My adventures in trying to figure out why I can’t get the TF2 servers up and running on AlmaLinux have felt akin to running through a maze of infinite walls, but I may have possibly found the problem. So far it looks like it might be due to a newer libcurl library. I’m going to pirate the libraries from my CentOS7 install for a little experimentation. That’s something I’ll have to save for next week… I’m in need of a break. I haven’t played anything, or done any animation… I might have to pick a game out after work tomorrow to chillax.
Linux
Meanwhile… On My Corner Of The Interwebz
I got the Quake III Arena Servers up and running last night, and tonight I spun up VM for the GMod Servers. I pretty much have everything in place other than the server files; I’ll work on transferring them over and setting it all up the rest of the way. If I don’t get stuck in dependency hell I should have both GMod’s up and running tomorrow evening under Alma. The old VM for GMod was at 95% on disk space. I took out GMod Cinema to make room, and also expanded for potential future servers. I’ve been thinking one of these weekends I’d like to see what other Gamemodes GMod has to offer; perhaps even gather some Slackers together to do some science!
Pressing Forward, Laying Backwards
Did more server work this evening. I made a backup of the current gameserver files, and got Samba up and running under AlmaLinux to perform the file transfer. It was fun trying to remember how it all worked — I haven’t setup a Samba share in an eternity. One of the problems with setting up a Linux server is that once you have it deployed it remains reliable (when configured properly) enough that when it comes time to upgrade or switch OS’s it’s fun trying to remember what to setup, what to give permissions to, etc.
Tomorrow’s goal will be to boot the Quake III Servers. It’ll give me a potential excuse to shoot some shit, and old school! Shit… that means I’m gonna have to mod Quake to run in 4K! XD
And So It Begins
I’ve started work on a new VM today! I’ve only setup a blank AlmaLinux install so far, but the building blocks are there for me to continue another day, hopefully tomorrow. I don’t have much else to write, as that was most of my evening. I’d like to get started on transferring files over to start the Quake 3 Servers, then I can focus on the Gmod and L4D VM’s.
Future Plans For Future Me
Sometime in the not too distant future I will be upgrading my Linux servers, both my webserver and my game servers. I’m currently running all of my servers on CentOS 7, which is getting its support dropped at the end of the year along with CentOS 8. I could upgrade to CentOS Stream, but it updates far too frequently for me to run it as a server distro. So far I’m leaning towards switching to AlmaLinux — I should be able to follow the same procedures used to setup CentOS 8 to get everything back up and running on new builds. I’m prepping to do the webserver first, so if anyone happens to see a blank void where a website once stood, fret not. I will always return in the evening to complain about dependency hell.
Pining For Pine!
One of the many things keeping me from investing in a proper smartphone is the severe lack of control for the end user; you either have to sign up with Apple or Google if you want to use any apps, or you sideload all of your apps from an outside source (which can be risky if you don’t know what you’re downloading). I want a phone that functions like all of my other devices, and when Android was announced in what feels like an eternity ago I thought it was a novel idea to carry around a Linux powered phone. Of course, Android is just Creepy Uncle Google’s competitor against iOS, a version of Linux turned evil by those who claimed not to at one point. If there was a smartphone that offered the same level of customization without rooting/jailbreaking I would of have jumped on the smartphone bandwagon an eternity ago… and now something interesting this way comes.
I’ve been following Pine64 for awhile now, and so far the PinePhone seems to be the most viable option. It doesn’t offer much for the built in camera, but I wouldn’t really be using a phone for a camera when I prefer using kick ass cameras, but I do admire the idea of having physical kill switches for the microphone and camera functions. Of course, the best part for me is being able to swap out a MicroSD card with any Linux OS of my choice! By default it comes with Manjaro, and powered by KDE Plasma for the interface. I’m not ready to drop the cash on this project just yet though… I like the idea, but it’s still in the beta phase. I’ll be keeping an eye on things, and if it meets my standards in reviews I’ll snag one before it rolls out of beta. I would like a phone that I could just update via a main repository (and any other swag) like under typical desktop Linux.
