Penguins converge on Austin Texas

Austin is beautiful in the spring...enjoy it while you can because spring heralds summer.

And in Austin Texas, summer can be a handful.

That's why the people organizing the Texas LinuxFest chose April to hold their event.



While several cities and states across the US have hosted Linux events, Texas has yet to be home to efforts such as the Ohio LinuxFest 
SCALE or
The Atlanta Linux Fest

That is until now.

It wasn't easy putting together a project of this magnitude.  Starting with just a few people with a vision, Nathan Willis, Matt Ray, Jeremy Fluhmann and Ilan Rabinovitch put their collective efforts into getting it done.  Will it be a success?  My guess is that it will.  With the sponsorship that has come forward and the community that has built itself around this effort, I can't see how it can fail.

We had a chance to talk with Nate Willis about The Texas Linux Fest.  Nate provides some insight many of us might not have thought of.

Who had the idea for the project...who was involved in the initial planning and coordination?

Speaking for myself, I've been to a lot of shows as press, and I'd thought for a long time "man, I wish Texas had a regional Linux show;" then last summer I transitioned from that into "I wonder if I could get a group of people to start a regional Linux show."  I mentioned that to quite a few folks at different events; people that I knew -- eventually I mentioned it to Ilan at OSCON, and he told me that Matt had said almost exactly the same thing.  He put the two of us in touch.  From there, the first thing was to see who else we could find who'd be interested in participating.

We started by contacting every LUG and user group we could find; we accumulated people, started a mailing list, and got into planning.  From there it just builds momentum if there are enough interested people.

Nate, what committees were formed and who sits upon them?

The only formal committee that we had was the program committee; I felt like it was really important that we get a wide variety of talks, and if you don't bring in an eclectic group to look at and discuss the proposals, you could end up with a pretty flat schedule.

But as a start-up, mostly we've relied on individuals picking up tasks, which can be really iffy at the beginning.  People have regular life, jobs, family -- a lot of things that can get in the way.  So my schedule as a freelancer is totally flexible and I tried to pick up the bits and pieces to make sure that we didn't lose momentum.  Anyway, as we've gotten closer, more and more people have been volunteering and taking on tasks; important stuff like liaising with the venue and coordinating AV/WiFi.  We were really lucky that one of our first volunteers was Jeremy, who had actually run an event himself a couple of years back called the Texas Open Source Symposium.  Anyway, he had experience doing a lot of the nuts and bolts stuff.  And Ilan, despite being nowhere near Texas, has pitched in and worked as hard as everyone here locally; harder when you consider that he was also doing SCALE and patiently answering all kinds of questions from us. 

Where is it going to be held and when?

The venue is a event center called The Marchesa; it's in the Highland area.  We're having sessions and an expo all day on Saturday April 10th  (10-7, roughly).  The plan is to do some evening events as well, since people who are coming in from out of town would like that, but they haven't been finalized yet.  We'll post those on the web site and to facebook when we have the plan established.

Who are your sponsors and to what degree of involvement?

Let's see ... Softlayer, Zenoss, Canonical, Red Hat, Fedora, HP, IBM, Rackspace, Novell, and The Linux Fund are our commercial sponsors.  Most of them had people submit session proposals, which was nice (and by that I mean they submitted talks independently of (usually before) being sponsors.  We've also had several nonprofits lend us support in one way or another, like GNOME, Mozilla, the Linux Foundation.  And the media sponsors have done a terrific job just helping us get the word out, which is vitally important when you're an event that no one has heard of before.  That includes the Linux Journal (which is based out of Houston), LWN, Linux Magazine and Ubuntu User, LXer.  They've not only allowed us to advertise, but have run our announcements and written blog entries to help spread the word.

What problems did you encounter that caused you the most grief?

I think inertia is the big thing.  Despite what I said above about a lot of people being interested, for most people it wasn't "real" to them seven-or-eight months ago.  So it was hard to get meetings together, and put plans and timetables to work.  Once we started getting sponsors and ideas and eventually speakers, though, the event started to take shape, and as that happened more and more people could picture it happening and what it was going to be like, so they've stepped up to volunteer.  But we haven't had any major disasters...yet.

