Free toys software for linux

This is the second pseudo-release of Bloody Stupid Linux, which of course has nothing to do with the first release. The first BSL was a 50Mb ISO Live run CD based on DamnSmall Linux.

I had a lot of fun hacking around DamnSmall, and apparently it drew a little attention. John, the lord master of DamnSmall, even was kind enough to link to me off of the DSL relatives page. I got a few mails, most about the image to the right, about a hundred downloads or so, and some of those were even people I didnt know.

This whole project started because I needed to cramb a kernel and a root filesytem onto a floppy. Not having enough room in the kernel for disk or filesystem support, I figured why not wget the modules, with the inevitable conclusion, why not wget a bigger root filesystem next?

Why go to all this trouble? The BSL kernel is basically a life support system for ram and network cards, since it wgets support for everything else on the machine the kernel is very small. The initial aim was to fit it on a single floppy, then PXE booting became attractive, and really, since the kernel doesnt need to support whatever it just booted from in order to have its root filesystem, its very flexible. Yeah, I know an initrd can do the same thing, but its more fun this way. As it stands, BSL makes for an excellent repair system, the framework for a bulk installer, a neat toy, and an alright thin client ( as long as youve got a gob of RAM handy.)

Most of all, this whole thing is incredibly hackable. If you wanted to use a different slackware image, just tar one up, name it image.tar.gz and stick it in the /bsl directory of your image web server. If you need that image to unpack to larger than 170Mb, hack up the init script in the cpio archive, rebuild the archive, then recompile the kernel... sounds like a lot, but it really isnt. Want to replace the whole image with Debian/SuSe/Fedora/Arch/DSL/Gentoo? Go to it!"

Magnetic Poetry project is a networked magnetic poetry toy for your desktop.
Magnetic Poetry for Perl/Tk gives you a window full of draggable words with which you can satisfy your muse.
Your window is linked to a similar window on the desktop of everyone else running the program.
Enhancements:
- fixed distribution package to actually include magpo.pgp and point at the new server

mozilla2ps project is a quick and gross hack to convert html to postscript pages in an unattended manner. I needed to convert a lot of html pages to postscript and wasnt really satisfied with html2ps, so I went ahead and toyed around with xulrunner and friends.
In order to use mozilla2ps you need Xul Runner.
Usage and configuration
Make sure you have Xulrunner correctly installed.
xulrunner --install-app mozilla2ps-0.1.xulapp
xulrunner --app application.ini file:///tmp/foo.html /tmp/foo.ps
xulrunner --app application.ini http://www.lwn.net /tmp/lwn.ps ;
ps2pdf /tmp/lwn.ps; evince lwn.pdf
I use it with this chmtopdf.py script in order to convert .chm files to pdf using only free tools.
Bugs
mozilla2ps has at least the following bugs:
Allow configurable paper, size, margins etc.
Remove the setTimeOut workaround
Enhancements:
- This release adds a number of options to format printing: landscape/portrait, margins, bgcolor, and bgimage.

PerlActor is a simple automated executable acceptance test framework for Perl.

PerlActor is a simple automated executable acceptance test framework for Perl. It can be used by Extreme Programming (XP) teams to rapidly develop executable acceptance tests for their Perl code.

XP mandates that the Customer writes acceptance tests for the application under development. The acceptance tests, also known as customer tests, demonstrate that application features are complete and that they work as expected. Ideally, the tests should be directly executable and automated so that they can be run continuously, without manual effort.

PerlActor enables an XP Customer to write *executable* acceptance tests as plain text files, using a very simple syntax. Each test consists of a number of parameterized commands (one per line), which PerlActor uses to exercise the application. PerlActor parses the test, invokes the commands with any parameters, and reports the result. The developers provide glue code to implement the commands required by the tests.

PerlActor allows tests to be grouped into suites so that related tests can be run as a group. The Customer can also just place test scripts in a directory structure and have PerlActor find and execute them all.

The PerlActor approach to acceptance testing has a number of advantages:

1) As the application grows the team will gradually develop a comprehensive set of Commands for testing the application.
2) The Customer, independent of the development team, can write and execute new tests for the application at any time, using any of the existing Commands.
3) Existing tests may be changed by the Customer at any time, again without developer help.

