Dual boot system failure - Man and Machine tale

I have get a computer with relatively small HDD (only 80GB). It hosts Windows and Linux OS with GRUB boot manager. I needed more disk space so I decided to remove linux, and create new NTFS partition in that place. It looks simple. So I run the partition manager and checked what is what. First 100MB small partition looked like linux boot directory. Next was windows and then linux and swap partitions. Easy. Remove linux and windows partitions, format. All done. I played with Windows settings and decided to reboot.

Then I saw my mistake. I accidentally removed GRUB stage and config files with linux partition. The first one partition does not contain those needed files. I should check it more thoroughly. It sucks. I suck.

The first thought was, get the windows CD and rewrite master boot record with windows boot loader. But I have no cd/dvd drive in that machine. I don't have spare one in that location. But I have my laptop and USB pen drive. So maybe another option. I will install small linux distro as a power utility and reinstall GRUB. That's I like more.
The first thing I tried to do was creating bootable USB flash drive. I have used couple boot images, and Puppy Linux distro, different BIOS settings - my machine does not allow me to boot from USB. Not good.

So I decided to boot windows by manually configuring GRUB. After little research and experimenting I have booted into Windows. Now every time I want to boot that machine I have to:

• get into GRUB prompt by pressing 'e' key
• write GRUB commands

root (hd0,1)
makeactive
chainloader --force +1
boot

Nice "hacker" style setup. It was definitely not finished yet.

I next part I write how I made that system more usable.

Urban Terror game - FPS fun with grain of tactics

Once upon a time I started digging in search for good FPS game for Linux. I liked FPS games with more "reality" and tactics demands like Counter Strike. I used to play some dynamic FPS for 15 minutes instead of cup of coffee- in most cases it worked perfectly. I reviewed some game candidates and found something that matches perfectly. My choice is Urban Terror.

The game was made as a mod for Quake 3, and nowadays it has standalone version with installer and q3 engine within it. All game documentation and downloads could be found at official site www.urbanterror.net. Game is free, but has special license for Q3 engine.

You can play on many public servers as well as in local net if you run game on one host in server mode. There is also possibility to play with Q3 bots, but documentation says it's not supported. The game crashed quite often on my Windows XP laptop- but probably it is issue with bots and/or graphic chipset. Under Linux it works like a charm :).

Game is very dynamic, although sometimes it's better to use tactic and think before rushing. Wide choice of weaponry balanced with simple but quite "realistic" health, energy and wounding system makes game very playable. The game is rather popular so you can find interesting information on community sites.

I don't have much time to play games but sometimes it is real fun. Enjoy the game!

Broken mobo and OS

At last, I have new replacement mobo for my desktop PC. It's budget GA-M61P-S3. The old one was hanging occasionally and causing hardisk data corruption. It was older GA model M55Plus, still having warranty. So far so good.

I booted my Ubuntu linux and then came first insight- both mobos look similar but have different onboard gfx, ethernet and audio chips. And that caused that my nvidia driver is hanging at boot time. I switched temporarily to generic vesa driver, and tried to fix OS. Then I've realized that ethernet and audio isn't working either. I used available ubuntu stricted driver packages with previous mobo and it just worked. That was good experience- no time waste, desktop linux for the people etc.

I've tried to use nothing more than that existing Ubuntu packages. After day of searching and trying to find working solution, I gave up.

So here comes plan B. I downloaded drivers from nvidia and realtek site. After checking prerequisities I started instalation scripts. It worked like charm. But I still don't have sound. I had to download the newest alsa sources and install it manually too. Now everything works fine except onboard ethernet port. I've used old PCI card in that place. Maybe new forcedeth driver will fix that in future.

I have to admit it took me some time, but it was good time. Everyone who sometimes hacks linux system knows that feeling. Linux newbies or just usual desktop users may have other opinion. Let's think about alternative situation- how much time would I spend fixing windows system. Probably it would require windows reinstalation or repair action, then calling microsoft rep to get new activation code, then installing new drivers from mobo packet cd. It's slightly easier and faster way. There is still a little work to do to make linux desktop more user friendly. I believe that linux instalation and upgrade will be easier than now in near future.

The sign on the mobo box says: "Vista ready". But I'm not vista ready yet- It's still not solution for home use. But milions of early adopters will test it and maybe next release will be better. I'm happy that I can choose OS that suits my needs. Do only nerds think in that way?