BREAKING: CryEngine on Linux Officially CONFIRMED (and therefore Star Citizen =P)

Yes, after years of speculation, Crytek has announced that CRYENGINE will finally officially build natively for Linux.
Here's the excerpt pertaining to Linux:

During presentations and hands-on demos at Crytek's GDC booth, attendees can see for the first time ever full native Linux support in the new CRYENGINE.  The CRYENGINE all-in-one game engine is also updated with the innovative features used to recreate the stunning Roman Empire seen in Ryse – including the brand new Physically Based Shading render pipeline, which uses real-world physics simulation to create amazingly realistic lighting and materials in CRYENGINE games.

I first learnt about his when someone posted to the Star Citizen forums of a thread I was following. 
Obligatory Phoronix post. 

My speculation history to date:
Just recently Star Citizen advertised Kingdom Come: Deliverance which utilised the same CRYENGINE and promises a Linux port.  It's triply funded on Kickstarter now!
Remember in this post I talked about that Linux programmer position they were hiring for Frankfurt (Crytek HQ) as proof of "almost fully official" Linux builds? Filled.
Or that time Chris Roberts said in the 24 hour livestream for Star Citizen that they can't say anything about non-Windows builds yet but Linux (and Mac) users will be "pleasantly surprised"?
And then me wondering about it here?
And these posts were a year after I read Phoronix' article back in 2012 where I first speculated about CryEngine on Linux. Of course, at that time I thought the more the merrier, but in 2013 Star Citizen changed that thought into "Come out on Linux already!"

Linux is complete with gaming rant
Yes, you're getting another (slightly reworded) one ;P
With Valve's SteamOS, Steam on Linux and Source, Unity, Unreal and CRY Engines being native on Linux, games ARE moving en-masse to the Linux OS. This is welcome news, since gaming, and atm, only one particular game -Star Citizen- is the only thing holding me back from never booting Windows on my laptop.
Games I also like and play on Linux are: Dota 2, KSP, Guns of Icarus Online, L4D2, TF2, X-series, Bastion, Killing Floor, Gemini Rue, Dust, Monaco, Surgeon Simulator, and an ever increasing amount of games, indie and big-publisher alike. I find if I'm looking at a game purchase/Humble Bundle, availability on Linux is a deciding factor. I also find I can usually get a good old game on Windows that wasn't built for Linux working on Wine. Especially with WineHQ database and PlayOnLinux. =P

The past year has been - and the next few years will be - very interesting for Linux =)

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Star Citizen Update!

So they just reached $40 million and every backer who pledges/pledged before the $42million mark will get a special Galactapedia (Hitch Hiker's Guide, if you will) viewer. They'll also get a TOWEL! HAHAHAHAHA!!!! xD

Also, since I've done an SC update on this blog, a lot of things have happened - they're at patch 11.1 with OR support in the Hangar Module; check out the stretch goals, which are just examples of the ways SC improves with the money and were usually planned long ago.
Also check out their new monthly reports (link to Feb 2014) for those of us who don't have time to follow every website post.

And they now have 3 update videos every WEEK:

• Monday - 10 for the Chairman where Chris Roberts answers 10 questions from subscribers (monthly pledgers of $10/$20).
• Wednesdays - Wingman's Hangar (now moved to Wednesdays; the original development update show). 
• Fridays - The Next Great Starship, a kind of reality TV show featuring a competition for teams to make the next starship in Star Citizen with the judging and feedback of some folks from CIG (Cloud Imperium Games, RSI's real-world company name)!

Also Jump Point print copies are available, they look gorgeous! They're also a great example of how the folks at CIG tend to over deliver on promises and are always looking for the good of the game and the players - they promised 4-6 full colour pages of magazine format development updates for monthly subscribers and now they're averaging 50 pages a month! They've released some past Jump Point sections  to everyone before, check it out on their website (link goes to all slideshows in Comm-Link)! Check all their WIPs and Jump Point stuff at the link.

Can't wait to try the Dog Fighting Module after PAX East in mid-April!


Last Updated: 2014-03-16 06:39:53 AM AEDT; corrected Jump Point frequency to "monthly", added a few links.

