Latest articles & site news

updated February 3, 2012, category: Computer games

Long time no see. It's been a while since I've last written a mega-game compilation. You may believe that I've given up Linux games. Not at all. Linux gaming is alive and kicking. Not moving forward quite as fast as I'd like, but some games are making tremendous progress, others are sending awareness waves through the fabric of humanity, others yet are fresh new titles, a testament to the slow, yet persistent growth of Linux on the domestic market. More commercial games would be nice, but we're not here to debate finance or politics. Not much anyway.

Truth to be told, one day, I am going to run out of available titles for these kinds of reviews, so we will have to switch back to single game articles only. Not today. Luckily for you, I've managed to lay my hands on several more useful games, which you will probably like. Let's see what we have.

Read more ...

updated February 1, 2012, category: Greatest sites

February made me shiver, with every article I'd deliver. Now, enough Don McLean, let's focus on the bestest of the Web. I have two most worthy pages for you. One is badmovies.org, a review website dedicated to bad movies, b-movies, and cult films. It is maintained and almost exclusively written by Andrew Borntreger, Gunnery Sergeant USMC and champion of cinematic disasters, at your service. He kindly asks you not to worry about the watermelon.

The other is IEEE spectrum, the website of the largest professional technology association, with a monthly magazine for technology innovators, business leaders, and the intellectually curious. Geeky and yet not so. Would you like to know more about robots, the birth of UNIX, security, and aerospace, all combined? Well, this might be your new favorite portal.

Read more ...

updated January 30, 2012, category: Software & security

You all know that I don't like the Xfce desktop. For some reason, nearly every single implementation thereof lacks something so important, so basic. Recently, it's been hailed as the replacement for Gnome 2, the new hope for Linux users disillusioned by the cartoon fever of new touch-like interfaces so wrongly mated to the traditional desktop. But I'm skeptical.

Then, there's Dreamlinux. The last time I tried it, Dedoimedo was still having just a few hundred visits a day, I believed splitting articles into many parts to garner more clicks was a good thing to do, IPv6 was going to run out soon, and it was my first really proper review that I can recall. And yes, Dreamlinux showed some real promise. Fast-forward to now, it hasn't quite made it big, as the development has been rather slow, but I still remember the good feeling of testing and using it. Can Dreamlinux make me not hate Xfce?

Read more ...

updated January 28, 2012, category: Software & security

Windows Management Instrumentation Command-Line (WMIC) is the Windows most zealously kept secret. Why? Because Windows has had a proper command line since 2000, that is eleven years now, and yet, few people knew about WMIC, let alone used it. Belatedly, it is time to end the era of secrecy and unveil WMIC, Dedoimedo style.

In this short tutorial, I would like to show you a sample of what WMIC can do. It's a most powerful tool and it complements the existing management and administration utilities and tools, like the regular command line and PowerShell. We'll do it on Windows 8 developer preview edition, but in practice, any version of Windows will do. At work or home, you can fully locally and remotely manage your Microsoft systems from the command line. Bloody awesome.

Read more ...

updated January 27, 2012, category: Computer games

Fun over realism is the official game motto, which reminds me, it's been three years since I last wrote about this first person shooter title. As one of the most complete and popular free tactical shooters out there, it sure deserves praise and attention. It is well packaged as a product, relatively bug-free, with a simple installation, decent graphics, low requirements, a solid and growing fanbase, and most importantly, a balanced gameplay that offers something to everyone.

At the end of 2010, I included the game as one of the best free games of the year. So you have seen your share. But I will pretend there is no Urban Terror review on Dedoimedo, no awards, nor teasers, and give you a new, fresh article, based on yet another year of shooting for pleasure. Let's see what it can do.

Read more ...

updated January 25, 2012, category: Software & security

As you know, for me, openSUSE 12.1 was a flop. I was so looking forward to the distro, and then it disappointed me, on two separate occasions. On my high-end machine, the repositories were all broken, so I could not have Nvidia drivers, as Gods of the Internet intended, plus the media playback was flaky. On the low-end machine, BTRFS setup was buggy and the performance sucked. I vowed to delete the openSUSE 12.1 installation from my multi-boot setup and revert to the previous version. But then I didn't.

I decided to wait a little and see how things worked out. I knew that the repository issue was just the matter of time, which however does not diminish the significance of the earlier findings in my reviews. Approx. two months after the distribution was officially released, I connected the external disk to my laptop and fired it up. First, I enabled the Nvidia community repository, and this time it worked fine. Then, I ran zypper and let it grab everything.

