Gaming Update & Arena Commander launched for a couple of weeks!

LoL, Dota 2 and SC2 are now collegiate sports.

Dota 2 nears 10 million prizepool money, which includes USD$8.4 million from compendium and compendium point purchases. That's $33.6 million of total compendium related revenue, and $25.2 million for Valve from compendium related revenue alone! This is getting big, just like TF2 hats =P
Current PrizePool:

Btw, Steam Summer Sale is on, get them daily/flash deals! Isthereanydeal.com is also a great website to track your wishlist and if it goes on sale on many different storefronts - it saves heaps of browsing time! 
You know Valve is doing something right when they release things gamers want (Steam Cloud, Cross platform SteamPlay, Dota2, TF2, SteamOS-Linux) and aren't shy to get it properly done and delay releases according to Valve Time, much like CIG does with Star Citizen and their DFM release. =P


Speaking of, the Star Citizen DogFighting Module has been released (launch trailer here)! It's named Arena Commander (as a in-universe combat sim game). Currently it's at v0.8, check the above link for the planned version update roadmap. Some interesting stats and tutorial videos for different control devices (m+kb, joystick) released ~24hrs after the DFM release.
Also, the most watched Star Citizen streamer on Twitch - Nyaandere - streams almost daily! (Pretty punny username if I may say so myself).

 
Alternate Launch Trailer, the one I prefer - especially with the lovely Bach Prelude 1 =P

Everyone has single player (free-flight, Vanduul swarm) access if you have the Alpha or "Arena Commander module" access. Most recently they've updated it with Hangar Patch 12.3 (which is still v0.8 for Dogfighting module/Arena Commander version numbers).
Want to know if you have multiplayer access? Check your UEE Citizen Record # on your Citizen Dossier like so https://robertsspaceindustries.com/citizens/pd12
Then match it up with the roll-out updates on https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13947-Arena-Commander-Multiplayer-Roll-Out-Begins

Also because a lot of people have been complaining that the ships' handling doesn't "feel right" CR (Chris Roberts, project director) has written up this lovely post full of the details of how they simulate and model the flight physics. It's beautiful! (And therefore obligatory iframe which doesn't work atm, someone tell me why):

The rise of Linux

The Downfall of Windows (xP)

So I just read (or re-read) some news about ISS laptops being changed to Linux last year (2013) as Windows XP nears its EOL in April this year with no more security or technical updates. With Windows 8 being hard to use and the UI being unfamiliar, that's prompted me to write this post instead of sneaking it in a section within another post like I normally do =P
By the way, all those Windows XP users, it's a great time to switch to Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, since Win 8 users will have to familiarise themselves with a new UI anyway. WinXP/7 users would probably want to use Kubuntu/Xubuntu to have a familiar desktop environment (you can set the UI up to be almost exactly like Win XP/7). You want LTS versions because they're supported for 5 years, although you're free to upgrade to different versions anytime when they're out. (LTS versions happen every 2 years, and non-LTS versions are supported for 9 months now, instead of 18 months previously.)

The adoption of Linux in the world

So why use Linux anyway?

• It's free - as in financially and in the sense of free speech. You can freely modify and customise it to suit your needs and use it however you like!
• It's stable and reliable - updates and patches happen quickly as it's open sourced, and won't fall into the traps of things like the Mac OS/iOS SSL bug. Security by obscurity is wrong in an OS context.
• It's efficient - My Linux (Kubuntu 12.04) is pretty fast and does things faster than my Windows 7 HP 64bit, even with KDE, which is a relatively intense DE compared with things like XFCE and GNOME/forks.

In Science:

Used by people and places like:
CERN
Experiment Platforms
NASA
-MSL (Curiosity Rover)
-ISS (probably almost everything since the move to Linux on desktop laptops).

