Archives for September 2008
0.1.47: “Moar.”
29 September 2008 | Planet Ubuntu, Xeiso | No Responses
Well, it’s been more than a month since I last posted about Xeiso, so I figure I have an excuse to annoy all of Planet Ubuntu and subscribers.
A day after I posted the last Xeiso-related entry here, I got some junk packages published. Those junk packages eventually were polished up into a state I now think is bearable. And now, I present a belated makeshift release simply dubbed: “Moar.” “Moar” is a milestone in which I actually feel happy with regarding web services integration (currently called the “Download” menu). No longer is there a simple text interface to download games, but images and requirements to go along with it, along with update checking.
If you installed Xeiso and haven’t updated it since my last post (how dare you) then be sure to wipe your ~/.xeiso directory; it isn’t compatible. Yes, I just broke backwards-compatibility. Being 0.1 gives me the right to do that. 
If you haven’t installed Xeiso yet and want to give it a shot, don’t install the Python way. If you do, you will end up with a bunch of conflicting files if you ever try to install the packaged version. Save yourself some time and just use the PPA. I promise, if I make some commit to Bazaar that has some awesome new feature, it’ll be on the PPA within a day.
On a related note, the CD build is making progress. Here’s an older video of it running in VirtualBox:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up8ywfi8K3U
Yes, the demo game is supposed to crash. It doesn’t exist. But believe me, a lot has changed since that revision. If you’re interested in building a disk for yourself, see this page. Some of the packaging used to build the CD environment is in the branch as well. I probably sealed my fate of ever becoming a package maintainer by breaking probably every Debian packaging law known to man, woman, and lolcat, but it gets the job done for the disk. But don’t install the package included in that branch unless you want your system to meet certain destruction.
The release name is “Moar.” So what next? Aside from the obvious better CD integration, there’s a lot of work to be done. The sound system hasn’t even been started; no Python library has been working out too well for me yet. Then there is Xeiso Connect, the online services component. Ask me about that if you are daring. And of course, packaging. What would a game system be without games? The package format recently changed to make it all even easier. Documentation isn’t complete, but it’s coming. In the meantime, feel free to drop by #xeiso on freenode or shoot me an email if you want to learn some packaging basics.
As always, I’m open to suggestions, rants, raves, nitpicks, and the rest, but keep it constructive. Leave a comment or use one of the contact methods above.
Boom!
16 September 2008 | Planet Ubuntu, Random | 1 Response
Whew, the winds this weekend made it seem as if Ohio was hit by a hurricane. Oh wait.
Wind speeds in central Ohio hit 75 mph (~120km/h), nearly as fast as a moderate tornado.
Power was knocked out on Sunday. Calling AEP, if you were lucky, might have gotten you an automated outage reporting system if you didn’t get the “line busy” tone first, with estimates of seven days until power could be restored. Luckily for us, it came back on this morning after two days.
What was strange? There was no lightning, no thunder, hail, or rain, just heavy wind. No tornadoes were reported, yet the wind speed was already there. Almost every street was blocked off by trees, and as of right now, 30% of traffic lights in Ohio are non-functional.
I was going to take some pictures during the storm, but after being whipped in the face with leaves and stray tree branches I decided it was better to wait.
The damage here was minimal compared to other places. Cars were crushed, schools were shut down, and a 5-house fire was started in town from a downed power line.
Who else got hit?