Games Knoppix

Quiberon writes "A distribution of Knoppix loaded with games has a bootable CD with 700 MB of open-source games, 3d support for NVIDIA, ATI, and Intel Extreme, gamepad support for XWindows. uni-kl is University of Kaiserlautern, the first on the list for distributing SuSE fixes - they are good. Every kid should have one for Christmas morning."

Comments

Yay! Ati is supported

[holymoo]

Interesting a distrobution that actually has support for a ati video card, where 3d is already setup. Heck, its worth downloading just for that.

One of the headlines you won't see in 2005

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux best suited platform for PC games!

Am I correct...

[CrackedButter]

in thinking that Michael is not celebrating xmas? He seems to be doing his duty as a hardcore geek by staying here and posting us stories for us lonely buggers to read?

Re:Am I correct...

[Quixote]

It's called automation, dude. I think the stories are just queued up, and posted at about 1 hour intervals during the day, and less frequently in the night. The times are adjusted a little, randomly, to apply a veneer of human touch.

Re:Am I correct...

[shoolz]

Good man, michael! Being a Christmas rebel myself, it can be a bit hard when you feel like others don't understand your motivation and generally call you a scrooge or grinch (or mod you down :P ). I too have had enough of the crass commercialism of Christmas (note that marketers don't even use the C word anymore... now it's the "season" or the "holidays").

In October, I made up my own little notes based on ideas I found on xmasresistance.org, and sent them out to my family and friends.

They basically read "Dear family/friends/loved ones, I am truly looking forward to sharing in the friendship and togetherness of Christmas this year, however, I will not be buying gifts and I kindly ask that you do not buy a gift for me. I sincerely look forward to spending time with everyone close to me. If you feel compelled to make a gesture of giving, in lieu of a gift to me, please make a small donation to the charity of your choice on my behalf. Love Chris."

GPL?

[mowler2]

Isnt it a GPL violation to ship the Linux kernel together with nvidia binary modules?

Re:GPL?

[un1xl0ser]

It said it had nVidia support, not the drivers from nVidia. I would suspect they are using Open Source drivers (nv module).

Re:GPL?

[m50d]

It's OK under the "mere aggregation" clause

Re:GPL?

[pmjordan]

It says 3D support, so it must be the closed source ones. However, as others have pointed out, the nvidia modules aren't being distributed as part of the kernel, but simply taint it at runtime when they are loaded.

~phil

Re:GPL?

[r00zky]

In the Knoppix distribution there is a script that downloads and automagically installs the nvidia binary driver.

Dunno about this one.

Re:GPL?

[node 3]

Isnt it a GPL violation to ship the Linux kernel together with nvidia binary modules?

Not at all. The GPL only applies to GPL'd code, and any binaries resulting from compiling that code. The non-free NVIDIA binary is not under the GPL, and does not modify either the Linux kernel source code, nor does it modify the resulting binary, so they are entirely seperate (from a license stand-point) and can co-exist on the same CD (or DVD, or tarball, or web site, what have you).

Re:GPL?

[IntergalacticWalrus]

Mod parent up. He's the only one who provided an accurate answer to the question.

I'd also add that nVidia's license does allow redistribution through physical media.

A Games CD for Linux on BitTorrent ... mmm..

[Gopal.V]

What games on that CD ?. Is it just the ordinary TuxRacer ... Or have they included the demos for Quake3 and stuff like that ?. (It's already slashdotted).

Thank god the the download won't get slashdotted - BitTorrent tracker looks great (quite enough seeds).

Re:A Games CD for Linux on BitTorrent ... mmm..

[Simon (S2)]

google cache

Re:A Games CD for Linux on BitTorrent ... mmm..

[Anonymous Coward]

Castle-Combat
Globulation 2
Hatman
Kobodeluxe
Miniracer
Pingus
Rafkill
Lots of small games
Boson
Bsdgames
Crimson Fields
Dosbox (Emulator)
Empire
Konquest
Mangoquest
Pysol
Tuxcart
Zsnes (Emulator)
Ace-of-penguin
Battle for Wesnoth
Bzflag, Bzflag-Server
Clanbomber
Crossfire (GTK client)
Enigma
Foobillard
Freeciv, Freeciv-server
Freesci
Gltron
Gnuchess
Jump'n'Bump (joystick support patch, special graphic patches)
Ksokoban
Lbreakout2
Lgeneral
Miniracer
Nethack
Netpanzer
Neverball
Tuxracer
Xgalaga
XMame, XMess (Emulators)
Xpilot

If I meet the idiot responsible for this lameness filter I'm going to kick his ass.

Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 5.7). Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 5.7). Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 5.7). Your comment violated the "postercomment" compression filter. Try less whitespace and/or less repetition. Comment aborted.

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Re:A Games CD for Linux on BitTorrent ... mmm..

[rtaylor]

If I meet the idiot responsible for this lameness filter I'm going to kick his ass.

You don't get it, the lameness filter only allows lame posts to get through. Your post was perfectly reasonable until the lameness filter forced you to make the post lame. See how it works now?

