Posts Tagged ‘window’

Linux release of the game Savage Wheels (Destruction Derby like game) is out!

Friday, September 17th, 2010

Savage Wheels Game for Linux

A close friend of mine Pro-Xex (a.k.a. Necroleak) has released Savage Wheels game for Linux.

The Savage Wheels game is a recreation of a game in a way similar to the good old Destruction Derby that most of the hard code old school arcade know very well.

The Savage Wheels has been an existant for a long time for a free download. However for a couple of years the Pro-XeX decided not to publish it’s code publicly, his considerations were that the code is too messy and not ready to go public.

For almost 2 years now the game source code has been existent openly for download from a source repository at google code

Though the source was there for download, until recently, the game source code was not ready to compile on Linux, though the game’s programming style used is 100% compatible with the Linux / BSD platform.

Right now the game is licensed under the MIT free software license
A few weeks before Peter (Pro-Xex) has contacted me and shared and told me the good news, that he has finally ported the game for the Linux platform and asked me to help him a bit with the game testing!
I thought this is pretty cool, but I was busy until this very day that I actually downloaded the compiled binary of Savage Wheels on my Debian Testing/Unstable (Squeeze/Sid) and gave it a try.

I’m running the 64 bit Debian release, featuring kernel version:

Linux noah 2.6.32-5-amd64 #1 SMP Wed Aug 25 13:59:41 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Installing the game was a really easy all I had to do is download the archived binary of the game and untar it into a new directory I’ve created for the game.

hipo@noah:~$ mkdir savagewheels
hipo@noah:~$ cd savagewheels
hipo@noah:~/savagewheels$ wget -c http://savagewheels.googlecode.com/files/savagewheels-1.4-linux-x86.tar.gz
hipo@noah:~/savagewheels$ tar -zxvf savagewheels-1.4-linux-x86.tar.gz

It will take like few secs until the game source gets extracted:

To go and start up the game I directly tried executing the game main binary file savagewheels , like you can see below

hipo@noah:~/savagewheels$ ./savagewheels
./savagewheels: error while loading shared libraries: libfmod-3.75.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

The error in loading library was pretty unexpected, but counting the fact that I’m one of the first people that test the game on Linux I guess it’s pretty normal.
In order to resolve the missing shared library on game execution It was necessary to copy the libfmod-3.75.so to /usr/local/lib/

To do so I issued as a root user:

hipo@noah:/home/hipo/savagewheels# cp -rpf libfmod-3.75.so /usr/local/lib

In case if you don’t want to copy the libfmod-3.75.so into /usr/local/lib, it’s also possible to use the shell export command to specify the exact location of libfmod-3.75.so to your current known systemlibraries.

If you prefer it that way issue command:


hipo@noah:~/savagewheels$ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=.:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Now when I invoked the savagewheels game binary once again:
hipo@noah:~/savagewheels$ ./savagewheels

the game poped up in a window.

As I’ve red in the Readme.html file it’s already noted there that by default the game would run in window mode instead of full screen due to some bugs or video drivers etc.
Happily it was indicated in the Readme file that in order to run it in fullscreen, it’s necessary to invoke the game binary with the -force-fullscreen option included, e.g. running it in fullscreen comes to:

hipo@noah:~/savagewheels$ ./savagewheels -force-fullscreen

At first I was a bit confused when the game poped up before I notice the left side menu which appears could be only reached with the mouse pointer. So I warn you that if you go to give the game a try you will probably wonder how to start up the game after the game entry window with menus appears.

Since the game is so new with Linux it has several bugs to be fixed, one of the bugs is that the Window in which the game pops up by default couldn’t be closed if you press the close window button.

Another thing I do notice is that when I play sometimes during a I crash another car, my car gets stucked for a while.

Another thing which is not very intuitive about the game is the player keys, they could be fount expolained in Readme.html

But I’ll post them here as well to facilitate my dear readers who might be willing to play the game immediately without reading boring docs 🙂

So Player 1 keys are:

arrow keys to move
UP (accelerate up)
LEFT (turn left) RIGHT (turn right)
DOWN (back gear)
RIGHT CTRL - to place landmines
DELETE - self destruction

I think giving the player 1 keys are enough for the player 2 control keys take a quick look in Readme.html

Here is the time to tell you that the game music is absolutely awesome!! So the game is worthy to play just because Pro-Xex has present the user with the wonderful soundtrack that is.

For some further general information related to the game you can read the Savage Wheels game Readme online from here

I would place the game among one of the best car crash games available currently for Linux, so if you’re a arcade game maniac you would probably have a great time with the game.

How to make GRE tunnel iptables port redirect on Linux

Saturday, August 20th, 2011

I’ve recently had to build a Linux server with some other servers behind the router with NAT.
One of the hosts behind the Linux router was running a Window GRE encrypted tunnel service. Which had to be accessed with the Internet ip address of the server.
In order < б>to make the GRE tunnel accessible, a bit more than just adding a normal POSTROUTING DNAT rule and iptables FORWARD is necessery.

