Bootable Wesnoth CD

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Viliam
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Bootable Wesnoth CD

Post by Viliam »

Today I burned an Ubuntu install CD, and was impressed how it works. It is a bootable CD, which will start live Ubuntu, with a possibility to perform install on hard disk. However, if you put the CD to computer while MS Windows is running, it will open a new browser window, and display some information text about Ubuntu, and even provide a few Free applications for install under MS Windows (like: try these apps, and if you like them, in Ubuntu you will have exactly the same ones). And this gives me an idea...


Imagine a bootable CD with any operating system and Wesnoth (v 1.2). The operating system should just be able to detect most of hardware -- especially screens and networks. So you can just go to any computer room, put the CD in computer and turn it on; play a few multiplayer games, and leave -- without need to install anything. (Obviously you cannot save your single player campaign on CD. Maybe a bootable USB memory stick would be better for single player.) When the CD is inserted while operating system is already running, it would contain installation packages, and also already installed game for different systems -- so you can run Wesnoth directly from CD, or install it on hard disk.

It would be a lot of work to make such CD (it is far beyond my skills). However, having such a CD for Wesnoth players could be nice, because it would allow you to play the game anywhere, even if you are forbidden to install anything on computer. To organize a LAN party, just go to computer room, insert CDs, boot computers, any play instantly... then leave, and keep the computers without change.
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irrevenant
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Re: Bootable Wesnoth CD

Post by irrevenant »

Viliam wrote:To organize a LAN party, just go to computer room, insert CDs, boot computers, any play instantly... then leave, and keep the computers without change.
I suspect the tricky bit here is configuring the bootable CD to network properly.

For many home networks, the user would have to enter network details on bootup. This would presumably be unnecessary if the network uses DHCP, but you can't assume that.
tsr
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Re: Bootable Wesnoth CD

Post by tsr »

irrevenant wrote:
Viliam wrote:To organize a LAN party, just go to computer room, insert CDs, boot computers, any play instantly... then leave, and keep the computers without change.
I suspect the tricky bit here is configuring the bootable CD to network properly.

For many home networks, the user would have to enter network details on bootup. This would presumably be unnecessary if the network uses DHCP, but you can't assume that.
Well, you can assume ot, but plan for it not being there too, so that if dhcp it works seamless, without it it needs some config (those can be RAMed, so no need for diskwrites).

Edit: And here is someone that has done something similar

I think it's a great idea, unfortunatly I'm not the one to implement it.

/tsr
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Post by Dragon Master »

This is a really cool idea, but is there really any benefit? It sounds neat, but isn't that useful.
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Post by Lathai »

I think it is a great idea. It would be extremely useful if one went to a library or something or was just in a random place with a computer and wanted to play Wesnoth
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Re: Bootable Wesnoth CD

Post by Dave »

Viliam wrote: Imagine a bootable CD with any operating system and Wesnoth (v 1.2). The operating system should just be able to detect most of hardware -- especially screens and networks. So you can just go to any computer room, put the CD in computer and turn it on; play a few multiplayer games, and leave -- without need to install anything.
You could probably just have a CD (or other media, such as a USB key) with the executable and all data files and just run Wesnoth off the CD directly.

This of course assumes a certain operating system (probably Windows), but a bootable CD assumes a certain architecture, so there's a fairly heavy platform dependency either way.

I think there is some Knoppix variant that is oriented towards games that contains Wesnoth as one of the games, so it already does this.

David
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jg
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Post by jg »

Dragon Master wrote:This is a really cool idea, but is there really any benefit? It sounds neat, but isn't that useful.
If you want to save disk space perhaps? But nowadays it's not so much of a problem anymore (I think).

jg
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Post by Woodwizzle »

What would be better would be a LiveCD (or DVD) loaded with linux games not just wesnoth. FreeCIV, BZFlag, Nexius, Nethack, Adom, Maybe even Enenmy Territory and the True Combat mod? Sauerbraten, Scorched 3D, Fish Filets, Tux Racer, Neverball, GLTron, Gnome-Games (with the extra art package), Ur-Quan Masters, Crack Attack etc. I had the idea to do this some time ago, but School got in the way and I had to post pone it. Got a very rudimentary page up though: Shuriken Linux I thought shuriken was a good name for a live CD disc for gamers :twisted:
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xtifr
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Post by xtifr »

