If you’re an Ubuntu user looking to create the next Braid or Super Meat Boy, you may be wondering whether or not it’s possible given that you’re not running Mac OSX or Windows. Fear not — if anything, Linux is the home of programmers and those who work with code and software design, so you’ll soon find you’re right at home!

Ubuntu is built on coding, but that’s not all it can offer. If you’re used to using Wine to get the most out of your software capabilities in Ubuntu, then you’ll soon find that there are a lot of Windows design programs that will allow you to piece together animations, draw assets and create music that will work near-perfectly the majority of the time.

If you’ve noticed that iOS or Android games development is an attractive market, then you’ll be pleased to know that all the shiny new devices you see at o2.co.uk can be developed for on Ubuntu. Here’s a list of native programs that you can use to facilitate your games development process: Netbeans, code::blocks, jedit, Eclipse, MonoDevelop, vi/vim (old school).

Of course, you’ll also need graphics and assets, but what a lot of developers do until they’ve got everything in place is to use placeholder assets from other games or even just basic blocks with indicators on them to show their current state. There are a lot of aspects to a good game – art, music, design, mechanics, genre, good code – and all can be achieved by taking a look at the Ubuntu Software Center, which has a range of free software to assist you in achieving your goals.

There are also a lot of strong communities built on indie games development, from TigSource to IndieGames, and you’ll soon find that code is a language that transcends operating systems, bringing together everyone to help you solve a particular problem.

Now get out there, and go make games!

Just type the following in Gnome Terminal:

sudo apt-get install fortunes-ubuntu-server -y

Now execute below command several times to get really useful Ubuntu command line tips:

ubuntu-server-tip

Here are some examples:

Use lsof to find out which process has open handles for a file. ‘lsof +D /path’ will find all processes for the given path. This is useful for unmounting media.

If you know you typed a command or password wrong, you can use ctrl + u to delete the whole line or ctrl + w to delete just a word.

If you are using a PostgreSQL database, use “ptop” to monitor real time usage.

Browse the command line history with ctrl-r and then type a few characters that you know are part of the command you are looking for.

A for loop in bash syntax: ‘for i in * ; do echo $i ; done’.

To make a backup without typing the full path twice: ‘cp /long/path/to/file/name{,.orig}’ to create a copy with the suffix .orig

This post is a part of series of Ubuntu Command Line Tricks posts in which I try to share really useful CLI commands — as it comes from terms “terminal command”, “console command”, they are to be executed in Terminal: Ubuntu Main Menu –> Accessories –> Terminal.

Need to print part of text file, e.g. the lines starting from 20th to 30th? It’s no need to use bash scripts or other things like python for that anymore! Here you go:

sed -n '20,30p' /etc/passwd

This command just outputs the line range from 20 to 30. Damn it, I was using the long bash equivalent for the same task for years

If you are fan of command line like me and agree that in many situations it’s better/easier to use terminal than graphical interface, you should try terminal plugin for nautilus file manager. This smart plugin makes it possible to open popup terminal in any directory you opened in nautilus and use it for file manipulations or anything you want. If you still don’t have it installed you definitely should.

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Small utility utube2mp3 makes it possible to download mp3 from youtube in one easy step — just point it to certain youtube clip and get mp3 file as the output. I like this simple and elegant tool.

In order to get started you have to download utube2mp3 binary, make it executable and create Desktop shortcut. Open Ubuntu Menu –> Accessories –> Terminal and type the following commands:

cd ~/Downloads/
wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/utube2mp3/files/utube2mp3_0.1.2/utube2mp3_linux_x86.tar.gz/download
tar -xvzf utube2mp3_linux_x86.tar.gz
chmod +x utube2mp3
ln -s ~/Downloads/utube2mp3 ~/Desktop/utube2mp3

From now you can start utube2mp3 youtube conversion utility from your Ubuntu Desktop. Just copy/paste URL of youtube video you wish to get mp3 from, e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9TGj2jrJk8 (Led Zeppelin — Stairway to Heaven) and press “Get mp3!” button. You will be prompted where to save resulting mp3 file to be retrieved from certain youtube video and in a few minutes you will see .mp3 file there.

This is a quick tip showing how to move window controls in your Ubuntu from left to right… Just execute the following command in Terminal to change controls position:

gconftool-2 --type string --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout "menu:minimize,maximize,close"

If you ever decide to revert to default window controls position (left) type the following command:

gconftool-2 --type string --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout "close,maximize,minimize:menu"

Looking for equivalent of wget’s –limit-rate option for apt-get/aptitude? No problems, see below how to set download speed limit to either apt-get or aptitude. Rather bearded Ubuntu hint but still handy if you don’t have 100 Mbps Internet connection (I don’t).

aptitude -o Acquire::http::Dl-limit=25 safe-upgrade

Above command starts upgrade of your Ubuntu and makes aptitude to download new packages at up to 25 kB/s (kilobytes per second) that equals to 200 kbps (kilobit per second).

Mentioned command line option for aptitude also work for apt-get:

sudo apt-get -o Acquire::http::Dl-limit=25k upgrade

Moreover, if you wish to set up certain download limit permanently just add the following line to /etc/apt/apt.conf:

Acquire::http::Dl-Limit "25";

(don’t forget to change 25 value according to your needs)

Hope it helps somebody!

Ubuntu newbie? Wondering where is something like Windows XP task manager in Ubuntu? See below how to assign Ctrl + Alt + Del keyboard combination for Gnome System Monitor! It makes it possible to see list of running processes, cpu/memory utilization and related stuff by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del.

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Grub is default boot loader coming with Ubuntu. It shows a list of available kernels and operating systems installed on your computer when it boots — grub also makes it possible to select kernel/OS you wish to boot into. Tool named startupmanager tool available in Ubuntu repository allows you to change grub boot order easily and also configure related grub settings without editing any text files.

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This post continues series of Ubuntu Command Line Tricks posts in which I share useful CLI commands — as it comes from names “terminal command”, “console command” are to be executed in Terminal: Ubuntu Main Menu –> Accessories –> Terminal.

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