News : KDE Plasma 6.2, Gnome 47 RC and the KDE Frameworks 6.6.

Linux distros comes with new released graphic user interface, you an find some videos on the LinuxNetwork youtube channel.

News : Nix in 100 Seconds from Fireship.

Nix is a purely functional package manager and config tool. It also takes form as a fully-fledged Linux distro called NixOS.

... from the Fireship - youtube channel.

News : Gnome 46

News : The DSL 2024.

The New DSL 2024 has been reborn as a compact Linux distribution tailored for low-spec x86 computers. It packs a lot of applications into a small package. All the applications are chosen for their functionality, small size, and low dependencies. DSL 2024 also has many text-based applications that make it handy to use in a term window or TTY.

See this webpage.

The Ren'Py visual novel engine .

Ren'Py is a visual novel engine – used by thousands of creators from around the world – that helps you use words, images, and sounds to tell interactive stories that run on computers and mobile devices. These can be both visual novels and life simulation games. The easy to learn script language allows anyone to efficiently write large visual novels, while its Python scripting is enough for complex simulation games.

Ren'Py is free to use with commercial and non-commercial games and you can find on the official website.

This run's on Android 5.0+,HTML5/Web Assembly (Beta),Linux x86_64/Arm,Windows 7+,Mac OS X 10.10+ and iOS 11+.

This is last video tutorial from RenPy start tutorials but you can find more on web.

News : Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia – BETA Release with a good design.

My preference would be Fedora Linux, but this Linux Mint distro would be a possible design choice.

Linux Mint 21.3 is a long term support release which will be supported until 2027 and now comes with Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia – BETA Release.

I used in the past and works great because has based on Debian distro and now use Ubuntu.

Minimal system requirements:

2GB RAM (4GB recommended for a comfortable usage). 20GB of disk space (100GB recommended). 1024×768 resolution (on lower resolutions, press ALT to drag windows with the mouse if they don’t fit in the screen).

You can read more on the official blog.

News : Environment designs in Linux !

I do not consider the design of linux environments to be very evolved from a design point of view. It is worth noting the effort of the developers to customize the old source code. Here are some old and new remarkable examples:

Cool Desktop Animations for Ubuntu 22.04, Fedora 36, other Linux with GNOME

Deepin environment

MamoLinux

eDEX-UI ...

Budgie desktop ...

Boxy SVG - tool for editing SVG files.

This online tool for drawing and working with SVG file format comes with this intro:

Boxy SVG project goal is to create the best tool for editing SVG files. For beginners as well as for professional web designers and web developers. On any device and operating system. 

 ... 

 Boxy SVG is built around the idea that user interfaces should get out of the way. There is no crowded workspace with overlapping dialogs or dozens of opened palettes and toolbars. Your illustration takes the center stage. Whether it's the editing of shapes or adjustment of gradient fills, most of the action is taking place directly on the canvas. Fine control over the changes is available in panels that you can expand and then collapse with a single click or keypress. Many features are accessible with keyboard shortcuts that you can customize to your liking. This is especially useful if you are coming with a lot of muscle memory from years of using other vector graphics editors.

The tool comes with a trial for 15 days or you can subscribe with these two options: 9.99 USD/ year or 9.99 USD/month register with your account.

On the official webpage, the Linux version is Free.

I install it easily on my Fedora 33 distro Linux with the snap tool:

[mythcat@desk ~]$ snap search boxy
Name      Version  Publisher    Notes  Summary
boxy-svg  3.46.0   jarek-foksa  -      Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) editor
boxy-svg 3.46.0 from Jarosław Foksa (jarek-foksa) installed
...

I tested all features of this tool and, is very good for an SVG tool.

You can see many tutorials with this online tool from the official youtube channel.

In the next video you can see one video tutorial with the SVG library of this online tool:

Linux Games: The Pirate: Caribbean Hunt.

This weekend I played a bit with a steam game installed on the Fedora distribution. I have a pretty weak hardware of only 10 Gb Ram and an NVIDIA Corporation GT218 video card [GeForce 210] (rev a2).

The game is called The Pirate: Caribbean Hunt and you can find it here, see intro:

Hail to the Captain! Sail into the heart of the Caribbean in the Age of Piracy - the time of black flags and white skulls, blue waves and golden opportunities. Hoist the Jolly Roger and grab the steering wheel to sail through battles and raids, ransoms and treasures, to become the Crimson King.

I played for almost 7 hours and I didn't find any irregularities in the fluidity of the game. It is a very interesting game for both single player and multi player.

