Doesn't run on Ubuntu Jaunty 64b bit

Linux support forums for Eschalon: Book II
Tyranthraxus
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Re: Doesn't run on Ubuntu Jaunty 64b bit

Post by Tyranthraxus »

xolotl wrote:Let's not get this thread derailed with an open-vs-closed debate, yeah? There are better forums than this one for it, and like it or not, Eschalon is closed. (Though I admit that I inadvertantly played a hand in the derailing by making a jibe and the complexity of Linux development.)
It would be a very one-sided debate, anyway! :evil:
phaedrus
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Re: Doesn't run on Ubuntu Jaunty 64b bit

Post by phaedrus »

Tyranthraxus wrote:Jeff, unfortunately, that is how most Live CDs work, and there are reasons why they have to work that way. Admittedly, Canonical made a pigs ear of the setup, but their own ethos has led them down this road.
I'm a Slackware guy myself, and an ex-software engineer (embedded Linux, working at the system level, including kernel and drivers). I'm going to have to look into this RAM disk-as-swap business to satisfy my own curiosity. I want to know why they feel the need to use such an apparently broken setup. There might be a reason I don't know, but I've never seen anything that might be solved by a RAM disk swap drive. No need to explain, I intend to figure this out for myself.
For the record, my preferences would be Debian stable for its stability and unbreakability, or Mandriva for its simplicity.
If the recompilation goes the way I hope it will, I`d be fascinated if I could run it under Damn Small Linux, using only 45 Mb of disk space, or even a Ram Disk!
Debian is excellent, I use it for my servers. It's a good set-it-and-forget-it distro (which is what I want in a server). Slackware is highly tunable and assumes you'll be doing your own compiling (which I do all the time, Slackware doesn't come with E16 precompiled, and there are some important options I want turned off that a distro would likely turn on to make a more general package).

Getting it running on DSL or a cousin would be pretty cool. (It looks like DSL has been dormant since 2008.)

Oh, and if it wasn't clear, Basilisk Wrangler, thank you for supporting Linux. Despite my personal opinion about Ubuntu, it means I should be able to get the game working on my system (which is my problem, and always has been, since trying to please me first is crazy ;) ).
Elwro
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Re: Doesn't run on Ubuntu Jaunty 64b bit

Post by Elwro »

For distro designed to work as a Live CD (or DVD), I'd recommend Knoppix.
phaedrus
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Re: Doesn't run on Ubuntu Jaunty 64b bit

Post by phaedrus »

Elwro wrote:For distro designed to work as a Live CD (or DVD), I'd recommend Knoppix.
I've used them in the past. Since I'm on a how-do-Live-CDs-work bender at the moment, I downloaded them. After a quick boot with qemu, Knoppix runs with no swap at all (I checked the boot scripts, it will only turn on swaps listed in /etc/fstab, and there never are any, certainly not any RAM disks).

My research so far indicates that some people were running into trouble getting Linux 2.4.x to run without swap (kswapd would get confused after a while and the system would crash; turning some RAM into swap would alleviate the problem). If this were still a problem, that would argue for running 5-10% of RAM as a swap disk, mounting a squashfs off of the CD, and overlaying a tmpfs via unionfs.

This is what Knoppix does, without the swap part.

I think I'm going to stand by my declaration that the Ubuntu folks have made an ugly hash out of their Install/Live CD. Also, the just use Knoppix advice is pretty good.
Elwro
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Re: Doesn't run on Ubuntu Jaunty 64b bit

Post by Elwro »

On the other hand, even the newest Knoppix has the 2.10.2 version of glibc.
Tyranthraxus
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Re: Doesn't run on Ubuntu Jaunty 64b bit

Post by Tyranthraxus »

Elwro wrote:On the other hand, even the newest Knoppix has the 2.10.2 version of glibc.
Yep, Knoppix was my 1st port of call as well, perhaps Klaus should give Canonical some pointers on Live CDs?
Tyranthraxus
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Re: Doesn't run on Ubuntu Jaunty 64b bit

Post by Tyranthraxus »


I'm a Slackware guy myself, and an ex-software engineer (embedded Linux, working at the system level, including kernel and drivers). I'm going to have to look into this RAM disk-as-swap business to satisfy my own curiosity. I want to know why they feel the need to use such an apparently broken setup. There might be a reason I don't know, but I've never seen anything that might be solved by a RAM disk swap drive. No need to explain, I intend to figure this out for myself.
Aaah, you youngsters have it easy!
Get your hands really dirty, with punched tape, cards, and unscrewing thermionic valves. :P
Debian is excellent, I use it for my servers. It's a good set-it-and-forget-it distro (which is what I want in a server). Slackware is highly tunable and assumes you'll be doing your own compiling (which I do all the time, Slackware doesn't come with E16 precompiled, and there are some important options I want turned off that a distro would likely turn on to make a more general package).
Love Slackware, just don`t find enough time to get under the bonnet these days. Otherwise, I`d probably be trying to shoe-horn Book II into a Hurd setup, just to see if it could be done. :mrgreen:
Oh for the simplicity of my trusty old Amigas.
Oh, and if it wasn't clear, Basilisk Wrangler, thank you for supporting Linux. Despite my personal opinion about Ubuntu, it means I should be able to get the game working on my system (which is my problem, and always has been, since trying to please me first is crazy ;) ).
I second that thought.
phaedrus
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Re: Doesn't run on Ubuntu Jaunty 64b bit

Post by phaedrus »

Tyranthraxus wrote:
Aaah, you youngsters have it easy!
Get your hands really dirty, with punched tape, cards, and unscrewing thermionic valves. :P
Yeah, I'm a youngster by those standards. I got my start with QBASIC on MSDOS when I was 9 in the early 90s. 2400 baud is the slowest modems I remember. (Old hackers are now thinking: yup, whippersnapper. Late millenials are going, sweet Mother of God, how did you survive with such a connection!?)

