Dear Linux game/emulator developers:

If you are going to use libSDL in Linux for 2d game/emulation programming, unless you are developing a game where speed or complexity is not a factor, please at least have the option to draw on an OpenGL surface. SDL in Linux, by default, does not use accelerated (graphics-card based) drawing routines, and therefore will make your games slow.
Yes, it works in Windows because libSDL is a wrapper for the equivalent DirectDraw routines, which does use accelerated 2d drawing. But until SDL properly supports this, please do not use it for games, emulators, or any other programs that require fast updates, because it will be slow on all but the speediest of machines.

Thank you,
A concerned Linux user and developer.

Let the love begin!

Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon” is now officially available. Go grab a copy from your favorite download mirror (or use the handy-dandy torrents) now!

Enjoy that fresh New Linux smell!

Gutsy Coming Today!

Today is the release of Gutsy Gibbon, the newest version of the Ubuntu Linux distribution. There is no official time of release yet, but it should drop sometime today, and even though I already have the prerelease on my computer and just need to do one last update, I’ll be downloading the release to give out to others.

I suggest everyone — and I mean everyone — download and give this thing a try. It is a very slick and user-friendly distro with a huge community and excellent support. At the very least, spin the LiveCD up by inserting the release in your CD drive and restarting your computer (you might have to set your computer to boot from CD — read your computer’s documentation to learn how). It will be slower than actually installing it because it has to run from the CD, but it will give you a good idea of how it will work.

I hope to see many new users come on board with this great release!

Gutsy Is Coming

Just a fast update here:

I’ve been testing Gutsy, the upcoming release of Ubuntu, since it went into official beta, and I’m really impressed. Things seem to be a bit snappier and more polished from earlier releases, with a host of neat things in the latest Gnome.

Not that I use Gnome at all, though. I’m still in love with Fluxbox.

However, I did still have to recompile the kernel to remove the horrible atrocity to PATA drive controllers known as libata that slows every single device I have down to a crawl. Getting the normal ATA drivers back sped up the system considerably. Also, with the new release of kernel 2.6.23 the other day, I had to upgrade to it, which makes things feel a bit snappier with the new scheduler update. Not an enormous speedup, mind you, but I can tell the difference at times.

So yeah, this is a highly recommended update when the final version drops in about a week. Install and enjoy.