Ubuntu Vibes

75% Off on Hacker Evolution Linux Games

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:17:00 +0000

Popular Linux games 'Hacker Evolution: Untold' and 'Hacker Evolution: Duality' are 75% off for one week on Linux game store Gameolith.

If you have loved Linux game Uplink, you will find these game quite appealing as they feature hacking simulation oriented gameplay.

Hacker Evolution Duality

In Hacker Evolution Duality, you have to hack into computers using various tools, from a basic firewall cracker, to sophisticated voice print authentication systems. Steal money to finance your objectives, buy hardware upgrades or bribe off other hackers that are present in the game. Go as far as bypassing complex security systems to make your way into buildings and steal data. Frame people or even murder them using ingenious traps.

Buy Hacker Evolution Duality for $6.24 (75% off on $24.95)

Hacker Evolution Untold

The concept behind Hacker Evolution: Untold is to create a game that challenges the gamers intelligence, attention and focus, creating a captivating mind game. Solve puzzles, examine code and bits of information to find clues and achieve your objectives.

Buy Hacker Evolution Untold for $4.99 (75% off on $19.95)

Thanks to Jonathan Prior for info

The Battle for Wesnoth 1.10 Released with New Campaign, Features and Improvements

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:14:00 +0000

One of the best Turn Based Strategy games for Linux The Battle for Wesnoth has been updated to version 1.10. This release brings massive new features and updates to the game.

If you haven't tried the game yet, give it a shot and you will surprised at the level of polish and depth of gameplay. The open source project is extremely popular among Linux gamers. Thanks to the developers, contributors and maintainers for updating it regularly.

This release includes new features by developers who contributed to the game via Google Summer of Code (GSoC).

New Features/Changes in 1.10

New "whiteboard" feature helps you make plans by visualizing recruitment, movement, attacks, and so on. You can share these battle plans with allies in multiplayer (GSoC)
New terrain, and more redrawn terrain artwork (volcanoes, animated water, new embellishments, grasslands etc)
New artwork for many units
Remix of one soundtrack 'Northerners theme' , and two new soundtracks - 'Battle Epic' and 'Silvan Sanctuary'
Repel an undead invasion in new campaign 'Dead Water'
Existing campaigns have received updates and improvements and now include more dynamic gameplay and better mechanics
Four new multiplayer maps (Aethermaw, Arcanclave Citadel, Thousand Stings Garrison, and Volcano) and older multiplayer maps have been updated with the new terrain types.
Better portrait artwork
Lighting on the map now keeps caves dark, and shows better time-of-day effects
Slow units can be quickly identified now with a light blue tint effect
Added ability to add/remove multiple add-ons at once
Improved typography for the interfaces
Better sidebar for interface
Ability for scenarios to save user-persistent data for sharing between scenarios
Upgraded Lua for coding in scenarios, including a plugin for Wesnoth Markup in the Eclipse IDE (GSoC)
More options for regional language translations
Full changelog here

To add the PPA and install latest version in Ubuntu, run the command below (Precise, Oneiric, Natty, Maverick, Lucid):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:vincent-c/wesnoth
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wesnoth-1.10

For more info on packages for other distributions, see this page.

Official Game Trailer

OpenShot Video Editor 1.4.1 Released

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:40:00 +0000

OpenShot Video Editor has been updated to version 1.4.1. This release brings many new effects and bug fixes.

Changes in this Release

New 3D animation (wireframe text)
New Titles (gold)
New Effects (fish eye)
New Animation Presets
Support for Blender 2.6.X
Localization fixes (seg faults, audio volume, rotation effect)
UI bug fixes (disappearing icons using some GTK themes)
Improved Help Manual
Improved Title UI (interactive font list)
Improved Precision (clip length, default image length)
Many bug fixes

To install OpenShot in Ubuntu, run the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonoomph/openshot-edge
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install openshot openshot-doc

Packages for other distributions can be found here.

OpenRA, Free and Open Source RTS Game Engine Supporting C&C and C&C: Red Alert

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 05:47:00 +0000

OpenRA is a free and open source real time strategy game engine supporting early Westwood games like Command & Conquer (C&C) and Command & Conquer: Red Alert.

Almost an year back, I tried OpenRA but couldn't get it to work. Recently I gave it a shot again and was pleasantly surprised at the level of polish.