I found a video on the internet that shows that some users have found a way to navigate the world, see:

About Phaser Editor 2D game editor.

Today I install Phaser Editor 2D on Fedora 32, you can download it from the official website. Phaser Editor 2D is a commercial IDE to develop video-games. It is delivered as an offline product and users can run it for free (with certain limitations) or can purchase a license key to unlock all features. Phaser Editor 2D version 3, the latest, is a complete new software based on web technologies. So we created Play Phaser Editor 2D, a small service to allow Phaser Editor 2D license owners, to run the editor and create small projects in the cloud. However, in the future, we will provide a different cloud service with options for storage, collaboration, publishing, integration with other services and payment. These are the Play Phaser Editor 2D available plans: Free Plan and Premium Plan About Free Plan: Running the FREE PLAN 0B/50MB of storage is used 59 days before expiration date The Premium Plan comes with these options:

• One Year License - 30$ Valid for one year after the purchase. Phaser Editor 2D Team email support. Write to developers@phasereditor2d.com. The option to refund in the first month after the purchase.
• Two Years License - 45$ Valid for two years after the purchase. Phaser Editor 2D Team email support. Write to developers@phasereditor2d.com. The option to refund in the first month after the purchase.
• Lifetime License - 75$ Never expires. Phaser Editor 2D Team email support. Write to developers@phasereditor2d.com. The option to refund in the first month after the purchase.
• Two Years Team License - 125$ 5 developers allowed. Valid for two years. Phaser Editor 2D Team email support. Write to developers@phasereditor2d.com. The option to refund in the first month after the purchase.

This is a video tutorial from official youtube channel:

Unity 3D on Fedora 31 Linux distro.

First, you need to have good hardware to run the Unity 3D software on Fedora 31 Linux.
To install on Fedora 31 Linux is easy to do. You need to download the Unity beta application from this website.

[mythcat@desk ~]$ cd Downloads/
[mythcat@desk Downloads]$ chmod +x UnitySetup-2018.2.7f1 

You need to install this package for this file: libgconf-2.so.4

[root@desk Downloads]# dnf install GConf2-devel.x86_64

The next step is simple run the installer and follow the interface...

[mythcat@desk Downloads]$ ./UnitySetup-2018.2.7f1 

If you want to use a free license then you need to save the license from application into the file named Unity_v2018.2.7f1.alf .
Using the Unity website manual activate the free license and download the file named Unity_v2018.x.ulf. You can use the UnityHub.AppImage from Unity official website to install any Unity 3D version:

[mythcat@desk Downloads]$ chmod +x UnityHub.AppImage 
[mythcat@desk Downloads]$ ./UnityHub.AppImage 

See the screenshots:

Lutris the Open Source gaming platform for any Linux distro.

Lutris is an Open Source gaming platform for Linux. It installs and launches games so you can start playing without the hassle of setting up your games. Get your games from GOG, Steam, Battle.net, Origin, Uplay and many other sources running on any Linux powered gaming machine.
You need to create an account and you can run many games on Linux and multiple platforms, see the official website with games.
If you want to install it with your Linux distro the take a look at the official webpage.
I used the installation process on Fedora 31 with DNF tool:

[root@desk mythcat]# sudo dnf install lutris
Last metadata expiration check: 0:06:35 ago on Wed 04 Dec 2019 07:15:23 PM EET.
Dependencies resolved.
======================================================================================
 Package                    Arch       Version                      Repository   Size
======================================================================================
Installing:
 lutris                     x86_64     0.5.3-1.fc31                 fedora      2.0 M
...
Total download size: 129 M
Installed size: 708 M
Is this ok [y/N]: y
...
  llvm-libs-9.0.0-1.fc31.i686           ncurses-libs-6.1-12.20190803.fc31.i686       
  python3-evdev-1.1.2-4.fc31.x86_64     unixODBC-2.3.7-5.fc31.x86_64                 
  vulkan-loader-1.1.114.0-1.fc31.i686  

Complete!

Steam on Linux distro Fedora 31 .

You can easily install the Steam tool on Fedora 31.

[root@desk my_bash_scripts]# dnf install steam -y
Last metadata expiration check: 0:20:14 ago on Sun 10 Nov 2019 07:29:46 PM EET.
Dependencies resolved.
...
  pcre-8.43-2.fc31.1.i686                                                       
  pixman-0.38.4-1.fc31.i686                                                     
  pulseaudio-libs-13.0-1.fc31.i686                                              
  rest-0.8.1-6.fc31.i686                                                        
  systemd-libs-243-4.gitef67743.fc31.i686                                       
  xz-libs-5.2.4-6.fc31.i686                                                     

Complete!

