Podcast of Things Episode 1: Pilot of things

We released our very first podcast! Listen Zach, Bakhari, and Myself (Joe) talk about how Bakhari has never seen any movie real value. I also go on a little bit of a rant. Check it out and if you think you have any suggestions or feedback send us an email to podcastofthings@gmail.com

Life After Install

So now that you have installed your new operating system what do we do?
The first thing I normally do is get my Graphic environment back to the way I like.

With many options where do I go? Well if you installed basic Ubuntu you already have Unity. It is nice to begin with but I recommend something along the lines of Gnome, MATE, KDE, or XFCE. All of which may suit your needs differently and each one has a setup for customizing the user interface to your exact taste.

Steam has a .deb package that can be opened with the Ubuntu Software Center when clicked on by default or you can install from command line if you feel comfortable with that utility. dpkg and apt-get are your best friends after install.


Some useful programs for most people:

Shotwell - photo management

Digikam - Photo management similar to Light Room

Gimp - Photo manipulation. Think photoshop but free.

InkScape - Vector Graphics

OpenShot - Great Basic video editor

CinelerraCV - One of the best video editors I have ever used

LibreOffice - If it isn't already installed it is very comparable to MSOffice suite.

Atom - if you need a good text editor like Notepad++

Audacity - Audio editor and Sound recorder

Why we need to continue the push for Open Source

After recently seeing that the ESEA has come back into the spotlight with the main focus being on their illegal bitcoin operation, I will try to bring more focus on why we need to renew/continue our push for open source software. Some may remember the ESEA secretly used machines with their game launcher on it to mine bitcoin  with out user knowledge. This isn't the first time I have read about someone adding malicious content with their installer.

This is a big issue as a major company in the gaming industry has now betrayed our trust. Who knows how many more in their type of position are doing something similar. We just haven't discovered how many backdoors they have left open in our system to get what information they want from us. Whether it is mining or grabbing browser information unknowingly, it is something we shouldn't want on our system. At what point does it become overstepping their bounds and trust for their services. Not to keep my tinfoil hat out and say I don't use services that record my information. I use things like Google quite often. I go in knowing that their services monitor certain activities while using their services. I never once have thought Google wasn't this kind of company. It is more about a violation of trust as I don't know what Companies are starting to record and pass on. When you give someone that much access to your system this starts to become a privacy issue. Certain programs may start listening to your microphone every so often to gather information. I know Microsoft was battling this issue with their latest console. It is absurd that this has become more and more acceptable today. Okay, I am now putting my tinfoil hat away.

Not to say that Open Source will solve these issues completely, but having the source for something as simple as a game launcher available to the public would greatly increase the transparency and the trust. I don't go around downloading third party launchers at will mostly because I don't trust everyone with access to my personal computer. I wouldn't expect a company such as Valve to load a bitcoin miner on my computer. There is far more risk in being an established company to try something like that. Companies such as ESEA have not been established as long and require trust but in a quickly adapting environment could easily allow for something like this to be added in. Sneaking it into your terms of service or trying to see how much they can get away with before being caught.

Well, how do we trust the compiled version of these open source launchers? The big thing with this is being able compile your own software and understanding what packages are needed for the install. This can help you control what is installed. If you aren't that savvy with computers you can still use the companies compiled version but the source will help those who want to compare and check that the company has properly compiled and hasn't added any new products unknown to you.

This may not be perfect. This won't be perfect, but it would definitely be a huge step in the correct direction to allow others to help scrutinize especially with these kinds of actions coming to light. I would look forward to more of a push from the community to look at and inspect these launchers more closely. Gamers as a whole have a tremendous amount of power behind them. Just recently when Valve and Bethesda tried to monetize mods it backfired and outraged the community. Gamers as a whole could push for this kind of open launcher and push us further into an open software community.

Linux as a viable gaming OS

Linux. To many this is really just a hobbyist operating system and shouldn't be used on most computers. What are we really though? We computerists (I am keeping this word) try to get every little bit of extra speed and performance out of our computer. After you're all done configuring the 5Ghz overclocked processor tweaking RAM there is just a little bit more we can tweak. Our choice in operating systems can yield many new outlets for customization while still retaining the ability to play my games. GNU/Linux isn't just for those that hold a degree in computing, it is an operating system designed for endless tweaking, learning, and doing.

The biggest reason I switched to Linux was freedom. I could choose what everything looked like easily. There were no restrictions on how my system started. Yes I know there are programs and minor mods for windows but every bit of extra software I have to download just makes it feel incredibly slow.

So now that I am done babbling about freedom and other nonsense lets get back to giving this a try.

Where should I start? Probably the best OS to start off with, is Ubuntu. Yes it is free and it makes trying this out even easier. The other benefit is that it is one of the most popular distributions and a base for many other distributions which makes tools and tutorials widely available.

But everyone tells me only low grade indie games are available on Linux! You do get a large selection of new indie games, which is quite awesome. Big name games are also starting to make the switch. Valves devotion to Linux is a huge plus and using Debian (base of Ubuntu) as the base for their Steam OS will really help the field. War Thunder, CS:GO and Team Fortress 2 are just a few of the big names.

What is glNext and why should I be excited? glNext is the next step in opengl development. It is a graphical API that helps animate images on your screen. The reason you should be excited is backing from Valve and other developers and this will help push cross platform development. Opengl has already helped greatly with small game development and now that major players are backing it we can look for great new projects. Other supporters of glNext are also AMD and Nvidia.

So do I have to buy special hardware to run linux? No! Most distros are designed to work well right after install with minimal adjustments made by the user. In some cases it is wise to download a new graphics driver instead of using the open source one installed with the OS.

So be honest with yourself, how much more optimization can really be done on your current setup. Maybe there are a few hold outs on the windows platform. I know this for work I am required to use windows for one antiquated piece of equipment. For these purposes I dual boot and that is easily done. The Ubuntu installer offers to install along side the windows operating system and is very easy to get it up and running. For me it usually takes no more than 45 minutes start to finish with all the updates.


To get ideas on different desktops, tools, workflows, and designs check out unixporn. This stuff may still be fairly advanced for you yet but it is always a good idea to set goals.

Edit: Since this blog was written is was announced that glNext has become Vulkan.