 Hey everybody, welcome back to the links cast. I'm your host Matthew Weber. I'm joined by Martin Burke. How you doing Martin? Do well not yourself. I'm doing okay. This is your last episode. I'm so sad It is It's it's a melancholy moment for us. You're going back to work and that's just sucks. I Mean, yeah, seriously, nobody wants to go back to work I mean the best part about this whole pandemic thing is everybody got out of work Or at least they got to stay home for work You know just stopping out for work. Unfortunately. It's just as hard. Yeah. Well, so what have you been doing in Linux this week, Martin? Right. I've been doing our topic of this week, which is retro gaming on Linux. So I've had plenty of fun In a zone which I'm quite comfortable being in because I do like my retro games So I'm bore anyone else with that. I'll save that for the main chat. What about yourself what you've been up to? No, I've been doing quite a bit of stuff. So I've been playing around with X monad again Mostly unsuccessfully. I cannot get my head around Haskell like at all It's just a language that I can't seem to for whatever reason Haskell has this weird Habit of putting commas at the beginning of a line and I just don't get it I don't understand why that would be a thing. It's really weird commas don't go at the beginning of the line for any other Language that I'm aware of. So it's just really weird. I've also been playing with good. I'm 40 a little bit I've been trying to get it to install on an older version of Ubuntu. I've not been successful with that like yeah yet Because I want to try to do a video on it, but I don't think I'm gonna be successful And then Sunday I did some more scripting and I did it on off my second livestream So I did a live string. I knew a live string a live stream on YouTube and it was pretty fun So five people watches But you know, I was like somebody actually watch it was it was made and did actually a district tube stop by for a little while It's kind of fun. So I'm cool. Yeah That's what I've been doing. Other than that just mostly work. I Mean like writing like crazy for my real job. It's just it's been stupid busy So anyways, that's kind of what we've been doing on Linux Let's go ahead and jump into the contact information. You can do you can contact us via Twitter at the Linux cast I'm an MTWB Martin's Martin tweet to you. You can subscribe to all of our feeds and stuff for the podcast itself at the Linux cast Org I know I've been promising an actual website and I think that's about to get done because I've been doing some research on that It's kind of stuff. So I think I'm Pretty much to the point where I know where I'm gonna host it I know what I'm I'm going to design it and stuff. So that should be up in the next week or so You can contact us through an email at the Linux cast at gmail.com and You can support us on patreon at patreon.com slash Linux cast and I'd like to thank our patrons Devon Donnie Magland Marcus camp American Mitchell that this seems to be growing which is good. If I was on Facebook at facebook.com slash Linux cast I don't know why The patrons should really should go to the end but and make sure to subscribe to us on youtube at youtube.com slash The next cast where I post videos At one point I could say I did it seven days a week, but I've been taking a day off every week now just to kind of Sluck in there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's see I'm having some mental health issues because I get really addicted to looking at like the the youtube stats or whatever So that was really pulling. I mean some days like, you know Had a really good day on youtube had like 10 new subscribers or whatever next day I have like two and got really depressed about it. So I've been trying to at least take one day a week where I just, you know Do nothing for youtube. It's just made me feel a bit better. So Plus There's always so many topics. I mean really I mean I I hate to go to like DT's channel or Brody Robertson's just say I'm gonna steal all their, you know topics or whatever So it's easier if I just take a day off and try to come up with some original shit. Anyways Yeah, I'm trying to beat that one out probably Probably won't remember. Um, sorry kitties. I owe you a dollar in the swear jar All right, so every week martin and I go through and we each come up with one news link that we're interested in Martin, what's your news link for this week? Right, I try and do one show related. Um, it's game related at least there's not much retro news out So valves proton 0.3-1 add support for even more games and improved playstation 5 control the support linked down below Um, it's basically added more and more games as they're ever doing Valve are really good with their proton software Um, so I mean we've got games like bio shock 2 remastered company of heroes 2 Mass Effect 3 Rise the triads Um shadow empire there's there's plenty of new games and improvements. It's really easy. I mean the last steam sale of I think it was witcher 1 and 2 I bought for a ridiculous price or something like three pound I thought right get down to playing this and it didn't work So I tried running it through proton. It still didn't work I mean if you got games that don't work on steam under linux Just do us go to the store page go to discussions I just type in linux and someone will tell you what version of proton that you can use To actually enable you to play the game. It literally took seconds as I'm playing The witcher which I'm reading currently so Nice and easy that so more and more games. Um Working on on linux, which is brilliant I don't play games as much as I want to so I don't I don't have as much experience with proton as I probably should have I've tried a couple times, but yeah I was a it was a head scratcher for me to be fair. I'd log into the Proton size and like well, where's it? It literally is in your steam settings Go to your settings enable proton and you select which version of proton for which game and then it'll automatically download