Then you can run it with this command:

[mythcat@desk ~]$ steam 
Running Steam on fedora 31 64-bit
STEAM_RUNTIME is enabled automatically
Pins potentially out-of-date, rebuilding...
...
  Initializing engine controller
  Post-initializing framework
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Connected to server (registration)
  Disconnecting from server
  Disconnected from server
  Connected to server (game)
  Preparing engine controller for exit
  Disconnecting from server
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Game removed: AppID 488440 "", ProcID 152924 
Uploaded AppInterfaceStats to Steam
Exiting app 488440
No cached sticky mapping in ActivateActionSet.

I tested with the game Angeldust, but you can run any game.
From these funny games like Hibiscus Red, Gatlin' Demo to the last Counter-Strike.
These two screenshots show you how work's this tool game:

Easy install of GIMP with Flatpak.

GIMP is a free and open-source raster graphics editor used for image retouching and editing, free-form drawing, converting between different image formats, and more specialized tasks. GIMP is released under GPLv3+ licenses and is available for Linux, macOS, and Microsoft Windows, see Wikipedia.
Flatpak is a software utility for software deployment and package management for Linux. It is advertised as offering a sandbox environment in which users can run application software in isolation from the rest of the system. see Wikipedia.
Flatpak builds available in i386, x86-64, ARM and AArch64.

[root@desk mythcat]# dnf install flatpak.x86_64 
Last metadata expiration check: 0:27:27 ago on Fri 01 Nov 2019 11:27:47 PM EET.
Dependencies resolved.
...
Installed:
  flatpak-1.4.3-1.fc30.x86_64                                                   
  p11-kit-server-0.23.16.1-1.fc30.x86_64                                        
  xdg-desktop-portal-1.4.2-1.fc30.x86_64                                        
  xdg-desktop-portal-gtk-1.4.0-1.fc30.x86_64                                    
  flatpak-selinux-1.4.3-1.fc30.x86_64                                           
  flatpak-session-helper-1.4.3-1.fc30.x86_64                                    
  ostree-libs-2019.4-3.fc30.x86_64                                              

Complete!

The install and run of last GIMP software is easy, see commands:

[mythcat@desk ~]$ flatpak install https://flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.gimp.GIMP.flatpakref

Note that the directories 

'/var/lib/flatpak/exports/share'
'/home/mythcat/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share'

are not in the search path set by the XDG_DATA_DIRS environment variable, so applications installed by 
Flatpak may not appear on your desktop until the session is restarted.

Required runtime for org.gimp.GIMP/x86_64/stable (runtime/org.gnome.Platform/x86_64/3.32) found in remote
 flathub
Do you want to install it? [Y/n]: Y       

org.gimp.GIMP permissions:
    ipc                   network        x11       file access [1]
    dbus access [2]       tags [3]

    [1] /tmp, host, xdg-config/GIMP, xdg-config/gtk-3.0
    [2] org.freedesktop.FileManager1, org.gtk.vfs, org.gtk.vfs.*
    [3] stable
        ID                                    Arch   Branch Remote  Download
        ID                                    Arch   Branch Remote  Download
 1. [✓] org.gnome.Platform                    x86_64 3.32   flathub 360.0 MB / 374.0 MB
 2. [✓] org.gnome.Platform.Locale             x86_64 3.32   flathub  17.4 kB / 320.0 MB
 3. [✓] org.freedesktop.Platform.VAAPI.Intel  x86_64 18.08  flathub   1.8 MB / 1.8 MB
 4. [✓] org.freedesktop.Platform.html5-codecs x86_64 18.08  flathub   3.2 MB / 3.3 MB
 5. [✓] org.gimp.GIMP                         x86_64 stable flathub 106.5 MB / 108.9 MB

Installation complete.
[mythcat@desk ~]$ flatpak update

Note that the directories 

'/var/lib/flatpak/exports/share'
'/home/mythcat/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share'

are not in the search path set by the XDG_DATA_DIRS environment variable, so
applications installed by Flatpak may not appear on your desktop until the session is restarted.

Looking for updates…
Nothing to do.
[mythcat@desk ~]$ flatpak run org.gimp.GIMP//stable

Note that the directories 

'/var/lib/flatpak/exports/share'
'/home/mythcat/.local/share/flatpak/exports/share'

are not in the search path set by the XDG_DATA_DIRS environment variable, so
applications installed by Flatpak may not appear on your desktop until the session is restarted.