As far as I’ve read online, there is quite of a confusion on the topic of how to properly configure the GRE tunnel accessibility on Linux , thus in this very quick tiny tutorial I’ll explain how I did it.

1. Load the ip_nat_pptp and ip_conntrack_pptp kernel module

linux-router:~# modprobe ip_nat_pptp
linux-router:~# modprobe ip_conntrack_pptp

These two modules are an absolutely necessery to be loaded before the remote GRE tunnel is able to be properly accessed, I’ve seen many people complaining online that they can’t make the GRE tunnel to work and I suppose in many of the cases the reason not to be succeed is omitting to load this two kernel modules.

2. Make the ip_nat_pptp and ip_nat_pptp modules to load on system boot time

linux-router:~# echo 'ip_nat_pptp' >> /etc/modules
linux-router:~# echo 'ip_conntrack_pptp' >> /etc/modules

3. Insert necessery iptables PREROUTING rules to make the GRE tunnel traffic flow

linux-router:~# /sbin/iptables -A PREROUTING -d 111.222.223.224/32 -p tcp -m tcp --dport 1723 -j DNAT --to-destination 192.168.1.3:1723
linux-router:~# /sbin/iptables -A PREROUTING -p gre -j DNAT --to-destination 192.168.1.3

In the above example rules its necessery to substitute the 111.222.223.224 ip address withe the external internet (real IP) address of the router.

Also the IP address of 192.168.1.3 is the internal IP address of the host where the GRE host tunnel is located.

Next it’s necessery to;

4. Add iptables rule to forward tcp/ip traffic to the GRE tunnel

linux-router:~# /sbin/iptables -A FORWARD -p gre -j ACCEPT

Finally it’s necessery to make the above iptable rules to be permanent by saving the current firewall with iptables-save or add them inside the script which loads the iptables firewall host rules.
Another possible way is to add them from /etc/rc.local , though this kind of way is not recommended as rules would add only after succesful bootup after all the rest of init scripts and stuff in /etc/rc.local is loaded without errors.

Afterwards access to the GRE tunnel to the local IP 192.168.1.3 using the port 1723 and host IP 111.222.223.224 is possible.
Hope this is helpful. Cheers 😉

GPL Arcade Volleyball – DOS Volleyball oldschool game remake for GNU / Linux

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

Do you remember that oldschool Arcade VolleyBall game which was so popular on 16 bit (8086 XT) computers.
I remember this game from the years I was 12 years old, back in the days where we the gamers distributed all the DOS games on 360 KB 5.25" diskettes

I was looking over the games available to install on my Debian GNU / Linux today just to be happily suprised to find GPL Arcade Volleyball an identical game remake of the old Arcade Volleyball 8086 classic freeware game.

I remember we spend many hours with friends playing on the old Manifactured in Bulgaria Pravetz 16! computers
During communism and post communism Pravetz was the only computer brand we could buy from the market, as there was limitations on the exported and imported tech equipment within the USSR union.
Pravetz computers are a literal remake of 16 bit IBM 8086 computers and the computer design and integrals was stolen from IBM 16 bit 8086 / 8088 PC architecture

Arcade Volleyball has set a mark on my generation and I believe many people will remember the times this game was a hit with a bit of Nostalgia 😉
In the Game GPL Arcade Volleyball Debian GNU / Linux

Besides being an identical remake of PC Arcade Volleyball , GPL Arcade Volleyball is even expanded as it includes extra features which the original game lacked. Game includes:

  • Network Volleyball client / server Game (up to 4 players)
  • 6 Game Themes which completely change the game look & feel to be modernistic

Here are few GAV screenshots of the different existing game Themes:

Screenshot GPL Arcade VolleyBall Yisus

GPL Arcade Volleyball Yisus theme gameplay GNU / Linux
Yisus GAV Theme gameplay screenshot

GPL Arcade Volleyball Unnamed Theme Screenshot

GPL Arcade Volleyball unnamed Gameplay Theme Debian
GAV – Unnamed Theme Gameplay

Screenshot GAV FABeach gameplay
GAV – FaBeach Theme Gameplay

GAV supports both Window and fullscreen modes. To enable Fullscreen mode, while inside the game use:

Extra -> Fullscreen (Yes)

Saving preferences is also something which I if I recall correctly the original game lacked. This is done by navigating to:

Extra -> Save Preferences

GAV is said to support Joystick in resemblance to the original DOS game, though I've never tested it with a joy.

One of the greatest GAV game (hacks) is the Inverted Theme. Selecting it inverts the order in the game, where the game player becomes the volleyball ball and the ball becomes the player 😉

GPL Arcade Volleyball Arcade Inverted Theme - remake of DOS Volleyball Arcade
GAV does not yet not have a Free / Open / Net BSD port as far as I currently see, anyways since the game is Free Software probably soon a port will be available for BSDs as well.
The default GAV game controls are a bit untraditional. By default the one player game starts you play Volleyball game player positioned on the left.

