Networking

To be able to create iOS and OS X ports I needed a Mac, so I searched for the cheapest one that can still run a current OS X Version and ended up with the mini. Then Gamemaker integrated support for Linux and espacially for Ubuntus shop. And every try to install a virtual computing software on my Windows 8 system failed. My Core2 doesn't support Hyper V for witch windows abandoned the loved Virtual PC, VMWare somehow didn't run and Oracles Virtual Box even produced BSODs (nice touch, on Windows 8 the come with a sad smiley). So I had to create a physical Ubuntu System too. The thought of using it for all kind of servers for development purposes came pretty quick, but when my main system failed I found it to be even well suited for my social activities and office.

So when I planned my triple boot machine I not only did plan the infrastructure on that computer, but a new one involving the whole network. And the more I think of it, now that the triple boot system is ready, the more use I find for the two systems (Ubuntu AND the Mac Mini) that at first seemed so useless and only there for compiling and testing sofware.

The Ubuntu system will work as fileserver (SMB and GIT), Printerserver and Webserver, but the Mac Mini will also attend the party by providing the network access to all cloud-fileservers. Contrary to Linux there are clients available for all that I use (Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft Sky Drive, Ubuntu One) and it is really not neccessary to have each of the five operating systems replicate them on their own.

But the biggest change is not in the background, and for me personally, its kind of a revolution: I will seperate Work and social media and run the later on the Ubuntu system. That will help me to stay focused while sitting on the one workplace and using the Ubuntu desktop, that I so started to like for this tasks. So, beside games, I now prefer a Linux system for everything fun and see the Windows station only as workhorse. That's quite a change for me :-)

Having the windows system free of all that background workload does effect it immense, as I could see yesterday evening, when I logged in to Second Life, and experienced no frameratedrop under the magic 24 FPS, even when I had more than ten avatars in my view.

Wow.

I did it...

... I built a triple boot Hackintosh (, Windows 8 and Ubuntu 12.04) installation on my workhorse. Does it make sense? Yes, for frontend development, no for pretty much everything else. And so my pride that I managed it is mixed with mourning for a "wasted" workweek. This project was hellish and straining. First of all the Hackintosh installation was neigh impossible until I found out that with this special combination of board and gpu I had to active the onboard VGA graphics to be able to install it. I accidently found out about it when I was ready to give up. Up to that point I tried various bootmedia variants, including one that got me kicked from a very important forum when I mentioned it, and dis - and reassembled the GPU several times. At least, after I finally got it, I knew what two post installation tasks got the system stable and I could go on.

Next was the Windows installation. I bought the Update for about 40 USD last November, and while you could download a complete ISO, I was in for a bad surprise after making a clean install. A clean install didn't accept the update key, you had to install a Windows 7 before. Thankfully I found a small registry hack online the must be done directly after installation, and that came back to bite me, because I had to reinstall it so often. And I was pretty angry about the "Honest Customer paradoxon" here (meaning: As honest customer you get treated like a criminal with a lot of unneccessary, complicated copyprotection, while the pirate gets an easy to use version without all that hassle)

In that order, the final system is Ubuntu, and yes, that one isn't that complicated, but you have to be very carefull with some installation option, and I wasn't the first time, got it wrong the second time, and after reaching my third installation I had to reinstall the others several times, espacially Windows, as that registry hack only worked about half the time.

After the Linux installation you have to repair what seems to be an unholy mess of different partitioning types, but that did go surprisingly well. But there was the last step (or so I thought) of setting the OS X installation the active partition, because there would be a bootloader for all three systems. At first I tried it by the book with Windows. Didn't work, the options were grayed out, even after I activated the Administrator account to do it from there. So I tried Linux again, that system being the swiss army knife of OSes should easily do this task - but it didn't. Well it might be that there is the perfect commandline tool out there to do it, but fdisk warned my that it might mess up that aforemented unholy partitioning table thing. And I tried a desktop - discmanagement software, but that showed no information where it should, so I didn't trust it. Fdisk actually recommended one of the old GNU commandline tools, but its "man"-page was a reminder of the bad old days and did not tell how I could activate a partition, only that it could be done.

But I found a description on how I could make it from... no not the OS X installation, but its installation media, which boots to a configuration desktop that allows you to use a commandline, and there was an fdisk that could handle that complicated matter.

I needed two tries though, because OS-X has a small boot partition and my first try was to activate that, but its really the main partition that you have to activate.

I thought I was finished, but I didn't allow myself to feel too happy, because the whole process had tought me that it ain't over till its over...

... and I found out that I had no bootloader installed. So I installed one, but that one, like the OS-X installation itself, only worked with enabled onboardvga, which I had to decativate for the two other systems, so that too, needed another try (switching from Chameleon to Chimera was what worked out).

And than the final test. I booted to Mac OS X, Ubuntu, no problems, than to Windows 8 - and my PS/2 connected mouse and keyboard where missing (USB did work). Not my precious Windows installation! Again a few restarts to assure myself that I didn't just accidently deactivated something in the bios or destroyd it somehow with that shiny new bootloader but the others worked perfect, and there wasn't even an option in the BIOS that could affect the PS/2 connectors.

So I loaded the chipset drivers and installed them. And then, finally, everything seemed to work out.

But at least I have a very fine system now, and I do not only mean my machine, but the others too. I will configure the standalone Ubuntu as (partially versioning) fileserver, mediaserver and as my permanent access to all that social media. I won't install those on windows this time, hopefully helping me not to get distracted too easily.

Confusion

The fact that GameMaker wasn't running really put me off, I actually have pretty much used up my will to spent the time learning and administrating instead of being productive, none of which will earn me a living. I found out, that the installation was still on the file system and tried to start it directly, but Windows itself said the software is not for Windows 8 8o. It seemed like the problem was somehow related with the mild changes that lead to a needed reactivation and I thought about completely reinstalling the system. After all, I upgraded a Windows 7 installation which was older now, too, and my "c:" was always running full, because it initially was given only 100 GB and all the reinstallation of software on another drive didn't help there anymore. Doing some research I also found out that my Hardware was Max OS X compatible, so the idea of making a triple boot system (Max OS X Mountain Lion, Ubuntu 12.04 and Windows 8) came up and I actually prepared myself by backing up my data and tried to create a working installation medium. But it didn't work out till evening, when I was too exhausted to make another try, so my Installation was still intact and about 26 hours after my request, Steam finally answered. And their advice worked. I got my GameMaker back. So again I changed my plans, planning on using today to work on the game... only to find that a new feature was missing, and that was one I could use at the core of the game, yet I simply did not have an actual version of GameMaker. I start to hate the fact that I bought GameMaker on Steam. It's not that I cannot really work now, but I still feel challenged and the break in that reinstallation fest was somehow confusing - so I'm really tempted to go through with it first.

Some higher power doesn't want me to make games

Having back my Windows System and swallawing down the anger about the need to reactivate Windows 8 over the phone I thought I could finally go on with the development of a game I have in mind.

No. I cannot.