Morphix is a system (a Knoppix derivative) designed specifically for building your own custom Live CDs with your own chosen set of installed software. I haven't played with it recently, but when I tried it a couple of years ago, it worked quite well, and was reasonably easy to customize.
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Viliam
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Post by Viliam »

Woodwizzle, I really like that idea, including the distribution name! :D

Next time anyone says "there are no games for Linux", we can proudly say: "au contraire! there is a Linux distributon which includes only games and nothing else". ;-) This could also be a very good "troyan horse" for Linux advocacy... even people who want do use Windows and do not want to use Linux, may like using such CD.


One additional feature would be nice... if the system had ability to intelligently mount some part of harddisk or USB memory stick for savegames and preferences. I imagine something like this:

When I click on menu "select savegame disk", a list of disk partitions with known formats is displayed. I select one, for example my Windows FAT disk. There will be created a directory "Shuriken Linux Settings". (Next time, partitions containing such directory will be highlighted.) Inside it there will be created directories for each game, for example "Wesnoth". Then, these subdirectories are mounted as savegame and preferences directories for the games. For example "C:\Shuriken Linux Settings\Wesnoth" would become "~/.wesnoth/data/". So when I save a game in Wesnoth, it will be actually saved to my hard disk; and when I boot from CD next day, I can load it and continue playing.
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xtifr
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Post by xtifr »

Viliam wrote: One additional feature would be nice... if the system had ability to intelligently mount some part of harddisk or USB memory stick for savegames and preferences.
I'm pretty sure that Morphix has that built in. I know that it's been a feature of Knoppix for a long time, and Morphix is derived from Knoppix. Plus, it's just plain not very hard to do...

There used to be a pre-built "Gamers-Morphix" variant on their main site, but it doesn't seem to be there any more. (At least, I can't find it in a brief search.)

BTW, on a different-but-related topic, another nice CD to have in your collection, to give to all your friends, is The Open CD, which contains a variety of high-quality Free/Open Source software compiled for Windows, including Wesnoth 1.0.
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Post by Tux2B »

This would be a fun thing to have, of course, but I'm not sure that it is really much more worth than being fun. There is, indeed, a Knoppix variant with Wesnoth (I have an old CD (well, old...) of it with Wesnoth 0.8.8 with still that old SoE version), but it isn't the same.

What could be a solution, is to have an easy-to-use tool to create your own live-cd's, with only Wesnoth, Linux and X on it (or do you also need a window manager? Like ICEWM?), and with Wesnoth starting automatically. This could be used for advertising or merchandise purpose, but for no more thing.

But having it on TheOpenCD is even better, because if it was up to me, I wouldn't reboot my computer just to test a new free and unknown game found somewhere on an average download site like telecharger.com (where I found it)
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Post by podunk »

This seems like a very cool idea! I've been using Linux for several weeks now and I'm hooked, I'll never go back. I've found just about every tool I need for my business except a 10 key calculator emulator (well I found one but can't get it to compile yet) and a tax program.

I started using Linux because of Wesnoth – I noticed the only folks complaining about speed of the game was Windows users.

Someone was talking about potential network set up problems off of a bootable DVD? When I booted up Ubuntu from a DVD the first time the network was seamless – I didn't even have to enter my password (I guess it got it from from the Windows files – which now that I think about it says all that needs to be said about security under Windows)
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Post by PingPangQui »

podunk wrote: I've found just about every tool I need for my business except a 10 key calculator emulator (well I found one but can't get it to compile yet) and a tax program.
have a lock at http://www.r-project.org/

its a cool math program S-Plus like. Command line based but you can do calculations very fast - and not just simple ones.
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Post by Woodwizzle »

Morphix is nice and all, but Ubuntu has tons of great presets and extra drivers etc. Thats why I think it would be best to base such a liveCD off of ubuntu which I believe is a very similar process to building a custom morphix or knopix cd. I wouldn't want JUST games of course, media players would be a must and it wouldn't hurt to have some miscellaneous tools like ssh, telnet (for muds), gimp and etc. to tweak graphics. If they can fit of course.
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