That said… I am in need of a watch! and the smartwatch business never really interested me for a lot of the same reasons that persist with smartphones and most tablets: having to sign up for shit. FitBit, Apple, and others all track your steps and other analytical data that your device is capable of picking up. I’m well aware that the PineWatch isn’t as sophisticated as such other devices, but for what I want a smartwatch is going to be overkill. Give me something that tells time, tracks steps, and lets me program the shit out of it! The watch itself is a decent $26 at the time of writing about this, and if you want to do extra level tinkering, you can also purchase the devkit version containing a regular watch and an unsealed version for you to perform mad science experiments upon. For now I don’t think I don’t think I’ll be doing anything outside of swapping firmware depending on what version of infinitime the watch is running. I’ve also been hearing good things about WaspOS, as well.
I’ll do a follow up once the latter device is in my possession. 😀
Ok… I Did It.
I was showing the specs of the upcoming Steam Deck to a friend of mine the other day, when I happened to notice the pre-order date had been extended (despite ending in July according to the official site). I’ve been reading up on the hardware, and admire Valve’s dedication, and even working alongside AMD for this project. I decided since the actual money doesn’t go out until these are ready I said to myself “screw it!” I’ll get in line to pre-order one of these (512GB model for obvious reasons)! I know I would be able to utilize it accordingly, and it would be an absolute bonus if I got my hands on it before a holiday trip next year! It will be interesting to see how many units sell, and if it helps add to the Linux Gaming Marketshare.
The Steam Boy Is The Steam Deck
I. Fucking. Want. This.
They have the Steam Deck in three different storage sizes, and for the most part the hardware is pretty solid. It also has an optional dock that you can purchase, similar to the Nintendo Switch.
I’m not going to pre-order, but I do want to see where this goes. I don’t see this replacing my gaming laptop or Linux Surface, but it would be nice to have a tiny gaming handheld for long car trips and other situations where I’m forced to sit down and do nothing…
A Ghost In A 3D Printed Shell
I decided to try one of the many games I haven’t touched in my library, and my magical dartboard of destiny landed on Ghost 1.0, a metroidvania meets megaman type of game that isn’t afraid to make fun of itself:
Your name is Ghost, and you’re on a mission to steal the greatest electronic secret ever hidden on the Nakamura Space Station. Primarily you remote control an android that can be rebuilt via 3D Printing should you die. You can also use your mysterious unexplained digital ghost powers to possess different robots and androids on the Space Station to solve puzzles, or clear things out ahead of time.
It handles nicely under Linux, even on my Linux Surface Tablet! It runs as if it were made for it!
Aside from your typical powerups and weapons, you also have upgrades and… geeks? I found a geek item while playing a little bit ago, and equipping it seems to emit a weird scream anytime you’re damaged by an enemy.
You can also collect skill points to apply to certain skill trees. You can improve your chassis or your ghost abilities. You can also level up Jacker and Boogan, the ones that hired you to take on this cray cray adventure. Boogan is your technical specialist, and Jacker is a hacker . 😛 You can also improve things for yourself around the space station, but so far I’ve mainly focused on chassis upgrades.
So far the game has been fun, challenging, and funny enough for me to forgive the voice acting in certain spots. Perhaps I’ll will myself through this game on another weekend, and maybe also during a long trip on my tablet! I can finally tell the co-worker that gifted this to me that I love it! 😛 If you like metroidvania style games you might want to consider looking this one up.
From Stage 1 To Stage 2
I successfully rendered the first part of my animation yesterday, and now I’m working on the other half of the scenes. Yutram was away from his usual computer when I was doing this particular livestream, thus he had to rely on his laptop microphone, which is better than nothing but a bit of an obstacle when thinking about how to animate it, fortunately my imagination is always working on overtime. The audio quality is such that it wouldn’t look right if we were both in the same room, so I’ve opted to have us both in different locations.
I have more animating to pick up on tomorrow. Fortunately Yutram’s Minecraft body is easy to work with (and less creepier than Steve, fuck Steve), at least for now. 😛