Read more ...

updated January 23, 2012, category: Software & security

Several people asked me to review Razor-qt. This is the name of an advanced, easy to use, and fast desktop environment based on Qt technologies. It has been tailored for users who value simplicity, speed, and an intuitive interface. Unlike most desktop environments, Razor-qt also works fine with weak machines. So the brochure says.

Now, I'm intrigued. Could the menu live up to the actual course? And what's with the weird title, you may ask. Well, there's so much pun there, it's stunning. Think about it carefully, you might figure it out. Now, Razor-qt. I do think it could perhaps be what Trinity isn't. Let's see.

Read more ...

updated January 21, 2012, category: Software & security

Like Kororaa, Pear OS came up on my TODO list following a squall of emails. All right, let's take a look, me says. Indeed, the prospect is promising. Pear OS is based on the latest Ubuntu, which is quite neat. However, it tries to do even more. Challenge legal issue by using yet another bitten fruit as its logo, use the top panel contextual reveal-as-needed menu and a bottom dock much alike the copycatted operating system in question. And you still get the Gnome Shell underneath, plus supposedly tons of usability, a unique branding, and an app store.

Now I promised not to test any more Gnome 3.X distros, but this more sort of falls under the hat of Ubuntu than anything else, so I believe I can be excused. Anyhow, I'll be doing my usual stuff, which is everything. Join me for a ride. Or as they say in French, tais-toi!

Read more ...

updated January 20, 2012, category: Software & security

Just as I thought the storm has passed, there comes another upgrade for CentOS, this time version 6.2. My CentOS 6.1 box is working fabulously after a rather painless procedure that took only about fifteen minutes to complete. The one problem was the Nvidia driver, which was not installed for the latest kernel, so I had to grab it and install it again.

Armored with confidence and experience, I set about repeating the upgrade procedure, only this time, I made sure that Nvidia kernel module was installed, so that it would be included with the rest of the packages. Indeed, this is going to be an interesting test in usability. Anyhow, let's see how well I fared here, moving from CentOS 6.1 to 6.2. Follow me, dear geeks.

Read more ...

updated January 16, 2012, category: Life topics

Gud and Gid were small crooks with big ambitions. When they had been told by that blind galley trader from overseas that they could win lots of gold without much sweat or risk, it had not taken them long to decide and go for it.

They had first reached the fence of rusted wire with signboards hung at even intervals, reading a warning not to go beyond. Since they could not read, the threat written in dry blood on those old panels did not repel them, and so they had cut a section and trespassed, hurrying onwards. They totally missed the skeletons, some human and some animal, half-buried in the white dust of the huge bleak desert they were invading.

Read more ...

updated January 14, 2012, category: Software & security

Most people do not take an active part in contributing to the environment. In fact, on the contrary, most people actively help destroy the planet, without even being aware of their maltribution. And yet, most people like to feel good about themselves at the end of the day, which is why you have people donating to charities and humanitarian organizations, animal shelters, universities, and other bodies that do the actual hard work in their place. You pay to feel good, so it seems rather all right in the long run.

While I think most of our benevolent efforts are misplaced, it's the caring and the effort at making an effort that count. It's even better if you don't have to step out of your way. You do what you normally do, and yet you help. That sounds great. And that is what Ecosia is mostly about. Ecosia is a green search engine, running on green energy and dedicated to giving out 80% of its revenue to rainforest protection programs. Your web searches double as an ecological contribution. You were going to search anyway, so why not be noble about it?

Read more ...

updated January 13, 2012, category: Software & security

This is a hot topic. You perform various installations and operations inside virtual machines using VirtualBox and you want to take screenshots documenting your activities. In the VMware range of virtualization products, the screenshot feature is present in the system menu, so it's a very simple thing of doing that. In VirtualBox, there is no such option available. This means you must resort to taking screenshots using the host utilities, like various screenshot programs, PrtScrn or Alt+PrtScrn, and other key combos. Not always simple, but the biggest problem is that VirtualBox treats a part of its interface as the guest operating system screen space. And thus, your screenshots never come out clean.

