How to Install Mass Effect 3 on Linux

The following tutorial will teach Linux users how to install the Mass Effect 3 game on their open source operating system.

The third installment in the Mass Effect franchise, Mass Effect 3, is an action role-playing game (RPG) developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts.

For more details about Mass Effect 3, you can check out the official home page or the Wikipedia article.

Editor's note: For this guide, we have used the latest version of the PlayOnLinux application. We've tested the tutorial on the current 32-bit release of the Ubuntu OS, 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) with Wine 1.5.8.

Before anything else, please make sure you meet the minimum system requirements (especially the graphics card and CPU/RAM) for playing Mass Effect 3.

To install the Mass Effect 3 game on your Linux system, follow the next step-by-step (with screenshots) tutorial.

Step 1 – Install PlayOnLinux

The PlayOnLinux developers provide binary packages and repositories for many Linux operating systems, including Fedora, Debian, ArchLinux, Frugalware and Ubuntu, as well as a universal binary package.

We can't write instructions for all these Linux distributions here; therefore, if you use one of the aforementioned OSes, go HERE for detailed installation instructions.

Step 3 – Install the latest version of Wine

The PlayOnLinux developers provide an easy installation process of any Wine version, stable or development. So, all you need to do now is to go to the "Tools" menu, select "Manage Wine version" and you'll see a new dialog showing you available Wine versions on the left side, and installed Wine versions on the right side.

Select version 1.5.8 of Wine from the left side and click the middle arrow button to install it...



Wait for the installation to finish and close the window.


Step 3 – Install Mass Effect 3

Assuming you have the PC DVD of Mass Effect 3, open the PlayOnLinux app and follow the first time instructions to setup the application. Once these are finished, you'll see the PlayOnLinux interface. Click the "Install" button...


Now click the "Install a non-listed program" link at the bottom of the window...


An installation wizard will appear, click the "Next" button...


Click the "Next" button again when asked what would you like to do, leaving the "Install a program in a new virtual drive" option selected...


On the next step type the game's name in the field and click the "Next" button...


Now make sure you check the "Use another version of Wine" box and click the "Next" button...


Select version 1.5.8 of Wine from the list and click the "Next" button...


Now Wine will be configured and necessary packages will be installed, such as Mono and Gecko...




When the Wine version is fully configured, you'll need to select the Mass Effect 3 installer from the DVD, or from your computer if you copied the installer from the disc on your computer (but you will still need the DVD to play the game)...


Wait for the installation to finish! Choose the "Browse" option and choose the Mass Effect 3 installer from the Binaries/Win32 folder. Close the wizard.


Now, you will see a Mass Effect 3 entry in the main PlayOnLinux window. We're not finished yet, as we have to install DirectX 11 by clicking the "Configure" button while the Mass Effect 3 entry is selected, and going to the "Install packages" tab, select the "d3dx11" entry and click the "Install" button. Let it install it and close the PlayOnLinux.

Editor's note: If the game asks you about the PhysX Engine, install it manually by clicking the "Configure" button while the Mass Effect 3 entry is selected, and going to the "Miscellaneous" tab, and clicking the "Run a .exe file in this virtual drive." Then search for the PhysX Engine installer in the /path_to_masseffect3_installation/_Installer/physx/redist directory.


That's it! Open PlayOnLinux again, select Mass Effect 3 and click the "Run" button to play the game. Enjoy!




If you encounter any issues with the tutorial, do not hesitate to use our commenting system below.

OMAP4 Kernel Vulnerability Fixed for Ubuntu 11.10

On July 9th, Canonical announced that a vulnerability was found in the Linux kernel packages, this time affecting the OMAP4 kernel of the Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) operating system.

The CVE-2012-2375 Linux kernel vulnerability affects Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) OMAP4. As usual, you can click on the link to see how it affects your system, or go here for in-depth descriptions, as it affects other operating systems as well.

The security flaws can be fixed if you upgrade your system to the linux-image-3.0.0-1212-omap4 package. Don't forget to reboot your computer after the upgrade!

