The little Inn by the wayside

[eMTe]

We experience a funny period in our bookstore. We are lucky to have the book (only one unfortunately) written by Mo Yan, a Nobel Prize winner. But, we are even luckier - we are the only bookstore in Cracow to have it - nobody expected him to win. It will take time for editors to reprint all his books and push them into regular bookstores. So we take advantage of the fact as long as we can. What is funny is that books by certain Ma Jian also sell better. My conscience trembles for a milisecond when a guy approaches me with two books by Ma Jian, but the sadistic nature quickly wins and I remain silent.

[Zyx]

So, uh, if you only have one book, do you then, like, rent it out or what?

I'm in a funny mood, because I might have fever, I'm high on ibuprofen, and I'm quite sure that in couple of hours my boss will probably be like this guy (but not towards me). Trying to be funny is my coping strategy.

[Drasir-Vel]

This post is just a long rambling about my experience recently with installing Linux. Feel free to skip if you want.

With me not liking the way Windows is going, be that a reasonable dislike or not, i've tried getting over to Linux a few times in the past, but every time, i've gotten back to Windows because i was a annoyed at how i felt things were fiddly and unintuitive.

I'm still using Windows XP because i feel that it uses less system resources on my computer than Windows 7 would. I prefer the operating system to be a minimally resource intensive tool for accessing other things.

This time i decided to try Ubuntu again. But i decided to install it on a secondary partition, so i could use it as much or little as i wanted. I was a bit wary if i could resize the system partition which took up the whole of my harddisk without loosing data, but i found that that would be no problem. I downloaded GParted, burned it as a bootable disk, and resized no problem. The only noticeable effect was that Windows ran checkdisk at startup, but everything worked fine.

I had a lot of figuring out to with file structure, installing, terminal and all that, and i reinstalled Ubuntu a bunch of times. I also tried Debian at one point because i thought, that due to it being the original OS which Ubuntu was based upon, it would be more optimized. It turned out that i couldn't get my wireless network card drivers to work for Debian. They worked for Ubuntu

At that point i realized that what's more important for an OS is how many people use it. Because as more people use it, more people find problems with it. The more people find problems with it, the more people find solutions for it, and share those solutions. And the more people use it, the more hardware gets supported by it. Ubuntu is known as being the Linux distribution used by most people.

I went back to Ubuntu, but i decided i only wanted to install it barebones, ie. nothing but the basic OS, so i found a guide that told me what to do. Install the packages linux-generic and ubuntu-minimal. That gave me the basic Ubuntu OS with no desktop environment (only command line). I would then install Xorg the display engine and lightdm a lightweight login screen.

There are several desktop environments to choose between, Gnome being the standard. But i decided to go with Xfce because it focuses on being lightweight, and also because in it's file manager Thunar i could set it to display the filepath as text instead of buttons (easier when copying the filepath).

The rest was just installing a network manager and package manager. Then i had a fresh desktop. I currently have installed Libre Office, Skype, Dropbox (no tray icon though), VLC Media Player, and a bunch of other programs.

I haven't used Windows for a few days, so maybe i've started shuffling a bit around on ice like all the other penguins

[jayenkai]

Quick reminder : Some of my Most Popular games are available in Linux flavours. Click Mr Penguin for a splash of insanity!

Today, my new laptop arrived. I spent most of the day installing all those overly useful apps that you need, and trying desperately to remember them all, whilst simultaneously struggling against the touchpad. First ever laptop. Damn thing's driving me bonkers. Quite how people can cope without a proper mouse is beyond me!

With any luck, the laptop should help kickstart me back into gear, properly.
Or, at least, I hope it will!

[Drasir-Vel]

Cool. Awesome to find games for linux.
Using a mouse is definately necessary. I have a small netbook, and i always have a mouse with me, and use it when i can.

[jayenkai]

Interviewed!
\o/yeay\o/

*shrugs*

[Scythe]

Cool beans.

[Chroelle]

Verdammt - it seems we never got around to interviewing you. It seems somewhat hilarious that we still have an interview section when the developers we have the most contact with are not covered in there. Oh and also that it hasn't gotten any new content in YEARS. I wonder who is responsible for that sectio...nevermind...

[Pater Alf]

We could easily fake an interview with jayenkai. Let's simpl ytake his forum posts and think about which questions they might match. That could become a fun thing...

[eMTe]

The photo guy seems to have little experience with his job. Also, they cut out the part about a couple of your games being available from CWF. Otherwise it's the neat interview. I especially like this part:

"I ran out of ideas a long long time ago!"

[Railwaymodeler]

Has been a very, very rough weekend for Maria and I.

One of our old friends, whom we've known for seven years, is in critical condition, in and out of a coma, in the hospital. She lived in the same apartment building as I did, before I moved into my current home. She lived with her dad, even though she was (at the time) in her late 30s. Her dad was a violent drunk, but she moved in to help take care of him following her divorce.

Well, Maria and I have helped her out wherever we could, trying to get her off the beer and hard liquor, especially because her dad's death was from alcohol. Had one too many.