Well, actually, we did find out one-month-out from the show that the hotel where we had a block of discounted rooms reserved was going to be changing its name from a Radisson to a Holiday Inn -- and that they couldn't tell us in advance exactly when that was going to happen.  At the same time, we learned that the event center was changing *its* name from The Monarch to The Marchesa, also without warning.  So for a couple of days, it looked like we were at risk for being impossible to find.  It's hard to give people directions to two places that don't have names.  Kinda felt like we should call the city of Austin and make sure they weren't planning a rebranding as well.  But it all worked out.

 

Nate, what insights have you gained by being one of those putting this event together?

I think one of the big reasons that it's come together successfully is that it's something a lot of people wanted to do -- both in the community and in the business side.  I've been working as a FOSS reporter for five-plus years now, and I've been to corporate and community events all over North America; it's clear after you go to a few of those that the community-centric events, such as SCALE, are where the real excitement is, and they're growing.  Not that there's anything wrong with the big week-long events that draw the crowds, but it's a totally different feel.

We'll see you there Nate.

All-Righty Then

  

Calling Graphic Artists

Editors note:  Thanks to Alan Jones, we now have the graphic requested below.  Thank you for your input and offers.


h

As we posted two weeks ago, official planning for the 2010 Linux Against Poverty event is under way. Lynn Bender and I are beginning the process of finding sponsors, coordinating volunteers and working through the different venue opportunities we have this year.

One thing that The HeliOS Project just didn't get done last year was getting our SVG logo done. We are in need of someone who wouldn't mind taking on this project for us.

My graphic skills are pretty much limited to scaling a picture in The Gimp so any help you can provide us is appreciated. The logo at the top of this post is the HeliOS Project logo and we need this done in SVG format.  We are open to suggestions in improving the logo or completely changing it for something better so if you have any ideas, please do not hesitate to share them.

Let me know what you need from me as far as support and I will provide it.

Of course, the artist(s) assisting us will get full credit for the graphic.

All-Righty Then

Indie Gamers See The Linux Market

It hasn't been that long ago that we brought you news of 2d boy World of Goo and the Frictional Games trilogy Penumbra.  Since then, things have been pretty quiet on the Linux Game Front...at least to my ear, but then again, I'm not much of a gamer.

Sure, I've played all the repository shooters...bloody chunks flying and monsters galore.  I have a short attention span...mostly because I suck at shooter games.  I just don't play them often.

But every now and then, one game catches my eye.

For this post, that game is Caster. 



Mike Smith is the Author of Caster and he has done a great job in bringing us a third person shooter that takes as much thinking as it does shooting.  There is a comprehensive interview with Mike here so I can't add much to what he's already said, however I can tell you that Mike is offering this great game at 5 bucks a pop and get this...

Buy the game and get the updates free.

I'm having trouble finding the downside to that.

Our resident gamer, Mark Montgomery has given an entire weekend to Caster and offers his review below.

Help support the Indie guys that are writing for Linux...five bucks...I think we can do that.  And As always, the first 5 people to post the news of Caster on a high-traffic Linux site will get a copy of the game.

OK Mark, what did you find?

I played the full game on my laptop – a ZaReason UltraLapSR running Gentoo 32 bit.

I tested the demo quickly on my desktop – a self built Phenom II Quad Core running Funtoo 64 bit.

It ran fine on both.

Name

When you start a new game, you are asked to enter a name. The game then uses this name to address you in the mission texts. I found this minor touch quite nice.

Graphics

The graphics are quite good in the game.

The scenery and objects are well shaped and textured. While some things are not as detailed as they are in some current modern games, the level of detail is perfectly acceptable for this type of game.

Sound

-Music

The music fits the game well and varies by the current events in the game. I quite enjoyed it.

-Sound Effects

The sound effects are enjoyable and did not overwhelm me when I was playing.

There are enough to know what is going on but not so many effects that I was overwhelmed with chaotic audio.

The sound effects fit the actions well.

Controls

The controls are fairly standard for this type of game and are easy to use.

The game uses the typical WASD + space bar combined with mouse use for character movement.

The game uses minimal extra keys for game play.

There are keys to quickly switch weapons if you prefer to use the keyboard to switch rather than the mouse.

The game also allows holding the shift key and a direction to dash in a direction rather than double tapping and holding the movement key – I personally liked using the shift key better.

Interface

The interface is simple and easy to use.

Just click on a mission and go.