Linux in Space

United Space Alliance, a NASA contractor that supports the laptops on the ISS used the Linux Foundation to train their devs to migrate and port apps over to Linux.
Apparently they have over 140 laptops with 80 online at any time; they chose Debian 6, it being Google's choice of distribution too. They also have Scientific Linux and RHEL/CentOS on some computers already on the ISS. Robonaut R2 uses it and the ISS has used it since Linux started, but rarely on the desktop PCs.

We migrated key functions from Windows to Linux because we needed an operating system that was stable and reliable — one that would give us in-house control. So if we needed to patch, adjust, or adapt, we could.

ZING! Apparently they have faced a few random crashes (probably BSODs lol) and in 2008 had some virus infect the ISS LAN.

Consumer Devices:

Android (kernels are being merged, and hopefully completely in a few years)
Tesla Model S

So why is adoption important at all? I think it's especially important in gaming where the catch 22 can clearly be seen - 'everyone' uses Windows to game, so game devs only build for Windows and so 'everyone' has to use Windows to game. So when devs have this alternate option instead of being locked into Windows (and perhaps DirectX), they can build for it and the Linux gaming community can back them and get rid of this catch 22 problem. Things like the humble bundle clearly show the Linux community is ready to throw money at devs who make games for Linux.

In Gaming:

Wow, GDC 2014 just prompted announcements of Linux support everywhere!
And look, someone else did a great article about the rise of Linux gaming! =)
While Phoronix downplays (or is disappointed by) the interest in Linux at GDC, it's a great improvement, from having 0 Linux announcements at GDC to having a Linux presence with SteamOS, CRYENGINE, AMD, etc. Valve's SteamOS and Steam for Linux official release announcements were only last year, so AAA devs haven't had time to announce and demo Linux games at GDC yet - but we've already seen heaps of indies get onboard. Like a Phoronix forum user said:

We have gone from "it would be cool to have a game on Linux" to "omg the next-gen CryEngine with its OpenGL 4.3 renderer might not be perfectly ported".

Game Engines: Unity,
Unreal (announced 19/3!),
CRYENGINE (dev tools, CrySDK coming to Linux),
Source & Source 2,
Leadwerks (and the editor/IDE is on Linux thru Kickstarter too!)

Game Publishers: Steam On Linux (on a sidenote, Valve wants to move from Greenlight to a more easy self-publishing system where any dev can post something),
Desura,
 GOG.com (announced 18/3) 

Consoles/Hardware:
SteamOS, Ouya/Android, Oculus Rift

Games & Devs: Steam Library Catalogue, Upcoming games on Steam,
Devs liking OpenGL and freedom of Linux and hating Windows restrictions.
Recent announcements of games on the PC usually announce on Linux in addition to Windows.
GabeN also said devs like Linux! =)

Valve: check out these awesome vids at Steam Dev Days 2014 (where there are a whole lot more Linux and VR related stuff including):
Getting started on Linux (incl Myth-busting),
Valve seriously supporting and working on moving to OpenGL exclusively,
Modern OpenGL reducing Driver Overhead (by nVidia which looks like their portion of the GDC talk below).

Vendors: nVidia, AMD, Intel @ GDC "Approaching Zero Driver Overhead", nVidia sponsored video posted in the future. There'll probably be more news from them with the GPU tech conference in the next few days as well.
AMD plans to open-source kernel space driver support, while keeping user-space binaries for their Catalyst driver (so they can keep their "secret-sauce" optimisations away from prying eyes of nVidia). AMD roadmap/info summary from GDC here; I'm not feeling as much love as I was hoping, but tbh I mostly just care about GFX performance and that means high performing nVidia drivers, even if they're binary blobs. 


On a related note, check out all the awesome vids from Steam Dev Days (click for PDFs, etc.)! They have at least 4 talks related to Linux and OpenGL (including debugging hehe)!

Updated: 24/3 to include links to latest Phoronix wrap-up articles. 

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 =)

_________________________________________________________________

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.

Ubunchu ch.08 and PSA: Sudo powers

Here's a double release of art projects geared towards new(ish?) users/discoverers of Linux and the Ubuntu distribution.