The game is absolute pleasure to play. The graphics may look a bit dated but they have their own charm. Gameplay is as addicting as it used to be and brings back old memories. Check out the video below:

OpenRA can be currently played as online multiplayer game only. However, you can create a single player game by selecting bots as enemy opponents with three different AIs (easy, medium, hard).

If you have original Red Alert files, you can use them with OpenRA. But, they are not necessary. Both original C&C: Red Alert and C&C has been recreated as mods and can be downloaded from game menu itself. They are not just clones of the original versions but provide improved and rebalanced gameplay.

Download OpenRA (Arch Linux, Debian, Ubuntu and Fedora Packages)

Would You Like to See These Games Come to Linux?

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 09:04:00 +0000

Two indie games, Legend of Grimrock and Gunpoint could come to Linux (details below). These games have created quite a lot of excitement even before their release.

I have contacted developers of both these games in past asking them about possibility of Linux versions. At that time these games were still in early stages development so I haven't received any concrete responses.

However, these developers are now looking at possibility of Linux versions. These are still not any confirmations. But the fact that they are considering it sounds great as both these games are looking really nice.

Legend of Grimrock (Almost Human Studio)

I badly want this game to come to Linux being a huge fan of first person dungeon crawlers. Watch the video to know more about the game:

The team behind Grimrock has lots of experience and has been involved in development of games like Max Payne 2, Alan Wake and Shattered Horizon.

zConnection interviewed Almost Human and they said they are going to consider a Linux port.

Olli tells me that we “won’t have to wait too long to start your journey in the dungeons of Mount Grimrock”, with the game slated for a launch early this year. They’re hoping to see the game on Steam someday, they’re thinking about mobile platforms besides iOS, and they’re going to consider a Linux port, but most importantly, they’re getting ready for the PC launch.

Gunpoint

Gunpoint is a stealth puzzle game where you play a role of a freelance spy. Your aim is to infiltrate high security buildings. You can cross-link things like light switches and doors, use electronics gadgets or other techniques to reach your objective.

Gunpoint is Independent Games Festival, 2012 Finalist. Check out the video:

In an interview with Wired, Gunpoint developer Francis has shown interest in bringing the game to Linux.

If and when I can free myself up from that, I want to see if I can make a level editor, then a replay system, and some other nice freebies. I'm also really keen to bring it to Mac, Linux and eventually iPad -- the first I can do myself, the other two I may need help with.

So, what do you say? Want these games to come to Linux?

Meet Spark, First Linux Tablet Running KDE Plasma Active

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 07:01:00 +0000

Aaron J. Seigo, from KDE Plasma Active development team has revealed a tablet which could be the first device to come with Plasma Active pre-installed.

If you don't know about Plasma Active project yet:

Plasma Active is a joint project by the KDE community, basysKom and open-slx. The goals for this open source project are to deliver a fast embedded UX platform with minimal memory requirements, provide customizable and modular to support different form factors and design an interface that adapts as users change Activities.

Plasma Active is intended for all types of tablets, smartphones and touch computing devices such as settop boxes, smart TVs, home automation or in-vehicle infotainment.

Named 'Spark', the tablet features an open Linux stack on unlocked hardware and comes with open content and services market.

Excerpts from the announcement:

This is a unique opportunity for Free software. Finally we have a device coming to market on our terms. It has been designed by and is usable by us on our terms. We are not waiting for some big company to give us what we desire, we're going out there and making it happen together.

The content store will offer great Free Culture artifacts such as digital books from Project Gutenberg as well as contents and apps for purchase. It will provide a conduit to users for those who love writing great software, Free and otherwise, using the typical Linux tools.

Tech Specs

1GHz AMLogic ARM processor
Mali-400 GPU
512 MB RAM
4GB internal storage plus SD card slot
7" capacitive multi-touch screen
Wifi connectivity

Spark will be priced at €200 ($265).

Information is limited at the moment and there is just one image of tablet. A video would have been nice. However, more details about shipping date, hardware and software will be made available in coming few weeks.

Check out the video of KDE Plasma Active (This is not Spark, demo is on WeTab)

Time to Kill Compiz Config Settings Manager in Precise?

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:48:00 +0000

A very interesting discussion on Ubuntu Desktop mailing list has been started by Ubuntu developer Jorge O. Castro where he has proposed removal of Compiz Config Settings Manager (CCSM) completely from the archive.

Excerpt from the mail:

With tools like MyUnity now in universe, and didrocks putting basic configuration in the control panel I'd like to propose the removal of compizconfig-settingsmanager.

