Hikarunix: The Go Distro

LGRiske writes "In this day and age of the Unreal Final Fantasy of Doom 3 it's nice to see a 4000 year old board game keep up the pace. There's now a whole Linux distribution dedicated to learning, playing and studying the oldest strategy game in the world, Go/Baduk/WeiQi. Named Hikarunix it is based on DamnSmallLinux, the Live Linux CD, and is small enough to fit on a 3" (80mm) miniCD. It is meant for Go players of all levels whether you've never even heard of the game or have been playing for decades."

Comments

Note that there's a torrent...

[tcopeland]

...right here. Only two seeds out there so far...

Re:Note that there's a torrent...

[Saeger]

Wow - there are more seeders than leechers ATM, so I'm getting this puppy at a full 3mbps.

Yet another distro to testdrive (in VMWare).

--

Re:Note that there's a torrent...

[tcopeland]

> there are more seeders than leechers ATM

Heh, yup, sweet. I'm seeing 115 seeders... jeepers.

If only that many folks were seeding on The Linux Mirror Project.

Re:Note that there's a torrent...

[dasmegabyte]

Damnit, if I'm gonna reboot my computer just to play a game, it's not gonna be freakin' Go. It's gonna be Microsoft Decathlon, which combined the fun of an IBM computer with the stability of a Microsoft OS.

Re:Note that there's a torrent...

[Anonymous Coward]

Damnit, if I'm gonna load up Slashdot just to read some pompous tripe, it's not gonne be freakin' autopr0n. It's gonne be dasmegablimp, who combines the insight of a (fat) retarded oranutan with the ass-gas potency of the Bhopal Union Carbide plant.

Re:Note that there's a torrent...

[dasmegabyte]

Now that was a good flame. It featured obscure references, an insult to Autopr0n and of course it made fun of my fabled weight problem. That's a hat trick!

Such apt satire, and it's about me! I feel like a Kennedy!

What is this game?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is this game? Is it any fun? That sounds pretty cool.

Re:What is this game?

[untermensch]

What is this game? Is it any fun? That sounds pretty cool.
There's a link in the submission to a site that will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about Go. If you're really too lazy to go back it's here.

Re:What is this game?

[bazmonkey]

Go is generally considered the oldest board game on earth. It's at least 3000 years old in its current form. Like most games from the Orient, its easy to understand the rules, but freakishly difficult to play a good game.

Whereas chess skill is largely dependant upon how many tactics you know, go is much more a game of finesse. The basic techniques are all the knowledge that's really needed, after that skill comes with reading ahead and knowing how your opponent plays. A given situation has lots of suitable answers, not just a best one. It challenges your intellect more than just your knowledge of the game.

A google search for IGS and KGS will give you all you need to play some go online. Unlike Yahoo's go client, which doesn't even accurately score games sometimes, IGS and KGS are mature servers with a huge worldwide player base, complete rulesets, and tools to review games and tutor. Moreover, the go servers attract true professional players, dan-level amateurs, and everyone down to beginners, so you're sure to find a good challenge no matter who you are. The clients are Java-based, and IGS can even be played out of a web browser.

Re:What is this game?

[Anonymous Coward]

How To Play Go.

Re:What is this game?

[Paracelcus]

The "oldest strategy game in the world" isn't!
Wei-Ch'i (Go) was invented by Emperor Shun (in China) (2255 - 2206 BC.
but!
The Royal Game of Ur and Tau (The Game of Twenty Squares) existed before 2600 BC in Mesopotamia.

Re:What is this game?

[commodoresloat]

I'm too lazy to even click that link. Can't you just explain it?

Re:What is this game?

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that people have been playing Go from the time it was invented through the modern day, while Ur was dead and burried until it was dug out of the ground in the 1920s.

Ur has been dead for so long people don't even know what the rules were.

Re:What is this game?

[Twinbee]

• Whereas chess skill is largely dependant upon how many tactics you know, go is much more a game of finesse.

Not to get in an argument about chess versus go, but I couldn't resist. Try googling:

"best chess games" (739, at least half of which mean in an aesthetical sense)

Then try:
"best go game/s" (0)

(Around 14 come up for Go, but none are actually relevant).

In other words, most games of go are quite similar to each other, while with chess, there's more of a unique atmosphere behind every game. Don't get me wrong, I love playing go (it's a more 'pure' game than chess), but chess has more variety - like music.

Re:What is this game?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try some better search terms: '"professional games" commentary sgf' gave me quite a few relevant hits. You can also try "famous go games". You can also get professional and amateur games from IGS and KGS, from gobase.org, from the go teaching ladder... etc. There are also many published books of commentary and analysis of professional games, like _Learning from the Masters: Kyu Level Commentary on Pro Games_, _Appreciating Famous Games_, and so on.
In other words, there are many famous go games, and your assessment that "most games of go are quite similar to each other" is rather unfounded(and in my opinion simply false).

Go is flawed

[diginux]

Play hex.

Re:Go is flawed

[ackthpt]

Play hex.

+++ MELON MELON MELON +++
+++ Out of Cheese error +++
+++ Reinstall Universe +++
+++ Redo from start +++

[ANT HILL INSIDE]

Man, I suck at that, how about Cripple Mr. Onion?

Re:Go is flawed

[Marrow]

Go is perfect. Perhaps your perceptions are flawed.

Re:Go is flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

Grandparent: "Go is flawed."
Parent: "Go is perfect. Perhaps your perceptions are flawed."

Anyone else seriously reminded of the movie Pi?

Re:Go is flawed

[diginux]

Ask Nash.

Re:Go is flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

If you look at the scene where Nash plays go with another friend in "a beautiful mind", they don't know the basics of go... it was a laughingstock in Korea where there are millions of go(baduk) lovers, and the Baduk TV is one of only three profitable cable channels. Anyway, it's harder to learn than chess (which doesn't mean chess is easy, and that's why Westerners are just happy with chess), but the replayability is like no other.

Re:Go is flawed

[gaijin99]

Meh, he's trolling, ignore it.

I'm not sure any game is perfect, but Go does come damn close. I'm pretty sure that any sentient aliens will play games, and I'd be surprised if they didn't have games of the "move pieces, capture the special piece" vareity (like Chess, Shogi, etc), those games won't be Chess or Shogi, but I'm sure they'll be similar. But I'm pretty sure that they will play Go. Not a "Go like game", but Go, the utter simplicity of the rules ensures that if they evolved a game along the lines of Go it would be Go. Which is pretty neat, when you think about it. The Go problem you worked this morning was probably being worked by beings with tentacles hundreds of light years away too.

As for a Go based Linux distro, I do have to admit to asking "Why?" Obviously, why not, but still, it seems a bit too specialized.

Re:Go is flawed

[fr2asbury]

Nah, Westerners probably like Chess because of all the ways you can theme the pieces! Star Trek to Simpsons, it's all been done.

Re:Go is flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

As for a Go based Linux distro, I do have to admit to asking "Why?" Obviously, why not, but still, it seems a bit too specialized.

Seems obvious to me, it'll fit on a 3" live cd, hence you can carry it with you easily and play it on any windoze machine you care to stick it in and reboot, seems a great idea, a game with (hopefully) good ai you can sit and play anywhere you happen to have a pc with a bootable cd-rom, no need to download and install it, and its more fun than minesweeper (not that minesweeper isnt fun too hehe)

Re:Go is flawed

[hunterx11]

The simplicity of Go actually makes it seem a bit inelegant when people play it--namely that it is not self-evident when the game is over. I'm not necessarily saying that this is a flaw, although people sometimes continue playing games whose outcome is already decided. I think the most "natural" way to play would be to use Chinese scoring rules, and keep playing until every space is filled up, but that would be tedious and unnecessary.

Re:Go is flawed

[timts]

flawed one is "GO" but not the "WeiQi" mentioned in the topic.

any experience GO player can beat existing GO program since it's damn hard to make one that really works well.

Re:Go is flawed

[Vaevictis666]

Except that that wouldn't work - you need the holes in your formations to give it strength, otherwise you'll end up filling all your liberties and suiciding.

I think the only way to tell when a game is over is to practice - for example, when playing my friend, I'll fairly often beleive the board is settled, but he's not convinced so he'll keep pushing. I successfully defend the "pointless" attacks more often than he can make something of it, but regardless we both end up learning something.

Re:Go is flawed

[Danny Rathjens]

... {it is} something unearthly ... If there are sentient beings on other planets, then they play Go.
- Emanuel Lasker, chess world champion

http://senseis.xmp.net/?GreatQuotes

Re:Go is flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

That reminds me of the Hikaru No Go that I've actually seen (I think I only enjoy the anime b/c of my interest in the game). They play along for a while and then someone resigns. They show the board and I have to be like ??? If you search on the web you'll find that many/most of the games played in the anime are actual professional games. Which makes me feel better that I, for the most part, can't quite follow the game logic they put up real quick. But I've only been playing go for about a year.