Ubunchu chapter 8 typeset by me took a year (lol, I had no schedule and it was very on-off, next time I'll schedule it properly so I don't forget what I was doing). It's my first official type-setting/translation manga release, hope you like it. =) I was going to try and perfect it but because the project dragged on so long I thought I should just try and quickly push it out and release/ship it.
Ubunchu is about a school club in a Japanese high school which is tinkering with Ubuntu.
Read the whole series (and a better synopsis) here: ubunchu.net
My latest release (ch8): on google drive - zip of PNGs (click File -> Download),

        Shared folder here - DL in PDF (recommend you DL the zip of PNGs instead and use MComix to read get MComix1.00), 

        and on the ubunchu website (when it gets uploaded there someday).

Getting to work on an open sourced manga/project like this one is pretty nice. Especially without having to clean 'scans' using levelling, and other more sophisticated techniques. xP All of it was done in GIMP which is open source and is also available on windows due to GTK magic (but it feels nicer on my Kubuntu). I've never used photoshop properly (to a certain extent) but I can say GIMP is competitively advanced and has nice plugins too. Mostly used Blambot's fonts - free for non-commercial use.

Also would be nice to get a Wacom tablet/ergonomic mouse/SteamController (check out this demo vid!), I get RSI with at least my index finger when using conventional mice. Currently use a trackball for everyday use, but gets annoying since it doesn't have a scroll wheel. Steam controller definitely looks promising since my HKD20 PS-like controller definitely has bad resolution, and I don't imagine my PS controllers or the XBox ones will be much better. Although having fond memories of my Saitek joystick (which is so old it used a serial or parallel connection), I might use that for Star Citizen, although I'll have to test the Steam Controller first, like how I tested the OR. Which reminds me, Oculus Rift post coming soon =)

[Linux is complete with gaming rant]
With Valve's SteamOS, Steam on Linux and Source, Unity, Unreal game Engines being native on Linux as well as CryEngine soon, games seem to be moving en-masse to the Linux OS. This is welcome news, since gaming, and atm, only one particular game (Star Citizen, which has gained 4mil in crowdfunding since I last blogged about last month - 1.5mil of which was from the last 4 days) is the only thing holding me back from never booting Windows on my laptop. It's on CryEngine 3, so can't wait for that to build natively for Linux.
We've got Dota 2, KSP, Guns of Icarus Online, L4D2, TF2, X-series and an increasing amount of games, indie and big-publisher alike natively on Linux already or coming. I find if I'm looking at a game purchase/Humble Bundle, availability is a deciding factor. These next few years will be very interesting for Linux =)

[/rant]

Here's the PSA (it's related to Ubunchu ch.8), sad to say I learnt this the hard way one too many times:




_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Came across an interesting blenderguru post about why and how Blender's UI is broken and the principles of making good UI, how Blender can be fixed. The folks who made Unity should have a look =P [Sincerely, KDE/XFCE user]

UPDATE: Blenderguru made a video with suggestions, here it is!


=)

Valve and AMD reveals

So Valve has revealed their SteamOS a couple of days ago which is based on Linux, so it's pretty much a Linux distro. It will be a living room entertainment OS, so think console+xbmc combined. It is also free and open source!
Today, they also revealed SteamBox, and are offering 300 beta units for testers to be randomly selected, as long as you earn the Steam Hardware badge level 2.Unfortunately, actual specs are not disclosed, although they are saying the system is open, and you can upgrade individual components (like a PC!), as well as being free to install any OS on it or turn it into a robot! Gotta love Valve and their open/hacker/community culture. First open console since the PC =P. They are also claiming to have different boxes available in 2014 from different vendors, so PC and linux gaming seems to be ever on fire and advancing, thanks in no small part to Valve! [S2] (companion cube). It's great to see games like Dota 2, L4D2, Kerbal Space Program, X3: Albion Prelude and Guns of Icarus Online (and hopefully the Crytek 3 Engine soon) on Linux!
In a couple of days, Valve will reveal something else. Using symbols 'O' as the SteamOS reveal, and '[O ]' as the SteamBox reveal, they are revealing something along the lines of 'O+O'. They've already suggested streaming video from your gaming PC to the steambox via LAN, and family sharing for games, but it could be something different. Check the reveal here below in 33 hours:



