Category: Kubuntu

A few facts about scripting language and Why you need to know about Scripting

Paul

coding, computer, hacker, hacking, html, programmer, programming, script, scripting, source code, Free Images In PxHere

Is scripting being used in automation?

Scripting can be a powerful tool for anything in the industry from building cars to even creating orders to ship.   Each one has a specific reason to be there,  in all there are many reason why it makes it easier for the user to have scripting.   I know in my life, scripting can be used in many different reason.   For one you could have a PowerShell script to automate a process to wake the daemon or make a service synchronize a service.  In all even in the Microsoft world there are services that need to be restarted or maybe just synched due to the daemon not keeping up.   Having seen this and having to do it from time to time or even create a script to run every hour to keep the what ever might need to be synchronized up to date.   Is that something hard to do or easy, the real questions you should be asking yourself is can you really do it and not make any mistakes?   After all, we are human and bound to make a mistake or two.   So we have to at least consider how any script will affect us in the long run.    Scripting can definitely make certain tasks so much easier when something arises that needs to be done to a server or even process.

What are the options for a script?

Before we begin the options we have to at least consider why scripts are so vastly different from applications.   The short answer is that they can’t do nearly the things applications can because they aren’t integrated into the kernel or there might be processes that the script can’t do without SU permissions and programs can have SU permissions and run in the background without any need for verification from the user.  Now let’s at least talk about the options for what a script  be used for or how we should at least consider it to be used.   First and foremost is to restart a process, and this one is the most common I have seen in the past.   I used to have to restart the Xorg services or drivers due to how the applications caused it to crash for one reason or another in Linux.   This was definitely when the drivers for Nvidia and AMD were still relatively new to the Linux environment.   It would on occasion need to be restarted and people started to have script to use to do that so they didn’t have to write the same codes down each time to restart the service.  This was truly cutting edge for Linux to be able to use a script to restart the graphics drivers and allow the user to continue to use their computer.   Another good option for tasks that can be scripted is downloading files that you might use for Windows and have them update with newest version as they are coming.  You could even create a script to download all the Windows Updates on Linux just like you can on Windows to be able to install them offline if the need arises.

Scripts are just Amazing!

As you can see, I really do love to use scripts and have in the past come up with scripts that can be used for the people who use Linux or might need a script for a certain situation.   Each person can come up with some truly amazing scripts to share with others to help make working in the Linux environment even more better for everyone.  Do you agree or disagree?  Do you have a favorite script you want to share with others?  why not leave a comment and let people know your script and tell them what OS it can be used on.   I am going to link a few good useful bash scripts to let you explore even more.

 

How to play Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 Steam version on Linux Mint 20.1

Paul
MSFS2020 on Linux Mint 20.1

Run Microsoft Flight Simulator

I’ve been trying to get this to work the last few days on Linux because of Windows 11 set to come out in the follow months.   However, I was also wondering if this would work on Linux as it should be able to to do.   As you know steam has some great ways to run windows games on it.   The problem that most people have is just to figure out the right way to run it.   I am here to help those who might still be having difficulty in running Msfs2020(Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020) on Linux because it seems to have so many people having issues with running it.   According to ProtonDB, This game should be playable with Gold standards which means it should run perfectly after some tweaks.   I don’t know about the rest of you but It’s more than some tweaks but I digress.

Install wine

The First step you will need to do is check out my other post about installing Wine on Linux Mint.  If you followed those instructions you are half way to getting it to run on Linux.   You’ll however want to install all the Wine DB and API’s that are associated with Wine to get it to work.  That includes but not limited to Q4wine, Playonlinux, Winetricks, All Wine Compatibility layers(Windows-Desktop-files also), Wine-binfmt  and the API layers that is associated with Wine.  I found sometimes they don’t automatically install these but they are necessary for several other games.

Install Graphics Drivers

Go to your driver manager app and make sure you have the GPU driver for your system.   I currently have a NVIDIA 1660 Super and an Intel 10-850 Core.   First I’d try the recommended but we’ll discuss this at the end.   Always download the recommended driver on Linux Mint but if you have a different Linux and want to download the NVIDIA drivers, check out the NVIDIA Unix Drivers for them to work with your system.  If you have an AMD GPU, you can visit the AMD website for your Linux Driver.  Once those are installed, you will probably need to reboot your system to make sure your drivers are active when playing on Steam or other games.   Each time there is an update, it will probably be a good idea to reboot just to make sure the drivers you want are being used by the system.

Install Steam

It seems Linux Mint 20.1 or some earlier version installs the Flathub version of Steam when they install Linux Mint.   Uninstall that version first,  I’ve found that it doesn’t do as a good as a job as the one you can get from the package manager.   I also found that it won’t run some games with Proton.   So that is the reason I say, just go ahead and uninstall it and install the real one.  This is the easy part of the installation.   Once done you are more than halfway there to be able to play your games like you want.