I don't mean "stop telling people to use it" or "add a warning", I mean total removal from the archive until the tool is either better tested or doesn't break people's configuration. Here are some of the problems with the tool.

It's possible to accidentally uncheck the Unity plugin, breaking the user's desktop.
It has a load of checkboxes for plugins that we don't support, allowing infinite combinations of untested options, which result in either a broken desktop or a misconfigured one.
People report these bugs, and instead of fixing real bugs we have to deal with corner case bugs for things we never plan on supporting.
Since it's settings are separate from Unity a "unity --reset"doesn't fix it, you have to blow away .compiz or some other dotfile directories to get a desktop back.
Alex Chiang has documented some of the issues he's run into here: http://askubuntu.com/a/80590/235
I'm sure at UDS you've seen didrocks show you one of the ways it breaks even when using parts of it that shouldn't break.

MyUnity is a better user-facing tool anyway for those that want to play, it would be a shame to have the ccsm tool ship in an LTS. If anyone cares about it they can plop it in a PPA.

CCSM has lots of plugin to configure usability and other desktop features. Unity is just one of them. If CCSM is removed totally, users won't be able to take advantage of advanced functionality. However, at the same time, it will ensure less breakage and more stability.

The discussion is going on and arguments both in favor and against has been raised. What are your thoughts on this? Will it be good idea to remove CCSM completely from Precise archive?

[Precise Updates] Home Lens in Dash Redesigned and New Options Land in System Settings

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:46:00 +0000

Unity Home Lens has received a major change in Precise. All the shortcuts with big icons have been dropped and home lens now shows info about recently used apps, files and downloads.

Home Lens in Oneiric:

Home Lens in Precise:

Please note that this feature has not landed in Precise yet. You can test it from Unity Staging PPA. Also for the home lens to work correctly, you will need updated Unity Apps, Files and Music Lens packages. But, they are not yet uploaded to the PPA.

So, try the new Home Lens at your own risk. However, in my testing, it did not break the system but some functions were missing from these lenses. These packages should be available in PPA in few hours so if you want, you can wait for some time.

Run the command below to get new Home Lens:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:unity-team/staging

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

You cannot customize Home Lens Yet. However, later new Home Lens settings will empower users and OEMs to override the default view on the homescreen by putting custom stuff first.

Systems Settings are also being redesigned and new configuration options have landed in Precise as per the new specifications.

Appearance settings tab was renamed to User Interface and received minor design changes few days back. Now new configuration options have also been added.

Launcher icon size can be changed now using a simple slider. You can also revert back to default settings in one click.

A new Behavior tab has been added where you can tweak more Unity settings like turning launcher autohiding on/off and changing launcher reveal spot.

More new configuration option will land in Precise slowly and you won't have to touch Compiz to customize Unity behavior. These new options will only be exposed if you are running Unity Session and will be applicable to both Unity and Unity 2D.

However, some options like changing launcher icon size are not yet applicable to Unity 2D so they won't be shown.

At first launch of UI, default Unity3D settings will be applied and then they will be aligned as per the session. Also if you change some settings from Compiz Config Settings Manager, they will be preserved and precede these settings.

via DidRocks' blog

[Video] Working Prototype Shown for New Linux Based Gaming Handheld 'GameGadget', To Be Released in March

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:37:00 +0000

Couple of months back, we reported about a new Open Source Linux gaming handheld GameGadget. At that time we were a bit suspicious as many such projects were announced in past and they have now gone into oblivion.

However, it looks like they will deliver it. Few days back GamGadget team has shown a working prototype of the device in action. Check out yourself:

GameGadget will provide all the tools to help developers create their own games. Open source and cross compiling libraries like SDL can be used. Developers will also be able to port their existing games with its SDK. However, no playable games have been shown yet and potential buyers will definitely like to see early game catalog in GameGadget games store.

Tech Specs

D-Pad, 4 x Primary Buttons, 2 x Shoulder Buttons, Reset/Start Buttons
Micro USB port
Stereo Speakers, Headphones and TV Out Ports
SD/SDHC Card Slot
3.5 inches, 320 x 240 16 bit color display
433mhz dual core CPU
64MB RAM / 2GB Flash RAM
Li-Ion Rechargeable Battery
Dimensions: 140 W x 75 H x 16 D (mm)

GameGadget is developed by Blaze Europe. The expected price is about $160 and it will start shipping on March 30 this year.

Pandora Handheld to Go Into Mass Production Next Month

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:51:00 +0000

Open Source Linux based gaming handheld and mini-laptop Pandora has created lots of buzz when it was revealed 4 years back.

