My PC’s hard drive crashed.

It wasn’t really much of a problem from a data-loss point of view, because I back up regularly ;) . However, I’m short on cash at the moment, so I had to find a way to use my PC without a hard drive.

That’s where Knoppix comes in. I haven’t used Linux for everyday work for quite some time now, and the last distribution which I used heavily was Mandrake 9 (which I was very happy with – it was a great starting point for me for using Linux). So booting Knoppix was actually a very pleasant return into the Linux world, and I’m quite surprised that the system as a whole works very well despite the absence of a hard drive.

knoppix screenshot

To save data, I use a 1 GB PNY Attache flash drive, and I use Knoppix’s feature of keeping a persistent disk image, so that I’m able to save my files, configuration, and even the packages that I install over Synaptic.

Right now, I’m trying to bring my system to a state wherein I can continue to perform tasks related to this site – in particular, game programming and making screencasts. I was easily able to install Pygame using Synaptic, and I was able to discover some quirks which some of my programs have when running under Linux in the process :D . I’ll try to sort those out and post some updates soon.

On making video tutorials, Wink is actually available for Linux. However, I’m now in the process of trying out other screencasting software. Don’t get me wrong – Wink is an excellent program, it has served me well, and I will probably make some more video tutorials with it in the future. I just see migrating to a new platform as an opportunity to try other types of software.

Right now, I have my eyes set on xvidcap, and have been successfully able to run the program on my machine, although a few adjustments had to be done to make everything work. I’ll post more on this soon.

It’s common knowledge that a lot of programming software work very well with Linux, so I’m also in the process of trying out non-Pygame environments as well. I originally envisioned scriptedfun to be a general game programming site, and for this to fully happen, the content has to go beyond the current Pygame offerings.

Of course, the Pygame content will continue, and I shall still use Pygame as my primary game development environment :) . And I really recommend Pygame to those who want to start programming games – it’s an excellent environment that provides a lot of possibilities, and making things happen with it is very, very easy :) .

What kind of content would you like to see at scriptedfun? I’d love to hear from you :) . Thank you so much for dropping by, and I hope to see you again :) .

License

This work is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.