I have hand coded machine code for M68ks and MIPS, built my own chipset for said M68k and know my way around a soldering iron, so I've gotten my hands dirtier than many.

Love Slackware, just don`t find enough time to get under the bonnet these days. Otherwise, I`d probably be trying to shoe-horn Book II into a Hurd setup, just to see if it could be done. :mrgreen:
Awesome. GNU/HURD: OS of the FUTURE. Always has been, always will be! I kid, I kid.
Oh for the simplicity of my trusty old Amigas.
Oh man, Amigas were great. I didn't get to use them until the late 90s, but even nearly 10 years old and yellowing, they still made Macs and PCs of the day look bad. Using Lightwave 3D on those computers was jaw-dropping. Again, those machines were a couple generations old at that point (1997-98ish).

Although, going from Win95 to SuSE 5.3 back in 1998 was just as breathtaking in its own way.
Tyranthraxus
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Re: Doesn't run on Ubuntu Jaunty 64b bit

Post by Tyranthraxus »

phaedrus wrote:
Oh man, Amigas were great. I didn't get to use them until the late 90s, but even nearly 10 years old and yellowing, they still made Macs and PCs of the day look bad. Using Lightwave 3D on those computers was jaw-dropping. Again, those machines were a couple generations old at that point (1997-98ish).

Although, going from Win95 to SuSE 5.3 back in 1998 was just as breathtaking in its own way.
Still run both of mine, and original 1st year A500, with a steam-driven 20Mb hard drive, and an 030 based A1200, with more bits on the outside than in the case.
Even my C-64 (first off the shelf) still gets the occasional run out.

Had a habit of being in the right place/right time when personal computers first showed, still chuckle at my then bosses` face, when at a big shindig in London, I had the brass face to start chatting away to JP Getty II, and came away with the loan of a brand new IBM AT (costing some £3-5,000) at the time, for a whole month!
Unfortunately, our directors didn`t see what the future was going to hold, so it was back to `dumb` terminals for several more years.
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xolotl
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Re: Doesn't run on Ubuntu Jaunty 64b bit

Post by xolotl »

Two questions!

1) For the folks able to run the currently-released Linux version, could you let me know where it keeps the savegames?

2) BW - great news about 1.04 (and 1.05); looking forward to it! Is there a chance of getting a Linux recompile of 1.03 at some time before that release, since that sounds a number of weeks off still? Or shall we just be patient? :)
Elwro
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Re: Doesn't run on Ubuntu Jaunty 64b bit

Post by Elwro »

Does the tilde character not work here? Anyway, if "username" is your username, then savegames are in home/username/.basilisk_games/book2_saved_games/ . Each save number x has its own subfolder "slotx".
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xolotl
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Re: Doesn't run on Ubuntu Jaunty 64b bit

Post by xolotl »

Elwro wrote:Anyway, if "username" is your username, then savegames are in home/username/.basilisk_games/book2_saved_games/ . Each save number x has its own subfolder "slotx".
Thanks!

~/.basilisk_games <- seems to work for me, btw. :)
Elwro
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Re: Doesn't run on Ubuntu Jaunty 64b bit

Post by Elwro »

xolotl wrote:~/.basilisk_games <- seems to work for me, btw. :)
I see a minus sign instead of a tilde in your post :-) Just checking: Here I type a tilde and then a minus sign: ~-

Oh, I see. Strange, the tilde displays for me as a slightly longer minus sign.
phaedrus
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Re: Doesn't run on Ubuntu Jaunty 64b bit

Post by phaedrus »

Elwro wrote:
xolotl wrote:~/.basilisk_games <- seems to work for me, btw. :)
I see a minus sign instead of a tilde in your post :-) Just checking: Here I type a tilde and then a minus sign: ~-

Oh, I see. Strange, the tilde displays for me as a slightly longer minus sign.
I get a nice clear squiggle on the tilda. It may just be your font.
obiwan
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Re: Doesn't run on Ubuntu Jaunty 64b bit

Post by obiwan »

xolotl wrote:Two questions!

2) BW - great news about 1.04 (and 1.05); looking forward to it! Is there a chance of getting a Linux recompile of 1.03 at some time before that release, since that sounds a number of weeks off still? Or shall we just be patient? :)
So, the trick with installing a separate copy of glibc I posted earlier in this thread is not working for you?

If it is too difficult to follow the explanation, I could make a premade package I guess.
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