AMD has revealed their newest line of GPUs at every price point, and personally I'm rooting for them as they are actually supporting open source linux driver development. Unlike a certain competitor which only releases binary blobs, although they run alright. In the livestream other game devs were also featured as were a lot of audio technology.
Check out Star Citizen's Chris Roberts at 1hr 44minutes of the livestream and some new hangar module features! (And an Aurora take off sequence in the new trailer demo!). It's also set to break 20 million in crowdfunding within 24 hours. See you in the 'verse!

Watch live streaming video from amdlivestream at livestream.com

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".

It's (almost) Fully Official!!! -CryEngine on Linux

Steam for linux just reported that Crytek are hiring Linux Devs to maintain their Linux support for CryEngine. 
Yep, this means more quality games on Linux and Star Citizen for Linux almost 100% confirmed. 

Hmm interesting to note they prefer C++ as the OO language ..

Is this the announcement that Chris Roberts was wanting to make but couldn't make just yet that would happily surprise Linux and Mac gamers?

Phoronix's article here. Apparently the source Phoronix had for the early CryEngine Linux rumour was recommended to Valve by Phoronix!
Previous CryEngine Linux rumour post here.

I read Phoronix's article on the CryEngine port before, but although I do have more than 50% confidence in Phoronix, it was still the only source I could find on the net before I got excited at the Wii U getting support.
To me, I think Phoronix is like the Parabolic Arc of the computing world (and Parabolic Arc the Phoronix of the space world). Great early fan-news blogs!

Linux is totally picking up pace =3

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.

Steam for Linux finally arrives! (in beta, x86, with more than a score of games)

HELLO new era of gaming, with Steam's big picture mode (finally, console experience on PC! wireless controller on wishlist! =D) saw it on steamforlinux's FB, post here: http://steamforlinux.com/?q=en/node/130

**Update: This pretty much means Steam's Big Picture mode pwned Ouya for me, PCs are more open than consoles, in terms of compatibility and you're not locked into a certain device anyway =P
Pictures of me playing World of Goo thru Steam on Linux soon in a post another time =)
***

Valve stuff:
Press release: http://store.steampowered.com/news/9289/
Hub (latest news): http://steamcommunity.com/linux or http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410
Game group page (not sure what this is used for anymore): http://steamcommunity.com/games/221410

Got so excited, downloaded the .deb, realised it was built for x86. And I also didn't have a 'key' but I heard there were ways of getting around that on the hub >.>
Just waiting for 64-bit release or source with lovely configure and make files =D
In the meantime, will CrossOver/WINE my Client/TF2 ^^

This news probably released just after/around the same time as this one, but nVidia's news travelled faster?? =S:

nVidia supports Steam Linux beta in latest drivers:
http://steamforlinux.com/?q=en/node/127

Also, all you friends out there, add me on Steam!! >=D

Now .. that I've got that out of my system .. time to study >=D

omg 150k/year making hats!!

***Update 7/11/2012 (yes, Aussie/UK date format)***

nVidia supports Steam Linux beta in latest drivers:
http://steamforlinux.com/?q=en/node/127
Yay! I'm on nVidia GT330M on my laptop (Samsung R580-JS02AU) but I didn't really care which manufacturer: ATI or nVidia I got, as long as it was Linux-supported well. 
And yes, this post is basically another Steam fanboying post =P

*************************************************


Yes, TF2 hats woooot! xD
And yes, another Steam on Linux post and windows is =/ post .. =P

http://gamingbolt.com/gabe-newell-windows-8-is-a-catastrophe-for-everyone-in-the-pc-space
Wish I could make $150k/year making hats!!!