Storyline

The storyline is minimal. You are a caster performing missions to reclaim areas from the bug-like Flanx and to collect energy orbs.

Game play

Game play is simple yet complex. While the movement is fairly simple, the missions do require a fair bit of strategy to complete. You cannot simply run around shooting aimlessly.

Some missions require a specific weapon to be acquired before the level can be complete completely, or at all.

Character items

Your character starts with certain skills and a single weapon. The other weapons are found in other missions.

Upgrades

As you complete missions you gain credits which can be used to upgrade your skills and weapons. The amount of credits you earn is based on your score in the level.

If you replay a mission and get a higher score than a previous attempt, you will gain the appropriate amount of credits for the increase in your score.

Strategy

There is quite a bit of strategy involved in the game. Some levels require different strategies than others. In some levels, you must use a particular weapon in order to kill the Flanx in that level. Some levels are best handled with one or more different weapons. You must analyze the map and use the appropriate skills and weapons to achieve your goal.

Camera

The camera is your standard 3rd person shooter view. Most of the time this works very well. There are a few instances where you can get "stuck" against a wall in zoomed-in mode and have to figure out which way to move to return to a normal view. However this seems to be a common problem with this view style.

The camera has a fairly decent range of angles, which makes game play easier.

Movement

Movement is well done and responsive. I did not have much trouble getting used to the character movement.

Missions

Each mission has a unique map. These maps vary greatly - from an industrial compound to a swamp to a desert mountain.

This makes the game quite interesting visually and strategically.

The missions are not overly long, or at least, don't generally have to be.

This makes for an enjoyable playing experience, since you can do a mission or two and then take a break to do something else if you like.

Missions are not auto-loaded. You selected an available mission from the mission screen to play it. When you complete a mission, the indicator for that mission changes from Red to Green (except for the final mission - I don't know if this is intended or was simply a glitch for me – the mission does show the score though, so obviously it recorded).

After you complete a mission, other missions may be unlocked and show up on the mission screen.

You can also abort a mission at any time if you realize you cannot complete it (or are not ready to).

This simply leaves the mission marked as non-completed.

Terrain

Since each mission map is different, each has a different unique terrain. The terrain is a vital part of the strategy in some missions. Two of the available weapons specifically modify the terrain - one lowers the terrain and one raises it.

In some levels these are required, and in others they can be very useful.

Death

The character never dies in the game.

When your shield runs out, an animation plays and then you are revived to full shield power where you were.

This means that you can simply continue to play.

However, each time you are revived, your score for the level is reduced back to 0.

Menu

The menu system is a simple mouse navigated set of screens.

Everything is laid out well and easy to navigate.

Configuration

The configuration options are well done and appropriate for the game.

Crash recovery

If you manage to crash the game (by killing the process, setting an option that broke it, etc.), the game goes into crash recovery mode.

When you start the game it will go into 640x480 windowed mode with all graphics options set to the lowest.

This is quite nice as it allows you to configure the options again in case you had tried a setting that didn't work.

Glitches:

Zoom glitch - I mentioned the zoomed-in-when-against wall glitch already. As I said, that is quite common with games of this type, and would probably be difficult to fix without adding a manual camera zoom in/out feature.

Spike glitch - There was a time or two when I grew the ground under me up into a spike and was unable to get off of it. I'm not sure exactly what causes it, but it was slightly annoying the couple times I managed to do it.

Dual monitor glitch - I installed the demo on my desktop system (Funtoo 64 bit running dual 20" 1680x1050 LCDs in Twinview mode) to see how it would handle it. The game started full screen across both monitors nicely.

However, the game did not have an option to use only one display. Also, the resolution list generated with the minimum window size for windowed mode being the full resolution of one monitor.

I assume the window-mode resolution could be fixed somehow (maybe have some pre-defined resolutions?), but I don't know if the select-a-screen option could be implemented to handle twinview non-xinerama setups easily.

This is a fairly common issue I've seen with running games full screen on my setup.

What I would like to see:

I would like to see fuller stats for the completed missions, rather than just the best score for it.

I would like to see it show the best score and the associated stats: Number of Flanx killed, number of energy orbs collected, number of times you revived.