Re:Go is flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, I suck at Go, and *I* could tell that the board in the movie looked like shit.

But, ya know, moviemakers do that kind of thing.

Which doesn't detract from Nash's argument against the game at all, but I've never seen what that arguement is, so I treat the statement like I would Albert Einstein commenting that Chess was boring.

Re:Go is flawed

[Smallpond]

Go would be perfect except for the "ko" rule, which prevents what chess would call "draw by repetition". The rule seems sort of arbitrary to me.

I got OK at chess (1800 rating) but I never broke the surface of Go, its much harder to play well. To make them equal difficulty, you could play Go on a small board, maybe 7 x 7, and then you could calculate the effect of your moves the same way as in chess. On 19 x 19 you can't calculate combinations. You need the years of experience to see patterns.

Re:Go is flawed

[j1m 5n0w]

Play hex.

Here's some more info on hex. From the wikipedia article:

The game was invented by the Danish mathematician Piet Hein in 1942, and independently by the mathematician John Nash in the late 1940s. It became known in Denmark under the name Polygon; Nash's fellow players at first called the game Nash. According to Martin Gardner, some of the Princeton University students also referred to the game as John, because it was often played on the hexagonal tiles of bathroom floors.

...

Players have two colors, say "Red" and "Blue". (Of course, the colors are merely a convention and the actual colors vary from board to board and from version to version.) They alternate turns placing a piece of their color inside a hexagon, filling in that hexagon with their color. Red's goal is to form a red path connecting the top and bottom sides of the parallelogram, and Blue's goal is to form a path connecting the left and right sides.

I've never played it, so I can't really comment on whether it's more interesting than go or not.

-jim

Re:Go is flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

The "Ko" rule is an incredibly important and intrinsic part of game play. You may be confused by certain complexities of the rule which rarely come up in an actual game.

Re:Go is flawed

[diginux]

It definately is more interesting in my humble opinion. Here is a link to a Linux version of the game.

Re:Go is flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not trolling, he's making a joke that completely flew over your head.

The grandparent is referring to the late John Nash. If all you know of him is what saw in the movie, it's your loss.

Re:Go is flawed

[Strioa]

Actually, the ko rule creates ko fights which, once your not scared of them anymore, is a pretty interesting layer of the game. Because in order to settle a local dispute(the ko itself) you have to play elsewere alternatively, thus waging both a local and a global battle at the same time.

It's kind of hard to convey if you're not that familiar with the game, but it's actually one of the coolest and hardest things in Go, IMO.

strioa

Re:Go is flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

Traditionally, continuing despite there not being any chance of winning is considered rude. And also tells the opponent that you're a bad Go-player.

Re:Go is flawed

[tomee]

Actually that wouldn't work, you would have to play until no more moves are possible, not every point is filled. Anyway, I agree with you that for new players it is hard to tell the outcome of a game, but actually it isn't that bad since you can play on till the very end until you get good enough at the game to be able to tell when the game can be considered over. Thas was my experience when I started playing.

Re:Go is flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

he's not dead yet!

Re:Sigh too many distro

[Gibberx]

Yeah, but it wouldn't be a small distro designed for playing Go. Celebrate diversity!

Never understood how that game worked

[lphuberdeau]

I have tryed to play for hours but I never understood what the point was any why could the computer do stuff I couldn't and beat me every single time.

I'm not too sure a dedicated distribution is such a good thing. Wouldn't have packing it with Knoppix be more useful? Booting a PC to play a game isn't the kind of thing I do every day anyway.

Re:Never understood how that game worked

[Duke Machesne]

You, obviously, do not play GO.

Re:Never understood how that game worked

[Rakshasa Taisab]

I guess you should read about it or ask someone to teach you.

Re:Never understood how that game worked

[Rufus211]

don't play a computer. Go is a notoriously complex game that computers can't even come close to understanding (there is simply too much strategy and too many possible moves). The best way to learn is to find someone (in real life) who knows how to play and play some 9x9 (not a full 19x19) games against them. If you can't find anyone in real life find an online go server (google for it) and play some people there. Playing real people is the only way to learn, and if you say you're a noob someone will probably help you out with some pointers.

Re:Never understood how that game worked

[bentfork]

Go is a game of territory.
Each stone is like a fence post.
The goal is to fence off more territory than your opponent, while minimizing the number of posts you place, and maximizing the number that you opponent must play.

Quite simply, it is the best game in the word. It can be played by anyone with a brain ( ~8 yrs and up )

To learn the game you should play with someone (a human) who has played before.

Re:Never understood how that game worked

[Mr2cents]

I'm not too sure a dedicated distribution is such a good thing.

Soon every application will have it's own dedicated distribution. I'm not sure what will be the advantage besides a try-before-you-install feature, but hell, why not!

Re:Never understood how that game worked

[Anonymous Coward]

noob.

Re:Never understood how that game worked

[Tellalian]

For a beginner, a computers can be an excellent opponent, if just to learn the basics. The nice thing about Go is that if you find the computer too easy you can make the game harder by giving it some handicaps, essentially giving the computer a head-start. GNU Go, included with Hikarunix, is rated about 9 kyu, plenty strong for a beginner.

Re:Never understood how that game worked

[hoagieslapper]

I prefer learning by playing the 8x8 version that comes with WinXP.

Re:Never understood how that game worked

[Duckwitz]

For me, having a bootable CD to play the game of go will be great since I travel a lot with a company computer. All those go resources available with very little work -- perfect! Booting that computer to something other than a MS product is also always a plus.

Along the same lines, my MandrakeMove CD is used quite a bit.

I have to go boot Hikarunix now! The BitTorrent download just finished (I got 175 kb/s at one point, amazing!).

Re:Never understood how that game worked

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a great game. Find one of the Go servers and give it a try again. There are many people online who will help you.

Parenthetically, I'm not sure why a comment that says "I never understood what the point was" is modded up as insightful. Is this the new way to get karma points? Pick a deep strategy game and post only questions about it?

Reboots

[SnAzBaZ]

While this seems pretty cool, I'd find it pretty tiresome having to keep rebooting to use it then rebooting again to get back to whatever else I was doing. Besides, Chess is better >:)

Re:Reboots

[Ironsides]

Chess is better

Then try Shogi.

Re:Reboots

[vspazv]

Chess may be more fun but with Go a good human player can beat the computer every time.

Re:Reboots

[Sidicas]

Chess is better

I agree...

Then try Shogi.

I've decided that I'll wait until someone makes a distro out of it.

Re:Reboots

[Anonymous Coward]

Chess is not better at all. Go has simple rules, yet deep strategy. Chess has silly rules with every piece moving different and no strategy at all, you only have to memorize openings and count many moves ahead, thats all there is to chess (besides it will die because too many games end in draw and computers will find optimal strategy (not to talk about huge advantage of first player))

Re:Reboots

[cjpez]

Those of us who are still absolutely terrible at Go, though, will continue to feel ashamed with every defeat at the hands of the machine.

Re:Reboots

[gaijin99]

And probably will for the forseable future. One thing computers still don't do well at all is pattern recognition, and that's kinda the heart of Go. I've always wondered if even truly sentient computers would have a hard time with pattern recognition (just like we have a hard time doing arithmetic or sorting).

Re:Reboots

[hunterx11]

It's funny--Westerners are more likely to have heard of Go, but Shogi and (especially) Xiangqi are WAY more played. Maybe it's Hanziphobia.

Re:Reboots

[mr_mischief]

Chess has different pieces moving differently because that's part of the game. It's not silly at all. The game approximates learning to identify your resources and use them effectively. The resoruces available to you in real life are often different in nature and come in different numbers. They can often be combined in many different ways to acheive a goal. Training someone to identify the value of a resource and when its use is appropriate is a great tool for that person's future. There are advantages and disadvantages of using any particular piece at any particular time. There's also risk management built into the game. Sure, the queen is a powerful piece, but if used carelessly, it's no good due to capture.

Go may still be a better game, but chess is not silly.

Re:Reboots

[Anonymous Coward]

It's quite likely that being able to form patterns out of input is crucial to sentience.

So...

[Millennium]

Is the window manager called Sai?

Re:So...

[dosius]

Sai Go... lol

(note for those not so versed in Japanese, "saigo" = "final")

Moll.

Re:So...

[moonbender]

I'm not sure if I remember correctly and if the grandparent was referring to it anyway, but I think one the main characters (the tutor) of Hikaru No Go is also called Sai. Hikaro No Go being the anime that inspired the name of the distribution.

Re:So...

