Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Some of the best native games in raspberry pi

Raspberry pi has many leisure options beyond emulators and kodi, for example, you can play many GNU / Linux games that do not abuse graphics acceleration.


I made a brief list of funniest and fluid ones for our little computer, I group by installation method:

From official repositories

These are the game you can install with the command apt-get install name_of_the_game:
  1. Block Attack, rise of the blocks: Very addictive diamond game, it's hard to stop playing.
  2. lBreakOut 2: arkanoid remake.
  3. Epiphany: Boulder Dash remake.
  4. Ltris: tetris clone, very good.
  5. Pingus: lemmings clone, with a lot of improvements.
  6. Xgalaga: kill alien ships game. No rest.
  7. Slimey Volley: simple and funny volleyball game.
  8. SuperTux: like Mario but tux is the main character.
  9. Tux football: soccer game, similar to Goal goal goal or Emilio Butragueño.
  10. Pix frogger: frogger remake.
  11. Minecraft Pi: Minecraft for raspberry pi.
  12. Eat the whistle: soccer game similar to Football Manager or Yoda Soccer.
  13. PySOL FC: 1000 cards games in one, very good and very well documented.

Install the form retropie

You need to use retropie script to install them:
  1. Giana's return: Mario clone with amazing graphics.
  2. OpenTyrian: amazing kill alien ships game, see how install it and configure.
  3. zDoom: Doom adapted to raspberry pi.
  4. Quake III: another first person shoot'em all game.
  5. eduke32: Duke Nukem 3D adapted to raspberry pi.
 

Manual installation (binaries)

You need follow the author's instructions to install them, compile them is not necessary:
  1. Hurrican: Turrican remake. Pure adrenaline.
  2. Maldita Castilla (cursed Castilla): zombie game similar to Ghost'n'Goblings, master piece and guaranteed fun.
  3. They need to be feed: Amazing game with worlds with their own gravity where you have to feed a dying alien race.
  4. Air Hockey Arcade: you must put the disc into the goal.
  5. Super Crate Box: a game that will not give you a respite.

To compile them

Compiling is very easy following the author's instructions:
  1. Capitan Sevilla, el remake (Captain S): Another recovered classic game. You are the Captain Sevilla trying to prevent the evil Pr. Torrebruno enslaved the city and the World.
  2. Rock'n'diamons: boulder dash clone with improved graphics (download the source code and compile with the command make sdl)
  3. Lpairs: pairs game, you can change the images always with the same format than original ones.
  4. Vorton: Highway encounter remake, recently recovered.
  5. Stepmania: software to use dance mats.
  6. PyDance: another software to use dance mats.

Java games

You only need java in your raspberry to run them:
  1. The abbey of crime extensum: Remake of one of the most successful Spanish games of all time that takes full advantage of the capabilities of today's computers. It takes a while to boot but then it goes very well.

I want more...

This is just a small sample of the number of games that are available for our gadget, for example, I have not put any of the countless table games that work in luxury.
You can see a more extensible list in this thread in official raspberry pi forum.

Artículo original en castellano

Monday, July 17, 2017

Super button in Lubuntu 16.04

We want to use the Super key (also known as "Windows key") to access  to Display the lxde menu and avoid depend so much on the mouse and gain some productivity in the handling of the computer.




Just add these lines to ~/.config/openbox/lubuntu-rc.xml file
<keybind key="Super_L">
    <action name="Execute">
        <command>lxpanelctl menu</command>
     </action>
</keybind>

And it's all OK.

Artículo original en castellano

Saturday, July 08, 2017

Install vice 3, the new version of the commodore emulator, in Ubuntu or Debian (including raspbian for raspberry pi)

Vice is one of the most powerful and famous Commodore computers emulators (not Amiga), it is really like an emulation suite since each platform has a specific executable and you have to call from the console (and not only in GNU/Linux, although always we can create shortcuts).

Now the new version 3.4 was launched with a lot of improvements, but the programmers didn't launch binaries for any GNU/Linux distro, so we need download the source code, uncompress and compile it, but this is very easy typing the next commands in your console (copy & paste):
sudo apt-get install xa65 build-essential byacc texi2html flex libreadline-dev libxaw7-dev texinfo libxaw7-dev libgtk2.0-cil-dev libgtkglext1-dev libpulse-dev
wget -c https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/vice-emu/releases/vice-3.4.tar.gz
tar -zxvf vice-3.4.tar.gz
cd vice-3.4
./configure --with-x --without-pulse --with-sdlsound --enable-sdlui2 make
sudo make install
You need copy the BIOS files in your folder .vice into $HOME folder, inside .vice must be a folder for each system:
C128 C64 C64DTV CBM-II DRIVES PET PLUS4 PRINTER SCPU64 VIC20
These are the commands to run each system:
x128  x64  x64dtv  x64sc  xcbm2  xcbm5x0  xpet  xplus4  xscpu64  xvic

There are also tools to transfer data between your commodore and your PC as c1541 or cartconv to manage floppies or cartridges respectiveness.
You can see the documents enclosed to the software for more details.

Artículo original en castellano

Monday, July 03, 2017

First Amstrad CPC emulators in GNU/Linux

Amstrad CPC are computers that I have a lot of affection since my first two computers were a CPC464 and a CPC6128, in fact the last one is still running and keeping 100% operative.

 CPC wiki

So I like to play my games of my teen in GNU/Linux and I start using CPCEMU emulator for it.
CPCEmu for DOS was the first CPC emulator I knew, it was great. GNU/Linux version was one of the best native emulator, install it is very simple:
  • Download lastest version for GNU/Linux.
  • Uncompress it in a folder.
  • Select the folder and type the commands cpc464, cpc664 or cpc6128 it depends of the model you want to run.
  • You needn't search the BIOS because BIOS distribution with emulators was allowed by Amstrad, but only provided it is only for that purpose. Therefore, CPCEMU already includes the BIOS.
  • You find some folder intro the instalation folder DISC/, ROM/, SNAP/, TAPE/, UTILITY/ to put on them disk images, ROMs, snapshots, single files and utilities.
All these files can be into a ZIP file that emulator show them like folders, this is useful to save a lot of space.
See the enclosed manual, very interesting.


Other native emulators for GNU/Linux are M.E.S.S., Arnold, CPC++ or cpc4x, but they are more complicated for compiling and installing and they don't have so much features and have less performance than CPCEMU.

I asked in Amstrad CPC forum, MiguelSky ask me than there is a version of arnoldCPC emulator that runs ok in older GNU/Linux distros.

You need download the old version for Windows (includes all the BIOS and necessary files) and add to it the new executable file for GNU/Linux.

But now there is a new version of Arnold WIP CPC Emulador.  that run better in lastest GNU/Linux distros.

Also, KaosOverride recomends me recompile Caprice emulator.


After some years he made a fork called CapriceRPI for raspberry pi with a fancy menu and a lot of improvements. This fork can also be compiled and runs on PC GNU/Linux.
Thank you both for the information.

Another emulator I run with success is CPC emulator for X.



By the way, most of the Amstrad CPC emulators for Windows run ok in GNU/Linux using wine.

Original articles