Gaming on Linux - 2012 in Review

The year 2012 is over now and it's time to take a look back on it, and summarize the main events and games of the year.
The year started with an exciting and technically sophisticated title - Oil Rush. Unigine, a Russian software company behind the game, has been a big supporter of the Linux platform for a long time now. With Oil Rush the company has published the first game based on its own cross-platform engine. Originally, the company was specialized in complex 3D benchmark software. Maybe the most comprehensive Unigine's benchmark is Heaven - a beautiful and very demanding graphics benchmark that supports OpenGL 4.0.
In March, Gabe Newell sent us an e-mail telling that Valve is urgently seeking Linux developers and is in the process of improving graphics card drivers for Linux in cooperation with the graphics card manufacturers.
In April, one of the most successful game titles of the year, Trine 2, was released for Linux. The new game has not disappointed. It has been implemented with a lot of attention to the details: a beautiful graphics, great music and exciting story made it very popular among Linux gamers.
In June and September, new Humble Indie Bundle collections surprised us again with great new titles. To the highlights of HIB belonged the winners of different video game awards, Bastion and Torchlight. Torchlight is a very successful counterpart to Blizzard's Diablo and Bastion is a very atmospheric RPG.
In summer, Valve has repeatedly demonstrated, that it is taking development of Steam for Linux very seriously and has hired a prominent Linux game developer Sam Lantinga and has even started a Linux blog.
At the end of the year, it has finally happened what Linux gamers were waiting for years for: in November Steam for Linux has been started in a closed beta. Many bestseller games such as Team Fortress 2, Killing Floor or Serious Sam 3 were released for Linux at the same time. And, in time for Christmas, Valve has made the Linux community happy releasing Steam beta for everyone.
All in all, the year 2012 was much influenced by Steam for Linux, Humble Indie Bundle and Linux games funding on Kickstarter.com. Humble Indie Bundle has long been a driving force for the development of Linux games and has proved Linux as a viable gaming platform. In addition to the games being ported to Linux as a part of HIB, even more important, there were different game engines ported to Linux, like Unreal Engine 3 in Dungeon Defenders. Another common game engine, Unity was released for Linux this year. Porting of graphics game engines is probably the most important milestone on the way to releasing games for Linux.
The year 2012 was undoubtedly a phenomenal year for Linux gamers, and 2013 has good foundations to become the year of Linux gaming.

How To Get Flash Player To Work With Steam For Linux On 64bit

If you're using Steam for Linux beta on 64bit, chances are you can't watch game trailers because Steam can't find Flash Player and you get a message similar to the one below:

"You need to have a specific Flash Player installed to view video content in Steam. Please follow these directions to get the right version for Steam. You will need this Flash player even if you already have the latest player for your default web browser".

So here's how to get Adobe Flash Player to work with Steam for Linux on 64bit.

1. Download Adobe Flash Player 32bit tar.gz archive from HERE (yes, you'll need the 32bit version even though you're running 64bit) and extract it in your home folder.

2. Create the "plugins" folder inside the ~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/ directory using the following command:

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/plugins

3. Copy the "libflashplayer.so" file (available in the folder extracted under step 1) to ~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/plugins - if you've extracted the downloaded Flash Player 32bit archive in your home directory, simply use the following command to copy it to the right folder:

cp ~/install_flash_player_11_linux.i386/libflashplayer.so 

~/.local/share/Steam/ubuntu12_32/plugins

Now you can delete the "install_flash_player_11_linux.i386" folder from your home directory.

4. Restart Steam for Linux and Flash should now work on 64bit:

Note: the instructions above have been tested on Ubuntu 12.10 64bit.

Untangle Gateway 9.4

Untangle, Inc. has announced the release of Untangle Gateway 9.4, a new version of the Debian-based
network gateway with pluggable modules for network applications: "Untangle, Inc., a network software and appliance company, today announced the release of Untangle 9.4, the latest version of its award-winning multi-function firewall software. Untangle 9.4 includes a new Captive Portal as well as a new Host Table and improvements to Session Viewer. Captive Portal receives an entirely new implementation in Untangle 9.4. Captive Portal's role in Untangle's offering is growing more important in several key markets including hospitality and retail alongside established verticals like education and small/medium business. Despite adding new features and functionality to Captive Portal, Untangle has also made it simpler and easier to maintain. Captive Portal is now part of Untangle's Integrated Rules Engine (IRE) and can address critical use cases frequently requested by customers." Here is the full press release. Download (MD5): untangle_940_x64.iso (415MB).

Install/Upgrade to Tor Browser Bundle 2.3.25-2 from PPA in Ubuntu 12.10/12.04 and Linux Mint 14/13

Tor Browser Bundle 2.3.25-2 has been released recently and all users are required to upgrade. This latest release has addressed problems with TurkTrust certificates and it brings the following updates:

•     Update Firefox to 10.0.12esr

•     Update Libevent to 2.0.21-stable

•     Update HTTPS Everywhere to 3.1.2

•     Update NoScript to 2.6.4.2

You can find the official release notes here. For manual installation, you can download Tor Browser Bundle from here. For easier installation via PPA, you can see below. The PPA is available for these Ubuntu/Linux Mint distros:

• Ubuntu 13.04/12.10/12.04/11.10
• Linux Mint 14/13/12

Tor Browser Bundle Installation

Open the terminal and enter these commands for 32-bit systems:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:upubuntu-com/tor 

sudo apt-get update 

sudo apt-get install tor-browser 

sudo chown $USER -Rv ~/.tor-browser/

For 64-bit systems, enter these commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:upubuntu-com/tor64 

sudo apt-get update 

sudo apt-get install tor-browser 

sudo chown $USER -Rv ~/.tor-browser/

Start it from Unity Dash:

Or from the terminal with this command:

tor-browser

PelicanHPC 2.9

Michael Creel has announced the release of PelicanHPC 2.9, a Debian-based live DVD that makes it possible to set up high-performance computing clusters in minutes: "PelicanHPC version 2.9 is available. Octave 3.6.3, dynare 4.3.1, some updates to the econometrics stuff, and also the usual sync to Debian. This release is mainly to incorporate package updates from Debian. A note: PelicanHPC is based on Debian stable ('Squeeze'), and is made using live-build v2.x. Before too long, the testing version of Debian ('Wheezy') will become stable. To make live images with 'Wheezy', you need to use live-build v3.x. The build script for PelicanHPC will need to be adapted to use live-build 3.x. I doubt that I will have time/interest to do that, so if anyone would like to take on the job, feel free to go for it." Visit the distribution's home page to read the brief release announcement. Download link: pelicanhpc-v2.9.iso (727MB, MD5).

Retro Game Boy Modified into an Android Gamepad

There are tons of great retro game emulators for the Android platform, put using the touch screen as a game controller is a lackluster solution. This fun electronics hack turns an old Game Boy into a case/controller for your phone.
Courtesy of Chad Boughton, this hack merged the guts of a Wiimote with the case of an old Gameboy. Just clip your phone into the bracket in the top of the Game Boy case, link the two by Bluetooth, and enjoy a beefier and more tactile controller for your games.
If you want the same experience without the destruction of a perfectly good Wiimote and all the DIY work involved, you may want to check out the MOGA system, a very similar (but commercially produced) system for Android phones–just make sure to download the unlock app to use it with the emulator of your choice.