Peppermint OS in problem - Going back to LinuxMint?

For the last couple of years, I have been using the Peppermint OS on mu home notebook. I was even able to use a very cheap game-pad by asking around in the Peppermint OS forums and who helped me in that Forum - the user name 'PCNetSpec', i.e. Mark Greaves - the main person behind the Peppermint OS project.

After his sad demise, the Peppermint OS does not seem to be holding on. The Forum was down, the last time I tried I could not even open the Forum page.

Now, I am also in a fix. Which distro to install when my current setup becomes obsolete? I am looking at LinuxMint, or maybe I will pick up an Independent distro this time? Lets see.

Ubuntu is Dead

Ubuntu is (and soon to become was) the distro that I have been using on/off/then on again for the last 10+ years. I have switched to Peppermint OS in the past couple of years, but that too is based on Ubuntu.

I am a normal user with normal needs and that includes gaming. I am a Steam user and also use Wine to install and play the games that are not directly available for the Linux system. Steam has done a fantastic job of bridging the gaming divide that existed between Windows and Linux. And, recently they have also integrated a version of Wine directly into the Steam app to play Windows only games in Linux. This has helped me and several like me to make a complete switch to Linux.

If you would see the articles on the problems that most normal users used to face when using Linux was the lack of games and some other proprietary software. GOG, and Steam (and others) have finally managed to overcome this gap.

The once great Linux distro, Ubuntu, was the chosen one used by Steam to open up gaming in Linux. Well, now the same Ubuntu wants to destroy gaming on Linux. Why? because Microsoft Loves Linux. Microsoft has adopted Ubuntu in Windows and may be (IMHO) have chided Ubuntu to give them something back. This may be a pure business decision to have a common system for Windows and pure Linux, and that means to loose normal Linux users.

So, the great Ubuntu has now decided to cripple its gaming support and relegate gaming to "containers". For me, this is the end of Ubuntu. Come 2020, I will be switching to a distro that has first class support for GOG and Steam.

What are my options :)
This is the advantage of the Linux ecosystem, we have a lot of options. Currently I can think of MX Linux, Linux Mint Debian Edition, PCLinuxOS, Funtoo Linux, Slackware Linux, Manjaro, deepin, CentOS, and many more.

Free Games from Locomalito.com for Linux

The person behind the Locomalito.com website has self made video games that are sort of remakes and re-imagined takes on classic video games. Some of the games are freeware and some are available on proprietary gaming hardware.

Although most of the games present on the website are for the Windows environment, some are available for Linux too.

At the time of writing this post, the games that are available for free on Linux from the Locomalito website are:

GAURODAN (2013)

Game Info (from the website):

About the Game: Fly around the Canary Islands and destroy cities, armies and colossal creatures in your path through a precision shmup. Controlling Gaurodan requires skill, since its movement is unstoppable and its attack can be oriented to hit ground or air targets.

Links: https://locomalito.com/gaurodan.php || https://locomalito.com/juegos/Gaurodan_linux.zip

MALDITA CASTILLA (2012)

Game Info (from the Website):

About the Game: Maldita Castilla (Cursed/damn Castile) is an action platformer full of actual myths from Spain and some regions of the medieval Europe. The player must run, jump and throw weapons along 6 chapters, divided into sections filled with dangers and bosses. It takes the visual style of 80s arcades, with no more than raw pixel art and a dark palette displayed through a dirty old monitor.

Links: https://locomalito.com/maldita_castilla.php || https://locomalito.com/juegos/Maldita_Castilla_linux.tgz

EFMB (2012)

Game Info (from the Website):

About the Game: EFMB is the remake of the brilliant ZX Spectrum game created by Dave Hughes in 2012. The game includes bizarre mechanics that force players to concentrate and use all their mental power. The remake has new elements and game modes for cooperative and versus plays.

Links: https://locomalito.com/efmb.php || https://locomalito.com/juegos/EFMB_linux.tar.gz

L'ABBAYE DES MORTS (2010)

Game Info (from the Website):

About the Game: Faith will be your only weapon in this platformer styled like a ZX Spectrum game. Black backgrounds, 1 color sprites and 1 bit sounds are a proper fit for a raw story. The lack of details turn on the player's imagination, creating a unique experience for each player.

Links: https://locomalito.com/abbaye_des_morts.php || https://github.com/nevat/abbayedesmorts-gpl

'Magic: The Gathering' like/based Open Source Single-Player Fantasy Card Game on Linux

'Magic: The Gathering' is a very famous collectible card game. There have been many video games based on this card game, but most, if not all, were made targeting the proprietary operating systems. 

A Linux native game and that too an open source game exists for this specific card game. It is named 'Magarena' and is available from the github website: https://github.com/magarena/magarena || https://magarena.github.io

From the game's website:

Magarena is an open-source, single-player fantasy card game played against a computer opponent. The rules for Magarena are based on (but not exactly the same as) the first modern collectible card game. Its main goals are an advanced AI, intuitive interface, engaging gameplay and program stability.

A few screenshots, from their website:

Free Visio alternatives in Linux for making Flowchart Diagrams? Yes, Draw.io and yEd Graph Editor

I have used Microsoft Visio at my workplace to create flowcharts, departmental flowcharts, swimlane diagrams, and more. I find working in Visio quite good except for a few problems here and there. The major problem is adding 'connection' points to shapes, font size, and general selecting and moving shapes (especially for swimlane diagrams).

But, you cannot go much wrong while using Visio, it is a solid diagramming tool. So, I was just wondering what are the available options on the Linux platform. I am a fan of the Linux platform and the Free and Open Source community. So I searched for options.