Since then the project has gone under numerous rough stages, production issues, tech spec changes and financial problems. A limited batch of 4000 units was available for pre-orders but not everyone has got the device on time.

However, it looks like that bad time is finally over. They tested a prototype recently and it was a 100% success. Pandora will go into mass production next month in Germany.

You can pre-order Pandora from here.

Expected Tech Specs

4.3-inch (resistive) touchscreen
800 x 480 resolution
WiFi
Bluetooth
USB 2.0 Port
2 x SDHC Card SLots
512 MB RAM
600 Mhz Texas Instruments OMAP3550 processor

via UMPCPortal

'Lttle Dew', Cute Zelda Like Action Adventure Game Coming Soon to Linux

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:08:00 +0000

Indie game studio Ludosity has released a new trailer of their upcoming game 'Lttle Dew'.

Lttle Dew has a very charming 2D art style and the gameplay will remind you about Legend of Zelda series. Check out the trailer below:

Windows and Mac versions of the game were available as beta for limited period during Christmas. However, the final version will have support for Linux as well.

We're working on getting it out on consoles as well, but Windows, Mac and Linux are confirmed.

Fallout Meets Minecraft in New Linux RPG: 3079

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:50:00 +0000

3079 is a futuristic and open-world first-person role playing game for Linux.

The game is a mix of Minecraft and Fallout style gameplay. Minecraft because of its blocky graphics and art and Fallout because of its open ended sandbox style exlporation based gameplay. All areas, buildings, items, quests and characters are randomly generated. This game is still under active development, so lots of new features and improvements will land overtime.

Check out the gameplay video:

3079 has received pretty good reviews all over the web and is rated 8+ on Desura. Also being a Java game, I was surprised that there were no frame rate or lag issues on Ubuntu (on OpenJDK). I always had problems with 3D java games and Ubuntu (ATI card to be blamed maybe).

3079 can be pre-ordered on Desura for $8.99. You will receive all the subsequent updates with the purchase. An extended demo is also available if you want to try out the game.

OilRush Final Released Officially

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 06:51:00 +0000

Global war for oil has just started as naval strategy game OilRush has been released today. The critically acclaimed game was in beta testing period for quite a long time and today final stable version is shipping officially.

About OilRush

Oil Rush is a real-time strategy game based on group control. It offers mechanics of a classical RTS combined with a Tower Defence genre. You control the upgrade of production platforms as well as their defence forces, and send battle groups of naval and air units to capture enemy platforms and oil rigs.

The game features high-end graphics powered by Unigine engine and is one of the best looking modern games for Linux. OilRush features single player campaign, quick game, multiplayer over Internet and LAN gameplay.

You can buy OilRush Linux version for $19.95 from the links below:

Ubuntu to Replace Application Menus with HUD, Install from PPA

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:40:00 +0000

Mark Shuttleworth has just blogged about a new way to use applications menu.

Called Head-Up Display, or HUD, this new feature will ultimately replace menus in Unity applications. HUD is a new means of invoking commands where users can search and launch menu commands from a console. It has a smart mechanism that prioritizes frequently used commands in list.

Every application that support Ubuntu global menu currently will have the ability to use new HUD menus.

Check out the video:

Excerpt from the announcement:

Searching is fast and familiar, especially once we integrate voice recognition, gesture and touch. We want to make it easy to talk to any application, and for any application to respond to your voice. The full integration of voice into applications will take some time. We can start by mapping voice onto the existing menu structures of your apps. And it will only get better from there.

But even without voice input, the HUD is faster than mousing through a menu, and easier to use than hotkeys since you just have to know what you want, not remember a specific key combination. We can search through everything we know about the menu, including descriptive help text, so pretty soon you will be able to find a menu entry using only vaguely related text (imagine finding an entry called Preferences when you search for “settings”).

To install HUD from PPA, run following commands (Ubuntu 12.04):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:unity-team/hud

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

HUD could replace traditional menus in 12.04 if it meets quality standards of an LTS release as still lots of work is needed to be done. However it can be available as an option where users will be able to use both traditional menus and HUD together.

If HUD completely replaces traditional menus in final 12.04 release, users will still be able to turn it off to get global menu back on top panel.