Found the link from here:
http://gamingbolt.com/valve-engineer-drew-bliss-explains-why-they-favor-linux-over-windows

And I didn't know Gabe Newell worked 13 years on Windows o_O
Source: http://www.inquisitr.com/378666/the-battle-between-windows-8-and-computer-game-developers/

Troubleshooting on Windows >='(

I found this to be actually a lot more annoying than on Linux.
I usually haven't had to do much of this, but when I have had to really troubleshoot Windows, I always pull out my hair. Whereas Linux could range from: 10 minutes later done =D to, lol nope can't do it with my knowledge and resources online.

Situation/Problem
So I couldn't install a Libre Office package for a couple of days ... [lol, sounds Linuxy] I mean application package in the form of .msi
I kept getting this error: "Error 1935 ... missing dynamic link library ... policy.9.0.Microsoft.VC90.CRT ...".
I started using Libre Office exclusively about 3 months back when I reinstalled/upgraded Windows to 64-bit (the same Windows 7 license gives you access to both 32-bit and 64-bit versions!) And recently had to reinstall Windows just to get Steam service to run, so the client actually ran. It was after this most recent Windows reinstall (I usually don't reinstall Windows if I don't have to, went for like 2 years on the original install my laptop -a Samsung R580-JS02AU named Chopper- came with).

Research + Rant
I found the online resources in the form of forums answering questions lacking, and Windows documentation has always been horrible. Also, the Windows admin/system tools and settings is horrible to get to, I mean, who would know you had to right click My Computer to Manage it or msconfig.exe or services.msc or cmd.exe and THEN run some obscure command? Not to mention horrible network settings and internet options >_>
At least most Linux DEs provide pretty much all you usually require in usually two menus, System/Admin Tools and System Settings. And the only hardcore thing you'd have to do is custom scripts/configs in your home folder or elsewhere as advised from heaps of online resources. 

So after looking at http://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=10913 and http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vista-hardware/error-1935-when-trying-to-install-anything/bf5c834a-6f79-4bd3-b1b4-d4fdd3fe4a28 and running sfc /scannow with no problems, as well as Windows' famous "NEVER WORKING DIAGNOSTICS/SOLUTIONS" (I mean, if a program needs to be ended/force closed/killed, just do it, don't be misleading and pretend to "FIND A SOLUTION" in your fictitious dreams.)
 


Final Solution
I finally landed on http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2438651#reso1
"Method 2: Make sure that the Windows Installer service is not set to Disabled"










And realised, while I did follow the openoffice forum advice of making sure my 'Windows Modules Installer' service was up and running, my 'Windows Installer' service wasn't, and I promptly set it to start on startup automatically, ran it, and my Libre Office msi worked like a charm.






The fix was so simple, I can't believe it took me that long to find the solution. If only the windows support(lol) website was easier to navigate.

Steam closed beta for Linux is here! (+ other news)

You may have read http://vcpd12.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/tf2-beta-on-steam-for-linux.html
Which has pretty cool infos and links =)

If you were lurking http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/ like me, you may have missed this important link:
http://www.valvesoftware.com/linuxsurvey.php
It was open since 27th of October! Enjoy!

You may also want to take a look at:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/221410

---

In other project news:
Ubunchu ch.8 is more than half way done =)

Speaking of manga/anime, check this out:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com.au/news/2012-10-08/astronaut-successfully-dubs-space-brothers-anime-from-space
First voice acting done in space! Woot! =D

TF2 beta on Steam for Linux!

Yay! My 2nd favourite game of all time (Tribes 1 being my most favourite) is here!
http://marlamin.com/cdr/search.php?s=linux&searchby=os

The above links to the data streamed from Steam CDR (read the about page for more details).
There are at least 38 games listed for Linux, including a lot of games from the Humble Bundles.
It's great to know that alongside TF2, there's Killing Floor =)

Can't wait to get my hands on the client (set to run on Ubuntu and closed beta release this month) and test their >200fps L4D2
http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/

There's also some good news occasionally updated here:
http://steamforlinux.com/