Summary:

Caster has a very nice look and feel to it. It is simple to play yet complex enough to keep you interested. The storyline isn't exactly deep, but that doesn't really matter. It is enough to give you an idea of your purpose in the game. I was disappointed when I completed the final mission and realized I had done all of the levels. I was left wanting more, which is a mark of a great game.

The game is simple, complex, and addictive.

All-Righty Then

Laptops sit idle...

Over the past few weeks, we've received a number of quality laptops to give out to our kids.  Unfortunately many of these laptops did not come with power adapters and pretty much qualify for doorstops.  Although we greatly appreciate the laptop donations, most people don't stop to think to include the adapters.

They can cost us as much as 50.00 per, depending on the type of laptop donated.

Currently we have 4 laptops that work perfectly, we just have no way to power them back on.  They are:

HP dv5000 (we have three of them)

Toshiba Satellite A45-S151

With the 2010 Linux Against Poverty event looming in June, we are sure to gain even more without adapters.

We are also in need of a screen for a Dell Latitude D600 and most any RAM available in 512-sized sticks or better.  Specifically, we need laptop ram in one gig sticks of pc2100 and pc2700.  PC133 in both laptop and desktop ram is also in short supply, especially 512 sticks.

While I am wishing, we need IDE and SATA hard drives for laptops as well.

Fact of the matter is, we are having trouble just putting gas in the tanks to get installs done...times are tough right now.  We could use some help in getting these adapters and other pieces of hardware needed.

If you have any of these hardware parts, email me...helios at fixedbylinux dott comm or we can purchase it via your donations.  Edit... Also, our friend Dave has posted a comment concerning a great site for getting these parts cheap.  You can find it here.

Thanks again for being part of what we do.

We have several labs and summer camps being hosted by The HeliOS Project this summer...the most popular being one that teaches kids how to build/repair computers.  We will need volunteers for this daytime activity.  Not sure of the dates yet but probably sometime in July.  Stay tooned for news.

All-righty then

Austin Texas - Linux Against Poverty 2010

It's spring time in Texas.

The Bluebonnets are fixin' to get ready to bloom, today's temperature is going to be around 80 degrees Fahrenheit and a solid date for the second annual Linux Against Poverty is, with a fair amount of certainty... official.

June 19th, 2010.

While we had planned a May event, that date has been changed...read further for us to 'splain.

For those who may not know what we do, The HeliOS Project takes donated P4 computers, refurbishes or repairs them and then gives them to Austin or Central Texas kids who normally would not be able to afford one.  Linux Against Poverty is an annual event put together by Lynn Bender in order to collect those computers while members of the Austin Tech Community gather to repair and prepare them to be given away.


We had initially planned a May event but with South By South West happening within that 90 day window, we thought it would be a good idea to let both events have some breathing room.

With the Upcoming Texas Linux Fest, it's going to be a busy spring in Austin Texas.  Hopefully, we'll be meeting with Robbie Williamson of Canonical on these pages to talk more about that event in particular in the next week or so..

But for now, let's talk about Linux Against Poverty.

Lynn Bender, founder of geekaustin.org  and the organizational force behind LAP, called me last night to talk about how this year will be different.

We had a fair amount of corporate involvement last year.  Many companies donated their decommissioned computers and sundry hardware components, however we didn't see the participation we had hoped for.  Individual donations and drop-offs carried the day.  We gained just over 200 placeable computers by the time the day ended.  Those computers were gone by November that same year.

This year, we think and hope we might be able to increase that participation.

With several companies already showing an interest in offering prizes, Lynn has begun to put together a prize drawing to entice equipment donations.  Each computer donated will enter the donor into a drawing at the end of the day and winners will be awarded prizes from the participating businesses. Businesses who donate computers can give their drawing tickets to their employees if they wish to do so.  We have yet to firm up those prizes and companies so watch this blog or the facebook page for LAP for details.

Many of the people who volunteer for Linux Against Poverty work at large corporations that may have a back room full of these decommissioned computers just waiting for Goodwill or the scrap yard.  You can see our specific needs on our website. If you work for such a company, please let them know that we will put these computers and equipment to good use and their donations are tax deductible.  Oh and again...we cannot accept CRT monitors any more...the liability and storage costs just won't allow it.

While Union Park is almost certainly available for us as a venue this year, there are a number of other businesses and places that have shown an interest in hosting the event for us.  Lynn will announce the location for Linux Against Poverty 2010 when it is decided and I will pass it along to you via this blog as soon as it is known.