KSP update 0.22

Kerbal Space Program is one of the funnest games ever, superseding The Sims and will probably take 2nd place in my all-time favourite game list, after Tribes 1. That is, until Star Citizen comes out and dominates the list. I love the open and mod-able, community driven aspects of this game. =)

This most recent update finally gives the option of inserting sub-assemblies to new designs, so you can finally import 2 assemblies/designs from different saved designs without having to build from scratch! Kind of like importing parts into a CAD assembly. I have no more excuse to not play this game (it's on Linux! via Unity =D) ... although uni study beckons Dx



Also, an abridged list of stupid things that I have done (a full list would be way too long). These are rookie mistakes which experience, if not proper systems engineering would (hopefully) have mitigated.

• Not realising you forgot to put parachutes on your spaceship until you've re-entered the atmosphere
• Using all your fuel to achieve a high orbit and realising your Kerbonauts are now stranded ... hope they're not hungry
• Forgetting to activate solar panels once in orbit so your spacecraft (a planned addition to a collection of spaceships docked together forming a "space station") runs out of electrical charge. It's also unmanned so can no longer be controlled. Recovery mission is being planned (yes, one is also being planned for my stranded Kerbonauts, though admittedly with much lower priority xD)

And there we have our top 3 "oh crap, I'm so stupid" moments so far =)
The game has also prompted learning of orbital mechanics and stuff and is a great companion to: The Basics of Spaceflight - brought to you by JPL, "we do everything cool".

Canonical going to dark side?

So Canonical going to dark side? Well I don't use Unity nor Dash - nor ubuntu one, and rarely their software center, though sometimes I check out which indie game devs get to go on there - so I'm barely affected (Kubuntu/Xubuntu FTW) but if they do go to the dark side, then we can always fork it (oh the joys of FOSS) and develop a Community Organisation =)
[Or just switch to fedora or arch or whatever]
 
I have been an ubuntu fan since I started linuxing mainly for its compatibility and support for other projects built on ubuntu. It sometimes irks me when they do stuff differently and directories aren't referenced properly and you have to symlink to configure/make or make something work properly. I am also an Emacs fan, as terminal based editors irks me, and nano irks me the least. 
[Remind to self to install Yakuake so I don't have at least 1 window on each of my 6 desktops dedicated for konsole]

In project news: 

yeah, the ubunchu kinda got stalled over the Christmas holidays (was busier than I thought, and getting stuck into Uni now, so maybe expect it in a couple of weeks). There's also a certain collab which is in the making stages atm =). 

Star Citizen - RSI, from the makers of Freelancer etc.

from the makers of Freelancer ... THIS. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen

• A rich universe focused on epic space adventure, trading and dogfighting in first person.
• Single Player – Offline or Online(Drop in / Drop out co-op play)
• Persistent Universe (hosted by US)
• Mod-able multiplayer (hosted by YOU)
• No Subscriptions
• No Pay to Win

Only thing missing from it is shiny MMORPGFPS gameplay on the planetary surface found in the likes of Precursors (which gameplay-wise was amazing =D).
What makes me so excited: MMO persistent universe, FPS elements, Ship combat which is like Freelancer and not MOBA-style (sorry DoTA2, D3, Torchlight, just not so into click click click =P).
Shameless plug for my favourite game of all time (Tribes 1) remade into an arcade style FPS: less gameplay complexity, and weird speed gain when skiing but nevertheless FUN.


BOARDING SHIP MECHANIC explained
Multiplayer and Single player instancing explained.
Because, FIREFLY for inspiration. =) - would love that job xD
Support Linux at the poll for stretch goals (click thru to RSI website for the poll), give CryEngine3 the incentive to go to the quickest growing gaming platform right now with Source, Steam, Unity supporting =) Linux. Speaking of Linux, Humble Bundle for Android 4 finishes in 6 days!


Final-week's (3 days left to pledge!) pitch:


FINAL WEEK PUSH from Roberts Space Industries on Vimeo.