GIMP-Error: Skipping '/home/mythcat/.var/app/org.gimp.GIMP/config/GIMP/2.10/pluginrc
wrong GIMP protocol version.
...

GDevelop - game programming tool .

A quick introduction to this online tool comes from the official website , see this:

GDevelop runs on Windows, macOS and most recent Linux distributions.
You can also try it online using Chrome, Firefox or another recent web browser. 
... 
GDevelop is an open-source project.

This is tool can be used on your desktop with most operating systems but also online.
I tested it and it's easy to use and come with default examples and sample.
The result can be used on web or like application.
For Android applications you need to install it on your desktop.

The appleseed version 1.8.0 - beta released.

The appleseed is an open source, physically-based global illumination rendering engine primarily designed for animation and visual effects and is developed by a small team from VFX industry.
The day of November 28, 2017 come with this news: We’re proud to announce the release of appleseed 1.8.0-beta, the eighth release of our beta program and the 31th release since the first alpha in July 2010.
This tool supports:

• fully programmable shading via Sony Pictures Imageworks’ Open Shading Language (OSL);
• RGB/spectral/mixed rendering;
• fast and robust transformation and deformation motion blur;
• state-of-the-art ray traced subsurface scattering;
• exhaustive Python and C++ APIs;
• ... and many other production-oriented features.

You can read more on official website.
The next video from official vimeo channel is an old basic tutorial of appleseed software.

Maps with telnet .

The MapSCII use telnet to show you whole world into your console.
The project can be found here.
To test it just run this telnet command with your linux or use PuTTY on Windows:

telnet mapscii.me

News: The new released Krita version 3.3.1 .

The Krita development team tell us:

Published    10/11/2017

Today we are releasing Krita 3.3.1, a bugfix release for Krita 3.3.0. This release fixes two important regressions:

Krita would crash if you would restart Krita after closing Krita with the reference images docker set to floating
Krita 3.3.0 could not read .kra backup files or .kra files that were unzipped, then zipped up manually.
Additionally, there are the following fixes and improvements:

Fix a crash when creating a swap file on OSX (Bernhard Liebl).
Merge down does not remove locked layers anymore (Nikita Smirnov)
Various performance improvements, especially for macOS (Bernhard Liebl)
Improve the look and feel of dragging and dropping layers (Bernhard Liebl)
Improve the tooltips in the brush preset selector (Bernhard Liebl)
Fix a memory leak in the color selectors (Boudewijn Rempt)
Fix rotation and tilt when using the Windows Ink api (Alvin Wong)
Don’t allow the fill tool to be used on group layers (Boudewijn Rempt)
Add brightness and contrast sliders for textured brushes (Rad)
Add paste-at-cursor (Dmitry Kazakov)
Improve performance of the cpu canvas (Alvin Wong)
Fix a crash on closing Krita when there is something on the clipboard (Dmitry Kazakov)
Add a button to open a file layer’s image in Krita (Wolthera van Hövell tot Westerflier)

You can read more about this new version of Krita software and download it from here.

The Gimp version 2.9.6 devel .

Today I tested the new devel tool Gimp version 2.9.6 from official website .
For me this graphic tool was stable.
I used version 2.9.6 for windows OS.
I don't test scripts just some of basic features.
Come with a funny install application and a good message for users.
The interface is same but with a dark theme.
The shortcuts keys are the same ( I don't see many changes).
For development option is this GIMP output.
When the application is start show me some errors, so I send all infos to development team.
I used this tool in the past and is great , free , easy to use and with many options.
If you know the interpreting language called Scheme the will love to scripting your Gimp tools.

News: Blender 3D - version 2.79

The Blender 3D is an open source software with a great team.
They tell us about this new released version of Blender 3D:
These are the release notes for Blender 2.79, released September 12th, 2017.

• Denoiser
• PBR Shader
• Shadow Catcher
• Filmic Color Management
• Faster AMD OpenCL
• over 700 bugs fixed
• so much more!

Some features can be found here.
You can also download this 3D software from here.

After you download it, you need to run the install executable for Windows.
If you use a Linux OS then you just run it with: ./blender.
You can the windows of this 3D software tool into the next image:
The next step is to set the Blender 3D from menu: File -> User Preferences ( or use keys Ctr - Alt - U ).
First step:
 - set your CPU or graphic card - GPU into System tab;
 - set your addons to see if works with this version;
 - test all this with a simple example but using all renders: ( Blender, Cycles and Blender Game); 

Some addons I used: ANT Landscape, animation-nodes, blam, blender-light-studio, mira-tools, uvsquares. 
You can find more about this addons blenderartists website.