Other Bid'ness

While we were able to obtain permission from The Cristo Rey Catholic Church to name our computer learning center after Bruno Knaapen we have not yet been able to raise the funds for the brass plaque for that room.  Unfortunately, response from Bruno's community has not been very good so I thought I would come here to mention it.  If you would like to help us purchase this plaque, you can do so here.

AND...we are in need of a small flatbed scanner for our operations.  With funding being as tight as it is, we've not been able to allocate the money to buy one so if you have one laying around, we sure could use it.  If I had a wishlist to write to, I would hope that it would be USB-powered.  We don't need anything powerful as much as we need it compact...our administrative space is small.

We are also humbled to be named as a nominee for the Dewey Winburne Community Service Award.  The party and ceremony will be held at 6 PM on March 15th at Sholtz Garden in Austin during the SXSW Interactive portion of SXSW.  Dewey Winburne was the PowerSource behind SXSW Interactive.

May God rest him.

Volunteer sign-up for LAP 2010 is doing extremely well and I want to thank those who are returning for the second event.  I appreciate you more than you know...especially when I know YOU know just how much work last year was.  We hope to streamline some of that this year and make it that much smoother.

Stay Tooned...

All-Righty Then

.

Linux Learning Centers Growing in Central Texas

Aaron wasn't much interested in what his friends were doing.  They were busy trying to choose a game to play on agame.com.  Aaron wasn't having any of it.  He stood beside me as I coaxed the wireless connection to life on another machine and asked me if there were any math games.




Arron is 7.

The Little Ebenezer Baptist Church in Hutto Texas is the newest home to a HeliOS Project Linux Learning Center.  The center is built in a small church annex but all area children are allowed to use the computers, regardless of their affiliation.  Skip Guenter Our Director of System Engineering is the driving force behind  making this happen...because as it happens, Hutto is his home.  Skip knows who is in  need in Hutto and he saw to it that need was met.  While it isn't anywhere near our biggest project, it is going to have an impact.

"Are there any math games in that computer sir?"

You bet there are Aaron.

Skip is working with the manager of the Annex to arrange weekly classes for local people who want to learn how to use a computer.  From what we have seen at The Bruno Knaapen Center, we will have equal numbers of adults to kids.

That's fine with us.

                                                                         
While most children Aaron's age are more than happy to make bunnies jump over mushrooms and race little cars around a flash-based gamescreen, kids like Aaron inspire us to get stuff like this done.  As of now, there are only 4 machines in this center.  Judging from the competition between kids vying for computer time, I'm thinking we might have to adjust some table space and install two more.  That will take up the remaining space comfortably available for machines there.

Flash back 60 minutes that same evening...

The Bruno Knaapen Technology learning Center is a hub of activity for us on Wedensday nights.  That is the night our Directors go there to teach basic computer and Internet skills to those who need to learn them.  Most of our students are Hispanic and not native English-speakers so we rely upon the good nature of Christine and Ceasar Collazo to translate our lessons into Spanish in real time.  Non-English speakers are clustered into groups of three to make it easier to teach.



It gets interesting to say the least.

Tom King, our Network Director is currently working with Caesar and Christina in setting up a project for the summer to teach kids to build their own computers.  We've had a great response from some of the parents in the area for Tom's idea.  As Linux Against Poverty 2010 enters it's hard planning stage, we are hoping to have plenty of machines to work with for this project.

As of now, we are critically low of both machines and funding so any further efforts are going to rely upon the good nature of this community to get it done.  While we have no shortage of grants that now want to pay for vechicles, office space and computers for our administrative use, we are finding it difficult to nail down funding for day-to-day operations.  We don't want to apply for grants for things we already have...that just makes those resources unavailable to someone that really needs them.  We already have the things they are offering.  If you can give us a hand, it would be greatly appreciated.  As of now, we are to a point where we just can't do much more without some help.

I will be meeting with Lynn Bender, the creator and force behind Linux Against Poverty this week.  Once we get some things ironed out, I will publish the information here.  We already have a greater number of volunteers to man the triage and repair tables than last year.  Of course, our goal is 100 computers more than the 200 we put into service from Linux Against Poverty 2009.

...And that's a good thing.

All-Righty Then