So a few points of our next major stretch goal (from boarding ship mechanic post and RSI star citizen website):
$4.0 million Level Additions

• Melee & Heavy Weapons
• Zero-gravity Simulation
• Suit HUD Options
• Increased Customization
• Outside-the-ship combat (magnetic boots on a hull; think Moonraker)
• Pro MOD TOOLS FREE to players!
• Persistent Universe (forever instead of 30 months), 50 star systems
• More Squardron 42 campaign gameplay
• Increased community updates

- According to RSI website, we need $250k left till $4mil. Also, back on Kickstarter, your pledge will go towards stretch goals of BOTH kickstarter and the overall stretch goals at RSI.  
SO PLEDGE ON KICKSTARTER NOW =D.


I've always wanted to do Precursors MMO'd with friends. This is the closest thing I have ever seen. No amount of procedural universe generation, even if done by big industry pros would sway me. Just damn good gameplay with friends =).
That said, I've had my eye on Infinity Universe for years, because dang-it, its got great gameplay and scale, just without the FPS element >=| and definitely will be happily playing when it comes out.

Ubunchu!~

WOW (lolwut). Just found this on linuxmint's Tumblr. ( http://linuxmint.tumblr.com/post/33029338128/episode-12-of-ubunchu-a-manga-about-ubuntu )
There's a manga about Ubuntu?! Seriously?!

https://seotch.wordpress.com/ubunchu/
http://www.aerialline.com/comics/ubunchu (japanese page)
http://divajutta.com/doctormo/ubunchu/c.html (translation project page!)

Another great CC project =) [It's CC BY-NC]
Basically Japanese manga on a computer club in highschool that is discovering Ubuntu.
First made in 2009 so it would be the 9.04-9.10 releases of Ubuntu; I personally started using it somewhere in the 7-8.x range. This was before the polished product 10.04 was though, and none of the stupid Unity stuff from 11.04 onwards (KDE/xfce ftw), so it can't comment on those in the first chapters. However, the series is ongoing, hence the post from mint.

The art's alright (but I seriously don't care too much about the art in my manga/anime - look at Initial D, I liked it a lot but all the faces looked ugly to me =P).
The plot and characterisation doesn't have the depth and force of a regular shonen (ONE PIECE!!! =D) but you do get the regular Japanese manga stuff in there (love the stereotypes, melodrama etc.), and it's interesting to see how a manga would work with the whole topic based on a linux distro. lol.

Desktop Environments

So after a long absence, I've decided to post again in the interests of keeping a record of my personalised settings in my distribution(s) of linux.
Yes, I always break something and then reinstall >_>

So this post isn't exactly a post about changes I've made: maybe I'll post on my up to date exploits in another post. It's a post about DE's for Linux distros, namely Ubuntu. It's also my record of optimizations.

Without further ado, here are the main Ubuntu Desktop Environments I have tried.
KDE
I started out with Kubuntu 12.04 LTS, which I really like, except for the fact that mount.ntfs (I'm neomutix(?) indexing 2.8TB of NTFS but that should have completed a while ago. I think it restarted and has gone on forever for a week now, but whatever.) and Xorg take up quite a lot of CPU and sometimes the whole KDE lags a lot and/or freezes. Amarok also runs pretty badly optimized in KDE, which is weird for a KDE distro.
KDE also offers perfect (read: everything is tweakable) customizations, workspace and activities are great! Plasma-desktop really doesn't crash as much as in 10.10-11.10. (Or maybe it's just KDE 4.8)
I have a thing against window borders taking up a lot of my precious laptop screen space. KDE and XFCE are the greatest in this regard allowing customizations to utilise screen space effectively.
[Edit: Kwin also allows you (via right-click Title-bar, More actions ->Special Window settings) to set many custom window settings for particular windows with many different window matching rules! That More Actions menu is wonderful! Alt-F3 to get titlebar menu if you enable "No Border" and can't right-click the title-bar again =P]
I use the standard style with the shortest window bar (it's blue, my favourite colour - bonus!), seeing as my 16:9 15.6" laptop's vertical real estate is very precious. 

Unity - the default DE. I remember when it first came standard in Ubu 11.04 or something I cried. People have been saying it's not that bad anymore, so I decided to give it a shot. It still sucks as a DE. Maybe it'll be a great tablet environment but still too simple and unflexible for my desktop workhorse.