Download and Install Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020

Example of -FastLaunch

Once you have steam, You can now go ahead and download and install MSFS2020 into steam.   This will be a quick process.   Steam however will not allow you to download the game until you enable proton.  Go over to the Gear icon in steam and left click properties and go to Comparability tab.   I’d recommend trying Proton 5.13-6 first because that is what everyone else used to get it to work on their systems according to the ProtonDB. Once you do that, you’ll be able to download MSFS20 and install it.  Once installed, you’ll also want to add ‘-FastLaunch’ to the Launch options.    Once done with that, hit the little “X” button and try clicking the play button and seeing if it will run.

If it doesn’t work

Sometimes each system is a little bit different.   So I’ll talk about ways you can tweak it to get it to work on your system.    Some things to try:

  • Get a New or Older version of the GPU driver
  • Change the Proton version to a New or Older version or try the experimental version.
  • Check your Wine Settings(Although I didn’t have to do much with mine just install and try to run the q4wine once that was ran.   I didn’t do anything else but quit the program.)
  • Check the ProtoDB to see what everyone else has done to get the game to run.

I suggest making one change at a time and seeing if the game will run after the change.   If it is a GPU driver change, I suggest rebooting to make sure you are using the GPU driver you want to try to run with the program.  Also Don’t expect the game to run as smoothly as it does on Windows so be thoughtful when you are playing the game.   Sometimes there will be crashes and other things going on.  You can however try different configurations to see if you can resolve those issues also.  If you like this post please consider buying something from my affiliate list to support my blog and my time in write.

My Top Five Favorite Posts for 2011

Paul

English: Posts in the sand Presumably these po... Image via Wikipedia

It’s that time again!

I know this blog has been up and down this year and thus I want to discuss some of my more popular and ones that I am really proud of.   We all know that is isn’t going to be easy for me but I thought we could at least talk about some of more favorite posts and let people who just found my blog see some of my other posts!

We’ve all seen those post each year on different blogs and I am sure I am not the only one who does this but it is something that I like to do.   It after all is about community and sharing with my friends.  I know I consider my readers like close family because I am always thinking what I can do to better my life and yours.   This is my biggest reason for blogging, to make life better for everyone and make it much more enjoyable for me also.   You don’t know how nice it is just to sit down and write to my family(readers) and not have to feel like there is pressure to post.   This is my goal every time I write a post to share and hope it makes people think about how to work smarter and not hard.

Top Five Favorite Posts!

I will start off with my Five favorite posts and discuss them in length.   You can always feel free to look around and click any article on my site without worries.

  1. How to Get a Free VPN for Ubuntu/Kubuntu! –This is was one of those that I did because it was essential for me to find a free VPN for when I go to hotspots and not have to pay.   When you are on a limited income and trying to get to your next paycheck, then you know why I couldn’t afford to pay for a VPN service.  Also I use Kubuntu and thus couldn’t use the Windows only free VPNS that were available.

  2. Three ways on how to NOT waste your Money! —  This one is a supposedly a recruiting job from (crmglobalresources.com) but after doing my research it looks to be like my other post “Why do I need to pay for recruitment?” So I was really proud of this one to tell people about it! So don’t always think there will be easy money.4

  3. Apple Needs to Worry about Security and Virus! —  This one was of my favorite post also because I am always tell people that there will always be Apple viruses and that their advertisements in the past will always haunt them because Apple can and will be targeted now and in the future for virus attacks because they are getting a larger share in the Marketplace.

  4. My Reasons why Amazon will make an Android Tablet!  —  This is another one of my favorites because it was one of those that came true.   Just look at the the Kindle Fire to verify it, that is after all an Android tablet.   I think they have more to come in the future but only time will tell!

  5. Android Malware, Ridiculous! —   Let’s face it, most people think that Androids can’t get virus or have malware.   I discuss this in length and tell you that even Linux can have viruses and you should count your eggs before they are hatched.  I am not going to say that they will or will not but I discuss why hackers and virus writers would love to do it.   Once the market gets saturated enough with Android devices they will start to develop viruses and malware for them, I am sure it.

As you can see that there were some really good posts in 2011 and I hope to get even more post done in 2012. I am going to be resolute to doing a better job of posting but that could be a futile effort.

Paul Sylvester

Need Glasses? Try GlassesUSA!

Related articles

Living with Linux offline and blogging about it!

Paul

No time to be offline!

Hey Let’s face it, I am more and more wanting to blog. It is however quite hard to do that while traveling or when I have family. So I been curious as to how to do that. As you know I’ve been using Linux more and more. I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The only problem sometimes is I didn’t have a internet connection and I know myself, that can be quite hard to write blog post. So I went searching around to see if I can blog offline. I found some great little programs that will do it easily in Linux.