ATTENTION: Due to an unavoidable ABI change, the kernel packages have a new version number, which will force you to reinstall and recompile all third-party kernel modules you might have installed. Moreover, if you use the linux-restricted-modules package, you have to update it as well to get modules that work with the new Linux kernel version.

digiKam 2.7.0 Fixes Lots of Bugs

digiKam, a digital photo management application for KDE and Linux that includes an image editor for photo corrections and manipulation, is now at version 2.7.0.

Highlights of digiKam 2.7.0:

· Fading between photo's in diashow has been fixed;
· Zoom reset in Image view for each downloaded image has been repaired;
· digiKam no longer crashes while histogram computation;
· digiKam no longer crashes when reading a large pic collection;
· digiKam no longer crashes when closing the application after mass-tagging images;
· Problem when moving grouped pictures from one album to another has been fixed;
· A crash when specific pictures are opened in Image Editor has been fixed;
· Resize controls in editor are no longer missing;
· Duplicate rotation/flip entries in image menu is now working properly;
· digiKam now shows numeric ID instead of name of the Google account.

The complete changelog for digiKam 2.7.0 can be found here.

 Download digiKam 2.7.0

Introducing the ARM 64-bit Architecture

ARM announced a few days ago, on July 6th, that they posted a set of Linux kernel patches, implementing support for the AArch64 architecture, also known as the ARM 64-bit architecture.

The initial support for the ARMv8 64-bit architecture has been added by ARM in the Linux kernel via a set of 36 patches.

"The AArch64 Linux port follows the guidance for new architecture ports using generic headers (including unistd.h) and as much generic code as possible (some library functions may be later optimised, based on benchmarking results)."

"There is no hardware platform available at this point. From a kernel perspective, the aim is to minimise (or even completely remove) the platform code from the architecture specific directory. FDT is currently mandated and there are ongoing discussions for ACPI support," said Catalin Marinas in the announcement.

The necessary documentation regarding the ABI and instruction set was published earlier this year by ARM. Those of you interested in more details about the new AArch64 architecture can find the patches posted by ARM here.

Red Hat’s journey through the “land of the giants”

Open source provider Red Hat claims it is gaining traction in the New Zealand market. Red Hat credits this in part to the establishment of a presence here with the opening of an office in Auckland in April, 2011.
But with last month’s global rollouts of JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 6, and upgrades to its JBoss Data Grid and Enterprise Business Rules Management System, the company sees itself in a better position to compete for business with middleware ISVs, systems integrators and resellers.
“Traditionally, organisations have looked to IBM and Oracle for this, and we’ve struggled to gain legitimacy because we lacked a presence and a track record,” says Max McLaren, Red Hat’s MD for Australia and New Zealand.

Rest here

Brightness, Contrast, and Inversion land on Gnome Shell’s 360 Magnifier!

Gnome 360 will get many many improvements on accessibility area. One of these will be a brightness/contrast/inversion color balance option for Gnome Shell’s magnifier. While this featured was scheduled for Gnome 320, it comes with a year delay in 360.
The developer of this, Joseph Scheuhammer says:
“GNOME Shell has a built-in magnification feature. In addition to magnification, some low-vision users prefer to invert the lightness (“inverse video”), change the overall brightness, change the contrast, and/or some combination thereof“.
Also Joseph explains the reasons that this feature didn’t make it on 320 and 340.
“The work on this feature is done, and in fact demo versions were made. The initial plan was to release it as part of GNOME 3.2, but delayed when the bright-contrast-inverse Clutter effects were moved from custom code in GNOME Shell to Clutter itself. During the 3.4 cycle the algorithms were discussed and improved; and it was suggested the inverse effect should be moved back to GNOME Shell. Thus the work was not completed in time for 3.4.”
Below are the demo versions that had proposed on 320

Figure shows the lightness inversion effect. The bottom half of the screen is magnified and inverted. Note that the hues are the same (blue remains blue, orange is orange, etc.), but lightness is inverted. Compare the two views of the triangle in the colour picker, especially the left edge: Darker reds are lighter, lighter reds are darker, and grey levels are inverted.

