Pegasus Prime

I just noticed that I forgot to update on my math course: I passed, and did pretty well.

Finally, the game I've been wanting for ages is in the mail. Those of you who don't know me should know that I am and always will be a Journeyman Project fanatic. Pegasus Prime was the "Director's Cut" of the first game in the series. Unfortunately, it was also mac-only. So, I bought it to look at the box. I'm so logical sometimes. Actually I'm planning to emulate it, but first I'll have to buy a copy of Mac OS 9 on Ebay.

Is it worth the money and effort to get a decade-old game working on a totally different platform then that for which it was made? I have little doubt that the answer is "yes" in this case.

Reviews:

• Four Fat Chicks - 5/5
• MacGamer - 80%
• Just Adventure - A (Contains mild language and a popup)

Example of a migration from Motif to GTK+

I found this interesting article on linux.com. Perfect example of what I wanted in an earlier post.

Xubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn

Long time no post, I know. I've been reading C. S. Lewis, at my mom's request. I have to say, he is a really good author. So far I've read The Screwtape Letters and have started Mere Christianity, and I can really recommend the latter, and the former is pretty good.

I wrote this for a google group:

Having been convinced by Matt to give Ubuntu another try (In case you were curious, the first and last time I tried pure Ubuntu was with "Breezy Badger". It failed to install). However, being a Xfce advocate, I decided upon Xubuntu (The last time I tried Xubuntu was with "Dapper Drake". It installed OK, with frequent lockups). I had been scared off of Ubuntu by a bad experience with Kubuntu "Edgy Eft" that I now understand was a common issue.

My machine is a Pentium II 400mhz with 128mb RAM and a GeForce 2 MX. The LiveCD started up OK, but when Xfce started, it started without the panel. I have heard of that issue, and I suspect its cause is from a lack of RAM, seeing as how it worked OK on my system with 512mb RAM. Anyhow, the installer had several issues, including a glitch with partitioning. That was easily corrected, however, following my reading the release notes. The random installer lockups I had experienced with Dapper also seemed gone, although I seem to recall some lockup or something, I don't remember it well enough to report on it.

When my system booted up, the Xfce panel was launched as expected. The restricted driver manager easily installed the driver for my video card, and the updater, although not automatic out-of-the-box, went smoothly and offered more details then the Fedora "Zod" updater (I realize that Fedora "Moonshine is out now). The package managers were also fantastic; the Add/Remove program is new since Dapper, and is awesome (although it tried to install some GNOME dependencies and I didn't know until it had already started downloading them), and Synaptic was as good as always.

Desktop-wise, Xfce has a clean-yet-modern feel that I have yet to see anyplace else. However, there's still some features missing in xfdesktop that won't be added until Xfce 4.4.2, and the Applications menu quit button doesn't work, forcing me to use the panel applet. The compositor for xfwm4, much revamped (and mostly new) in Feisty (4.4.0), beats the pixels off of GNOME's Metacity, offering such must-haves as window shadows and transparency, but my system is too slow to use it much. So far, I haven't had any crashes or lockups, although my limited hardware sometimes leads to sluggish performance.

I haven't been using Feisty off a hard drive very long--under a day--but so far my experience has been quite favorable, and I look forward to trying it on better hardware. If I experience any major issues like that which caused me to leave Ubuntu in the first place, I will post an update.

Ghostbusters

I know I haven't blogged lately; I've been busy.

The magic man in the mail who sends movies offered Ghostbusters last night. Awesome movie. I give it 5/5. What's better then watching a giant marshmallow man tearing apart New York City?

I want a proton pack...

GTK+, QT, Motif

I've been a Linux fan for quite a few years back, ever since I read Moving to Linux (first edition; later editions cut stuff out, and he switched to Ubuntu and GNOME. Talk about criminal), but one thing that drives me nuts is that some developers insist on writing their programs in a toolkit that looks/is Motif. There's waay better UIs that look much less 1980, so why is it still being used at all?! Believe it not developers, looks are in fact important in a program.

Please, use a good toolkit like QT or GTK+. Everyone will thank you for it.

.NET=Horrible

I got over the flu after only a day, leaving me in a situation where I am able to stew over how awful .NET is. I wouldn't wish .NET on anybody, and the the Geneva convention surely forbids the cruelty that .NET puts on programmers.

.NET was created by Micro$loth to make programming easier and more consistent. In theory this is fine, but man. My experience with .NET programming with VB .NET was hardly smooth, and Micro$loth wants all new Windoze software to be written with .NET.

All I wanted to do was make a simple program that downloads and displays a .rtf file. So I write the program, and it works flawlessly on my machine. So I start up a very small beta program, and send it to a few people with the installer VB .NET gave me. And of course, Micro$loth won't let you make your own installer.
The first person got it up and running without problem.
All subsueqent testers had crippling problems. In one notable case the person tried installing it, and found his version of .NET was too old (1.1 vs. 2.0). So the installer tried installing .NET 2.0, and of course it failed for whatever reason. After manually installing .NET 2.0, it installed, but the program repetitively crashed.

This is not only my problem. When my dad made my mom's veterinary program in .NET 1.1, he was unable to install the program on the reception computer because of flaws in the installer (He did get it installed by spending a whole morning fiddling with it).

In conclusion, Micro$loth is, frankly, a jerk for forcing developers to use a flawed framework.