Gnome - it's like these guys followed suit with Unity and went 3.0rd time unlucky. I loved Gnome 2. (The default in 10.04 LTS) Gnome (3) classic looks good, but it's like Gnome 2 without customizability (no panel widgets, icons, etc.) Still, it's better than the default Gnome 3 app menu. Speaking of which, I can't believe Unity actually beats Gnome in the app menu. Gnome has sections, while the Unity one includes sections and filters in its app menu. I still like the Gnome 2 menu better.

MATE. GNOME 2's fork. Although this has the tried and true features I loved with G2 panels and G2 configuration - there wasn't enough to satisfy my appetite after KDE. (Everything has to look and work just right for optimal efficiency! =@ rawr) Screenshotting's pretty cool, Amarok works well, no GUI lag, and although light like Gnome2.0 on wings, the appearance was a bit too bulky for my taste after KDE and XFCE.

XFCE - Which brings me to XFCE. This is like Gnome 2 compacted. Lightweight but offering more customizability than the Gnome 2 original, I really like this one. It's actually what I've decided to use [edit: for less powerful systems].
It uses ALSA for audio I think (opposed to pulse audio for KDE/Unity/Gnome)
Has Gnome 2 style panels with extra customizations,
However, when i chose the oxygen-gtk style, it all went a bit weird. I liked the xfce 4.6 style.
The Greatest setting would be a custom DPI (I used 93).
The Amarok keyboard shortcuts worked like a charm and Amarok even lagged way less than in KDE!! And when it lags, it doesn't lag the whole DE like in KDE.
Dolphin and Konsole are available in their full glory, except konsole's background colour (see profiles) can't be transparent.

LXDE - the other compulsory light-weight mention. In fact, this is so lightweight I once ran this on something like a 400MHz ARM Gumstix running lubuntu-desktop on ubuntu. It's even lighter than XFCE, which would be perfect for your legacy CPU/components need. I don't know about driver compatibility but I'd expect it to be the same for Ubuntu. It's a lot lighter than XFCE with way less customization. It uses the openbox window manager (as opposed to metacity (gnome/unity?) and kwin (kde)) but I'm not actually too sure of their merits apart from the fact that openbox is light and can go on top of gnome and kde etc. (wiki the page on comparison between window managers if you have to). One cool feature though, is the able to get rid of the top window title bar with "Undecorate" after right clicking said bar. [Edit: You can do this in KDE too Right click titlebar, More Actions -> No Border. Alt-F3 to get the titlebar menu back to enable border again.]
This was the 2nd best surprise feature I've found this month apart from Ctrl+H in VLC which almost let's me watch in fullscreen, and in some cases, the video would be the same size as in fullscreen.

[Edit:

i3

If you want to feel like a hacker and want to control everything window/desktop environment-related from a keyboard, this is your thing. It's actually not as hard as it looks. Make sure you have googled a cheat sheet though! =)  ]

Window managers
Finally, if you ever tried to log into a window manager 'session' like me (haha) don't panic!
What happened when I booted into metacity was, I got into an ubuntu like background with no menus or shortcuts at all. Alt+F#s didn't work either. I probably tried Ctrl+Alt+Del too. I rebooted once and of course, with my settings as 'load the last session', I was stuck into metacity again. Fortunately, it's quite easy to get out: just go Ctrl+Alt+T, bring up a bash shell/terminal, then sudo top or your choice of task/process manager. Finally, kill metacity. (In top, 'K', then type in the PID of metacity, and enter, enter).
These window managers work with DE's like metacity for Ubuntu 10.04 (and i presume unity and gnome in 12.04) and Openbox for LXDE (and can also be used optionally on other DE's in place of their default like KDE, Gnome etc. They're not really supposed to be used stand-alone as DEs but can be if you want.
[Edit: In most Window managers, a nifty trick is Alt-LeftClick to move windows (click anywhere on the window) and Alt-RightClick to resize window. No need to find that 1px width edge to resize! =)]


Conclusion: I'll stick with KDE for its configurability and looks, but if I ever need something lighter that doesn't lag then XFCE (with its great configurability) it is.


Have fun linuxing and having a truly free desktop! Lol, imagine if Windows 8 was the default DE for the next windows desktop version. Oh wait ...
At least the OS X interface and Win 7/XP ain't that bad.