There was a LOT of Linux today. I dusted off my old gaming laptop and upgraded it from Manjaro 20 to 24, and spun up the ArchLinux VM for the GMod servers. I should have them up and running tomorrow evening if everything goes according to plan for the servers, and the laptop is pretty much done. Tomorrow I’ll work on the Samba shares and port forwarding, something to do to keep my mind off other things.
Linux
Everything’s Archy
Distro hopping has been successful! I’ll probably have the server up tomorrow, just need to go over networking and firewall permissions. The servers passed testing locally, no missing dependencies. If this is successful I’ll move my GMod VM’s over to Arch Linux as well, but I’ll probably stick to Alma Linux for Quake 3 and webservers. The Valve stuff needs newer dependencies and libraries, which are harder to obtain under RHEL distros.
I’ll get started up on it again tomorrow after getting some rest, if I do it now I’ll probably fuck something up. I can only look at a terminal for so long before going cross-eye’d.
The Pondering Continues
The TF2 Servers will be down for awhile longer. I’m running into complications with AlmaLinux 9.2 and 8.9. 9.2 lacks a dependency that I need (the 32 bit version of ncurses-compat), and 8.9 is running an older version of glibc than what TF2 requires. I’m seriously contemplating switching from a RHEL based distro to an Arch one as a result. What I don’t get, is why a server that has been upgraded to be 64bit still requires 32bit dependencies for it to even remotely fucking function.
On the bright side: Tomorrow is my Friday, and following that is a week off from work. I’m sure I’ll be able to science something together, even if it means doing a little distro hopping.
Suddenly Updates
I was once again greeted with a warm sun upon my awakening, and another uneventful work day to pass. I thought I had my after work routine planned out; crash on the couch and play something fun, or maybe even get a little sun with my Steam Deck and maybe break in the new headphones that arrived in the mail. Instead I was greeted with a TF2 server update, and to be honest, I was expecting hiccups.
They upgraded the Linux server and client to run in 64 bit, which itself isn’t a problem. Unfortunately I’m running on an older version of glibc, and upon looking at updates I decided it would be better to just upgrade AlmaLinux all together. So the TF2 servers will probably be down until my weekend starts. In the meantime I’ve spun up a fresh VM with a shinier version of AlmaLinux! It’ll be something for me to tinker with after work tomorrow. At some point I should update my other Linux systems and servers, another day…
The Tablet Lives Again!
Fully up and running on Manjaro 23! Everything is sync’d back up and ready for tomorrow! I did feel kind of naked only taking my Steam Deck to work today. The internet usually sucks at work so I wouldn’t have gotten a lot of reading done anyway. I did get a tiny bit of Whisker Squadron Survivor in during lunch at least. Maybe tomorrow I can resume a bit of animation. 😀
I just need to tweak a few things on my tablet, then I can set it into sleep mode along with myself.
When Life Fucks Your Tablet, Unfuck It
My plans ended up taking a bit of a detour today due to a giant fuck-up on my tablet, which did give me an excuse to put Windows on it to run overdue firmware updates. I just finished installing and updating it to the latest Manjaro! I’ll continue working on it tomorrow after I get off work. I’ll need to install the Surface Kernel, and get it tweaked the rest of the way. I have a perfect canvas awaiting me when I get my free time. Until then I’ll have to rough it on my Steam Deck.
I can’t complain too much, it’s been running for two years without a single reinstall. I’ve been meaning to upgrade it to the latest firmware and Manjaro for awhile now, this was just a real roundabout way to get me off my fat ass to perform an exorcism.
I Regret Nothing
My first day out and about with my new Steam Deck was a success! I tested a bit of Sonic Mania, Team Racing, and Stray. All of them ran as if they were natively ported! The battery life so far seems to be holding up. One of my friends joined me for lunch today and they thought it was a Nintendo Switch! 😀 I’ve also been checking out the included desktop mode. It’s a super light version of KDE. Steam OS seems nice so far, but I’m kinda disappointed by the lack of items in their repository. Usually I could just install smb or KDE Connect for networking between other systems on a local network, but they don’t provide those on their repo… I would think Valve would want to put that option in for LAN gaming and network access.
It’s not that big of a deal though… I can always fork it in from another repo! 😛 I did that all the time under other distros when I couldn’t find something.
It Feels Like The First Time (Contains Spoilers)
Note: If you don’t want to be spoiled you might want to skip this post.
Like I briefly mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been spending my weekend poking and proding at the brand new Stanley Parable! It’s a re-re-release of the original Half Life 2 mod that became a game that became a game again, but with more metalicious content!
When you first go to launch the game, it will ask you to set the time; and eventually ask you to adjust random sliders like the one above. The first few times you launch the program it will try to find some way to dick with you, making it clear they put some serious effort into successfully trolling and taking money from their audience.
From what I’ve read; the overall content is about 4 hours in length. I haven’t been through it all yet myself, but what I’ve seen so far has made me laugh maniacally into the dark hours of the night like a totally normally adjusted person. The writing is as sharp as it was in the original, and what I’ve seen so far has fit right into the game as if it were always meant to be there!
If you looked in your game settings under where the controls are kept, you may have noticed a jump button (a game mechanic Stanley simply doesn’t possess, there’s even an achievement for not jumping in this and the original). This immediately caught my eye when I saw it, and a little into the game I arrive at this point and it made sense.
Welp… that’s all folks! OR at least in fine Stanley Parable tradition that’s what the game would WANT you to believe.
The narrator wasn’t entirely impressed with the first bit of content, and opted to take me to a realm that housed numerous accolades and awards that the original Steam release received… and then we found the Steam Reviews section:
After the narrator visits these reviews further he tries to “fix the game”. I’ll spare the details as to how, this isn’t a full show and tell. 😛 Get the game!
After another restart I ended up seeing what would appear to be a “Stanley Parable 2” room, which gave me flashbacks to the original demo for The Stanley Parable. Featuring revolutionaty content such as the “Reassurance Bucket” and “The Infinite Hole”.
It also contains an easy to get achievement that I haven’t been able to get, and collectables that are completely pointless.
This is literally anything I could ask for in a game. 😛
As I’ve said before: If you own the original Stanley Parable, there is no excuse not to get this. If you have a sense of humour, and enjoy a good mind fuck, I also recommend it. I’ve been telling my console friends at work to check it out too. It’s a fun time waster, even the second or third time around. 😛
I’m taking a break from it for now, this is one that needs to be savored.
RIP CentOS… Long Live AlmaLinux!
I got all of my gameservers up and running under AlmaLinux! Tonight was CentOS 7’s final night of usage. Now the future of my servers is much more secure, literally.
I think I’ll celebrate by doing some animating tomorrow. 😛
Conquering My Digital Realms
Some progress was made on the TF2 servers! I finally found time to copy over libcurl from my old server to do some testing, and I’m happy to say it works! I’ve started copying the remainder of the server files over. Hoping to finish up in a day or two. In other news I have more nightmare fuel:
Still on schedule for October. 😀