patches and Well, I forgot the word Graphics packs. Let's just say that To enable to run it on Linux so It is quite easy. It was just I just thought there's two separate things But no proton is actually within steam once you download that And that should extend your game selection Mm-hmm. Yeah, sorry to the looters anyway I did actually finally get something to work on looters I finally got hearthstone to install on looters. So that was pretty that was pretty exciting I haven't tried anything else. Uh, I figured probably better stop while I was ahead so um My link this week is something that I mean really we don't need to talk a lot about this but Arch Linux has Been notorious for having a text-based installer that is basically completely unguided you have to go through And you know look at the arch wiki and get your instructions there find a tutorial on youtube But in the latest ISO they actually have a guided installer now I've watched a couple videos on this and it's not it's not the greatest guided installer ever You're still gonna have to know some things about arch Linux in order to install but it's I don't know if it's a step in the right direction or not But it's definitely a step in a different direction for arch Linux because they've been Like I said, they've just been notorious for just wanting to you know have every the users do everything themselves Whereas this is you know, you're very much a guided installer. So it's kind of interesting and I haven't tried it yet but I think I probably definitely will because um one of the things that Especially on like a laptop I can I've never been successful in getting arch Linux installed on a laptop And it's the Wi-Fi that always trips me up like average every single time. So hopefully that this makes that easier I'll guess in nuts command line install still it is a command line install. So it's it's kind of like a You remember those text-based adventure games in the terminal. All right It's kind of like that only you're installing arch links instead, you know, and it's not fun, obviously, but It's just as hard as an adventure game from the early 80s Yeah You're not typing in directions you're typing in Which hard drive you want to install arch Linux on and make sure you get the right one Otherwise, you're overwriting the wrong hard drive, you know, so Go left and go right. Yeah, it's definitely it's a good start Yeah, it'd be interesting to see how it um It evolves over time because I mean if I mean, I think that the regular arch install method will always be there But it'll be interesting to see if this gets really good if this becomes maybe the default or something in the in the future That'd be Really neat because I think a lot of people are very interested in using arch but always get to the point of That ISO being just completely overwhelming for them because there's a there's a few steps in the arch install processes that are just Not great. And it's not even just the Wi-Fi stuff like formatting drives Your hard drive in the terminal is Scary, you know, unless you have like one hard drive in there, you know It can be very worrying because if you type in the wrong sda or sdb or whatever You're overwriting your external hard drive and you've lost all your data. It's horrible. Um, so that can be really scary for a Lot of people. I don't know that this necessarily fixes that but maybe in the future it could Stick to g ported Which you're gonna do is you're gonna stick to linux and that's what you're gonna do We all know this I'm still using it actually Absolute workhorse not a problem with it at all Boring I'm just saying all right messing about it works All right, so our main topic this week is retro gaming on linux. So martin, this was your topic. Go ahead and tell us what we're talking about Yep, so I mean retro gaming on linux is super duper easy. I mean you can either repurpose an old laptop Or even better that raspberry pi that's sitting in your drawer Now you can either install retro pi Or emulation stacia emulation station even Either as a standalone image And top or on top of your existing linux install I mean both are the easiest and Easiest way is to install it on a pie Now that's how I well essentially started in linux was I had a raspberry pi which I got solely for retro gaming um, so I come through all the befuddlement of Imaging the drive got that working on the pie literally stuck a usb joystick in Followed the instructions I was up and running I mean it can be quite daunting um, obviously A lot of our listeners probably I've got things like this installed, but this is just for the people at home. So What you have to do you have to install the actual system of choice I mean emulation station or retro pi whichever one emulation station is quite good to be fair That's what I would recommend for a pie um Now there's the legality in roms No, I don't know whether you know about this to you Like I know nintendo sues people all the time Oh, the new 10 nintendo sue anyone Especially when people spent a sport tune on the wee channel and things like that and they suddenly close it down All those games gone. That's another thing. That's a problem with digital so There is a bound of contention this whether it's legal or not But in my eyes if I've got a dusty old nes upstairs or a snaz in the attic You can't play play it on current TVs You do have to either get an upscaler Or just leave it there or buy a clone console like a retron Which is quite cool. Actually, you can play nintendo snaz and make it thrive all that Anyway, I'm going through so what you have to do I mean in the cases of legality, I can't see the reason if you own a game As you would a music CD to then put it on a well mp3 or cassette If To use for yourself. I'm not on about sharing games willy-nilly. I'm on about something that you actually own Um that you can't play on the system that you're able to actually play on your current Set up whether it's a laptop or your pc In order to do this you will have to do a google search and I'll just use a random