[hibiki_r]

Not just an anime series, but also a comic book that is being distributed in the US already. The series is much better than it sounds, and doesn't really need you to understand go at all.

Re:So...

[Millennium]

I hadn't thought of that, actually. I was talking about the distro's name, "Hikarunix". It's a reference to the anime Hikaru no Go. The title character is taught to play Go by Sai, the restless spirit of an ancient Go master.

What's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the point of having an entire Linux distro for a single "game"?

Re:What's the point?

[captwheeler]

What's the point of having an entire Linux distro for a single "game"?

There are many Go players who want to see/try all the different Go software but would never try working with Linux. Now they can, and find out that Linux is pretty nice.

Good name

[Neil Blender]

They didn't leave it open to any 'rinux' jokes.

Re:Good name

[Anonymous Coward]

Your sig is wrong. It should point to http://slashdot.org/~Neil%20Blender/journal/. The link you used points to the journal of whoever is logged in at the moment.

Re:Good name

[Mateito]

They didn't leave it open to any 'rinux' jokes.

because we all know that Rinux is not Runix.

Re:Good name

[Anonymous Coward]

Rastro, ris rat rou? Reese rive ree ra rall! Ranks, Rooby Roo.

me like Go

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello, my name Hitaro Sitakashi in Japan. Go excelent game, much recommend to download and install Go Linux! Sorry English not my natural langage.

Re:me like Go

[Anonymous Coward]

Somewhere in Japan, there is a retarded boy who can troll as a fake American better than you can troll as a fake Japanese person.

I know....because I am that retarded boy.

Re:me like Go

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG don be such a dumass! Yall no halfass "retarded boy" anymore than I'm a red-blooded flag-loving American, yessiree bob! oooh shiny object... oh no its a womans bare nipple, I turn myself in to the sheriff now.

Re:Sigh too many distro

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure it would be superior enough? What if we got it enough good but people didn't trustworthy it?

Interesting game

[lukewarmfusion]

...but very frustrating. I learned from a Chinese friend that brought a set from home. He got us all addicted (in college, we had time for this stuff). Soon we had maybe ten games spread out over the quad in front of our dorm. When I finally beat my friend in a match, I retired for good. I had to go out on a high note.

Why the run around?

[Askjeffro]

Would it not be easier to simply say the size of distro rather "the Live Linux CD, and is small enough to fit on a 3" (80mm) miniCD." Let us determine what media it will fit, I think most of us have had basic math.

Re:Why the run around?

[damiam]

I don't know about you, but I don't know the size of a 3" CD off the top of my head, because I rarely use them. Saying "it'll fit on a 3" CD" is much more useful to me than "it takes up 62.182MB".

Re:Why the run around?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think most of us have had basic math.

Pfff. That doesn't mean the majority of /. users can do it *correctly*.

Re:Why the run around?

[Control Group]

I don't know the size of a 3" CD off the top of my head

You know, I understand exactly what you meant, but do you realize how funny this read on my first pass?

Re:Why the run around?

[Askjeffro]

Sorry guys, I didn't realize there was so many people using 3" CD's today. My point being, I think most of us know a normal CD is 650-700mb, a floppy is 1.44mb, a 256mb usb drive is 256mb... It has been my experience people tend to think in file sizes first and then apply it to the media format of their choosing. So while saying it fits on a 3" CD may be more useful to the people that actually use them, the rest of us that use more standard storage are left wondering if it will fit in the remaining 40mb of free space we have on our jump drive. Just my thoughts.

Re:Why the run around?

[pknoll]

Maybe the FAQ would help you out:

1) Burn the cd image (hikarunix-XX.iso) to a CD (full sized or a 210MB miniCD).

Looks like its = 210MB.

Re:Why the run around?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think most of us know a normal CD is 650-700mb...

millibits? that thing must hold TONS of stuff...like, maybe this post...

Re:Sigh too many distro

[carrett]

is that really our goal? i already think oss is superior to anything M$ puts out. the only reason microsoft is still dominant is because it's what everyone is used to. all their favorite commercial products (games, office apps, etc.) are written for windows. i don't want a big unified all-powerful linux, i like it the way it is, with tons of highly specialized choices so i can pick the distro that suits my needs best. the question is, do you want choice or not?

seriously, can we forget about "beating" microsoft. what's the point?

Sweet

[pHatidic]

For those who don't get the name, it's based on the anime series Hikaru No Go which is about a boy who is taught to play Go play the ghost of a former pro player from thousands of years ago.

If you are interested in playing Go online, I would recommend Kiseido Go Server, is it is the best there is and its java so it can run on almost any platform.

Re:Sweet

[eric_ste]

Personally, gentoo is my Go distro... but all the ebuilds are not available...

Anyways, I use Gnugo with gGo which is the interface to pandanet and gnugo. Sometimes I also use kombilo.

http://gobase.org/ is a wonderful website
http://dcs.nac.uci.edu/~strombrg/go-unix.html has many Go related soft.
http://goproblems.com/ The name says it all
http://gtl.jeudego.org/ Is the Go teaching ladder where you are paired with someone stronger than you, to learn go from a stronger human....
http://www.joseki.com/ Again the name says it all...
http://playgo.to/index-e.html is a website that has a nice intro to go.

Go keeps the mind healthy...

Unreal Final Fantasy of Doom 3

[jetkust]

Yea, I know this game sounds like vaporware and all, but I assure you, it will be out before Duke Nukem Forever.

Re:Sigh too many distro

[Moby Cock]

Come on, that doesn't seem right. The whole idea of community driven design is to stimulate innovation. A big ass monolithic linux distro would be about as innovative as Windows.

All I know about Go

[Anonymous Coward]

...I learned from watching Hikaru No Go.

Now I'm learning to pilot huge battle mechs by watching Evangelion.

Re:All I know about Go

[Theaetetus]

Now I'm learning to pilot huge battle mechs by watching Evangelion.

Just don't try to learn how to pick up "women" by watching Ranma. ;)

Re:All I know about Go

[tetsuji]

One of the cool things about Hikaru is that the games that they show being played in the anime are actual, historical games.

I remember the first time a friend showed me an episode of Hikaru, and about half way through I started getting this intense sensation of deja-vu. It took me a few minutes to figure out that the game that the characters were playing was one I had memorized out of a book of famous games!

Re:All I know about Go

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you trying to tell us that huge battle mechs exist?

Re:All I know about Go

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a saying at Sensei's Library.

"Read Hikaru and lose two stones in strength. Watch Hikaru and lose four."

Re:All I know about Go

[Quobobo]

Another thing about the show is how freaking boring it is. I like chess, but that doesn't mean I'd ever want to watch a terribly overdramatized anime about it.

Hikaru no Go drinking game: 1 drink for each of the following:

-someone bursts into tears after a game of Go
-ominous music and foreshadowing to announce an evil board game player
-lame flashback to another Go game
-Hikaru showing his angry/stunned face in response to some AMAZING MOVE or one of the aforementioned evil players (this seems to come up much more than the rest)

Re:Sigh too many distro

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are saying Linux is innovative by copying everyone, then I agree.

Missing a data point?

[bstadil]

I think most of us have had basic math

I don't recall the capacity of a miniCD being part of the math curriculum.

As someone who's terrible at strategy games...

[kzinti]

...I have to ask: isn't learning Go from a computer sort of like learning sex from a porn site? You can pick up some basic concepts and maybe even some effective strategies, but until you have a real, live, flesh-and-blood human partner you're just not getting the full effect and are never going to be truly good.

Re:As someone who's terrible at strategy games...

[untermensch]

but until you have a real, live, flesh-and-blood human partner you're just not getting the full effect and are never going to be truly good.

probably true, but many of the tools on the CD are designed to connect you to real-live human Go players. Sure it might be nicer to sit down with someone face-to-face, but not everybody has the advantage of living in a part of the world or a city big enough to have Go clubs or other Go players at all.

Re:As someone who's terrible at strategy games...

[jejones]

That's why there are apps on the distro to hook you up to play online, and a database of annotated games.

Re:As someone who's terrible at strategy games...

[William Baric]

It's certainly better to learn from an average computer than a poor human player. No?

Re:As someone who's terrible at strategy games...

[kzinti]

Excellent answer! I didn't notice the remote-play link in my first look at the site. My skepticism is about learning from a computer, but learning from another person is fine, I think, whether they're sitting across the board or across the world.

Re:As someone who's terrible at strategy games...

[Yosho]

That's arguable... I'm a poor-to-average human player, but I can play evenly against the best Go program. This isn't one of those games that a brute-force algorithm can solve. ;-)

Re:As someone who's terrible at strategy games...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... you might be right. The first few times I was with a real female I got some strange looks when I yelled out "take it, you know you like it!" or tried to set up the "money shot".