We’ll resurrect the (boring) old ways of displaying the menu in 12.04, in the app and in the panel. In the past few releases of Ubuntu, we’ve actively diminished the visual presence of menus in anticipation of this landing. That proved controversial. In our defence, in user testing, every user finds the menu in the panel, every time, and it’s obviously a cleaner presentation of the interface. But hiding the menu before we had the replacement was overly aggressive. If the HUD lands in 12.04 LTS, we hope you’ll find yourself using the menu less and less, and be glad to have it hidden when you are not using it. You’ll definitely have that option, alongside more traditional menu styles.

Hack, Slash, Loot - A New Roguelike/Dungeon Crawler Released for Linux

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:29:00 +0000

Hack, Slash, Loot is a single-player turn-based dungeon crawler Linux. You take control of a lone hero and explore sprawling dungeons, fight dangerous monsters and plunder valuable treasures.

The game features perma-death and randomly generated dungeons making it a nice coffee break game. Check out he video below:

A free Linux demo is available here. Full version for $10 can be purchased form here.

Lightweight Music Player 'Xnoise' ported to GTK3, Install from PPA

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:47:00 +0000

Xnoise, a lightweight music player with minimal interface has been updated bringing in many new features and fixes. Xnoise is written in Vala and supports video playback making it one stop media application.

Changes in this Release (version 0.1.31)

Ported to gtk+-3.0
Added option for disabling video subtitles
Mediabrowser: gtk3 compatible font rendering with linebreaks
Updated translations
Lastfm plugin: make scrobbling optional (cover fetching can be used without logging an user into lastfm)
Many bug fixes

To install Xnoise in Ubuntu, run the commands below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:shkn/xnoise

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install xnoise

WYSIWYG Ebook Editor Sigil 0.5 Released with New Features and Improvements

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 13:30:00 +0000

A new version for free, open source and cross platform WYSIWYG ebook editor Sigil has been released. Sigil is easily one of the best ebook editors for Linux and is quite actively developed and maintained.

Major changes in This Release (version 0.5)

Inline spell check in code view
Support for PCRE in search and replace
Translations into 15 languages
Added keyboard shortcut manager
Added preference dialog
Added image selection dialog for inserting existing images into book and code views
Now allows for deleting multiple metadata items
Drag and drop support for images to book and code views
Improved scrolling
Improved zoom levels
Full changelog here

Download Sigil 0.5 for Linux

Desura Game Client Open Sourced as 'Desurium'

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 11:55:00 +0000

Desura game client has been open sourced. Work for open sourcing the client was going on for a long time but the progress was slow as lead developer 'lodle' was on a holiday break.

Just few days back, he got back to work and since then efforts to open source the client got back on track. All the needed work has been done now and after sorting out all the remaining issues, Desura has been open sourced as Desurium just 4 hours back.

Desurium code is available under GPL v3. However, all the art and other assets are still owned by Desura. More details should be available soon.

Desura Devs have been very friendly and accessible to the community from beginning. Open sourcing the game client is a great step forward and not only it will improve the client but will also attract more developers meaning more games for Linux.

An official press release is still due but it should be out in couple of days providing detailed guidelines on coding style and patch submission and review process.

No Games for Linux? Watch This!!

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:01:00 +0000

Who says there are no games for Linux?

Linux gaming has been on rise in last couple of years, specially after coming of Humble Bundles, Desura being launched last year, Amnesia and Oil Rush supporting Linux, new big games announced based on Unigine engine, id Tech 4 Engine source being available, work done by icculus.org and Trine, Dungeons of Dredmor, Steel Storm, Red Eclipse, Xonotic, Retro Blazer, ToME, Dead Cyborg and numerous other games that have been actively supporting Linux as a gaming platform.

If you still think that there are no games for Linux, watch the video below and probably it will change your perception.

Thanks to ChemeBroTronNo1 for creating this awesome video.

Game List, in order of their appearance.

Voxatron
Atom Zombie Smasher
Frozen Bubble
Hex-a-Hop
SuperTuxKart
Aquaria
Darwinia
Oil Rush
Don't Take It Personally, Babe, It Just Ain't Your Story
Machinarium
Neverwinter Nights
Secret Maryo Chronicles
Stepmania
Bit.Trip Runner
Teeworlds
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
The Battle for Wesnoth
World of Goo
And Yet It Moves
Beep
Re:Alistair
Shank
Cave Story+
Jamestown
0 A.D.
Warsow
Dead Cyborg (Episode 1)
Super Meat Boy
Frogatto
Trine
FreedroidRPG
Frozen Synapse
Danger from the Deep
Conquest: Divide and Conquer
M.A.R.S. - A Ridiculous Shooter
Cogs
Braid
Extreme TuxRacer

image source

Defender's Quest: New RPG/Tower Defense Game Available for Linux

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:12:00 +0000

Defender's Quest is a new tower defense game with deep role playing gameplay elements. The game was in development for quite some time and the final version has been released yesterday.