game So We'll go for et on the atory to 600 that famous game So all you have to do quick google search Atory to 600 et rom And now you'll be able to actually download the rom even though the cartridge based Is basically a flash card back in the day It's just a communication device. So all the soft all the programs wrote to that rom Once you actually download it, you'll have to move it in a specific directory Now that's what can be a pain. Oh just a word of warning Whatever you do don't search for full atory to 600 or snaz rom set Because you'll obviously download the whole catalog. So that's a word of warning to everyone. So don't get doing that right and that's basically It it's just getting around the Once you do it a few times. I mean I would advise obviously to watch a couple of Instruction videos at where to put your roms once you've downloaded it, but I mean Some of the software back to venture are quite good I mean you can use retro arch. I'll put a link below which is just available in the store Um It can get a bit hard because you have to install a special core to play the system So if you want to play a ds game that you own You will have to um download the core for the system, which is a main image Software And then you shift the roms into current folders. So I mean retro can be a bit tricky But once you get used to it, um, you'll be flowing Next one is lutris That was not too bad Main which is a good one. Um, I always used to use that on windows and that's also on linux and obviously, um Steam for your classic windows games age of empires dooms jute nu comes all that Um, I mean the benefits of roms Is you might be into jrpgs which haven't been released in the uk or us that you'll That's translated into english You got the ability to save the game at any point Some glitches may have Some games that have glitches may well be fixed And you can also get hacked versions Which basically uses the original game properties to create new levels I mean there's some rights brilliant super mario levels that people have hacked which is super duper hard um When you you can actually search for your pie images on um google So if you just type in retro arch Um Is it retro arch? No, sorry. It was retro pie And that's retro pie org dot uk. And it's the first one that you come to Whatever you do Don't go a couple of links below as they contain pirated images I mean it's disgraceful. I mean i'm looking at it now I mean we've got full 128 gigabyte full rom set One terabyte full rom set. It's basically your full image You select whichever system you want It'll play you a little video tell you all about the game And you can play the game as I said Don't down go to those links and download that because it's very naughty Um any questions? What games have you been playing that's what I want to know Obviously all the games that I own I have got quite a large retro game collection to my favorite ones then Uh, it's gotta be the one that I always go to is either Sorry, I'm cheating there Zelda link to the past And super mario world I love I was quite a nice fanboy or super nes as you guys like to call it Okay, see I was too young for either the first two nintendo ones I had them but they they were like second hand it came from the garage sales My first console that I ever owned knew what it was the n64 um In my favorite games on that were mario 64 mario kart and diddy kong racing So if I could find those to play that'd be really fun Nintendo 64 is quite a hard one to emulate Um, I'm not too sure too much on like the pie for as much There may have ironed out some glitches, but it is quite hard, but I would recommend you go on ebuy Get a copy of the original super mario kart And then download the rom and play super mario kart the original and you will have An absolute blast or hated that let me 64 one There was double dash wasn't there on the game cube as well. I really didn't like those super mario Kart is the best kart game ever Yeah, I see I went from the uh And 64 to the playstation one. So there was quite a skip between my generations of consoles Uh, yeah, yeah, and then we played we played the crap out of the playstation one till And then I didn't get another console until the xbox 360. So I kind of skip generations all the time um And then I honestly the 360 was the last one I had so Yeah, well, you could download your um cause on retro pie for the playstation that the main sunny software that enables you to play the roms And I'm sure you've got your collection back of the closet and you're able to um Relive old um battles But it's all good for it. It's more nostalgia. I mean, I will put them on them and again and show the kids But I mean that there's some absolute classics. I must admit Um Atari 2 600 and things like that don't even bother because they're just laughable I mean, you've got some hidden treasures on the nez And the snares. I've got some world-class beat em ups And pixelated graphics that people are still releasing now and again on steam that the go quite high and build up a fan base It's just a pixelated art. It's just spot on really Yeah, I remember a game that I played called banjo and kazooie. It was on the 64 Man, I missed that game. That was that was back when games were fun, you know Exactly and you didn't have to pay for your dlc Well, the different code on your controller and get your Invulnerability. Yeah, it seems like every game that comes out now is a first person shooter Or it's a racing game Or it's like a a mystery stealth kind of First person shooter. I mean, I mean really those stealth games are just turned into fps Is I mean or I mean, obviously then there's a sports games and sports games are still wrong But why do you need a new man like every year? I mean, it's just It's the same thing. It's the same thing with I mean FIFA I mean FIFA comes out with a new one every single year. All you're doing is updating the players. I mean It doesn't make any sense to me. That's quite interesting actually because madden You can You've obviously got maddened somewhere With