Blogging Offline, Didn’t know you could do that?

If your like me, you probably think you have to be online all the time. I am just glad that I found a program that will do me everything that I wanted to do with blogging and publishing my posts. I hate those times when I do not have access to an internet connection and I have something that I want to write. I didn’t know you could blog offline either, but as I was wanting to delve more and more into Linux, I am steadily making Kubuntu my home away from Windows. I’ve always been fascinated with writing and Linux in general so that is why I am leaning more and more on teaching others about the Operating System.

Some programs that you should check out:

  • Blogilo — This is the one that I am using with WordPress right now and it seems to work really well. I’m really impressed with the software and I think they are making some great strides with offline blogging.
  • blogGtk — Looks good but have not actually tested this one out. I will install it later on but the screen shots don’t look anything like Blogilo and even then It looks somewhat the same. I guess I could live with any blogging software but right now I am loving Blogilo.
  • Gnome blog editor — This one looks to be for Gnome projects but does look promising even though I am using KDE. I don’t know anything more than that, I might also try that one out just for kicks.

As you can see these are just a Few of blogging tools that the Open source community has created to better fasciliate and make blogging just that much easier!

How do I add links?

There are definately several ways to add links. I will give you a few ideas and let you come up with your own way to help you blog offline.

  • Automatic Seo Links plugin — Great little plugin for the simplest of things. The little plugin will allow you to automatically associate any keyword with an URL. So if I were to tell you about Linux, it would automatically link to a website. This is quite handy and have it used it in the past. You should look into it if you have a wordpress blog.
  • Blogilo — Download you most recent blog post and you will already have links available to keep your readers on your site longer and encourage them to stay on your site.
  • Put the links in when your online — This is also something that is very useful because if your like me, you sometimes can’t think of the links but know that if you had internet access you could easily find them. So before you post with Blogilo, just go through the post and put those link in there when your ready.

I hope these help you create even better blog and allow yourself time to be offline. I really am enjoying Linux and how open the community is. Hope to see you soon!!

Keep It Real!

Paul Sylvester

With Linux, All you Really need is Google!

Paul5 Replies

Linux can keep you sane!

I don’t say that lightly because today, I was going to use Linux and all of the sudden I couldn’t get past the Kubuntu splash screen.   It would just hang their not doing anything else.   I didn’t know what was going on, if you have seen the look on my face you would of know I was scratching my head.   The obvious question though is what happened, that I was asking myself.   This isn’t something that I am new at, but it was something I’ve never dealt with because when I was using Linux in the past it was always for leisure and not something that I used regularly.   Now that being said, I have begun to use KDE and Ubuntu more and more.   I find the open source community really intriguing and I am wanting to learn.

Keywords are the key!

When you have a problem with Linux, all you really need to put the right description of the problem into Google,  and you’ll find the answer eventually.  Now I won’t say this hasn’t been a learning experience, because recently I bought a book to better help me to learn more about Kubuntu and Ubuntu called “Beginning Ubuntu Linux“, So I will be reading up on how to handle the operating system more and more and being able in the future to help others with the same problem.   If you haven’t gotten a book, I’d start there like I am.   I will do a review of the book later on when I get done reading it from cover to cover but for right now it will be a handy tool.

Solution to my Problem!

This solution that I will be talking about might not work with you but at least it will point you in the right if doesn’t work.  I first searched several different forums, the Ubuntu Forum and the Kubuntu Forums for the answer using Google I might say.  After much searching I found a topic about updating and Graphics stop working and talking about the xorg not starting.  Which in turns lead me into the other topic Just Updated, Graphics have stopped working and thus lead me it how to fix my problem without having to wait till I could get a Pendrive from my house to fix the problem.  If you are looking for the solution here it is:

Go into Recover Mode

Go into the Terminal — I couldn’t even boot into the GUI safe mode
apt-get remove xorg-driver-fglrx

That wasn’t all I did, I also did

apt-get autoremove

This was just in case I missed something.

I was messing around with fixing the KDE4D bug where it would freeze up everytime I would disconnect from the VPN and so I edited the

sudo nano /usr/share/kde4/services/kded/networkstatus.desktop

I then changed the true to the false

X-KDE-Kded-autoload=false
X-KDE-Kded-load-on-demand=false

I thought that might also be the problem so I changed that back to true.   Any ways, after I did all that, I got my Kubuntu to come back to life.   I don’t know necessary understand what happened but I did fix it.   I did however find a good work around for that bug for the time being.   Just install KNetworkManager and it will automatically remove the plasma-widget-networkmanagement. So Now I don’t have to worry about the system locking up and not being able to do anything.   I do hope they fix the Plasma problem in the coming updates but I will just have to wait see.

Go Linux

Paul Sylvester

Related articles