlight the WinXP virtual machine within the Sun VirtualBox main screen. Click Settings. Select Network. Change the Adapter Type to Intel PRO/1000 T Server (bunchanumbers) then OK and start the virtual machine.

When you boot into the Windows guest, the network should now work.

Significantly, there is a .deb installer for the game. It runs very well on my old laptop running Ubuntu 9.04.

Back to the topic at hand, can you change the resolution of the game? How about running the game inside a window rather than fullscreen?

Yes you can, and yes you can. Here’s how.

Find the config.txt for the game in

/opt/WorldOfGoo/properties/

You could edit that config.txt if you like, but it’s recommended you copy it to your $HOME directory.

cp /opt/WorldOfGoo/properties/config.txt ~/.WorldOfGoo/

Now you don’t have to sudo the file to edit it. Open up the config.txt that you placed in $HOME/.WorldOfGoo/ (I like to use scite).

scite ~/.WorldOfGoo/config.txt

Starting around line 20 is the Graphics Display area. It looks something like:

<!-- Graphics display -->
 <param name="screen_width" value="800" />
 <param name="screen_height" value="600" />
 <param name="color_depth" value="0" />
 <param name="fullscreen" value="false" />
 <param name="ui_inset" value="10" />

Change the screen_width and screen_height values to whatever you desire. Likewise with the fullscreen option. My config shows I run the game in 800 by 600 resolution in a window.

Next time you launch the game, the settings will have taken effect.