EXAMPLE SCRIPT

The following sample test script is adapted from one of the example scripts contained in the examples/calculator directory of this distribution. It tests a toy calculator "application":

# Script to check addition
# 10 + 32 = 42

# Create a new calculator application
NewCalculator

# Ensure that the display reads 0, initially
CheckDisplayReads 0

# Press key 1, then key 0
PressKeys 1 0
CheckDisplayReads 10

PressKeys +
CheckDisplayReads 10

PressKeys 3 2
CheckDisplayReads 32

PressKeys =
CheckDisplayReads 42

The following is sample output from the included test runner:

Running Acceptance Tests at Sun Apr 10 17:59:11 GMT 2005
==========================================================
.....
0.545077 wallclock secs ( 0.42 usr + 0.11 sys = 0.53 CPU)
Run: 5, Passed: 5, Failed: 0, Aborted: 0.
and with test failure:
Running Acceptance Tests at Sun Apr 10 18:04:36 GMT 2005
==========================================================
.F...
1.24811 wallclock secs ( 0.47 usr + 0.07 sys = 0.54 CPU)
Run: 5, Passed: 4, Failed: 1, Aborted: 0.

!!!FAILED!!!

1) FAILED: Display is wrong: expected 41, got 42 in scripts/test_addition.pact
at CheckDisplayReads 41, line 37

Domino Blast project is a physics-based driving/demolition game with a childrens toys theme.

Domino Blast is a hybrid driving and destruction game with a childrens toys theme. Its environments consist of buildings constructed from domino tiles and a player-controllable toy car. The objective of the game is to wreak as much havoc as possible, within a time limit.

Its game-play is simplistic yet satisfying; similar to the satisfaction gained from watching a tumbling Jenga tower, except the objective is to tumble the tower, rather than slowly deconstruct it. As the game progresses, levels become more dense and the buildings that inhabit them become larger and more complex.

Tux Typing is an educational typing tutor for children. Tux Typing features several different types of gameplay, at a variety of difficulty levels.

Tuxtyping 2 is almost a complete rewrite! It has something for everyone no matter who or where you are! If youre a gamer it even comes with two built in easter eggs! A large amount of time was spent with four goals in mind, make the game code clean, make it easy to translate, make it more fun to play and make it a better tool for those who have the more serious side of typing in mind. Tuxtyping 2 runs better and more consistently on a larger range of machines.

Developers
Tuxtyping 2 has a brand new file structure. The code itself has undergone deep surgery. Its faster, cleaner and easier to understand!

Teachers
Teachers will find the new Tuxtyping to be a more moldable tool they can use in there classrooms. It is easier now (and will become even easier) to group the types of exercises, words and characters into a lesson! We need alot of help here, ideas for the lessons/tutorials seem to be few and far between. (tho Jess does have some good ones!) Wed still like more.

Parents
Your kids will play for more than minutes now and learning all the time! Tuxtyping has lots of new toys to play with for them! (But dont let me catch you playing after the kids go to bed!)

Kids
New game! Comet Zap! Tux is challenged with the task of protecting 9 cities! More challenging game play in all the games! Based on Tux of Math Command another Tux4Kids game.

French Danish Armenian! (hey we do them all!)
Tuxtyping is much less tedious to translate now since most on screen graphical text is generated from text files. Text in the game can be translated by editing one file. A Theming How-To is available at our internationalization center.

wxSand is a Falling Sand Game is a particle toy - you can play with different elements, explore how they interact, and, in some reimplementations, make your own elements.

It is great fun to make interactive structures, ecosystems, and toys in a Falling Sand Game.

First of all, mad props go out to the original creator of this game. Great idea. I only wish I could read Japanese... Heres a link to the original, or at least as close to the original as I can find (Again, without knowing how to read Japanese.)
http://ishi.blog2.fc2.com/blog-entry-158.html

Having wasted hours of productivity on the Java verison of the Falling Sand Game, I began to think of improvements that could be made from the original. No source was available for the original, and Java isnt my choice programming language, that I decided to start de novo with C/C++ and the cross-platform wxWidgets.

(I leave it to you Java fans out there to make your own improved Falling Sand Game.)

I tend to feel that The Falling Sand Game should be more of a Zen experience than anything else. I also belive that the game should be as cyclic as possible, so that environments can run and evolve for long periods of time. Finally, I realized the close connection of The Sand Game with the game of Life: Whereby, with a few very simple rules, and some starting conditions, you can create a very unpredictable outcome.
Of course, the original is pretty sweet. So Ive make a version with my own rules, and one with the original rules, and then one with the original rules plus some neat extra items. I have implemented many, many more interactions and elements than the original version. Discover them as you play.

Version 2 has no fire (Versions 3 & 4 do, though.) I dont like how easy it is to destroy everything. It also doesnt have any free-moving characters. I feel they distract attention from the evolution of the field.

Originally, I didnt want to make this Open Source. I think it takes away from the mysticism of the game. Those of you that are so inclined should be able to see the simple algorithm. Note the close connection with the game of Life. Also note the impossible situations, like unequalized water levels. These arent shortcomings of the game, but instead interesting artifacts of the rules of this alternate reality!