BSD & Gaming

The handbook for PC-BSD v8.2  is now available for download in the EPUB format as well as html, odt, and pdf.

Download the handbook here – [ LINK ]

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March Issue Articles Include:

• Ramblings from the Rogue Admin

• DragonFly News

• Run your Phone System on OpenBSD

• A quick look at the upcoming PC-BSD 9

• Drupal on FreeBSD part 4

• Using FreeBSD to authenticate users with OpenLDAP and FreeRADIUS

• How To Setup OpenBSD On The Embeded Alix Card

• Setting up Git and Mercurial Servers

• The Wonders Of Blender

• Useful OpenBSD Tools

Get it fresh off the press by going to BSDMag.Org for your free copy now.

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Just released, PC-BSD 8.2 [Hubble Edition] go get it now!!

PC-BSD 8.2 changes include the following:

• FreeBSD 8.2-Release
• KDE 4.5.5
• Added ability to select file-system type and encryption during auto-partitioning
• Able to toggle between MBR/GPT partitioning
• Various bug fixes to the wireless / network managers

Read the release notes here – [LINK]
Download your free copy here – [LINK]
Download via BitTorrent here – [LINK]

(For a full list of changes in this release refer to the changelog.)

FreeBSD News is taking a poll asking people what sort of installer do you like to use now that there are more options available in the BSD community.

To get a better idea of what BSD users like the poll offers four general options of  ….only a text based installation, only a graphics based installer, an option to choose either, or it doesn’t matter either way.

Make your voice heard and go vote here! – [LINK]

Articles Include:

• ZFS and FreeBSD
• Network transparent rate limitation with ipfw
• Building an iSCSI storage with BSD
• How to setup a USB Memory stick for installing a pfSense SoHo Firewall/Router
• Mutt On OS X
• The Missing Links to Strategic Implementation
• Browser Wars
• Interview with Dan Langille
• PC-SYSINSTALL – A new system installer backend for PC-BSD & FreeBSD

Get it fresh off the press by going to BSDMagazine.Org for your free copy now.

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Back in 2000 when Red Alert 2 was first released I fell in love with it immediately.
While I enjoyed the previous C&C game Tiberian Sun very much and still play it occasionally, it just didn’t capture the imagination like Red Alert 2 did.

Growing up in the last gasp of the Cold War I can still remember doing Civil Defense safety drills in elementary school. Those years made a strong impression on me, the fear of war with the Soviet Union weighed heavily on everyone’s mind and even though as children we may not have understood all the details we knew it would be something bad. In fact to this day any book, movie, or game that reflects the feel or imagery of the Cold War era still evokes an emotional response and fires my imagination. That connection has even led to a need to collect some Civil Defense relics in recent years… go figure. There is something about that iconic CD logo that I’m drawn to. Anyway enough of that I’ll get back on track about playing Red Alert 2 on BSD using WINE.

The ‘Good News’ :

Playing Red Alert 2 on BSD [ FreeBSD or PC-BSD ] is possible and it seems to run well now that I actually have it installed.

The ‘Bad News’ :

I have not been able to get RA2 to install easily. I still don’t know what the issue is but for whatever reason trying to get RA2 to install properly straight from the CD just isn’t happening. I keep getting errors preventing it from completing the install. I won’t go into all the gory details but basically I gave up and did what the Ubuntu Linux folks did, installed it on a Winblows box – then copied it to my WINE drive.   @*&# !!! Bah!

Once the installation ‘goat rope’ was over I ran into issues with the damned cd copy protection crap, I hate games that insist on the CD being in the drive in order to play – it doesn’t prevent piracy it just exposes the original install cd to potential for damage. Needless to say I had to continue to take the Ubuntu communities lead and follow their advice on countering that nonsense.

Red Alert 2 is over a decade old, but I think it is still a great game and worth the effort to install. I realy prefer RA2 versus what I consider to be the ‘over the top’ cartoon graphics and general silliness of RA3. If anyone ever finds a ‘finished’ conversion mod making RA3 into a likeness of RA2 please let me know. I found a few mods that are or were being worked on but found nothing complete.

WineHQ’s information about Red Alert 2 – [LINK]

Ubuntu documentation for Red Alert 2 under WINE – [LINK]

Wikipedia information on Red Alert 2 – [LINK]

Red Alert Den’s custom maps, missions, and misc. files – [LINK]

FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE is available.

The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE. This is the second release from the 8-STABLE branch which improves on the functionality of FreeBSD 8.0 and introduces some new features. Some of the highlights:

-zfsloader added
-zpool version of ZFS subsystem updated to version 14
-NFSv4 ACL support in UFS and ZFS; support added to cp(1), find(1), getfacl(1), mv(1), and setfacl(1) utilities
-UltraSPARC IV/IV+, SPARC64 V support
-SMP support in PowerPC G5
-BIND 9.6.2-P2
-sendmail updated to 8.14.4
-OpenSSH updated to 5.4p1
-GNOME 2.30.1, KDE 4.4.5

Announcement – [LINK]

Release notes – [LINK]

Download via official BitTorrent – [LINK]

Download via FTP mirrors – [LINK]