Re:As someone who's terrible at strategy games...

[Anonymous Coward]

I would say no.

I don't know whether you play Go, but I do. Basically the hardest thing for beginners to learn is the balance between security and speed. There isn't any rule or principle for determining whether a given area or group is actually secure or not; it's a judgement call based on the situation and whether it would be profitable to attack. The level of defense in a given game is partly a consensus between the two players.

Against a certain player, it may be a waste of a move to make a defensive play because they would not be interested in that area anyway. However against a different player, I might expect an attack and take the defensive angle when I had a chance.

Point is that this is not an algorithmic decision. Playing against a computer which always decides these issues based on software doesn't strengthen your understanding of the psychology of the game. To do that you really need to play against humans.

Re:As someone who's terrible at strategy games...

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Go is extremely difficult for computers. At best, they play at an amatuer level. You don't have to be very skilled to beat them.

Re:As someone who's terrible at strategy games...

[FooAtWFU]

So play people online, perhaps?

Re:As someone who's terrible at strategy games...

[Tellalian]

Although I'd agree that little can substitute a face-to-face game in real life, Hikarunix includes clients that allow you to connect to all the popular Go servers, such as IGS, KGS, and NNGS, to play against real people. Although don't discount the computer programs (which are often available on the servers as well). They may not be able to beat the grand masters, but programs like GNU Go and The Many Faces of Go are more than challenging for the aspiring Go player. This is especially relavant in the US, where Go does not have the same name-recognition as Chess, so it can be hard to find an opponent for real world games.

Re:As someone who's terrible at strategy games...

[Anonymous Coward]

At the U.S. Go Congress this year, there was a quite strong 6-dan player who learned to play entirely over the internet. It was a bit funny, as he was a bit awkward putting the stones on the board, and counting (as scoring at the end of the game is quite different in person vs. on-line).

Ninnle ahead again

[Anonymous Coward]

This has been part of Ninnle Linux since some of the earliest versions of the famed distro.

Re:Sigh too many distro

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are all the Microsoft Fanboys marking the original poster -1 redundant?

Great Idea with Potential

[RobRancho]

This is actually a great idea and could be the basis for further innovation/exploitation of Linux or alternative and free OSs for distributing products sans the Windows / Direct X / permissions / general configuration headaches. You wouldn't have to worry about what media player or APIs are present on a user's system, instead focusing on creating a robust, stable, and boot-able platform to showcase your wares. Anyone know of any current projects bent towards this goal? Once the work was done, it could be applied to a variety of software products.

Re:Great Idea with Potential

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's get even MORE software that makes you reboot every time you want to use it. Stellar plan, sir.

Re:Great Idea with Potential

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I think it still doesn't consider that not many people want to reboot play a game. Rebooting to play games is for consoles, if you want that, code for the original Playstation or something.

If you want to promote Go to a Windows user, I suggest finding an available Go game for Windows.

It isn't that I don't think the idea of a bootable, self-contained program is uninteresting, it is just too inefficient to reboot so often. The Knoppix and such projects are great for kiosk type programs though, so maybe setting up an arcade machine might be a good way to promote this game.

Re:Great Idea with Potential

[wandazulu]

You obviously have never used a game console.

Re:Great Idea with Potential

[Mojojojo Monkey Inc.]

What, is your attention span so short you have to switch to a new game every five minutes, and can't wait 60 seconds for a reboot? Since Go is a game of *patience*, it's better not to have other "distractions" in the background, and be able to invest an hour or so in a worthwhile game.

I wouldn't mind putting in a new CD every hour or two if I wanted to change between Go, Risk, Doom 3, etc. Hell, the load time on most modern games is already over 1 or 2 minutes for loading the game, then loading the intro, or last saved game, so reboot time isn't prohibitive.

In addition, having an OS optimized for a single game lets you get the most out of your hardware (though it's not so relevant here) by cutting out all the unnessary crap running in the background. If you could get 40 FPS out of a game instead of 30, with the same hardware, why not spend 60 seconds rebooting?

You also forget that some people actually turn their computers *off* when they're done using them, so there wouldn't be a difference between booting into Windows and booting into Hikarunix (which might even be faster!) All in all, sounds like a fine idea to me.

Re:Great Idea with Potential

[sqlrob]

So, for Windows users, using a copy protected game that requires you to shut off loads of crap and then restart it when you're done is more efficient?

Re:Great Idea with Potential

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Booting from a CD takes longer than booting from a hard drive.

In addition, having an OS optimized for a single game lets you get the most out of your hardware (though it's not so relevant here) by cutting out all the unnessary crap running in the background. If you could get 40 FPS out of a game instead of 30, with the same hardware, why not spend 60 seconds rebooting?

That would be nice, but Linux doesn't support support video cards as well as Windows. It is currently a hypothetical situation. Someone worried about an extra 10fps on Go probably needs an examination. :) Yes, the hardware issue is because video card makers are being stupid, but I see no way to convince them otherwise, because it's hard to stupid them into releasing the specs or making good drivers that are redistributable.

Re:Great Idea with Potential

[Awptimus Prime]

I used to do this back in the DOS days. I would tend to have a boot floppy set aside crafted precisely for the game I was going to play.

Personally, I am much happier being able to alt-tab out of BF1942 to TS into my other station and check email in Outlook without having to reboot.

It sounds more like you need an Xbox than a PC, though.

Re:Great Idea with Potential

[Awptimus Prime]

So, for Windows users, using a copy protected game that requires you to shut off loads of crap and then restart it when you're done is more efficient?

I have never heard of a game where you "shut off loads of crap and restart" to play a game on an XP box.

If you need to do this, you should not have to reboot. Just stop/start services as needed with services.msc or through your control panel. You can even script these changes if you hit Google.

Finally, don't be a troll. :)

Re:Great Idea with Potential

[sqlrob]

Not reboot, restart the services when done.

So it's easier to do that (especially for the novice user) than reboot?

Much of the recent copy protection requires you to shut down any virtual drive software and burning software and their dependent services, so it is common.

What if...

[p0]

What if all the PC games came this way? With it's own OS, bundled with vendor drivers and so on?

Re:What if...

[Anonymous Coward]

Then I wouldn't be able to switch quickly back to work stuff when the boss walks in.

Re:What if...

[EnsilZah]

Wouldn't it be better to have a standard gaming OS you could install and upgrade the same way you'd install DirectX?
So that when you run it from your regular OS, the regular OS stuff gets saved in a file on the HDD and the Game OS kicks in.
Microsoft would never let something like this happen if it doesn't control it though.

Re:What if...

[CracktownHts]

Two reasons:

1. People freak out when they don't see the "start" button. Ever tried suggesting a live CD to a non-nerd? "OMGOMG WILL IT MESS UP MY HARD DRIVE?"

2. Harder to foist needlessly complicated yet always crackable copy protection on consumers.

Re:What if...

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you'd have a video game console.

Re:What if...

[A5un]

Old (I mean really old, 15 years ago old, 8086 XT old) PC games comes this way. There were several Game OS'es out there too.

Did I just dated myself?

Re:What if...

[Stevyn]

This topic comes up all the time here. The idea sounds good, but it creates too many problems of supporting all the complicated hardware configurations people have. Knoppix is really good, but it doesn't work on all systems. Plus people don't like the idea of rebooting just to play a game. I'd rather see an open version of directx that would make it easier for people to write drivers and games for. It could make it easier for game companies to create windows and linux versions of games, or perhaps the same version.

OpenGL is great for graphics, but DirectX does sound, networking, and a bunch of other stuff to make it easier for game makers.

High tech solution for a low tech game

[Anonymous Coward]

why not just
a piece of paper,
another player
some m&m's?

Re:High tech solution for a low tech game

[slashdot_punk]

Those black and white M&M's would have been perfect.

Re:High tech solution for a low tech game

[JaredOfEuropa]

I'd eat the M&M's before the game was done. That's why computers were invented.

Re:High tech solution for a low tech game

[UserGoogol]

Well... online Go. Just hook this baby up to KGS or IGS and you've got an assload of Go players waiting for someone else to play with.

"Another Player" can be hard to find, since Go isn't terribly popular and a fairly decent player can thoroughly trounce a beginner.

Re:High tech solution for a low tech game

[Peterius]

Well first of all, you'd need a HUGE amount of m&ms.. and you'd either have to be a total go expert with a great memory, or you'd need to draw out a 19x19 board. Go is VERY popular actually and its really like a martial art in that the ranks are perfectly laid out. After you get a stable ranking you should be able to make the game a perfectly even match just by giving the lesser player a handicap equal to the difference in ranks. Its really so much like a martial art in so many ways.

Re:High tech solution for a low tech game

[mlh1996]

I know nothing about Go, but I know martial arts, and if anybody thinks rank is any kind of an indicator of skill in martial arts, I've got a judan to sell you.

