I enjoy playing Gridwars2 on Ubuntu Linux. It used to be available on getdeb.net for Ubuntu Jaunty, but since then, it has disappeared.  It can be downloaded from the authors’ site, but it will not run out of the box on Ubuntu Lucid Lynx.  Here are instructions to get it working on Ubuntu Lucid.  It is quite easy once you figure out how.  This how to, assumes you know the basics of getting around in linux, and know how to work as administrator.

Get the gridwars_lin.zip file from

http://gridwars.marune.de/

Click “lin” for the Linux version.

(*UPDATED* 7/27/10) The above site seems to be gone.  gridwars_lin.zip can be found at:
http://www.sourcefiles.org/Games/Arcade/

Unzip all the files and folders into a directory of your choice.  I put mine in /home/myusername/games/gridwars.  If you have multiple users on your system, you might put it all under /usr/share/games/gridwars

Set permissions:  Locate the file gridwars in the …/gridwars folder.  Right click on it and select Properties.  Click on the Permissions tab and make sure “Allow executing file as program” is checked.

Gridwars2 requires two additional files to run.  They are libstdc++.so.5 and libstdc++.so.5.0.7 .  They can be obtained from the jaunty package libstdc++5_3.3.6-17ubuntu1_i386.deb .

libstdc++5_3.3.6-17ubuntu1_i386.deb can be gotten from

http://packages.ubuntu.com/jaunty/i386/libstdc++5/download .

Pick a download location and save it on your computer somewhere convenient.  DO NOT INSTALL the deb package.  You will most likely get an error if you try.

As admin, open up libstdc++5_3.3.6-17ubuntu1_i386.deb with Archive Manager (not the GDebi Package Installer) and place files libstdc++.so.5 and libstdc++.so.5.0.7 into the /usr/lib32 folder .  These are 32 bit files but will work on 64 bit Lucid.

To use nautilus as admin for the above steps, type

$ sudo nautilus

in a terminal window.  You can then right click on libstdc++5_3.3.6-17ubuntu1_i386.deb and select “Open with Archive Manager.”  You then can drag and drop the files where you need them.

That is it.  To run gridwars2, locate the file “gridwars” in the gridwars folder and double-click to start it.  You can use System -> Preferences -> Main Menu to add gridwars2 to the menu system. A nice icon can be located at …/gridwars/gfx/High/whiteplayer.png .

Enjoy playing gridwars2!

- John K7JM

The corner of my web page with a link to view my Ham Radio log file.

Being a Ham Radio operator, I’ve wanted, for some time, to display my log file on my web site. I’ve been researching it for some time, and mostly ran into methods that require java or php, or some sort of web scripting. This is beyond me and I wanted something simpler; and this is what I have come up with.

My computers run on the Ubuntu Linux Operating System.  I came across a small command line utility program called txt2html.  The name pretty much explains what it does.  It has many features that include many formatting options; one being, that I can pre-append a file to the front of another file.  I tested this feature to apply a preformatted html heading to my log page.  I made a simple sample of a text log page listing contacts, and ran it through txt2html and it attached my header to the log page and spit it all out as an html file ready to display on my web page.

My sample log page was called log.txt and looks like this:

call            QTH
k7jm            Helena, MT
wa7vxm          Butte, MT

My sample heading was called ‘log_file_heading.html’ and looks like this:

K7JM’s Log File

I put it all through txt2html with a command like this:

txt2html --append_head ./log_file_heading.html ./log.txt >./log.html

And the output file ‘log.html’ looks like this and is ready to display on your web page:

call            QTH
k7jm            Helena, MT
wa7vxm          Butte, MT

I wanted to automate a way to put this file on my web site without getting too complicated.  The simple ftp command would work, but it takes a bit to automate it. After a bit of research, I came across ‘kermit‘.  ‘kermit’ is a simple program that takes data from a file and performs the commands listed in the file.  Perfect.  I put the following commands in a file called ‘log.kermit’:

ftp open ftp.myhostsite.net /user:myusername /password:mypassword
put ./log.html /www/whereyou/wantit/log.html
exit

I then called kermit like this:

kermit ./log.kermit

and it is done.

To make things a bit cleaner and more automatic, I created a script file called ‘log_doit.sh’ that looks something like this:

txt2html –append_head /home/john/Desktop/log_file_heading.html /home/john/Desktop/cqrlog.html >/home/john/Desktop/log.html
kermit /home/john/Desktop/log.kermit
exit

Now, to do the whole process, I just had to update my log file, save it, and run the script ‘log_doit.sh’ and it would be on my web site.

A New Way – With cqrlog

After I put all this together, I remembered hearing about a Linux logging program called cqrlog, on the ‘Linux In The Ham Shack‘ podcast.  If you are a Ham Radio Operator or use Linux, I strongly suggest you give this great podcast a listen.  It is always entertaining, and they have covered some very useful stuff for the Ham that is running a Linux operating system.

Anyway, I downloaded and installed ‘cqrlog’ and started playing with it.  I was specifically looking for a way to export the log file so I could run it through ‘txt2html’.  Lo and behold, ‘cqrlog’ does one step better; it exports the log right into the ‘html’ format.  Wow! Perfect!.

I learned a lot by using txt2html, but now I can skip that step completely and just export the log file in html format and run a simpler script that runs ‘kermit’ to upload the file to my web site.  Click HERE to see the actual page on my web site.  As of when this was written, the file is a test one that was created by playing with ‘cqrlog’.  It will change once I start using ‘cqrlog’ for real.

John – K7JM

call            QTH
k7jm            Helena, MT
wa7vxm          Butte, MT