All right, all of this tells us what the problem is. You want to be able to take screenshots of your guest systems from the outside, without sharing folders and having to copy & paste screenshots from inside the virtual machines to the host. You want some functionality on your host that will take screenshots, excluding the inner VirtualBox border that affects screenshots. Can this be done? The answer is, yes, since version 4.0. Follow me.

Read more ...

updated January 11, 2012, category: Software & security

Note, the misspelling is intentional. Deductive reasoning, the insight into an angry geek's psyche, by Dr. Kackensprecher. Do you know what's worse than being abducted by aliens and anally probed? It's making a mistake in a forum post or a blog article dealing in software. Do you know why? Because the first is highly unlikely to happen, while the second is not only probable and common, it will haunt you forever, until the last proton has decayed and turned into a quark soup.

This article tells the tale of the unforgivable sin - the tiny technical glitch in a software review, which never escapes the vigilante radar of dissatisfied readers. Woe the user who makes the mistake of making a mistake. It's an almost recursive problem. And you'd better be ready for the barrage of hatred that will ensue, for you have justed erred.

Read more ...

updated January 9, 2012, category: Software & security

First, there's gonna be a 6.2 upgrade article, too, so relax. Now, normally, I never upgrade Linux versions from within a running operating system using the package manager. My experience shows that this procedure is usually rift with bugs and problems, ending in a system that is not suitable for production use. Which makes my decision to attempt just that with CentOS all the more intriguing.

But CentOS is a pillar of stability, a recent addition to my desktop arsenal. Long awaited and long supported, it is simple, light and fast. Moreover, there are no problems and issues that usually plague most of the competition. Hence, the silver medal in the 2011 best distro competition. Now, the only thing I have never checked is how well it copes with an upgrade. Now that CentOS 6.1 is out, this is the perfect opportunity to check that. In a way, this is a mini-review if you will, but mostly the tale of my upgrade.

Read more ...

updated January 7, 2012, category: Model planes

F-16 is arguably one of the most popular fighter jets in the world. It has gained fame through war and cinema. From Lebanon via Afghanistan to Balkans, F-16 was used in anger more than any other Western combat jet. At the same time, in the silver screen halls worldwide, teens cheered to Iron Eagle 1 through 7,555 as their movie peers flew the aircraft into combat zones with nothing but a handsome pair of sunglasses, a walkman and possibly a G-suit. Oh, the good ole 80s.

Now, I specifically wrote General Dynamics - and some of you may try to correct me by saying that it is Lockheed Martin that owns the company now. True, but back then, it was still General Dynamics. So don't be too angry about it, will you. Anyhow, this plane made so much noise, it became a legend, more so than King Arthur. It was used in the hands of the Israelis to shoot down 44 Syrian aircraft without a single loss, it even bombed a nuclear reactor, it fought in Afghanistan and both Gulf Wars, and it engaged Serbian fighters in Bosnia and Kosovo. Busy little bee, Fighting Falcon.

Read more ...

updated January 6, 2012, category: Software & security

What if your sex life resembled Linux in some way? What if words like long-term support, desktop, kernel, and window manager were some kind of a naughty analogy to how our sex life looks like and vice versa? What if someone asked you to illustrate this? What would you say?

No one asked me to do this, but I did this anyway. Ladies and gentlemen, Dedoimedo proud presents The Linux sex life - An illustrated story, a comic strip portraying the sex life as one big Linux innuendo. The story is available as nine individual images or one gigantic 680x4704px roll. Drums please.

Read more ...

updated January 4, 2012, category: Software & security

Two things I have to say to you! One, I've received more emails asking me to test Kororaa than any other distribution. The second one is, I'm angry with the Kororaa development team. They released two versions just a couple of weeks apart, naughty men. As I was collecting screenshots for this review, on top of Kororaa 15.1 Squirt, I learned that a new edition was made available, numbered sweet 16. A dilemma, then. What to do, what to do? Delete and start over? No, I proceeded with the original work.

All right, theatric tantrums aside, this is going to be a review of Kororaa 15.1 Squirt, the one before the last edition. I hope you will be able to project onto the latest version, and if not, several dozen more emails might convince me to write another review. Anyhow, Kororaa is a Fedora remix, spin, fork, spoon, whatever you want to call it. So it embraces the geeky and tries to make it fun. Been there, done that, not always works. What about now?