maddened you can actually download the new player stats So you can play with the new player stats and things like that using the original SNES game I'd have to do it with like the ice hockey games and things like that. They just put the The new rostery and you can play with your your current players From when was it was it 93 94 the snazzy or something like that? But yeah, it's all good fun It's always good to go back and go through it. I mean I would recommend the pie obviously for its multitude of uses, but if you're into gaming or You could just have it set up as your gaming and your or your kodi station I think emulation station ships with kodi or automatically in there. So if you've got your If you're streaming around the house your your various videos and stuff You can sync kodi to that and have that running through the pie But yeah, really good super simple to do. As I said, there's the informations out there if you want it But yeah really good and um That's about my bit on that. Yeah playstation they do playstation 2 I mean obviously another 10 years. They'll be emulating playstation 4 And 5 and things like that. It's just crazy how it moves on. I mean when I was using maim I think I was on the playstation Um one and playing Old classics and suddenly they're just adding the the generations to it and going back on it I mean the emulation scene is crazy. I mean They're doing um, we use games. They're in 4k And things like that something the nintendo could never do and that they're just pushing the software to the limits It's quite amazing what some of these guys are doing for the scene Yeah, it's very interesting All right, let's go ahead and jump into the apps of the week. Why don't you go ahead and go first since how it's pretty much related Right, so it's retro arch linked below as I'd said um, basically, uh program sorts out, um All your games in one place all your game systems. So you select, um gameboy or Nintendo ds Well, I wouldn't recommend the ds to be fair Uh, gamecube things like that Then you'll have a selection of your ROMs that you legally own And you just cycle through To the correct one and go to that as I said it is a bit tricky And it is a bit daunting. I mean I had Some of the guys listening. They've probably got retro arch. I think I've got it on the playstation 3 And it was an absolute nightmare, but once you got it up and running it was okay Um, and that's my pick of the week what you got for us matt Who cut this weak command line? It is not a command line Oh, I know Well, I It's not even at the last episode as well. Yeah, I know I've turned him Yeah, yeah, I it's not an app. It's a podcast. So it's uh, I'm completely cheating I can't help it, but I discovered a new podcast. It's called bad voltage It's done by at least one of the guys that used to work at canonical His name is doer language language. I don't know how you pronounce it But I found it highly entertaining the um, the guys just kind of get into these really deep topics and I've been listening through the bad catalog and like I said, it's it's kind of become one of my new favorite podcasts So, um, I think everybody should just kind of check it out because they've talked about NFTs this last week. They talked about Uh, I've forgotten what they were talking about actually They talked about um Oh flock that stupid, um google new tracking system for Advertisings, um, it's called the federated Legion of cohorts or something. I don't know. It's really weird So they talked about that and some of like I said, they got really deep into it. It's really really good I really enjoy it. So that's my uh pick of the week. It's not an app of the week But whatever I can't I'd second that definitely it's a really good podcast as Matt says he's going through the back catalog Which is quite easy to do because um, you could just pick up any you could just flick your podcast app through just pick one any time it it's really entertaining it and light hearted and Yeah, you can literally go through the back. I know I've Went back through when I had a bit more time and I was commuting more Um, I'd always stick the guys on and you can just go back and pick up any podcast and just have a chuckle to yourself With them, but yeah, definitely thumbs up on that one. I'll let you off. I'll let you off Yeah, um, I could I mean I could come up with a Uh terminal based application if you're I mean if you're gonna feel bad. I mean I don't want to have a podcast. I love a podcast to let you off that I don't want you to you know leave on a sour. No, I'm You know, I could come up. I'm sure ranger. I could come up with something I don't know. Oh, I could say dragging because dragon is the drag and drop thing But that that turned out not to be all that great. Anyways So that is it for your final episode. That was a pretty good one martin Um, yeah, thank thank you for doing this with me for the last five six months almost And it's been a pleasure. Thank you matt. I've learned loads and far more than I ever would have stumbling across linux I mean I've had to sit there and watch countless videos to try and get my knowledge up to some sort of level Uh, but yeah, it's been really good and anyone out there new to linux a veteran. Um, please getting contact and And it has been really fun and I am sad to go to be quite truthful because I do like Chatting nerdy things with you. Well, I am sad to see you go and if you ever If you ever find yourself in the middle of a pandemic and not able to go about to work You know where I'm at and we'll we'll continue on but I mean, I mean that that's a horrible thing to say matt I mean, seriously we're wishing for a pandemic just so we can continue podcasting together. Oh, that's terrible Anyways, uh, thank you martin. Thanks everybody for listening. I'll make you Say that again martin No, so thank you Yeah, you're welcome And thank you for joining us. Thank everybody for watching listening whatever make sure you subscribe like all that stuff And I'll see you next time Excellent. Take care guys. Take care