Re:A Games CD for Linux on BitTorrent ... mmm..

[mortonda]

Here's a try at another version:

• Castle-Combat
• Globulation 2
• Hatman
• Kobodeluxe
• Miniracer
• Pingus
• Rafkill
• Lots of small games
• Boson
• Bsdgames
• Crimson Fields
• Dosbox (Emulator)
• Empire
• Konquest
• Mangoquest
• Pysol
• Tuxcart
• Zsnes (Emulator)
• Ace-of-penguin
• Battle for Wesnoth
• Bzflag, zflag-Server
• Clanbomber
• Crossfire (GTK client)
• Enigma
• Foobillard
• Freeciv, Freeciv-server
• Freesci
• Gltron
• Gnuchess
• Jump'n'Bump (joystick support patch, special
• graphic atches)
• Ksokoban
• Lbreakout2
• Lgeneral
• Miniracer
• Nethack
• Netpanzer
• Neverball
• Tuxracer
• Xgalaga
• XMame, XMess (Emulators)
• Xpilot

Amazing, it stil won't allow it when it the list is all one html list. How in the world does it do that? It must strip and interpret all html and then apply the filter. Lame lamenes filter.

However, the above sentance is enough to fix it, and the list looks better, too. :)

News from the future, indeed.

[MMC Monster]

December 25, @08:30AM "Every kid should have one for Christmas morning."

Re:Nah

[Gopal.V]

> Nah, give me an Xbox.

XBOX -- Ex Box

Great...

[jawtheshark]

Now that's one fine Chistmas present we are giving to the admin of that server... A slashdotting of the finest.

What a beautiful present...

Re:Nah

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of cheap mother fucking dads,

Well, is there anyone else you suggest that a dad f**k's?

Re:Pity the performance sucks

[PatrickThomson]

Yeah, but it'll take 6 hours to start the game

Tracker for GamesKnoppix

[Anonymous Coward]

A bittorrent tracker is available at: http://torrent.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/

Enjoy!

My Linux version of Quake III Arena...

[stankulp]

...should finally live again when I install Knoppix to the hard drive.

I only got the NVidia drivers installed right one time, and I could never do it right again.

It's actually pretty cool to have the acclerated video drivers install this easily.

Re:Nah

[geeveees]

Teach me more, oh wise one!

I'd love it

[canofbutter]

If I was still a kid I'd love my parents to give me a Knoppix CD: it would show that not only did they know what it was (at least sort of), but they'd have known how to get it and burn it. That much computer literacy is the best gift one can give...

Morphix anyone?

[m50d]

Morphix has had a "gamer" version for some time now. Get it from http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/morphix/Morphix Combined-Gamer-0.4-1.iso?download

Re:Great, 48 versions of Tetris

[AndroidCat]

You've obviously never played DoomTetris, the FPS version. It's damned hard to catch those blocks while holding the flashlight, and that creepy music...

Language, 3d

[Quiberon]

It's easy enough to make it English (knoppix lang=en or knoppix26 lang=en if you like 2.6 kernels). 3d support is proper, i.e. 'nvidia' not 'nv'. Believed legal; you can separate out the 'nvidia' if you want an untainted version. Besides, which grinch would disagree with a free distribution ?

Nothing to do with SuSE, just pointing out that uni-kl have a track record of being trustworthy.

How about which games are on the CD?

[Vladan]

Let me be the +%d Informative karma whore and post the actual contents of the Knoppix Games CD before we all rush off and go download 700MB over our feeble North American DSL/cable connections.

From here, the newest games on the CD are:

Castle-Combat
Globulation 2
Hatman
Kobodeluxe
Miniracer
Pingus
Rafkill

You need at least 256 MB RAM to use your accelerated video card. That should give you a taste of what's on the CD. Personally, I don't think it's worth it. It contains a lot of nostalgic arcade games written by fans of those games for other fans. Also, the GamesKnoppix distro organizer has himself said there are no violent games on this CD.

On an unrelated matter, Merry Christmas

Now here's the rest of the games on the CD:

• Boson
• Bsdgames
• Crimson Fields
• Dosbox (Emulator)
• Empire
• Konquest
• Mangoquest
• Pysol
• Tuxcart
• Zsnes (Emulator)
• Ace-of-penguin
• Battle for Wesnoth
• Bzflag, Bzflag-Server
• Clanbomber
• Crossfire (GTK client)
• Enigma
• Foobillard
• Freeciv, Freeciv-server
• Freesci
• Gltron
• Gnuchess
• Jump'n'Bump (joystick support patch, special graphic patches)
• Ksokoban
• Lbreakout2
• Lgeneral
• Miniracer
• Nethack
• Netpanzer
• Neverball
• Tuxracer
• Xgalaga
• XMame, XMess (Emulators)
• Xpilot

Re:How about which games are on the CD?