Re:High tech solution for a low tech game

[cardshark2001]

"Another Player" can be hard to find, since Go isn't terribly popular and a fairly decent player can thoroughly trounce a beginner.

Yahoo Games is a great place to play Go, for all levels. There's always lots of people playing there, at all levels, for all board sizes.

Usually when I try to connect to IGN, there's about 5 players online. I understand it's like the official Go network on the internet, but to me it seems fairly useless.

Re:High tech solution for a low tech game

[tetsuji]

...a fairly decent player can thoroughly trounce a beginner.

Sure, for the first week or two. One of the things I love about Go is that it's got a handicap system that scales incredibly well. I give some of my friends a 13 stone handicap and we have really close games, while at the same time a couple of weekends ago I took an 8-stone handicap from a 7-dan (near professional level) and barely edged out a win. If you can get past the first week of getting trounced and start to understand the most basic implications of the rules, every game you play that's properly handicapped will provide an exciting challenge.

Re:High tech solution for a low tech game

[Anonymous Coward]

> Well first of all, you'd need a HUGE amount of m&ms

361 is not a "huge" amount, there's more than that in a 2-lb bag. Those promotional bags from when they took the colors out and had just black and white ... that'd be perfect ;)

Re:High tech solution for a low tech game

[tetsuji]

Hmmm... How does one effectively handicap a martial arts bout?

Re:High tech solution for a low tech game

[bazmonkey]

m&m's melt. What you need is poster-board, a sharpie, and those stupid glass decorative gems from Wal-Mart.

Heh, it sounds like that old Kings-of-Comedy guy that would make random shit up like "Oh, so you wanna have a barbeque? Alright, meet me in the back in 15 minutes with a coonskin cap, a bottle of Ensure, and a dirty Swiffer pad... we're making chicken!"

Re:High tech solution for a low tech game

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm. I also think that Go is similar to martial arts. But that is more because of my study of Tesuji than because of Go's ranking/handicapping system.

Actually among japanese martial society it is my understanding that it WAS/IS considered a martial art, but you sort of have to take a wider interpretation of the phrase "martial art" than just "fighting".

Re:High tech solution for a low tech game

[Anonymous Coward]

Lead shoes.

Re:High tech solution for a low tech game

[Anonymous Coward]

Well back when I was taking judo they'd chop off a limb. Or just a nice whack to the knee.

Re:High tech solution for a low tech game

[horos2c]

> Usually when I try to connect to IGN, there's
> about 5 players online. I understand it's like the
> official Go network on the internet, but to me it
> seems fairly useless.

WTH??? 5 players? When did you try?

Right now, I'm sitting here with 250 games, 800+ people connected.. Are you sure you didn't try NNGS instead (its been a while since I've connected there, and it might be close to dead..

horos

Re:High tech solution for a low tech game

[cardshark2001]

Yes you're right, it was NNGS.

Re:High tech solution for a low tech game

[Russellkhan]

Yahoo Games is an awful place to play Go. Escapers galore, horrible interface, nonstandard rating system, time cheaters - UGH!

Stay with KGS and Dragon, depending on the speed of game you're looking to play (real-time or correspondence style).

Informative?

[empaler]

Yeah, it took me two clicks to get to it the other way around... .-o

Re:Informative?

[trick-knee]

well, let us know how the bit torrent iso's look. I downloaded from the "local 1" mirror and got a different md5 than the published
1f8528353b5ae95f1c4084b5fd4b3881 hikarunix-0.1.iso

% md5sum host128.ipowerweb.com/hikarunix-0.1.iso
b705facb9 6309df71ca25ab68f61cd20 host128.ipowerweb.com/hikarunix-0.1.iso

hikaruweb.org/iso is g e t t i n g s l o w . . . . . . so I have no md5 from there yet.

Re:Informative?

[Anonymous Coward]

huh.
http://www.hikarunix.org/download.html
sez:

If you can provide a mirror for this 190MB distribution please let me know.

while http://host128.ipowerweb.com/~kstd-mir/iso/
sez:

hikarunix-0.1.iso 19-Sep-2004 13:56 77.3M

Re:Informative?

[trick-knee]

% md5sum hikarunix.org/hikarunix-0.1.iso host128.ipowerweb.com/hikarunix-0.1.iso
1f8528353 b5ae95f1c4084b5fd4b3881 hikarunix.org/hikarunix-0.1.iso
b705facb96309df71 ca25ab68f61cd20 host128.ipowerweb.com/hikarunix-0.1.iso

% ls -l hikarunix.org/hikarunix-0.1.iso host128.ipowerweb.com/hikarunix-0.1.iso
-rw------ - 1 ken users 189892608 2004-09-24 19:25 hikarunix.org/hikarunix-0.1.iso
-rw-r--r-- 1 ken users 81005160 2004-09-24 18:54 host128.ipowerweb.com/hikarunix-0.1.iso

% hey refresh the mirror!
-bash: hey: command not found

So you're saying....

[$raim_n_reezn!]

...you're no good at sex...hmmm

Re:So you're saying....

[kzinti]

Fortunately, I learned about sex before I owned a computer!

the game of Ur is..

[dameron]

probably several centuries older than GO, and originated in what is now Iraq, where, you might notice, a protracted match of the real oldest strategy game is being played out: war.

-dameron

Re:the game of Ur is..

[Ironsides]

Looking at the rules for Ur, it sounds a lot like Backgamon

Re:the game of Ur is..

[Anonymous Coward]

Go is the oldest strategy game (as opposed to games of chance like Ur or war) that's still played in basically its original form. If it's shortened to "world's oldest game" that's just a little bit of a simplification.

Re:the game of Ur is..

[Anonymous Coward]

On Kiseido's website, there is a brief treatise on Backgammon, Chess and Go where they compare and contrast them. Here's what it has to say about Backgammon:

"Backgammon, the favorite game of the Near and Middle East, is preoccupied with the question of Chance and Fate (Kismet). All play is governed by the roll of dice over which the player has no control whatever. The players are matched against each other, but each tries to capture a wave of luck and ride it to victory. The loser curses his misfortune and tries again, but the individual is helpless in the grip of superior forces."

Yes, there is strategy in backgammon. But far less so than in chess and go, which are perfect knowledge games.

Re:the game of Ur is..

[Anonymous Coward]

go in it's current form is about 1300 years old afair and was "invented" by the japanese. but it's roots are much older and go back to about 4000 years when the chinese first used the board and the stones to play games.

detailed information can be found on thousands of websites and in tons of books, just google a bit.

Re:the game of Ur is..

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think the Japanese ever claimed to have invented Go, just that it's been one of their major cultural landmarks, like the tea ceremony or caligraphy.

And that they've kicked ass at it, of course.

Re:the game of Ur is..

[Anonymous Coward]

Ur may be older by a few hundred years, but Go has been played continuously since its inception by various groups and is considered tantamount to a professional sport in China, South Korea, and Japan.

Ur was a dead game till Sir Leonard Wooley dug the boards out of the ground in the 1920s.

Re:the game of Ur is..

[thrash242]

It's actually considered a full-fledged martial art in some Asian countries, from what I've read.

And I'm sure there are older games than Ur, but they haven't been played continuously since their invention, like Go. There are tons of old games that are no longer played (as far as I know).

lol

[bstadil]

wish I had mod points

Why a complete distro?

[MacGod]

Excuse my non-Linux-user question, but:

What's the advantage of having an entire distro built around this game, rather than just having an application for the game and all its training stuff built into the app?

Re:Why a complete distro?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a lot easier than carrying around a Go board. I like to play Go and I like to teach people. I'm not aggressive about it but if somebody expresses interest, it would be nice to have a CD with some software that I don't have to install or set up. There's usually a computer around even if I've left my board at home.

Re:Why a complete distro?

[stm2]

If you were a Linux user you would know that installing programs are not always easy. There are several Linux distros with different file structure, so installer program doesn't always works. At least that is why I made a distro with Bioinformatics software. I think there is also a "me too" component :)

Re:Why a complete distro?

[cjpez]

Perhaps you've got some favorite UNIX Go client you like to use to play against people in other geographical regions, and it doesn't talk to Windows, and you want to play against your windows-using friends? Could just give 'em a CD and then they wouldn't have to worry about installing a whole distro.

Still, it is a bit silly.

Re:Why a complete distro?

[Anonymous Coward]

'cuz they were tired of hearing people say "This doen't run on windows?!'

So they took a OTS bootable linux distro, and added their program to it.

1t5 4 y00.

Re:Why a complete distro?

[UserGoogol]

None really. The main benefit of Hikarunix is that because it's a "Neat Linux Hack," it gives Go, the best game evahr, a good excuse to be on the front page of Slashdot.