Defender's Quest is a Flash/Adobe Air based game and comes with standalone deb and tar packages for Linux.

We usually don't write about such games as Adobe Air is no longer supported on Linux. But its different in case of Defender's Quest.

Having following its progress for quite some time and playing the demo, I can say that the game is really addicting, providing a very satisfying role playing experience as well as strategic and tactical tower defense based gameplay.

Unlike other tower defense games, you can develop your characters, improve their stats, equip them with better weapons, upgrade their skills and retain them in battles. Also you just don't start a battle and watch your army fight. This game requires you to be very active in every battle which is great. The game has also been reviewed very positively by Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Defender's Quest can be purchased for $6.99 from FastSpring. Try the demo yourself from here in a browser or download Linux Packages. You can download Adobe Air from here.

New Xorg Security Issue Can Bypass Login on Screen Locker, Ubuntu 11.10 Users Safe

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:14:00 +0000

A new X.org security issue have been found that can lead to unauthorized access to a system if someone has a physical access to it.

All systems having Xorg 1.11+ are affected by this and the behavior can be reproduced by exactly following the steps below:

Lock you screen and go to screensaver lock mode
Press CTRL+ALT+ Keypad Multiply (*)

Ubuntu 11.10 users are safe as the default Xorg version is 1.10. However, Ubuntu 12.04 can have Xorg 1.11 and Ubuntu Security Team should already be aware about this now.

It has been reported that latest Arch Linux and Fedora have Xorg 1.11. Patches should land as fast as possible.

More technical details and a video showing login being bypassed on Phoronix.

via seclists.org, aeroxteam.fr

Gnome Shell 'Ice Cream Sandwich' Theme by the Creator of Faenza Icon Set

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:56:00 +0000

Tiheum, who created the popular Faenza Icon Set for Linux has designed a beautiful new Gnome Shell Theme based on the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich UI.

Download Ice Cream Sandwich Gnome Shell Theme

You can download Gnome Shell Common File and User Theme extension from here and here.

Postal and Postal 2 For Linux Now Available on Desura

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:19:00 +0000

Updated Linux versions of Postal and Postal 2 has been released on Desura. Postal 2 (first person shooter) by Running With Scissors has been banned in many countries in past because of extreme graphic violence but enjoys quite a dedicated fan following.

A Postal 2 Linux demo is also available. This updated build which will work on modern Linux systems is available exclusively on Desura .

Buy Postal ($5) and Postal 2 ($10) from Desura

LightDM Brings Support For User Backgrounds in Precise [Video]

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 07:52:00 +0000

LightDM Unity Greeter can now read user desktop backgrounds in Precise. The effect was demoed last cycle in a mockup and since then many users have requested this feature.

The animations and transitions are pretty smooth and this new feature now gives Unity Greeter a more personalized feel. However, support for user images is still not there.

Check out the video:

Just upgrade your Precise installation to get the new effect.

Ninjas and Brooms, Indie Game 'Dustforce' Coming Soon to Linux

noreply@blogger.com (Nitesh) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:12:00 +0000

Indie platformer Dustforce developed by Hitbox Team was recently released on Steam. The game was much awaited by Indie game fans since it was first previewed because of its unique visuals and gameplay style.

About the Game

In Dustforce, you clean up the world with style. As an acrobatic janitor, you are an adept force against dust and disorder. You leap and dash off walls and ceilings, and deftly traverse precarious environments, ninja style. Cleanse each level swiftly and thoroughly to achieve mastery in this 2D sweep-'em-up platformer.

Features

Over 50 levels varying in difficulty from elegant exploration levels to intense challenges for hardcore players.
Compete on the online leaderboard and instantly watch replays of every players' best attempts.
Play against your friends with local multiplayer matches.
Roam through a myriad of beautiful environments accompanied by an original soundtrack.

The game has received a positive review from Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Unfortunately the site is blacked out today in protest for SOPA.

Linux Version Coming

HitBox Team is already working on a Linux version which should be available in coming few weeks, according to the Gamasutra Press Release. I also contacted them and they said that a Linux version is in the works and once it is finished, they will try to get it on Desura.