The Linux.uk Community Forum

Argh, no!

ALL the formating buttons have gone.
[spoiler]Though it works if you've already memorised the code.[/spoiler]
EDIT: And the spoilers should really have a [show] button, the 'hover to show' thing doesn't work for me and feels unapplealing anyway.

Incase the spoiler thing doens't work for you either:
"Though it works if you've already memorised the code."

Done.

Now I just need to work out what all this stuff does and how to use it all.
(It's added an asdfgh lot of apps!)

Thanks.

So . . . If I want Ubuntu studio, I have to make a new DVD boot disk, and install it like it was a completely new distro, no chance of 'upgrading' my current Ubuntu? Shame, but oh-well. :/

On that note, if I'm putting a new Debian distro on, can't I just have to wipe itself over both my Ubuntu partitions, and GRUB will still load with Ubuntu Studio the default OS booted?

And when you say back-up, I have a phone with 20GB of space and another 9 blank DVDs, but would temporarily shifting everything to my Windows partition make it safe, if I then made sure I didn't touch that partition? Or do I even have to back that up?
(The only thing I'd want to keep is my 16GB home folder, and my Steam folder (I don't fancy reinstalling the Orange box and downloading all my custom skins again, but then I also don't really want to back-up the 20GB Source engine, so that could go . . .)

Two suggestions:

First, it might be an idea to separate the General Discussion section into a General Discussion (for stuff like discussing which distro is better, what Mac gaming means for linux, etc.) forum & Truly Off-Topic (for stuff like discussing which was the best Star Trek captain, "Hello, I'm . . ." topics, etc.)

Secondly, a spoiler feature for posts. They're very useful when formatting your post.

http://forums.nom-nom-nom.us/topic/3006-funny-chat-logs/page__st__240

See how many of them have posted massive chat logs, then put them in spoilers to organise their post and so they don't take up half the web page.

http://forum.linux.co.uk/index.php/topic,262.0.html

Here, my screen caps would have been 5 times bigger than my post, and would have hidden the text I put in the middle, I would have liked to have put them in spoilers to hide them, but I had to use links instead.

(Also, is the verification thing really necessary on every post? Surly only new topics should need this. :p)

I recently got into recording & modeling, which has drawn my attention to Ubuntu Studio. I was assuming I'd just be able to add the extra programs & other features to my current Ubuntu 9.10, but apparently not. However, installing another OS on this computer needs some planning first, and I've become a little lost.

I have a desktop with one 500GB hard disk in it, a 64 bit 2 core CPU (core2duo), with 4GB RAM & a 1GB 8800 GPU.
I'd been dual booting Windows 7 & Ubuntu 9.10 for a few months, until I got a wireless card. Once I finally got it online (which took a while), I found Windows hadn't been activated, and it was well beyond 30 days after installation, so it decided to lock itself, meaning I couldn't install the new wireless driver. I managed to get Windows do a fresh install over itself & start over (I moved anything of interest to my Ubuntu partition). However, it also removed GRUB, so I had no way of getting to Ubuntu, and therefore the Internet (I had downloaded the beta Win7x64 driver, but I saved it to my home folder in Ubuntu, which windows can't touch ¬¬). With no way to call for help online, I decided to reinstall Ubuntu again on a tiny partition, just to get GRUB to boot. Now I have some 13 OS's to choose from at startup from previous Ubuntu updates (where the automatically selected one is the tiny partition) and my whole hard drive is a mess:

http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/166/screenshot5k.png

Seems to be my currently used Ubuntu partition.

http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/4447/screenshot6k.png

My Windows 7 partition. Also some other Linux partition . . . not sure what it's for . . .

http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/8538/screenshot7bo.png

Presumably, the tiny Ubuntu partition I installed to get GRUB to work. Seems to have a broken link to my home folder.

First of all, for those who don't know, Steam is the biggest (and probably only significant) online games publisher. You buy games on their online store (or register them with the Product key that came with the disk) and they get added to your account, which you can then play on any computer with internet access, provided you're willing to download them, of course. ;p
It's developed & run by Valve and is great for gamers & developers as it's often cheaper than street stores and it also gives a MUCH bigger profit share back to developers). Valve is a game developing company that was founded by two ex-Microsoft employees and are the makers of Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Portal, Left4Dead and the engine they're based off, Source. Naturally, as Gabe Noel & Robin Walker (the founders) were formally core Microsoft developers, their games used DirectX and Steam was just a glorified Internet Explorer. But . . .

http://forums.nom-nom-nom.us/topic/4698-steam-on-mac-is-official/

http://store.steampowered.com/news/3569/

QuoteLeading Gaming Service Expands to Mac Platform

Valve announced today it will bring Steam, Valve's gaming service, and Source, Valve's gaming engine, to the Mac.

Steam and Valve's library of games including Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the Half-Life series will be available in April.

"As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality Internet clients," said Gabe Newell, President of Valve. "The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services."

"Our Steam partners, who are delivering over a thousand games to 25 million Steam clients, are very excited about adding support for the Mac," said Jason Holtman, Director of Business Development at Valve. "Steamworks for the Mac supports all of the Steamworks APIs, and we have added a new feature, called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the product for the Mac or Windows to play on the other platform free of charge. For example, Steam Play, in combination with the Steam Cloud, allows a gamer playing on their work PC to go home and pick up playing the same game at the same point on their home Mac. We expect most developers and publishers to take advantage of Steam Play."

"We looked at a variety of methods to get our games onto the Mac and in the end decided to go with native versions rather than emulation," said John Cook, Director of Steam Development. "The inclusion of WebKit into Steam, and of OpenGL into Source gives us a lot of flexibility in how we move these technologies forward. We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360. Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients. The first Mac Steam client will be the new generation currently in beta testing on Windows."

Portal 2 will be Valve's first simultaneous release for Mac and Windows. "Checking in code produces a PC build and Mac build at the same time, automatically, so the two platforms are perfectly in lock-step," said Josh Weier, Portal 2 Project Lead. "We're always playing a native version on the Mac right alongside the PC. This makes it very easy for us and for anyone using Source to do game development for the Mac."

Support for the Mac in Source and Steamworks is available to third parties immediately. Interested developers should contact Jason Holtman at [email protected].

The key points that struck me were:
- The new Steam uses the same engine (/base/core/whateveritscalled) as Safari & Chrome.
- Valve have opted for porting rather than emulation.
- Mac games will be maintained as equally as their Windows counterparts.
- The Source engine is getting an OpenGL makeover.

All this is making me wondering where this leaves Linux Gaming. With Steam now using Safari/Chrome's technology & Source becoming OpenGL based, surely this will make them 10 times easier to emulate with wine, or even fully port.
Many of you guys know more about the technical side of this than I do, what do you guys think this means for Linux, gaming & porting?

If I may add, I've been a part of many online forums, and this forum format is the best one I've come across.
It's a massive step up from the old one and well be fantastic once the admins get to grips with it. :}