Name

[paulproteus]

Why is this not called the "Go OS"?

Re:Name

[Kehvarl]

or strip out the X bits, make the Go bits console based and cal the whole distro "Go in the Shell"

Re:Name

[cjpez]

GO/Linux?

Re:Name

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't choose the name, but two reasons:

1. It's less boring.
2. It's a reference to an extremely popular manga/anime amongst go players, Hikaru no Go, about a young boy's burgeoning go skills.

should be haiku...

[timster]

what is wrong with just
paper, lots of m&ms
another person?

Re:should be haiku...

[Anonymous Coward]

That name's already taken by a BeOS varient, sorry.

As for playing Go with lots of m&ms...I don't think I've ever had anywhere near enough of two colors on hand.

What's the best old fashioned game?

[slashdot_punk]

Go
Backgammon
Chess
Parchesi
Othello
Poker
B ridge
Mahjong
Dominos
Wolfenstein 3D (original)

Got any more?

Re:What's the best old fashioned game?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your mom.

Re:What's the best old fashioned game?

[Tribbin]

I don't know the English name for it, but I think something like the game in which they say:
"Tag, you're it"

In it's primal form it was played with large sticks or stones I think.

Re:What's the best old fashioned game?

[thrash242]

Uh, it's called "tag".

Yeah, but...

[spongman]

will it boot on my Atari?

(sorry)

Re:Yeah, but...

[lakcaj]

Not as sorry as we are, fucktard

Re:Yeah, but...

[cortana]

sweet. :)

Re:Yeah, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Awesome.... and i can just here the *whoosh* sound of your joke going right over 95% of the readers' heads ;-)

Re:PYRAMID SCHEME ABOUT TO COLLAPSE, NEWS AT 11

[Anonymous Coward]

MOD PARENT UP.
I was wondering what was going on... Damn Pyramids...

btw if anyone ever says "This is not a Pyramid scam" Run away.

even the people are miniturized over there!

[Anonymous Coward]

3" CDs are big in Japan!

Awful idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I had to reboot my PC whenever I wanted to run a new program was... 1983 or so with my Apple II. This is an awful idea. It's even worse if it's the first exposure that some users will get to Linux. They'll think that's how Linux works, that they have to enter a new CD and reboot the machine every time. Yeah... that'll be great to make Linux more popular. *rollseyes*

Re:Awful idea

[untermensch]

Last time I had to reboot my PC whenever I wanted to run a new program was... 1983 or so with my Apple II. This is an awful idea.

I dunno, while it would awfully tedious to reboot into this thing every single time you want to play Go, I don't think that's really the point.

This seems like it would be great for a Go beginner to be able to get up and running with tons of Go utilities and resources with a minimum of fuss. Once you get things figured out, then install the programs on your regular OS, no big deal.

And while this doesn't apply to this CD in particular, there can be other reasons to use a boot CD for a game. The Gentoo folk (and probably others) have made LiveCDs for popular graphics and CPU-intensive games. The enitre mini-distro is optimized solely for this game, right down to kernel tweaks and patches. For those of us who don't have outrageously expensive gaming hardware, this can squeeze a considerable bit of performance out of a box.

Re:Awful idea

[Blakey Rat]

And while this doesn't apply to this CD in particular, there can be other reasons to use a boot CD for a game. The Gentoo folk (and probably others) have made LiveCDs for popular graphics and CPU-intensive games. The enitre mini-distro is optimized solely for this game, right down to kernel tweaks and patches. For those of us who don't have outrageously expensive gaming hardware, this can squeeze a considerable bit of performance out of a box.

And at the same time it makes it completely impossible to run, say, voicecomm software with the game unless the software you want to use just HAPPENS to run in Linux and be included on the CD. Oh, and if your computer is upgraded with a new video card, the CD is now obsolete because it has old drivers. Oh, and there's no place to store data for the game, such as saves or control preferences.

No, it's a stupid idea. We had to do that with the Commodore 64 because of the limitations of the machine, but there's no reason to do it now... it's just stupid.

Re:Awful idea

[ROU Nuisance Value]

Parent has it exactly right. It's just another distribution modality, folks, one you've seen before, that just so happens to fit quite nicely into a particular niche: Making it way stupid-easy for noobs to get introduced to and enthusiastic about a game.

Nobody said it was The One Size Fits All Way To Go For All Software Everywhere (sheesh). Is this some kinda Software Panacea syndrome peculiar to Linux geeks, that they have to announce the Next Big Thing every 10 minutes?

If anything, it *might* be a great way to introduce niche markets to other Linux apps. It certainly gets users over the Fear of a Bad Config problem.

Boot the ISO into vmware...

[Kraegar]

Booting the ISO into vmware is a great way to keep all your go related stuff handy, without the reboots, and without having to install a lot of stuff.

It's also handy to keep an ISO of knoppix-STD for booting and using security related tools in a seperate VM.

(knoppix-STD is also done by the same individual who does the Hikarunix bootable go CD).

Re:Boot the ISO into vmware...

[macz]

Good lord that is complex!

Boot an OS, to bootstrap a VMware virtual machine, to boot Linux, to play a game that has been played for almost 6000 years without a computer.

Talk about an ob hack! You might as well have the language set to Mandarin and a run Perl based interface to babelfish the translating for you real time...

VMware kicks ass, but I am throwing a yellow flag, and calling you 15 yards for inappropriately complex use of otherwise good software.

Wait... I know, Boot XP and run a Win2k session with a copy of VMware running a linux session, with a copy of VMware mounting the iso of a virtual GO game... First buy 3GB of RAM...

Re:Boot the ISO into vmware...

[jbarr]

I disagree. VMware is GREAT for "testing" .ISO's and working in "isolated" environments. For example, I have VPN access to work from my home computer. For some reason, the VPN client messes up my PC's networking. So, I just fire up a VMware session that contains a "clean" install of Windows XP Pro and the VPN client, and it's instant-connection-to-work time. When I'm done, I just shut sown the session and have no hassles. It's also a great way to try out new versions of Knoppix, or whatever distro you're interested in.

Sure, it's overkill "just to play a game" but if your system can handle it, it's certainly effortless.

Re:Boot the ISO into vmware...

[Kraegar]

I have several different bootable ISO's I use, including the two mentioned above. I could either carry a stack of CDs, and reboot when I want to use them, or I can leave them as ISO's and just boot them in vmware. It has the advantage that I don't have to quit what I'm doing, and I can use different tools from different OS's at once.

The go ISO was not the first one I'd done that with, as I'd only recently discovered it. But I do find that a handy method of bringing up the tools I want quickly.

It also has the advantage that I don't have to worry about installing / configuring all of those tools, I just keep up to date on my bootable ISO's.

Re:Boot the ISO into vmware...

[thrillseeker]

Talk about an ob hack! You might as well have the language set to Mandarin and a run Perl based interface to babelfish the translating for you real time...

Ahhhh ... don't you too?

Re:Boot the ISO into vmware...

[macz]

Hey, don't get me wrong... I work for the company that owns VMware corp and I think it is the greatest tool since TextPad or GCC... but I also find that it is a solution looking for problems at times...

I have several purpose built DamnSmall Linuxum ISO's I use for testing myself. But my point was that Go has not needed the PC, much less a virtual PC for several thousand years. Therefore, I found your the proposed VMware solution amusing.

Xiu Xiu.

ROFL

[Anonymous Coward]

That was one seriously obscure joke you got there :P

MOD PARENT UP (n/t)

[Monsieur_F]

MOD PARENT UP (n/t)

Sai is a dude

[demo9orgon]

I was ok with "Higaro no Go" UNTIL I REALIZED SAI WAS A DUDE.
After that, my interest in the manga plummeted.
I think it would rock to have a female ghost "skinnin" along for the ride,
but a dude?

It would actually be fun to hear her sighing in the brainspace and saying,
"I hate it when you read porn--now you'll have to mastrubate again and again and...STOP TOUCHING YOURSELF!"

or

"You're wife is such a pig. Would you like me to talk dirty to you again?"

The possibilities are endless.
Hey, someone's probably written up a whole series on that concept.
Links anyone?

Re:Sai is a dude

[tjlsmith]

Yeah, Manga is funny that way.... There's nothing in the books or anime to imply Sai is gay either...

Re:Sai is a dude

[chendo]

Yes, Sai's a dude, even though he DOES look very much like a girl, but it shouldn't take a genius to figure out he's a guy when in one part of the manga (if I recall correctly), where he flashes back to the time when he was alive and he was swarmed by people who -obviously- looked like women. Unless Sai was a lesbian, which is entirely possible in manga, Sai was male.