Read more ...

updated January 2, 2012, category: Life topics

Dear readers, I need some help/opinion from you again. If you recall, a few months back, I asked you to assist me in choosing the pen name for my book. Your valuable input swayed my mind, and I'm grateful for your votes. Now, there's another dilemma I'd like to solve with the democracy ballot. I'm going to publish three sample chapters for free, so that you can decide whether the book might be of any interest to you.

Oh, by the way, the book website will be up and running soon. Yes, the book itself is almost ready for print. And I have another surprise up the sleeve, but I cannot disclose it yet. Back on topic, I need to know what kind of chapters you'd like to see. There's the traditional school of first chapters and the radical sect of random pages. Either one works, but what do you prefer?

Read more ...

updated January 2, 2012, category: Software & security

You will sometimes hear geeks mention this three-word phrase and you might be impressed. The question is, now that your curiosity is piqued, what does it really mean and do you need it? Hopefully, today, I will be able to teach you when you might consider using low level formating, what it is good for and how to safely execute it.

Low level formatting is a hard disk operation that should make recovering data from your storage devices impossible once the operation is complete. It sounds like something you might want to do if giving away a hard disk or perhaps discarding an old computer that may have contained useful and important, private information. All right, let's take a closer look and try to figure out how we can go about geeking, safely and smartly.

Read more ...

updated December 31, 2011, category: Software & security

First of all, Happy New Year! Good. Now, in theory, we could have an infinite number of CentOS pimping articles, each focusing on a seemingly random collection of programs that are not so easily found in the repositories or that might require some special tweaks to properly setup. Not true. These pimping guides all have a higher purpose, including teaching you more about CentOS internals, exposing you to new features in Linux, how to work with external repositories, as well as configure popular and useful programs.

So far, we've had the basic review, the perfect desktop guide, the setup on my laptop, and the aforementioned, first pimping article. Now, we will focus on yet more useful, popular programs that most Linux users would need or require. CentOS is a great operating system, but it sometimes does not need some extra olive oil or paprika to digest with grace. The quantum leap of stability and long-term support is there, we know how to manage extra sources, so we focus on the cool and bling-blingy stuff. Follow me for another round of goodness, if you please.

Read more ...

updated December 30, 2011, category: Software & security

DAZ 3D Daz Studio 4 is another little 3D art gem you've probably never heard of, unless you're into modeling and rendering like myself. If so, this nifty little program shall definitely interest you. Or as the official motto reads, unleash the artist within. He or she may be small, but definitely fierce, the artist, that is. Ahem.

DAZ Studio is specifically tailored to help you create 3D figure illustrations and animations, the kind of work you will probably struggle in most other programs like Google SketchUp or POV-Ray, unless you're extremely talented and skilled. As such, it seems like the perfect complement to more rigid, straight-line oriented software. Well, let's see what it can do.

Read more ...

updated December 29, 2011, category: Software & security

Today, I would like to talk to you about personalizing Windows 8. This new Microsoft operating system comes with a handful of new features, options and settings that existing Windows users are not quite familiar with. Or rather, they are arranged and displayed in a different manner, making a transition more difficult.

We will learn how to configure the desktop to our liking, including working with the tile-like Metro interface, the new control panel, notifications, how to search for your programs and files, adding and removing Windows features, download statistics, gadgets, app history, and more. The list is far from being complete, but it's the first of tours that should help you get around this new operating system. After me.

Read more ...

updated December 26, 2011, category: Software & security

End of the year, the final scores. Let me tell you my version of the best of the best, for Linux distributions that came to be in 2011. In 2009, I used several categories likes security, updates, performance, and others to grade different distributions, and then summed the score. In 2010, I simply gave you my interpretation, with various usage models as the crucial factor. This year, we will do a simple countdown, with top five nominees rated and listed.

Overall, 2011 was not a good year for Linux. Many a distribution flopped, with a significant decrease in quality. Gnome 3 virtually killed half the desktop base, and Unity did not help much either. There was quite a bit of forking and reforking, with old, classic names fading into obscurity and irrelevance. The next-year dream of Linux dominance is probably not going to happen, not in its current form anyway. Without further ado, let's declare the winners.

Read more ...

updated December 24, 2011, category: 3D art

For those unfamiliar with the name, Mechwarrior, also spelled MechWarrior is a profession in the fictional universe of BattleTech. In the mid-90s, there came a whole bunch of lovely DOS games, where you could be the said warrior and pilot BattleMechs, large robotic war machines that look somewhat like those bi-pedal monsters in Star Wars, which happened to be sexually assaulted by wookiees in the last installment of the much overrated series. Now, profession and fiction aside, these robots make for excellent 3D models, which is what I did.

