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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."
...right here. Only two seeds out there so far...
The Army reading list
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.
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.
I guess you should read about it or ask someone to teach you.
- These characters were randomly selected.
Chess may be more fun but with Go a good human player can beat the computer every time.
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.
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.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
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.
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.
Go play IGS, its been around for years, many amazing players.
http://gobase.org/software/clients/
TruePunk | Games
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.