Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 and today I am working on one of my smaller dream projects: a bridge simulator. Let\u2019s get started!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Space Nerds In Space (SNIS) is a LAN game for Linux available as source code hosted on GitHub [1,2]. In it, you and several friends take on the roles of a starship bridge crew manning your stations and going on sci-fi adventures in deep space.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
LAN: Local Area Network<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
I have access to an old church office computer with Windows XP installed. I\u2019m gonna try running it on there. The main site [1] recommends against trying anything less powerful than a Raspberry Pi 4B, but I want an idea of how low the game can go. I\u2019ve set my expectation to \u201cThis computer has absolutely no business running this game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In old or low-end machines, the weight of an operating system often becomes a significant contribution to resource consumption. At the same time, both low-overhead distros I\u2019ve worked with before (Tiny\/Micro Core and Puppy) have specialized package managers, and I\u2019m not up to a self-guided crash course on repositories this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My first thought was that I\u2019d prefer access to AUR for an \u201cone-click install,\u201d like how I cheesed it into working on Manjaro. I located an 8GB thumb drive, but the old church computer didn\u2019t appear to be a fan of booting Manjaro. Instead, I researched low-overhead distros which could cleanly install packages from apt. I came across DebianDog Linux which sounded perfect until I learned development had stopped and shelved the idea as a backup plan. Puppy \u2013as I learned\u2013 already has the means to use .deb files, so I stashed that as another backup plan in my recent experiences with Puppy, it has to be told to connect each boot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
AUR: Arch User Repository<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Further research found me Bodhi Linux, an Ubuntu derivative with downloads as light as 747MB and RAM requirements well under a gigabyte. Its native apt support means access to a large selection of standard packages, which will come in handy when compiling software.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I found my way onto the Bodhi Linux Discord server, where I reported the Arch logo of all things showing up in the installer. After I provided a screenshot from a staged second installation, we figured it was a bug with the installer Bodhi borrows from Ubuntu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My installation was a success. I found the Moksha desktop maintained in-house [4] to be surprisingly polished, but a bit too flashy for my needs. Were I moving into it as a daily driver, I\u2019d be disabling the animated taskbar icons. The terminal visual bell would also have to go, as I about hear sirens whenever I trip it \u2013 and I trip it frequently with my liberal use of tab to complete. I did \u2013however\u2013 get around to removing Chromium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This was neither my first attempt compiling SNIS nor my first time getting a product out the end, but it was my first time successfully doing so manually. I installed git and cloned the SNIS repository. I passed up my previous attempt by using util\/install_dependencies<\/em> as opposed to finding\/installing dependencies manually. My first attempt at opening the compiled program I was\u2026 met with a solid green window and the computer crashing hard. I never figured out why, but on attempts where that didn\u2019t happen, I had to wait through a 5 minute, 30-40 second loading screen where I realized later how lucky my second attempt was to have not ended in a massive flicker between black and the desktop \u2013 and this second attempt ended in a display of erroneously rendered polygons after a few minutes of play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I inquired as to SNIS\u2019 minimum system requirements on GitHub [2] and smcameron, the game\u2019s creator, kindly helped me get it \u201cworking.\u201d You can read the full discussion here: https:\/\/github.com\/smcameron\/space-nerds-in-space\/discussions\/333<\/a>, but to summarize: I provided a number of logs documenting various error states and we figured my graphics card was running out of memory, as I didn\u2019t get a light show when using lower resolution planetary textures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This computer has no business running SNIS, yet it runs \u2013 if only barely. My fun this week was in coaxing this game to running on such an outdated system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What is your go-to low-overhead Linux distribution?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I look forward hearing your answers in the comments below or on my Socials<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Works Cited<\/p>\n\n\n\n [1] S. Cameron, \u201cSPACE NERDS IN SPACE,\u201dgithub.io<\/em>, [Online]. Available:https:\/\/smcameron.github.io\/space-nerds-in-space\/<\/a> [Accessed May 24, 2023].<\/p>\n\n\n\n [2] S. Cameron, \u201cspace-nerds-in-space,\u201dgithub.com<\/em>, <\/em>May 21, 2023. [Online]. Available: https:\/\/github.com\/smcameron\/space-nerds-in-space<\/a> [Accessed May 24, 2023].<\/p>\n\n\n\n [3] Bodhi Linux, \u201cWELCOME,\u201d bodhilinux.com<\/em>, [Online]. Available: https:\/\/www.bodhilinux.com<\/a> [Accessed May 24, 2023].<\/p>\n\n\n\n [4] J. Hoogland, \u201cIntroducing Moksha Desktop,\u201d github.io<\/em>, March 3, 2014. [Online]. Available: https:\/\/mokshadesktop.github.io\/Hello-World\/<\/a> <\/em>[Accessed May 24, 2023].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 and today I am working on one of my smaller dream projects: a bridge simulator. Let\u2019s get started! Space Nerds In Space (SNIS) is a LAN game for Linux available as source code hosted on GitHub [1,2]. In it, you and several friends take on the … <\/p>\nTakeaway<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Final Question<\/h2>\n\n\n\n