The choices were: The Draw.io online tool, LibreOffice Draw, Dia, yEd Graph Editor, Calligra Flow, and some more. I tried Draw.io, LibreOffice Draw, Dia, and yEd Graph Editor.

Dia's last download version is from the year 2011 and IMHO, this software has reached an end of usage time-period. We could still may be use Dia to create very small, super basic diagrams. Because any further complexity will require too much manual work.

Draw.io worked fabulously. There was support for creating all the types of diagrams that I wanted to make. Many would be satisfied with this tool, but for me the online nature of the tool is something of a problem. The main issue that I find hard to manage is that what happens to my diagrams that I make using this tool. Should I assume that selecting to only save offline does not save online into their server(s). What happens to the diagrams that are saved into their server(s). Is there some privacy.
Although Draw.io fulfilled all diagramming needs, the online only way of working is a problem for me.

Next, I tried LibreOffice Draw. This software was quite good in creating normal flowcharts, but does not have built in support for swimlane diagrams, the most common diagrams that I have to make. For other needs, I found LibreOffice Draw to be on par or quite comfortable to use.

The last tool that I tried was yEd Graph Editor. This tool is a Freeware and not Open Source, but this is the closest to having nearly all functionality (like Draw.io) in an offline diagramming tool. There are a few things that are of trouble, mostly the connectors not automatically changing shape/directions (especially when the connector is not just a straight line), and not much department graphics. Apart from the drawbacks, this tool has major plus points. Firstly, this tool is Offline and free for commercial usage (at least the version that I tried).

In conclusion, if you have no problems using online diagramming tool, then Draw.io is the best alternative to Visio. If you prefer offline usage, then try yEd Graph Editor. You will not be disappointed with these two.

Calculate an ideal 'Streaming Media' company's revenue in India - Part 2

Please find the first part in this series at: https://aajkyakaroon.blogspot.com/2017/12/calculate-ideal-streaming-media.html

Lets continue our discussion and calculate the money earned by a movie. Using our previous discussion, a person may spend around 5000 minutes per month on a streaming service. The person would give Rs. 100 out of which Rs. 30 would go to the service provider and Rs. 70 goes to the content providers. Also, we had supposed that the total subscribers of a streaming service to be 1 crore people.

The Rs. 70 would be distributed among the 5000 minutes of screen time. 70 / 5000 = Rs. 0.014 per minute.

Lets consider a movie that is 2 hours long, i.e. 120 minutes. The movie would be worth 0.014 * 120 = Rs. 1.68. Now, suppose out of the 1 crore users, 5-10 lakh users watch this movie just one time in a month. This would fetch the content provider Rs. 8,40,000 to Rs. 16,80,000 for that month.

This amount can be considered as just additional income from the movie and would not warrant an exclusive (i.e. no theatrical release) streaming release.

The only way to make a substantial income for a content provider would be to have a plethora of ready made content that would flood the service. This can be achieved by making episodic series, like a short series of  8 - 10 episodes or longer series of 18-24 episodes per season.

The service provider also needs to up-sell or increase its subscribers by either making the service costlier or by having much more subscribers.

How much subscriber increase there can be in India? Well, to subscribe to a streaming service, I would consider that the person would have enough income to spend on such a service, i.e., the person should be a tax payer or at least belong to a family where someone pays taxes. At this present time there are around 50 crore internet users in India, but only around 7 crore tax filers. Out of the 7 crore tax filers, may be 3 crores would be filing a zero tax? So that leaves around 4 crore people.

In the present date, I would think that a mass appeal streaming service could cover 1.5 - 2 crore people.

RHEL 8 Beta - Half Baked Release

RHEL 8 Beta version was announced a few days back and I was utterly disappointed with the direction RedHat or should I say IBM has taken.

Maybe it is the fault of the upper crust in RedHat that have purposely delayed RHEL 8 to drum up their "new" technologies that were just not ready for prime time. The technologies that RedHat were peddling and showcasing to be included (again IMHO) in RHEL 8 were DNF 3, GNOME 3.30 / 4, GIMP 2.12 / 3.0, Pipewire, Silverblue, Removal of Python 2 entirely, and the Latest and greatest Wayland.
These all were described in my previous article here -> https://aajkyakaroon.blogspot.com/2018/06/rhel-8-release-date-update-2-chasing.html

But, these "new" technologies were never going to be stable enough even in Fedora 30. Wayland is 'Way' behind in terms of features present in the current display server. There is not even a stable remote desktop connectivity option enabled by default in Gnome in Wayland.

RedHat wasted at least a year to drum up these new technologies and delayed RHEL 8 for absolutely no reason at all. What IBM did is a sane decision of releasing RHEL 8 and then updating the release to include  these "new" technologies may be in RHEL 8.2/8.3.
If they decide against updating the release to include these "new" technologies in RHEL 8 then I think that RHEL 9 will not be much far behind.
Or, my hope that these "new" technologies will be stable enough in 2 years is misplaced. Hmm, may be this is the case and that's why Canonical has decided to support Ubuntu 18.04 for 10 years. May be these technologies are just in their nascent stage and will require a decade to mature.

In this current form of RHEL 8, I do not think there would have been a major difference in basing the release on Fedora 26/27. This would have saved approximately a year of time.

IMHO, a RHEL refresh was required in 2017 and this RHEL 8 of 2019 is just not justifiable. May be we can add a few repositories in RHEL 7 to get a new kernel and newer versions of software and just skip RHEL 8 till at least RHEL 8.2/8.3.