[lordofthechia]

I downloaded the Knoppix Games CD a few weeks ago and I must say I was thoroughly impressed. My Nvidia card was immediately detected and tux racer ran like a champ. The only thing I missed the first few times was to set the language to english (kinda confusing when I had to press 'z' for yes at the load NVidia module prompt and change the language settings in alot of the games).

I was particularly impressed with Globulation 2. It's an RTS akin to Warcraft/Starcraft, different in that you don't give commands to individual units. Instead you assign building projects and set flags and units will assign themselves to these tasks. With support for 16 players I can't wait till this game catches on. It's apparently not complete, so if it's this good now I can't wait till they are officially finished with it.

Re:How about which games are on the CD?

[Rico_Suave]

OK, now who is going to make a companion list of what games all these are clones of?

Name rung a bell

[Klowner]

So I googled Kaiserslautern, and sure enough, it's the sister city of my crappy home town.

Apparently I live in the ugly, less popular, dumber sister city.

(I'm sure everyone found that tidbit of knowledge absolutely wonderful)

Re:Nah

[Goldberg's Pants]

Nice! Daddy likes the rough stuff.

My wife bought me a watch for my birthday. Knowing full well she had done it, my mother-in-law has bought me a watch for Christmas.

I think chucking a Knoppix disk under the tree for someone is cool. SO LONG AS YOU'RE NOT A CHEAP BASTARD AND ACTUALLY ALREADY HAD SOMETHING ELSE FOR THEM.

It's a good stocking filler I think. Slap a disk under the tree, slap it on a computer, keep the young kids happy, and let's face it, Tux Racer is a laugh.

what about a commercial game like this

[cinemabaroque]

It would be practical for someone to write linux games and sell them so that the cd is a live cd and immediatly launched the game when it started, turning your computer into a sort of console system. This way, as the developer, you would have a custom OS to run/design your game in.

Re:what about a commercial game like this

[Minna Kirai]

This way, as the developer, you would have a custom OS to run/design your game in.

And you can support maybe 50% of the user's hardware, and never ever add drivers for newer things, etc, so the games become useless after a few years...

Re:what about a commercial game like this

[Noodlenose]

You could just use a mini distro like Damn small Linux . With 57 MB for the full version (which I'm sure could be further stripped and then added the 3d drivers) that leaves you 400 MB for data. Not bad. Driver support / Hardware support could be as simple as a monthly "apt-get update".

Mmmh. *gets out his coding gloves and yells for coffee*...

I always thought a 2 CD system would be perfect...

[Belial6]

I always thought that a 2 CD system would be perfect to 'Consolize' the PC and specifically linux. At the prices of CD drives today, it would be pretty inexpensive to have two CD\DVD drives in a system. You could then make the hard drive optional. The first drive would be the OS/Driver drive. The second drive would be the game drive. You would have something like Knoppix to initialize all of your hardware in drive 1, and if there is a disk in drive 2 it would automatically load like a console.

This would give all the benefits of the console. Specifically, put the disk in and it runs. No seeing the OS at all. It would also allow for simple upgrade when new hardware came out. Just replace the Disk 1, and all of the Disk 2's still work.

Heck, the Disk one could even be a USB/SD/Compact Flash drive. Then people would freak out about the second CD. They would just see the system as "upgradeable".

With this system, geeks could 'roll there own' game system. And, white box dealers could very easily put the effort in once to make their first "console", and just make copies for the hundred other systems they sell.

Re:What About DVD+-R Booting?

[Quiberon]

Yes. Try http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10230

Re:Dilema.

[Azureflare]

Have you tried disabling Plug N Play OS in your bios (you can also pass pnp=off to the kernel in the /etc/lilo.conf file), as well as passing noapic to the kernel?

Happened to me recently on this mobo, nvidia drivers wouldn't get loaded unless I did this.

It might also be as simple as you needing to have a kernel-source installed which matches your running kernel (if you use an rpm based system, rpm -q kernel-source should do it, or rpm -q kernel-source-2.6 on the recent mandrake). If you're not on a rpm based system, usually ls -l /usr/src/linux works as well. Then type uname -r. Make sure the numbers match up, then try reinstalling the nvidia drivers from the download off their site.

Good luck, and you can probably find help in your distro's irc channel on irc.freenode.net, or on linuxquestions.org.

Good for benchmarking

[yem]

If you can convince the nice man in the tech store to let you boot the CD, you could run a set of linux gaming tests on each of the PCs you're considering for purchase.

Damned if I can find any comparisons of mobile 3d performance in linux so this is pretty much my only option.

Pity they couldn't load it up with the Quake 3 and UT200x demos which would be more useful.

Count Me Out Again

[Master of Transhuman]

700MB of games!

That would be even a greater time-waster than my obsession with downloading pictures and videos of the Corrs and Angelina Jolie...

Re:Dilema.

[towndowner]

regarding your audigy, did you check that it's appropriate output channels are unmuted and volume raised? often by default they're muted and potted down on startup. and audigy has so many channels in its mixing matrix that it takes me five minutes to figure out which one's the main out.