The Mechwarrior is one of my latest models. I completed the model only this year, so it did not gather much proverbial dust on the hard disk before publication. Like my recent starship model, this one belongs in the whole new era of proper, realistic rendering with Kerkythea. So it's stunning imagery from the start, plus some fancy GIMP effects designed to add drama. And we shall have some commentary too. Follow me.

Read more ...

updated December 23, 2011, category: Life topics

Welcome to Trolling, the new strategy by Dr. Kackensprecher aimed at garnering clicks. In this fine article, we will learn all the subtle and not so subtle ways of destabilizing the mental state of people with a high emotional dependence on software. Stockholm Syndrome, in the digital format.

Many a geek worldwide has his/her (mostly his) favorite software. But this goes beyond having the best tool of the trade, the most suitable piece of engineering suited for the task at hand. The feeling transcends into the realm of severe psychological addiction. And so it happens that this addiction creates an instant and violent response to even the slightest manifestation of difference in taste or opinion toward said software. This sounds like a splendid opportunity to have fun. So let's learn the best way to make fanboys angry.

Read more ...

updated December 23, 2011, category: Software & security

I have added several new items into the Updates section. Namely, GRUB is officially at version 1.99 and comes with a few more changes. The important cosmetic fix is that additional, older versions of the kernel are all listed under a single directory-like entry, making the menu easier to read. Moreover, Ubuntu comes with a high-resolution menu and smaller font size.

But that's not all. We also have Fedora 16 Verne changes. We learn how to update the GRUB configuration file and how to edit default entry and timeout in the boot menu inside the 00_header script. If you feel there ought to be a whole new and separate Fedora tutorial, do shout. Finally, we also discuss Xen setup in a multi-boot configuration.

Read more ...

updated December 21, 2011, category: Software & security

In the past few weeks, I've spent some time dabbling with MATE, the new Gnome 2 fork slowly gaining momentum in the Linux world. MATE is designed to be, and let me quote the author, a non-intuitive and unattractive desktop for users, using traditional computing desktop metaphor. It might be just what everyone needs.

My Linux Mint 12 reviews, available hither and thither, show just how bad Gnome 3 is. If Linux Mint fails, then we have a serious problem. An abomination really. Well, maybe MATE can save the day. It's unto Gnome 3 what Trinity is unto KDE4. But then, I did not quite like Trinity, nor do I think it has any future in the desktop world. And yes, it's likely that distro developers have written off Gnome 2 forever and that MATE will never gain the critical mass of users required to sustain it and that it may yet fade into obscurity. For now, though, it's a beacon of hope in a bleak maze of code.

Read more ...

updated December 19, 2011, category: Computer games

UrbanTerror is a great, free First Person Shooter. It is also highly portable between systems. All of it comes zipped in a single archive that includes both Windows and Linux binaries, 32-bit and 64-bit. So all of what you need to get it running is to download the archive, extract it and then fire up the relevant file. I play the game quite often and like it very much. You can read my review if you like, and I promise, a new one is coming soon, plus I did choose it as one of the top five games of 2010. Things are looking good.

However, sometimes, UrbanTerror will refuse to run. There are two major problems that you may encounter with the game. Specifically, we will handle two errors: menudef.h not found and No server list from master server. In this troubleshooting article, I will try to provide you with answers that should help you get UrbanTerror running. Follow me.

Read more ...

updated December 19, 2011, category: Computer games

I have completely retouched the game review with new screenshots in much higher resolution and better quality, plus now it comes with a whole new set of Youtube videos, captured in 1920x1080px resolution. I think you will like these more than the older batch. Plus you get some fancy effects, like slow motion and whatnot.

For those of you who might have missed the original review, then here's the brief summary: LFS features the most advanced, most realistic physics engine I've encountered in any racing simulator. Even though I'm fairly skilled with words, I have trouble expressing the magnitude of quality this game brings. You have everything, a proper 3.4-turn steering, understeer on front-wheel vehicles, the torque twist when shifting gears aggressively, the squeal of tires, tire flexing, the locking of wheels when braking too hard, the absolutely perfect motion physics matched to individual cars, it's all there. Now, read on.

Read more ...

Copyright @ Dedoimedo.com 2006-2012; all rights reserved