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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
Play hex.
Yeah, but it wouldn't be a small distro designed for playing Go. Celebrate diversity!
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.
Qui ne va pas à la chasse n'a pas de gibier
PHP Queb
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 >:)
Is the window manager called Sai?
...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.
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.
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.
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?
I'm against picketing but I don't know how to show it.
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.
Yea, I know this game sounds like vaporware and all, but I assure you, it will be out before Duke Nukem Forever.
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.
...I learned from watching Hikaru No Go.
Now I'm learning to pilot huge battle mechs by watching Evangelion.
I don't recall the capacity of a miniCD being part of the math curriculum.
Help fight continental drift.
...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.
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.
because we all know that Rinux is not Runix.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
What if all the PC games came this way? With it's own OS, bundled with vendor drivers and so on?
This is my sig. There are thousands more, but this one is mine.
why not just
a piece of paper,
another player
some m&m's?
Yeah, it took me two clicks to get to it the other way around... .-o
...you're no good at sex...hmmm
All straight things must come to a bend
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
wish I had mod points
Help fight continental drift.
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?
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
Why is this not called the "Go OS"?
|/usr/games/fortune
what is wrong with just
paper, lots of m&ms
another person?
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
(sorry)
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.
Thanks for putting on the feedbag. Thanks for going all out. Thanks for showing me your Swiss Army knife.
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.
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).
MOD PARENT UP (n/t)
McCartney fans pay bus tickets. [...] Lennon fans too, with discretion.
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?
Every new form of media has it's own Requirimento
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
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.
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!
/me alt-tabs back to my IDE to get some work done
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....
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
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.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Remember bootable floppy games? :P Some people have nicknamed them 'booters'
http://retrograde.trustno1.org/ is one site.
Go play IGS, its been around for years, many amazing players.
http://gobase.org/software/clients/
TruePunk | Games
here
I put the 'fun' in fundamentalism
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.
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.
Comment of the year
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.
> > 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.
Since Linux is Torvald's UNIX-like OS, is Hikarunix Utada Hikaru's?
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.
...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.
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.
seems like an obvious enough solution to me. tho i agree, it would seem that bundling it with knoppix would make more sense.
use your turn signal! you people act like it's divulging information to the enemy
check out gentoo games, they have done it with americas army and some others.
use your turn signal! you people act like it's divulging information to the enemy
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).
00010111 always try everything twice
You just ruined my dreams of possibly being the best (theoretical) sex machine ever, you insensitive clod!
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~
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
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.
Okay, but does it run on Linux? Oh, wait.
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.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
Just yesterday I was thinking "Man, I think the linux community could take off anytime now, we just need one more distro..."
Dragon Go Server is a great way play by e-mail. Great for that morning fix.
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.
Qxe4
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.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor
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.
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?
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.
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
You can get the fan subtitled copies of the anime in xvid format from AnimeSuki.
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. =)
I am Jack's HTTP Server
There's an ancient game called chess that's so much more elegant than Go.
-I am an elective eunuch.
Breakfast served all day!
I'm too lazy to even click that link. Can't you just explain it?
ESPN to televise the World Series of Go. Then, maybe, it'll take off.
It's a very dark ride.
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?
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
I could buy a copy of a Windows go program for cheaper than vmware costs, you insensitive clod!
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.
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.
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.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Every chess article some wide-eyed enthusiast chimes in on Go like he's the first in the West to discover it.
-I am an elective eunuch.
I ran across this crazy Go "board" a few weeks ago.
fnord
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
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".
but what do i know, i'm just a model.
- 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.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
Uh, it's called "tag".
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).
The game of Go (Igo, Weiqi, Baduk) has the simplest concept and the deepest play.
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.
The game of Go (Igo, Weiqi, Baduk) has the simplest concept and the deepest play.