Re:Sai is a dude

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as a female going along for the ride, give Midori no Hibi a chance. It's about a girl who magically gets miniaturized and replaces a guy's right hand. You can obtain English translations of the manga at http://www.snoopycool.com/. The animated series has been licensed by Media Blasters.

Re:Sai is a dude

[macz]

I thought you were kidding. But, no, I checked out the link and sure enough, there is a whole series of manga dedicated to a dude with a little chick for a right hand.

I was waiting for a frame with Leela from Futurama in the background saying "This is, by a wide margin, the least likeliest thing to have happened."

This is proof. Too many Japanese people have drawing talent.

I wrote the first commercial Go Playing Program

[MarkWatson]

In the late 1970s, I wrote a Go playing program on very limited hardware: my Apple II (serial number 79 - an old one, but with extra memory).

Anyway, my old boss (who once joked that he almost did not get his PhD from MIT because he spent too much time playing Go) convinced me to sell this beast - even though it did not play a strong game it did know about liberties, ladders, some Joseki, etc.

Anyway, I sold it as "Honinbo Warrior". I am fairly sure that it was the first commercially available Go playing program. I did not make too much money from it because advertising costs in Apple magazines ate up most of the revenue.

-Mark

Re:I wrote the first commercial Go Playing Program

[frankie]

Go is such a beautiful game. The rules are simple in the extreme, but Go is exponentially more difficult for a digital computer than chess. After 25 years, the best commercial Go programs are still weaker than 5kyu (okay for an amateur but way below any pro-level player).

Barring unexpected breakthroughs in AI/quantum/parallel computing, computer Go won't threaten human dominance for decades to come.

Windows Go game

[jerometremblay]

Anyone interested in learning the basics, i suggest trying Igowin, the 9x9 version is free (as in beer), comes with a very good tutorial, and you can buy their full 19x19 product if you like it.

I have over 1400 games played with this one and still haven't reached 50% skill level of the program.

Maybe 19x19 games are hard for computers, but at 9x9 it will kick your ass. :)

Re:Windows Go game

[cobalt27x]

Their full product is a beautiful application. I especially love to work out the endless battery of life and death problems included whenever I need a good poke in the brain.

Sure, one could always go to http://www.goproblems.org/, but the problems included in Many Faces have less mistakes.

Re:Windows Go game

[cobalt27x]

Ack, that would be http://www.goproblems.com/, not .org!

Re:Windows Go game

[Abcd1234]

Bah, just get gGo and a JVM. Works beautifully, interfaces with GNU Go, and allows one to connect to IGS. And, best of all, it's free!

Re:Windows Go game

[igomaniac]

Igowin will just teach you bad habits - if you had played 1400 games with me you'd already be 1. dan
(I can give igowin 5 stones handicap and still win, thus earning the rank of 'professional' which is just ridiculous...)

Re:Windows Go game

[jerometremblay]

Is this comment general for every computer players, or just Igowin?

I would obviously prefer to play against a human who can explain things to me as we go, but unfortunately it's not easy to find players here. And Internet games usually don't end up very "interactive".

Re:Windows Go game

[igomaniac]

>Is this comment general for every computer players, or just Igowin?

It's for all computer players, I guess you could offset it a bit by playing different computer opponents since they have slightly different weak points. However, if you want to improve there is no other way than playing human opponents.

Playing on KGS is a good idea, since the software includes a 'review' mode and in general the players there are slightly more interested in teaching beginners than on the other go servers. However, online go is mainly (perhaps because of the ratings?) a competitive environment and the best way to learn the game is definitly to go to a club if one exists in your vicinity.

Its called an XBox

[Anonymous Coward]

Its called an XBox

increased productivity

[tunabomber]

If the game was an app you could load on the operating system you use at work, just think how much your productivity would suffer!
These Hikarunix guys have cleverly required that the game run in its own OS, thus making it too much of a hassle to play it solely for the purposes of procrastination.

If only the people who designed Slashdot did the same thing.... /me alt-tabs back to my IDE to get some work done

You're on Slashdot, mate

[Our Man In Redmond]

Odds are good that for the majority of people here, that's exactly how they did learn about sex.

(end portion intended to be modded funny)

And you're right. Learning go from a computer, or a book, will only get you so far, and in my experience with go that isn't very far. You can learn something about fuseki, joseki, tesuji, life and death, ko fights and the like, but that won't do you much good until you sit down with a live opponent and start seeing how it all fits into the structure of a game.

That includes live opponents over the Net to some extent, but the best way to learn is to sit down at the table with a better player than you and have them give you instruction as you play. Or, to go back to your original analogy, to meet someone face-to-face and, um, learn how all the parts fit together.

Old idea, really!

[Benanov]

Remember bootable floppy games? :P Some people have nicknamed them 'booters' http://retrograde.trustno1.org/ is one site.

Screw torrent

[blanks]

Go play IGS, its been around for years, many amazing players.

http://gobase.org/software/clients/

Re:Screw torrent

[timeOday]

Hey genius, "torrent" has nothing to do with IGS - except now you can use bittorrent to download a bootable GO CD which includes IGS clients.

Re:Screw torrent

[blanks]

Ah yes, I understand, this, I was saying download one of the many FREE and available go games that have been around for 5+ years, that all ready have a huge, strong community, and one that has been developed on for many years.

Round Go

[c64cryptoboy]

here

The EASIEST way to learn...

[bazmonkey]

Would have to be through an online go server. KGS (Google-search it) is a very mature system with all levels of players from green beginners up to actual professional players. Moreover, the server has constructs built-in that allow and encourage review of games, tutoring, tsumego practice, etc. There are beginner rooms in there that I myself, in addition to hundreds of others, frequent for the sole purpose of helping newcomers.

My uname on KGS and IGS are hermit, if anyone sees me or wants a game, get in touch.

Re:Go is not flawed

[trick-knee]

> > I do have to admit to asking "Why?"

> it'll fit on a 3" live cd,...

plus it'll be optimized for performance. we all know how cruelly fast go can get.

Hikarunix...hmm

[jack_csk]

Since Linux is Torvald's UNIX-like OS, is Hikarunix Utada Hikaru's?

A huge factor in the game...

[bazmonkey]

Is psyching the other player out. Maybe not downright tricking him, but getting him caught up in what's happening to lose track of a larger threat.

Learning go from a computer is like learning sex from a text-based porn site censored for language. Not only does the computer have terrible form and awful strategy, but he never makes mistakes. At least bad human players occasionally accidentally make insightful moves. Go AI's are like really good players with no foresight or sense of strategy to the point that they suck in the most frustrating way possible.

Moreover, you can spot someone who learned from a computer about 20 moves into the game. After conditioning themselves to beat a meticulous computer player with no strategy, these people are blatant, obstinate players that beat a situation into the ground before moving on. They're like tanks shooting flies... tanks rigged with bicycle tires. And a near-sighted gunman.



...who lost his glasses an hour ago and didn't get any sleep that night, facing the sun at 5 in the afternoon with a broken sun visor.

Why westerners value Chess

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, no.

I as a westerner like Chess because playing it is based on logic and wisdom (=you know the great moves of the past).

I do not appreciate the "mystical", "intuitive" approach that Go requires. It's just crap.

Re:Why westerners value Chess

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, there's nothing mystical about it. It's just that the game is so much more complex. Good troll?

Re:Why westerners value Chess

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the point in a game that is too complex for logical deduction?

Re:Why westerners value Chess

[UserGoogol]

No, Go requires just as much logic and just as much knowledge of prior games. Heck, there's even a name for when there's a series of moves which are expected to be played in certain kinds of situations. (Joseki.) Yes, there's a certain amount of "intuition," (although it's discouraged) but that's just because Go's format makes it a lot easier for people to analyzing using their graphical pattern recognition.

Re:Why westerners value Chess

[Anonymous Coward]

You are trolling poorly. Anybody who has played Go knows that there is no mysticism to it, and damn near no intuition.

Chess, on the other hand, is an allegory of the Crucifixion.

VMWare

[74nova]

seems like an obvious enough solution to me. tho i agree, it would seem that bundling it with knoppix would make more sense.

gentoo?

[74nova]

check out gentoo games, they have done it with americas army and some others.

other go info

[cinemabaroque]

GoBase has a lot of information on Go. Including professional games that you can review online (reg req tho).

No two games of Go have ever been the same (something that can't be said of chess). After playing almost nothing but Go for the last several years the chessboard feels incredibly cramped to me. Whereas chess is a limited battle, Go is a full scale war.

The best way to learn the basics is to look at The Way To Go. And then download the KGS client so you can play some real people.

It might also be good to start playing 9x9 games until you get the idea of the game (it'll take a few tries till it clicks in your head).

What!?

[ESqVIP]

You just ruined my dreams of possibly being the best (theoretical) sex machine ever, you insensitive clod!

