Over the past months I've been working on a new Linux game, which I call Swift Border. I plan to release it in the next few days in the Ubuntu Software Centre, or until then, look at it's site at http://www.gamemash.co.uk
Wednesday, 17 October 2012
Swift Border - Linux Game
Over the past months I've been working on a new Linux game, which I call Swift Border. I plan to release it in the next few days in the Ubuntu Software Centre, or until then, look at it's site at http://www.gamemash.co.uk
Tuesday, 1 May 2012
Precise Pangolin
Ubuntu's been greatly improved for this release, good thing to as it's the LTS. I did a clean install, backing up my home files and installing over my old 11.10 partition. This time I'm using 2 separate partitions (one for / and one for /home) so I'll be able to upgrade more easily next time.
12.04 has plenty of visual improvements, from the login screen to window decorations, though not all are in my favour. One feature I haven't yet got used to is how many windows are faded slightly when they lose focus. It sort of seems that you're only meant to look at one window at a time.
Speed improvements are the best part of this release I believe. Being an LTS that's important as more serious users may be sticking for 2 years at least.
Stability also appears to be good, though it's too early to say for certain. 11.10 never crashed for me, unlike 11.04 (but I won't say any more about that)
I'm still staying with Unity, and as a vaguely sideways implementation of the Windows 7 taskbar, I like it. I do use the smallest pixel setting because at 48px it's too big to save space. Then again, it never gets full up because I only dock Chrome & Nautilus in it, and use the Dash search for everything else.
One thing that has surprised be about this release is the HUD. Pressing Alt will bring up a text input that lets you search the menu bar. Now, just like the Dash speeds up open applications, HUD speeds up using the menu bar. However, it seems I never used the menu bar in the first place as I have not yet had the chance to use the HUD, instead the top tool bar of all my programs contains the buttons I use.
All in all, 12.04 is a great release, possible better than 10.10, but what might come in next releases?
Here are 2 of my predictions for what should come soon: Smooth/anti-aliased window corners: If you position the top left/right corner of a window in a while background, you'll see the jagged edges of each pixel. I'm hoping that this will be fixed in 12.10
Wayland replacing X: It's been worked on for some time now and the old X window system isn't optimal for today's computers. Wayland should bring a number of improvements, not least helping the developers with a cleaner code base, so who's to say what will come of that? I'm thinking that Wayland will come in 13.04
12.04 has plenty of visual improvements, from the login screen to window decorations, though not all are in my favour. One feature I haven't yet got used to is how many windows are faded slightly when they lose focus. It sort of seems that you're only meant to look at one window at a time.
Speed improvements are the best part of this release I believe. Being an LTS that's important as more serious users may be sticking for 2 years at least.
Stability also appears to be good, though it's too early to say for certain. 11.10 never crashed for me, unlike 11.04 (but I won't say any more about that)
I'm still staying with Unity, and as a vaguely sideways implementation of the Windows 7 taskbar, I like it. I do use the smallest pixel setting because at 48px it's too big to save space. Then again, it never gets full up because I only dock Chrome & Nautilus in it, and use the Dash search for everything else.
One thing that has surprised be about this release is the HUD. Pressing Alt will bring up a text input that lets you search the menu bar. Now, just like the Dash speeds up open applications, HUD speeds up using the menu bar. However, it seems I never used the menu bar in the first place as I have not yet had the chance to use the HUD, instead the top tool bar of all my programs contains the buttons I use.
All in all, 12.04 is a great release, possible better than 10.10, but what might come in next releases?
Here are 2 of my predictions for what should come soon: Smooth/anti-aliased window corners: If you position the top left/right corner of a window in a while background, you'll see the jagged edges of each pixel. I'm hoping that this will be fixed in 12.10
Wayland replacing X: It's been worked on for some time now and the old X window system isn't optimal for today's computers. Wayland should bring a number of improvements, not least helping the developers with a cleaner code base, so who's to say what will come of that? I'm thinking that Wayland will come in 13.04
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