Monday 29 September 2008

Bomber for KDE

I've been working the last few months on a new game for the KDE Desktop. The main aim of this was to get back into kde development. It's been quite a while since my last app kmud. So I want to create something simple that would allow me to focus on the actual programming and getting used to the QT/KDE APIs.

The aim of the game is to destroy the buildings below you, before you crash into them. The space ship will fly over the buildings, getting lower each time. Once the level is cleared, you start of the next, which is harder with taller buildings and a faster plane.


The game is still in development at the moment and can be found in the playground section of the KDE repository. Big thanks to Eugene who worked on the theme.

Sunday 28 September 2008

Dell Studio Wireless

The Dell Studio laptop that I have is fitted with a "Dell Wireless 1510 Half Mini Card". This should allow a Wireless 802.11n connection. However this is were things get a little complicated......

I've got install a 64 Bit version of OpenSUSE on the laptop, so in the past I've used the ndiswrapper to use windows drives for wireless. The only drivers I could find on the dell website were for vista and these won't work with ndiswrapper to me knowledge.

After a little searching on the Internet I found some native drivers. These are from the manufacture of the card so are not open drivers, but mostly work. http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php

These however are not perfect. I find that for some reason the connection to the wireless keeps dropping. I've yet to find a solution for this.

Linux on a dell studio 15 laptop

So one of the reasons to start blogging was that I bough a new Laptop. It's a Dell Studio 15, which I bough to run linux. I though it would be a good idea to share my experience of getting things up and running on it. I know it will be problematic, so it will give people a chance to share their ideas and suggestions.

So what am I trying to achive? Well I'm going to be running OpenSUSE and KDE on it as these are the distro and desktop I perfer, but other than that heres some of the things I want to get working:

  • Remote control.
  • 2 external monitors (1 VGA and the other HDMI) with different resolutions.
  • Been able too swap between the connected monitors via a key on the keyboard.
  • Sound working.
  • Both head phone jacks working.
  • Wireless working.
  • Laptop keys able to be used.
  • Webcam and mic need to work with messengers (skype, kopete)

  • I'm sure there will be other stuff I need too, but that should take a while anyhow....

    My first blogg entry

    Well this is the first time I've tried blogging. Going to see how it goes and if I actually managed to keep publishing things. Time will tell......