Netbook Experience

A big thanks to Herman who has sent in the following great article to me to publish on the site.

Thanks Herman….

Some people may not like the fact that neither their Aspire One netbook nor the linux operating system will allow them to play modern games.

So, why not play some old favourites on the Aspire one? I am a fan of the FPS genre and Doom and Quake are classics that made FPS what it is today. Both are DOS based games and will therefore only run under a DOS emulator.

So first we need to install DOSEMU which happens to be part of the Mint Linux Synaptic Package Manager. Open the Package Manager (in Mint’s “Adminstration” menu folder) and do a “quick search” for “dosemu” and it finds version 1.4. This is quickly installed and can be found back in the System Tools menu as DOS emulator.

In Mint Linux two drives are recognised C: and D:. The D: drive is where you can access data, files etc. So let’s install Quake. Go to http://www.idsoftware.com/games/quake. Select Quake from the submenu and download the demo “Quake106.zip”.

Doubleclicking the file will open it in the file archiver. Extract it in a place where you can easily find it from within your Dos emulator. In the Dos emulator navigate to the drive and directory where the unzipped files reside. You can use the “cd” command to change the directory.

Run the install.bat file, indicate you want the files to be installed on the D: drive and let the program make a directory called “quake_sw”. The rest is easy. Use a video size of 800×600 for best results and press Ctrl+Alt+F to maximise the Dos screen.

Doom is installed very much in the same way although you will not find a Doom (1st episode) demo on the idsoftware page. Instead go to http://www.dosgamesarchive.com/download/doom/.

Is FPS not your cup of tea and you prefer the curves of Lara Croft (aka Tomb Raider)? I installed Tomb Raider effortlessly in the same way.

Have fun!

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One of the most popular games is the classic Tetris which is available across many formats, and there’s a really good version called Gnometris available for Mint Linux and it works really well on the Acer Aspire One.

To install Gnometris on the Acer Aspire One running Mint Linux Fluxbox.

• Right click on the Fluxbox desktop.
• Click on Synaptic
• Enter your admin password if required
• Type Gnometris into the quick search box
• Click in the box next to Gnometris and click on Mark for Installation
• Click on Apply and Gnometris will install.
• Gnometris will now be available in the Games Menu

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Techplay-Experience.com have recently written an article on a web based golf game called WGT, and given the lack of good golf games (see this article on how to run Links golf on the Acer Aspire One) and with WGT being free to play I thought I would give it a go on my humble Acer Aspire One.

One the AA1 running Mint Linux Fluxbox and on the Opera Internet Browser the game runs reasonably well, occasionally after you hit a shot there is a short pause whilst the game works out where the ball will land, but this won’t spoil your enjoyment of the game to much.

The game graphics are fantastic with computer generated players super imposed over real photographs of the courses.

If you are looking for a good golf game for your Acer Aspire One then check out this article over at Techplay Experience.

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Recently the source code for the original Simcity has been donated by EA to the One Laptop One Child project under GNU License.

The results are Micropolis and it’s available to play on the Acer Aspire One running Mint Linux through the package manager.

To install Micropolis on the Acer Aspire One running Mint Linux:

1) Activate the Mint Menu

2) Load the Synaptic Package Manager

3) Enter your Admin Password

4) Enter micropolis into the Quick search box

5) Click into the box next to Micropolis and mark for installation.

6) Click on install

Micropolis will now install and be available in the Games Menu.

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In this post I described how to install FreeCiv on the Linpus version of the Acer Aspire One, and also how unfortunately it stopped working when a software repository was taken off line.

I’ve also tried to install FreeCiv on Mint Linux but unfortunately that version of the game struggles to work on the screen format of the AA1.

I’ve come across a solution which allows you to play FreeCiv on the Acer Aspire One and it works on both Linpus and Mint Linux.

The solution is a web based version of the game that allows the user to play FreeCiv in a browser window. I recommend that you use the Chromium browser on Linpus, or the Google Chrome Browser on Mint Linux as although FireFox runs the game, it’s much faster on Chrome\Chromium.

This version of FreeCiv also lets you easily play on-line multi player FreeCiv

Just point your browser at http://freeciv.net/ Register for a free account and click on play now. Enjoy FreeCiv again on your AA1.

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Elite is one of the most famous and legendary computer games of all time, and it’s possible to the play the space trading game on the Linux Version of the Acer Aspire One using DosBox.

To install DosBox:

• Right click on the desktop to display the advanced menu.
• Choose system
• Choose Add/remove Software
• Enter your Admin Password
• Click on the search tab
• Search for DosBox
• Select and install DosBox

DosBox is now available in the system area in the advanced menu.

Elite (and Elite Plus) is freely and legally available from Ian Bell’s Website who co-wrote Elite.