Figure shows the a +25 per cent increase in contrast. The bottom half of the image shows the enhanced contrast view.
Most of the patches are completed and awaiting review, so we will definitely get these features in Gnome 360

Source: Gnome Live

Disable popup window when running scripts in Ubuntu / Linux Mint

In Ubuntu, Linux Mint and any other distro that uses Nautilus as the file manager, when you double-click on an executable script, a popup window like this will appear to ask you to confirm your action:

If you think this feature is a waste of time like I do, here is how to disable it:

Open Nautilus (or Caja in MATE), on the menu bar, click on Edit then Preferences to open the File Manager Preferences window:

On the File Manager Preferences window, click on the Behavior tab and you will see the three options for executable text files. The default option is the third one ( Ask each time) that triggers the popup window. To run the scripts right after you double clicks on them, the proper option is the first one (Run executable text files when they are opened)

XOrg Server 1.12.3 Is Available for Download

The X.Org Foundation has announced that a new version of their XOrg Server is now available for download.

According to the developers, X.Org X server 1.12.3 is the third stable release, bringing just a few changes, fixing some memory leaks and some out-of-bounds array access bugs.

Highlights of XOrg Server 1.12.3:

· use-after-free issue in checkInput has been repaired;
· A memory leak in TouchEventHistoryReplay has been repaired;
· PropagateMask has been extented to EMASKSIZE;
· SIGIO is now always enabled on OsVendorInit;
· EDID Est III parsing can now walk off end of array;
· EDID Est III parsing now skips some modes.

A number of bugs and problems have remained active as detailed in the official announcement, where you can also find a complete list and changes for this version.

Download XOrg Server 1.12.3

Tails 0.12.1 Has Linux Kernel 3.2.21-3

Tails, a live system that aims at preserving your privacy and anonymity and helps you to use the Internet anonymously, is now at version 0.12.1.

Tails 0.12.1 has a lot of changes and users are urged to upgrade to the latest version, especially because of the new Linux kernel implemented.

Highlights of Tails 0.12.1:

· Torbutton has been updated to version 1.4.6;
· AdBlock Plus has been updated to version 2.1;
· AdBlock patterns have been updated;
· python-pdfrw has been installed to add PDF support (again) to the MAT;
· Linux kernel has been updated to version 3.2.21-3;
· tails-greeter was updated to 0.7.1, fixing the race condition that broke administration password and locale settings on some systems;
· The Tails specific plymouth has been removed.

A complete changelog can be found in the official announcement.

 Download Tails 0.12.1

Backup Your Wii Games With Wii Backup Fusion Under Ubuntu 12.04/Linux Mint 13

Most game consoles use DVD discs to run games. Some users may have purchased hundreds of games stored in DVDs, considering the high price of original games, we are at risk of losing all of them when they get scratched, and we will end up buying new ones, which is a waste of money. To avoid this, you can create images of your favorite games using computer applications. If you own a Nintendo Wii, you can make a backup copy of all your games with the help of Wii Backup Fusion.

Wii Backup Fusion is a free cross-platform application with GUI that helps users copy Nintendo Wii DVDs with support of various recording functions and options. With this application, you can burn DVD discs in CISO/WIA/WDF/WBFS formats, convert DVD to ISO, preview and store game covers, etc.

This software is not meant to be used in game piracy, it is only intended for use with original purchased games and for only personal/private use. Wii Backup Fusion is compatible with both GNOME and KDE desktop environments. In this tutorial, we will help you install Wii Backup Fusion in Ubuntu 12.04/11.10/11.04 or Linux Mint 13.

Wii Backup Fusion Installation

Open the terminal and run the following commands (only 32-bit systems):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:upubuntu-com/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wiibafu

You can now start the application from the Unity Dash:

Download Linux Kernel 3.5 Release Candidate 6

Linus Torvalds announced yesterday, July 7th, that the sixth Release Candidate of the upcoming Linux 3.5 kernel is now available for download and testing.

Linux kernel 3.5 RC6 brings some Btrfs improvements, ARM updates, as well as various networking and driver changes.

“That said, it's also summer (our Australian co-developers may disagree, but they are in the minority), and with that I also wanted to talk about the next merge window. Because I suspect that especially a lot of the European developers have either taken off for vacation or are getting ready to do so.”

“August tends to be off-season for a lot of people. I'm hoping summer plans not a huge part of the slowing down of the rc patches, but I do suspect that the next merge window will almost inevitably be completely overshadowed for some developers by their vacation.” - said Linus Torvalds in the email announcement.

 Download Linux kernel 3.5 RC6