She recently attempted suicide, as the low-income apartment building has some real nasty criminals in it. One of them, its (I don't consider these vermin human, and animal is too good for 'em too!), mother was the mayor of a nearby town. She was a very good liar, and avoided prison time for corrupt, crooked dealing. She also forced out my friend Bob's hobby shop, citing she did not want "white businesses" in her town.

Her son lives in the same building as this girl, Stephanie. This thug was violently beating her, especially after she made it clear she was not interested in a relationship. The thug is a known drug dealer and sex offender, and has evaded prison time by being a very good liar and crook.

Well, Stephanie attemped suicide because of this punk and its friends. Only now are he police looking closer into what goes on over there. For a long time, they've suspected a lot, but were unable to prove much. Maria and I have put the pressure on the police now to do something before there are more victims.

Her suicide attempt was not entirely successful. She tried to drink anti freeze, her kidneys, brain, and heart are trashed, but she is on life support for now. This has been a very upsetting experience for everyone.

Maria and her used to talk at length quite often about what was wrong in her life. She's pretty upset that criminal thugs caused this. I've made it clear to the police that if they do not deal with this, Maria and I will deal with it ourselves.

[jayenkai]

ugh, hospitals.. nngh..
I hope your friend gets better, soon. Sucks when shit happens, but it usually does.

Looking forward to my Jeopardy-style interview!

[Zyx]

Good news everybody! Next week I'll be starting at RedLynx, which these days is a Ubisoft studio and most famous for the Trials series.

This shouldn't affect anything on these forums, except ... seriously, I'll be working at a game company, how cool is that?

So, uh, what do you guys think about Assassin's Creed III? I've heard it's going to be the bestest game ever and you should definitely pre-order it for all platforms. Maybe twice, just to be sure.

[jayenkai]

*Applaudes*

\o/yeay\o/

[Scythe]

So, uh, what do you guys think about Assassin's Creed III? I've heard it's going to be the bestest game ever and you should definitely pre-order it for all platforms. Maybe twice, just to be sure.

Well, since I own AC1, AC2, AC:B, and AC:R, there should be a chance of me getting AC3 as well. But then I was probably going to anyway.

[eMTe]

I'll be working at a game company, how cool is that?

I doubt it's as cool as working in a bookstore, but I wish you all the best.

[Railwaymodeler]

This shouldn't affect anything on these forums, except ... seriously, I'll be working at a game company, how cool is that?

I wish you the best at your new job. I just hope you don't burn out of games now that you work with them professionally.

I once was offered a job making architectural models some years ago before I opened my computer store. It was tempting, and the company offered very good wages because of my skill coming in, but in the end, I turned the offer down, as I knew I would burn out making models at a day job, then coming home and doing the same thing.

In other news today, my friend is recovering quickly now. Yesterday there was some talk of pulling her from life support. So far, she can breathe, talk, and her heart is pumping blood on its own now. Just the kidneys are the concern at this point, and she is no longer in critical condition, so tomorrow, Maria and I are going to visit her. I don't think she has met Skoda yet, so we'll bring her too.

Miracles do happen! So far she has recovered better than the doctors expected, and is continuing to make progress.

[eMTe]

Good that she feels better. It doesn't change the fact though that sometimes when I read your posts I think "this guy lives in Caracas, not in Illinois". Violence and corruption everywhere. US is truly strange and diverse country.

[Railwaymodeler]

I know, eMTe. Illinois is a very crooked, corrupt, place. Quite often Maria, being from Colombia, compares this part of the state to Colombia.

Once you get away from the Chicago area, Illinois is actually quite nice. My mother's side of the family, between them all, own quite a lot of land in West Central Illinois. Farmers and ranchers for the most part. Most of the towns out that way, the tallest building is a grain elevator, and the overall feeling in these towns is that they are frozen in the 1950s. That is the kind of place I feel at home at. Waukegan here might be where I have my mail sent to and where I hang my hat at night, but home is either small farming towns or the Northwoods of far north Wisconsin. One of those places is where I belong, and Maria feels the same way.

[Zyx]

I wish you the best at your new job. I just hope you don't burn out of games now that you work with them professionally.

Thanks, I've been working in (low) finance for the past four years so burning out is something I'm quite well aware of. My colleague here in my current job finally called it quits earlier this year, and just three months later he had shed more then 10 kg, his skin conditions was healed and he was... smiling. I've read that the average career in game industry is around 7 years, so it can be really stressful job environment.

The good thing is that while I'm going to have a part in making games, I'm not actually making them. My skills are in the business intelligence and analysis side, which are becoming more and more important now that games are serious business. I hope the development hell doesn't extend to that side as well...

In other news today, my friend is recovering quickly now. Yesterday there was some talk of pulling her from life support. So far, she can breathe, talk, and her heart is pumping blood on its own now. Just the kidneys are the concern at this point, and she is no longer in critical condition, so tomorrow, Maria and I are going to visit her. I don't think she has met Skoda yet, so we'll bring her too.

That is great to hear, because way too often that kind of botched suicides end up in spending couple of agonizing years in a hospital bed until the internal organs finally mercifully fail. How is she mentally doing?