Free space news software for linux

Space Commander is a game that aims to be similar to Elite and Privateer, with maybe a bit of Trade Wars thrown in.
The project is a remarkably functional space simulation with under 200 lines of code in the main file.
DEPENDENCIES
You need a recent version of Python and some support libraries. The game is currently being written using Python v 2.4.3 but it may work with newer or older versions with some minor tweaking. I intend to be using Python 2.5 and PyGame 1.8 shortly.
- Python 2.4.3
- PyGame 1.7
- Numeric 22.0
Basically you need a pretty complete Python kit. Most Linux distributions should have everything that you need and Windows / OSX users will be able to install it all with a small bit of effort.
To play the MIDI score in Linux you have to install and configure Timidity due to some old code in sdl-mixer which is a pre-dependency of PyGame. If the game crashes and
complains about midi, just comment out the MIDI line in spacecommander.py to disable it.
As to performance issues. I pass the buck. If it runs too slowly then get a faster computer, better graphics card, better operating system, whatever.
The idea of writing this in Python is to have a compromise between ultimate performance and the ability to understand and tinker around with the code.
You could try reducing the number of stars in the galaxy by editing bigbang.py also.
Feel free to re-write the game in hand optimized assembler, but you must send me a copy of your code per the LICENSE.
RUNNING THE GAME
Linux: ./spacecommander.py
KEYBOARD COMMANDS
ESC / Q: Quit the game
Left / Right: Yaw
Up / Down: Pitch
PgUp / PgDN: Roll
Enhancements:
- The main engine was completely rewritten and now supports flying a spaceship around a randomly generated galaxy. 2D rendering of objects using PyGame is supported.
- Mouse flight control is featured.

Space Racer project is a OpenGL Car Game in a galactic environment.

It aims to be a clone of the well known Stunt Car Racer developed by Geff Crammond, author of Grand Prix I and II.

To play a 3dfx is recommanded. But TNT and Matrox Cards should now work.

If you have a 3dfx, you can take advantage of OpenGL 1.1 in adding this line in config.h:

#define SP_OPENGL_1_1

In The News is a Firefox extension that highlights text, right-click to see the latest related news stories.

Mouse over any of the headlines to see a brief summary of the story. Click on any of the stories to have it open up in a new tab.

Apache::NNTPGateway is a NNTP interface (Usenet newsgroups) for mod_perl enabled Apache web server.

SYNOPSIS

You must be using mod_perl, see http://perl.apache.org/ for details.

For the correct work your apache configuration should contain apache directives look like these:

In httpd.conf (or any other apache configuration file):

< Location "/path/to/newsgroup" >
SetHandler perl-script
PerlHandler Apache::NNTPGateway
PerlSetVar NNTPGatewayNewsGroup "newsgroup"
PerlSetVar NNTPGateway... (see L< CONFIGURATION > Directives)
< /Location >

This module implements a per group interface to NNTP (Usenet) News-Groups, it allow users to list, read, post, followup ... articles in a given newsgroup/newsserver depending of configuration. This is not a replacement for a real powerful newsreader client but just pretend to be a simple, useful mapping of some news articles into a web space.

vNews provides a site news script used to relay the latest information regarding any topic to visitors.

vNews is a site news script used to relay the latest information regarding any topic to visitors. And being a part of vScripts, vNews comes with a powerful and flexible administration module where administrators/webmasters can easily change the look of the embedded news to conform with their existing site design.

NNTPCache is a proxy cache newsgroups.

NNTPCache (efficiently) executes on the localhost pretending to be an NNRP news reading server. In fact, what it does is pass certain NNTP commands through to real (remote and possibly local) news-servers based on various pattern matching rules.

NNTPCache then takes the output from those servers and caches & indexes it in funky ways (much case specific magic goes into this). The next time such information is asked for, or other information which can be logically inferred from the previously collated information, it is sent directly from the cache, without consulting the remote servers.

NNTPCache can transparently merge local newsgroups & multiple remote feeds (usually handled by INN) with remote NNRPD and NNTPCache servers to create mind-bogglingly large "virtual" newsfeeds, without having to negotiate for standard feeds or allocating anything like bandwidth or drive space normally required (normally around 3-10G/day).

NNTPCache is an obsessive SPAM killer. NNTPCache has full support for cryptographically signed NoCem messages, and if enabled, actively monitors news.lists.filters and alt.nocem.misc for NoCem SPAM advisories. Tagged SPAM message IDs are then transparently filtered from NNTPCache traffic.

NNTPCache can also act selectively as an intelligent chrooted firewall NNTP application proxy and supports full RFC931/ident, source address and newsgroup access controls with quite a reasonable degree of granularity.

NNTPCache saves IMMENSE amounts of bandwidth (we were quite astounded to see just how much bandwidth news uses - on our network, news accounted for more IP traffic than everything else combined (though were not sure if this says more about the authors proclivities or network traffic statistics in general.

NNTPCache also saves truly huge amounts of drive space (if you are talking about a full feed - as of writing thats around 3 - 10Gb a day). With NNTPCache, startup times for news readers become limited only by the speed of the internal network (or the loopback device if the readers are run on the same machine as NNTPCache). It is possible to run several NNTPCacheds on different machines - indeed with larger sites, this practice is recommended; even intranets can become clogged with news traffic.

NNTPCache tries very hard to look like nnrpd, so there shouldnt be any reason why the remote servers that NNTPCache is directed to feed from can not be other NNTPCaches themselves.

NNTPCache performs sophisticated filtering based on weighted extended regular expression pattern matching against article headers and content on a per-user, per-group, per-host (etc) basis (so the filters only effect particular user groups, not the entire population). This can be used (for instance) as a kind of Usenet "net-nanny" or to transparently remove usenet SPAM (and probably a few not so nice uses as well, like political censorship. Sadly to say though, after introducting this feature we have had not had one iota thanks from neo-corporate east-asian totalitarian capitalist running dogs). ).

NNTPCache tries very hard to emulate remote article numbering. This means that NNTPCache can be "dropped" in into an nntp network without interrupting (at the news level) the flow/ordering of articles. In the same manner, it can be transparently "plucked" from the network in the same way should it not prove to be as sexy as a sweet, ripe, red persimmon (well, its unlikely, but you never know.

NNTPCache caches the active, active.times, newsgroups and overview.fmt files, article, head, body, stat, group, listgroup, newgroups, newgroups, xgtitle, xover and xhdr commands. NNTPCache cross-posts seeds its cache and also maintains a database of message-id -> group/article_number tuples. This is just about everything.

NNTPCache has been designed to be quite efficient, in order to serve very large reader populations. It takes full advantage of copy-on-write OS design, shared memory and mmaped files/memory/anonymous regions.

NNTPCache has a built in web-server and macro language - ostensibly for displaying NNTPCache statistical information, but the depraved or security retentive (ok, ok, AND) could use it for other diversions.

Alleged to autoconfigure, compile and run, dance and make walnut milkshakes on a wide number of unix platforms. But not NT (of course!).