For left player the default control keys are:
 

  • z – move player left
  • c – move player right
  • left shift – jump

Right player controls are:
 

  • Left – left (arrow key)
  • right – right (arrow key)
  • jump – up cursor key

GAV supports also a shortcut key for switching between windowed and full screen game mode by pressing F10
Installing the game on Debian and Ubuntu Linuces is done with:

linux:~# apt-get --yes install gav

Unfortunately gav does not have a definition to be added to GNOME or KDE Applications menus, thus to start the game after installed one has to do it manually by typing either in gnome RUN (Alt+F2) or on command line:

linux:~$ gav

Happy playing 😉

How to install display and audio drivers on motherboard Asus P5B-Plus with video ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT on Windows XP

Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

Ati Radeon 2600 XT, Display and Audio Drivers download how to

I re-installed one PC with Windows XP which was refusing to boot. The PC had a hardware of:

Motherboard: Asus P5B-Plus
Video Adapter: ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT
Sound card / Sound Blaster:

Ethernet card: Attansic L1 Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000Base-T Controller

It took me like 1 hour of search on the Internet and looking through forum threads and sites to properly install all the hardware. In hope to help someone out there looking to install the hardware Window drivers on ATI RAdeon HD 2600 XT, I’ve made a small archive of all the drivers necessery to make the Video card , Sound Card and Ethernet be properly installed and operating.

Here is download link to all the drivers for ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT to run smoothly on Windows XP

Installation of the drivers on Windows is pretty straight forward download the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT archive extract and install each one of the files contained in the archive. A few restarts will also be necessery after some of the installed drivers to make the drivers work.

ATI Catalyst (included in the archive) will install the Video drivers for the Radeon XT 2600, whether AD1988AB_Audio_V6585_XpVistaWin7 and 11-11_xp32-64_hdmiaudio will install the Audio drivers. Attansic_L1_Lan_V1737907_V10560011159 contained in the archive needs to be extracted and installed to make the Attensic L1 Gigabit ethernet to show up as installed hardware in Windows device manager.

Hope this post will save some time to ppl looking to install the same drivers on XP 😉
Cheers 😉

How to fix “vbAccelerator SGrid II Control Runtime Error” popup window in Windows XP

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

Windows XPI’m in a friend and he asked me to take a look at his Win PC.
When the Windows boots up a weird and annoying error message appears that reads:

vBAccelerator SGrid II Control Runtime Error

I figured out the SGrid II Control Runtime Error was a cause of a mis-working old Malware Bytes portable installation.

I’ve found online the following tool which fixes the stupid VBAccelerator SGrid II error

By simply downloading and starting the mbam-clean.exe binary after a computer restart the error gets fixed.

Rear Window (1954) & Chinatown 1974

Sunday, February 21st, 2010

I enjoyed watching this two movies. Both are claimed to be movie classics and truly they’re.Okay let me give you a short review about this classics.

1. Rear Window is a movie of Alfred Hitchcock. The movie is a story about a guy with a broken leg who is boredto death and as an escape of his boredom starts “spying” on his neighboursthrough the Window. The guy is an ordinary person with an extraordinarygirlfriend and another old lady who is is responsible for his rehabilitationprocedures. By accident the guy catch a sight of one of his neighbors actingreally weird, putting a saw and a knife in his brief case. The guy used to wentout of his home every evening at a certain time. His wife is missing for a couple of days. The guy starts, like an anonymous investigation on the case … won’t tell you more, if interested in the scenario just check out the movie.

2. The second one Chinatown , though a great movie was a rather odd movie. It’s closing is far from the normal movie’s “good guys win” plot. So let me tell you a few words about the movie. The story progresses around a private investigator who was hired by a woman to perform surveilance on her Husband as she has her doubts he is cheating on her. After a short follow-up the investigator recognizes that the woman’s suspicion claimed to be true. The guy has been into an illegitimate affair with a woman. A picture of the love affair appears in the Los Angeles local newspapers and a big scandal arouses. Sooner the investigator is puzzled when he realized that the woman that hired him is actually not the guy’s wife. Soon after the public outbreak the guy involved in the affair is find dead near one of the cannals, and it looked like an accident. However this is far from the truth, the investigator suspects the guy is murdered and finds that things the trace about the murder leads to a big conspiracy by a major business person who tries to manipulate the Los Angeles water supply.The movie turns a couple of unexpected turn arounds in the mean time. The killed person’s wife happened to have a sister and be a mother of her sister (in other words her father raped her as a child and she bore a child …).The movie is a mix of psychological drama and a mystery. Just check it out to see it’s unexpected ending. Have a nice watching time.