Open Source Windows and Linux Games

Have you ever felt the urge to kill off your time while you are working? A sense to release your tension from boring repetitive work at the office (or at home)?

Of all those burden and urge, you might have downloaded games from the internet and scored a few good round out of it, only to find out finally that you cant write your name on the high score list because you need to register first.

How many times you came across games you downloaded from the internet which impose delayed “unregistered” splash screen, denied you from high score list or even stopped working after a few days of installing?

The game locked you out from your own windows system, and some even installs malicious adware or malware that contaminate your windows!

Well not anymore if you choose the way of the Free (as in freedom and beer) path.

New Breed Software Inc.
Enter New Breed Software, a software company that embrace Free and Open Source ideology. The company was established in 1993, and it have been releasing numerous number of open source desktop games for various operating system including Windows, Linux and Atari.

Circus Linux

Their selection of games is quite good and moreover is Free! The games are not only nice and small, but they also come with complete source code and covered under the GNU General Public License.

Mad Bomber, New Breed Software

Another place to seek FOSS games is at the LGames project hosted at Sourceforge.net. Most of the game listed here are rather clone of popular arcade games, excepts they comes with source codes and installer.

lbreakout2

LTris

The website also features few javascripts and online games such as OCC, LBill, LCarrot, LMemory, etc for those who rather want to play the games online.

Most of the games featured on the website mentioned here are created by the portable libSDL (Simple Direct Media Library) which ease of the process of developing the games across numerous platform. The library are licensed under GNU Lesser General Public License and you can download the libSDL from it’s project website.
SDL Simple Direct Media

The libSDL website feature a directory which list games and applications developed using libSDL. You can find other games for your favorite operating system (but not neccessarily FOSS) in it’s Games Directory page.

Most of this games listed here works in Microsoft Windows environment and under GNU/Linux operating systems.

Finally, just remember although the games mentioned here does not require any payments or registration but the developers of the games mentioned here still spend a lot of efforts and time to perfect them.

Please show your appreciation when you can and donate a few bucks to them. I’m sure they will return your gesture :)

Linux kernel patch, Nano devfs hacks

Linux Logo

Greg KH have released “nano” devfs patch for the current linux kernel to mitigate the concerns of embedded system developers.

However according to Greg the inventor of udev (userspace /dev filesystem), he is not going to submit ndevfs patch to the main kernel tree. He explains it in his words :

“I’m not going to be submitting this. But what it is, is a nice proof-of-concept for people who ‘just can’t live without a in-kernel devfs’ to show that it can be done in less than 300 lines of code, and only 6 hooks (2 functions in 3 different places) in the main kernel tree. That is managable outside of the main kernel for years, with almost little to no effort.”

read more about this topic at :
1. ndevfs – a “nano” devfs
2. ndevfs announcement

devfs removed from Linux

Tux kerneltrap

Well, the flexible devfs (device filesystem in kernel mode) which saw light since 2.4.x have been removed from the the main kernel tree. The removal of devfs have been discussed for more than a year, mainly because it was deprecrated by udev (which does the devfs job but in user-level), and partly because devfs is no longer maintained by it’s developers.

However this led into a lengthy discussion debating the merits of using devfs with embedded systems. 2.6 maintainer Andrew Morton suggested that the fate of devfs is still undecided,

“I don’t have enough info to know whether the world would be a better place if we keep devfs, remove devfs or remove devfs even later on. I don’t think anyone knows, which is why we’re taking this little disable-it-and-see-who-shouts approach.”

devfs is reportedly still being use by embedded system (especially with ones that deals with readonly file system) to ease of system setup.

Another feature planned to be removed from the kernel is the PCI name database, which bloat the kernel (about 82KB in size) and hard to maintain (to sync the the latest pci devices with kernel’s database).

Debian Developers criticised Firefox Policy

Mozilla Firefox browser which is developed by Mozilla Foundation faced criticism by Debian Developers because of its official trademark policy is seen by them as excessively prohibitive.
Get Firefox!

This have still being debated in the Debian Community.

Most of the concerns came around whether Mozilla’s trademark policy allows them to modify the software for updates and security patches, and still distribute it using its original name. There are a lot of other projects too that recompile Mozilla Foundation source code and make additional changes and still release the resulting binary with Mozilla’s trademark.

Although Mozilla Foundation however, have given Debian explicit permission to use the Firefox logo and brand name, the issue still rise because it contradict with the clause of the social contract which stipulates software licenses must not be specific to Debian.

Mozilla previously have several problems with trademark issues regarding it’s Firefox browser which was change from Phoenix to Firebird and finally to Firefox.

Fedora Core 4 is (finally) released!

Fedora Core Logo

The much anticipated Fedora Core 4 (Stentz) have been made available to public as promised. Users can now download the Fedora Core 4 iso from Red Hat Servers or by using torrent.

FC4 Screenshot

Previously, Fedora Core 4 release date have been postponed for a week because of the difficulty in securing the legal permission for the software’s code-name. In this latest release, Linux users can expect friendlier and easier installations procedure offered by Fedora Core 4.

This may be the final release of Fedora Core 4 with Red Hat, which after this, the development of Fedora Core Linux will be handed over to the Fedora Core Foundation.

Playstation 3 can run Linux !

Great news for Linux Gamers geeks out there, there have been confirmation that the latest Sony Playstation 3 will be able to run Linux! The rumours itself have been confirmed by Sony Entertainment Presiden, Ken Kutaragi.

Playstation 3 Concept Pix

However, Playstation 3 owners will still have to add hard drive to their console as the PS3 won’t ships with HDD by default. To quote Kutaragi on that matter,

“We’re not going to equip [the PS3 with] a HDD by default, because no matter how much [capacity] we put in it, it won’t be enough.”

He acknowledged that, by running Linux, the Playstation can be used for other applications than gaming console, such as video editing and photo retouching.

Playstation 3 Game Console

To summarize that, Sony apparently wants to position their Playstation 3 as more than a game console, citing it as “supercomputer”.

Seems that Sony acknowledgement about the usefulness of Linux as an OS for it’s Playstation may be a good sign for the free OS platform. Let’s hope this trend continues in the future….

References :
1. The Inquirer
2. Tech Spot