• Download the version of Elite you want to play from http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite/pc/index.htm
• using XAchiver extract the files to your DosBox folder (eg /home/user/dosprog)
• Launch DosBox from the Advanced Menu and map the c: drive to your DosBox folder (eg mount c ~/dosprog).
• Switch to your mounted drive.

You can now launch Elite from the Dos prompt in DosBox

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Many of you will be running Windows XP on your Acer Aspire One, and will be fans of World of Warcraft, so I wondered if the Acer Aspire One can cope with running World of Warcraft.

After a little research on Youtube I discovered several videos of World of Warcraft actually running on the Acer Aspire One.

As you will see the game runs ok, with the game running between 7 and 10 frames per second in most levels so you may struggle in battles but it may pass a few hours if you need a mobile fix of WOW.

Check out the video below to see World in Warcraft running on a slightly upgraded Acer Aspire One (with Windows XP). I was pleasantly surprised.

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The SNES (AKA Super Famicom in Japan) was one of most popular consoles of all time, and as computers have become more powerful, SNES emulators have become amongst the most popular emulators.

There is a very good SNES Emulator called ZSNES for the Linux version of the Acer Aspire One, it runs very well and it’s easy to install.

To install ZSNES on the Acer Aspire One:

1. Right click on the Desktop to display the Advanced Menu.
2. Go to the System tab, select the Add\Remove Software option.
3. Enter your Admin password and click on Ok to open the software installation application.
4. Click on the Search Tab and enter ZSNES into the Text box and click on search.
5. Check the tick box next to ZSNES and click on Apply.
6. ZSNES will now install and will be available in the games section in the Advanced Mode Menu.

You will need to find your own Roms but Google is your friend.

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One of the classic and genre defining First Person Shooters was Quake and it’s sequels, and it’s possible to Play Quake 3 Arena on the Linux version of the Acer Aspire One Netbook.

It plays very well on the AA1 and the demo allows you to play death match Quake 3 Arena against Bots, you can also copy your original files to the AA1 and play more levels.

To install Quake 3 Arena on the Acer Aspire One:

1. Right click on the Desktop to display the Advanced Mode Menu (Click here to see how to install The Advanced Mode Menu)
2. Choose System and then Add/Remove Software.
3. Enter you admin password and click on ok.
4. When the Package Manager loads click on the search tab.
5. In the Search box type Quake and click on search.
6. Tick the Box next to Quake3-Demo and click on Apply.
7. After the game has installed it will be available to play through the games section in the Advanced Mode Menu.

When you run the game for the first time It will ask you permission to connect to the Internet, allow it and it will down load the demo levels for you to play on.

Enjoy Quake 3 Arena

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There’s a version of the classic arcade game Galaga for the Acer Aspire One called Xgalaxy.

Xgalaxy runs well on the Linpus version of the Acer Aspire One and the installation is an easy process through the Advanced Mode Menu (Click here to see how to install The Advanced Mode Menu)

To install Galaxy:

1. Right click on the Desktop to display the Advanced Mode Menu
2. Choose System and then Add/Remove Software.
3. Enter you admin password and click on ok
4. When the Package Manager loads click on the search tab.
5. In the search box enter xgalaxy and click on search.
6. When the search has finished check the tick box next to xgalaxy and click on Apply.

7. This will install XGalaxy.

8. You will now be able to find Xgalaxy in the Games section of the Advanced Mode Menu

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Big Fish games are a software house known for it’s popular hidden clue PC games. Whilst at the moment their games aren’t compatible with WINE, they have produced a number of free flash based browser versions of some of their games.

The games work well on the Acer Aspire One, just remember to press F11 to put FireFox into full screen mode.

To play the BigFish games on your Acer Aspire One click here.

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ScummVM is a virtual machine (or you could call it an emulator) which runs several of the classic adventure game on your Acer Aspire One.

The list of games it runs is impressive and can been seen by clicking here, but it includes a number of Famous LucasArt Adventures including The Secret of Monkey Island.

A number of games require you to have access to the original game files, but a number of  games are available for legal download from the ScummVM Website (Click Here to see which games you can download)

To install the latest version of ScummVM:

1. Download the install file from the ScummVM site by clicking here
2. Click OK to Open with the Software Installer.
3. Enter your Admin Password if required.
4. Click on OK to install the package.
5. ScummVM will now be available in the Games Section of the Advanced Menu

To install Beneath the Steel Sky: (more detailed information on how to play other games can be found by Clicking Here.)

1. Click here to download the CD-Rom version of Beneath the Steel Sky.
2. Click here to download this file which is needed as well
3. When the Files have download unzip the game files.
4. Launch ScummVM from the advanced menu
5. Click on Add Game
6. Navigate to the Beneath the Steel Sky Folder and click choose.
7. Click on start and enjoy.

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