Remotely controling a Windows server with RDesktop in Linux

was checking up on the terminal services offered by win2000 and stumbled accross rdesktop. with a simple install i was able to log into the server as a proper user and the speed of the terminal os much beter that VNC as it is a proper terminal ( VNC was just taking snapshots of the desktop and sending them accross )

while its fast and doesnt require me to have a keyboard attached to the server everytime i restart, there are 2 problems. i cant increase rez ( its 800x600 ) and sound doesnt seem to work. since its a terminal i think its supposed to send the sound through the network even :s i have to figure out a way for it to use the sound card of the server itself.

Xorg TV-out configuration utility

work continues, after a 1 month break :s
i have now implemented a checking header that checks the scanned xorg.conf file for the presence of propietry drivers. seems small but it took hours !

Xorg TV-out configuration utility

:Originally Published Wed 17 May 2006 03:32 AM EDT:

work is progressing slowly. just figured out how to read the xorg.conf file in parts. next objective : store these sections into temporary files where they can be modified.

Remotely controling a server with VNC

Just bought a cheap P2 server today and have windows2000 server running off it. in order to control it i have to change my lcd screen to its input and use a seperate mouse/keyboard but not any longer. i installed "TightVNC" on the server and now i can control the server from FC5. on FC5 i installed the X Viewer, opened it, entered the i.p add of the server and the password which i installed the vnc server and connected :

still have to conduct experiments whether this can hold if i restart the server. its been a long way since Radmin though.

Wine Beta Testing - Bryce 5.5

Well, another reason not to boot up in windows now !! :-D i managed to get Bryce 5.5 running in wine 9.15 under FC5 with XGL running :

Am going to try out some modeling on it soon but there are several problems. some of the menus crash when clicked with the left key and the network rendering engine is inoperative. the network rendering was a priority for me as i do most of my designing on my laptop that has XP also. looks like i will use my linux desktop for the designing now and will then use a group of networked windows powered computers to do network rendering.
note : the setup required a msvcirt.dll file to be placed in the win32 directory in order to run. apart from that theres nothing special required for installation/running.

XGL powered Fedora Core 5 Linux

After a rough time trying to get XGL working with Suse 10.1 i decided to switch back to Fedora which i have been using for over a year now. to my plesent surprise i found out that i could install XGL on fedora too so i went for it. this is done by ework at fedoraforums. simple proceedure really but in the end it was effective as these would prove.

I experienced some problems with certain programs. Mercury, my java based messenger showed up as a blank screen and xine is giving trouble with certain clips and its external controller is comming all screwed up so for now i am using Mplayer which is running perfectly stable.

Torrents, Azureus & Firewalls

Just brainstormed with everyone to get the D-Link router i have to open its ports so thet we can do torrent based downloads. for the record, the steps are :

1. open 192.168.0.1 in firefox and log into the router, password - admin
2. go to advanced config at the botom and enter - port used by azureus ( 49152 ) my i.p. address and click save and then reboot.
3. in azureus set TCP/UDP to 49152 and under Plugins->Distributed DB-> unclick default port so it can use 49152.
4. under firewall settings add 49152 under TCP & UDP
5. Restart azureus

Quake 3 Source - XREAL

    Phew ! managed to get XREAL working. downloaded 4 pk3 files from http://xreal.varcache.org/ which form the interface and 3 test maps and for the textures i linked the Doom3 pk4 files into XREAL's base as .pk3 files. The Results :

    While it deffinately looks sweet, the engine seems to be frought with bugs in the rendering systems. several inactive or background meshes seem to be popping through left right and center. my immediate assumption is that the hidden objects are not being culled properly and are "popping up" when hey shouldnt be. either way, after what ? 5 years of waiting, i have finally been able to compile and run the Q3 engine on my own :)

Quake 3 Source - XREAL

    Just got the quake3 source to compile on linux!! in the end i had to use the "CONS" make installer and i have to say its a neat installer. just installed the cons rpm and fired up the quake3 source installer as the instructions mentioned and voilla !

NOTE : i have not compiled the actual Q3 engine but a highly advanced version called XREAL. gonna have to get quake3 before i can start testing it.

DOSBOX - Wing Commander 3 on Linux

Just installed Dosbox 0.65 on FC5 and am trying out Wing Commander 3. While the gameplay is kinda bad ( jerky, sound stutters amongst other stuff ), its still fun to re-visit one of the 1st games i ever played.
Just found out that i cant play the game on wine. apparently my version is the original version built specifically for DOS unlike the khilrati saga version which is ment for Win95. just my luck to get stuck up with the original version .

Wine Beta testing - Halo

The biggest roadblock i have run into with Wine uptil now is getting Halo up and running. Halo is just about the only reason i still wish sometimes i could log into Windows and sadly i have not been able to get it up and running uptil now.
Today i made some slight progress with getting the intro sequence of Halo up and running, barely. the intro clips can be heard but the monitor is blank and once these are over the game exits to gnome with an "Unhandeled Exception" error or something. Tested with wine "9.12" on the "2.6.16-1.2111_FC5smp" kernel.
Well, its beter than the success i had on FC4 with wine 9.10 so i guess i should try the game with any new release to see if more can be done. heck, Thushan also said he wanted to play halo on Gentoo linux on his desktop so im glad i have some support from his side. Just hope we can get it running some day...........

Starfleet Engineering Corps

This blog is my electronics log of all activities pertaining to Linux ,programming, 3d designing and other 24th centuary stuff.