Go is unbalanced

[carcosa30]

Black moving first = black rush, gg white
black gets build advantage, n00bs build 9 times faster, more unbalanced + black moves first = gg gg white

Joseki_Noob: R U KOREAN R STH?
[DAN]Go_Seigen: ^___^ kekekekeke laaaaaaa~

Playing People

[Anonymous Coward]

Playing against the computer is worth it if you're a beginner. It will take at least a few months of study for most people to be able to beat a good computer program (GNU go is only a few stones weaker than the strongest.)

If you are new to the game and want to play real people, I would reccomend playing in yahoo games since you can find plenty of real beginners.

For information on the game, senseis.xpm.net and gobase.org are essential.

Mandatory...

[ESqVIP]

Okay, but does it run on Linux? Oh, wait.

You know what I was thinking?...

[fawlty154]

Just yesterday I was thinking "Man, I think the linux community could take off anytime now, we just need one more distro..."

Play by e-mail

[PotatoNO]

Dragon Go Server is a great way play by e-mail. Great for that morning fix.

Re:Sigh too many distro

[phantomfive]

If all the linux effort was combined. We would have a superior enough linux distro to topple M$ by now.

No, we would have a monstrosity of an operating system that would make previous monolithic systems (and emacs) seem simple. We would fight forever about the best way to do things and nothing would ever get done.
Instead, we can all work on what interests us. It is more efficient, and more fun. If programming ever ceases to be fun, then open source will dissapear.

No Go

[lexarius]

Downloaded. Burned. Booted. Starts up fine... gets to xinit, dies. Can't find mouse. Odd. ls /dev/wait a minute, no keyboard input. My USB keyboard isn't accepted? The friggin BIOS accepts input from my USB keyboard. Shouldn't this sort of thing accept standard configurations like USB input devices?

Re:No Go

[Awptimus Prime]

This is precisely the reason I think games on boot CDs is a bad idea. Instead of just giving me one .EXE which knows how to interface with my system, I get a whole OS and game combination that'll be picky about everything from my video BIOS revision to my keyboard hardware.

This type of activity is best left for game consoles.

Nash is flawed

[Anonymous Coward]

Play Go.

offtopic Mod parent down

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent down
offtopic

Watch Fansubs of the anime!

[Jagasian]

You can get the fan subtitled copies of the anime in xvid format from AnimeSuki.

FireFox on a Live Distro

[minus23]

I'm a big fan of live CD's... I think they can offer a lot in functionality and usefullness. I like this one here because it included FireFox as the browser. I don't know why but even knoppix doesn't include FireFox. This one here looks like it took some time aswell to create an interesting desktop. Add to it all that there are relevant bookmarks in FireFox that are geared toward the subject matter (GO).. and I think it's a winner. =)

hey

[Anonymous Coward]

It has mozilla firefox installed with flash and java pre-configured? Sign me up!

What about chess?

[Thinkit4]

There's an ancient game called chess that's so much more elegant than Go.

Re:What about chess?

[nutshell42]

Well Go is even more ancient and if you'd said that chess is better that would be a matter of taste (well, I've never liked chess but to use computer games as an example I love both the elegance and (relative) simplicity of Europa Universalis II and the sheer features and possibilities the Total War series offers) but in terms of elegance go beats chess hands down. With far simpler rules you get a game of equal depth.

Re:What about chess?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there a chess live cd though? If so pls point it out.

It's a distro for no fuss, no muss

[PCM2]

What's the advantage of having an entire distro built around this game, rather than just having an application for the game and all its training stuff built into the app?

The fact that it's a live CD image that fits on a 3" CD-R means you can carry it around in your pocket with you and play it anywhere. You simply boot the machine off your CD -- no need to install anything and leave a mess. Does your friend have a computer? Play it there. Your hotel? Play it there. An Internet cafe? Etc. As long as the machine can boot from CD, it'll work.

All we need now is

[bXTr]

ESPN to televise the World Series of Go. Then, maybe, it'll take off.

Nemesis

[OmniGeek]

I have spent much time playing against an old DOS Go program published by Toyogo called Nemesis Go Master (still on my shelf at work; wonder if the 5.25" disk is still readable, hmmm). While I still play a terrible game of Go, it did improve my skills tremendously. Anyone else heard of this program?

You mean $$$Ware

[tepples]

I could buy a copy of a Windows go program for cheaper than vmware costs, you insensitive clod!

Re:You mean $$$Ware

[74nova]

first of all, last time i checked, winmx is free. yes, i know, i plan to support the folks that make vmware soon by actually purchasing a copy. second, i dont have vmware for the sole purpose of playing this linux version of go. i think a lot of folks around here have it already.

IF you can reboot. That's a big if.

[tepples]

As long as the machine can boot from CD, it'll work.

And with security being the issue it is, watch Internet cafes disable booting from the CD drive. And watch your friend not let you power down her machine while she's running Housecall, doing a big download, or just trying to prove that Windows can stay up for longer than 49 days.

Reboot requirement

[tepples]

And the off-the-shelf bootable linux distro still doesn't run on Windows because virtually no home users can afford vmware, and many home PCs running Windows have background tasks running such as a big download.

chess version

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is cool. Does anyone know about a chess version, or plans for one?

Final Fantasy is almost as old as Go.

[Glowing Fish]

It should be noted that, while the graphics are newer, most of the ideas behind Final Fantasy date to cosmological dating to the Shang or early Zhou dynasties.

Go, as some barbarians call it, supposedly dates to the Xia, so it is older by a few hundred years. The reasons people pretend to like it are somewhat complicated, but mostly have to do with an unfounded admiration for the minimalism and nilhism present in Japanese culture, which mirrior the nilhism of Western metaphysical thinking.

Chess...go...running joke.

[Thinkit4]

Every chess article some wide-eyed enthusiast chimes in on Go like he's the first in the West to discover it.

Re:Chess...go...running joke.

[nutshell42]

I have nothing against those comments (on both sides) as long as they aren't name-calling contests without arguments but much enthusiasm (reminds me of political discussions around here. "Bush is the worst" "No, Kerry is the worsesesestest" "Not true" "Yes" "No"...) In both cases I agree with one side which means that I won't mod them down or post replies (others can do that) but I wouldn't mod them up or write supporting replies either. =)

But you're probably right that Go fans are worse. It's the same reason Apple fanatics and Linux zealots are normally more... enthusiastic than Windows users.

Re:Chess...go...running joke.

[arose]

On the other hand every Go article someone points this out.

Round? Try a torus!

[Mr.Mustard]

I ran across this crazy Go "board" a few weeks ago.

Circle-Go

[Chokma]

I tried to write a Go programm in Perl which would render a game with Pov-Ray. The project is currently inactive and nowhere finished due to lack of time, but it can render a round Go-board for Circle-Go.

PerlGo

Go/Baduk/WeiQi

[n3k5]

i've seen the string "Go/Baduk/WeiQi" several times already on slashdot. apparently some people write it like this way because they want to be impartial and they think these are the japanese, korean and chinese names respectively. however, this is not the case. 'Baduk' is a correct romanisation, and 'WeiQi', while not totally perfect for a linguistic nitpicker (or nitpicking linguist), is also an OK and acceptable romanisation. however, the japanese are left out completely. 'Go' is the name of the game in english and probably several other languages (it is in german, just pronounced very slightly differently).

the japanese name of the game is 'Igo'. so i'd say you should just use 'go' or 'igo' or 'Igo' or whatever you like, but if you want to be comprehensive (for whichever weird reasons), maybe write "Go/Igo/Wei-ch'i/Baduk".

KGS is a great Go server

[GoPlayGo]

KGS, the Kiseido Go Server, is a wonderful way for new and experienced players to enjoy the game of Go. It has a great user interface including the best support for teaching and reviewing games. The programmer, Bill Shubert, is a genius.

At times there are over a thousand users and hundreds of games on the server. There are many rooms. One of the most popular is the Beginner's room (in the Lessons group of rooms). Ask for it. KGS runs tournaments every so often. Some championship games are broadcast live. Professional players give lessons for hire and many strong amateurs will play you a teaching game. There are sometimes free pro lessons.

There are many tips and much discussion about KGS on Sensei's Library.

It runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows. It is free of charge (no charge for users from Japan or anywhere else).

wots chess?

[Anonymous Coward]

When the aliens land they will ask "What size Go boards do you use?"

Number of Google hits

[GoPlayGo]

It would be fairer to search in Chinese (wei qi or wei chi), Japanese (igo), and Korean (baduk, badook), especially using the actual characters.

There are huge differences between styles of Go players. Some play very solid defensive games. Others play slashing fighting games. Yet others play cosmic whole board strategic games.

The Pro Styles page lists over a hundred different professional players' styles.