Runescape old school and Linux

A while ago the Java plugin I was using in Pale Moon stopped working.  Nothing on the part of Pale Moon, but, the plugin isn't supported anymore.  That wouldn't be a problem except I play Runescape Old School on it and I was forced to use my Windows 10 machine until I figured out how to get it to work again.

I played around with various settings and even tried to launch it from the command line without any luck.  I then checked into the Runescape forums with the search on 'LINUX' and I found a thread (quick link 278-279-207-66116400) describing how to search for 'RuneScape Unix Client'.  I did a search on the web and found in GitHub a client.  I didn't want to try this on my main Linux box just in case, but, the Win10 box I am running virtual machine software and I had MX linux running on it too.  I followed the GitHub instructions (running as root for Debian) and when it was done I had a working Runescape client.  You do have to be patient (especially for getting the keys). 

There seems to be a difference in what I have in the VM and my main box as I couldn't find the Runescape client launch in the menu.  I realized that was the one machine I haven't moved to MX, but, ANTIX.  I had to do a backup of my documents and rebuilt so that every machine in the house works with one version of Linux.  Once it was working I installed the client and it worked...

RS Client with OSRS picked

OSRS Welcome screen

Trying out Lubuntu 19.04

This isn't a full review of the distro, just a quick walk-through of a distro I was using  over a few years.  I moved off to AntiX last year as I wanted to cut back  the number of distros I was running at home to make it easier for me to manage my home network.  Lubuntu was OK, but, I was looking for a lighter and faster distro for my eight year old netbook and AntiX worked quite well.

With the latest one I wanted to see what it looked like and how it worked.  The installation went quite well using VirtualBox.  I tweaked the setup a  bit.  I changed from 1 gig to 4 gigs of memory (the netbook has two), 2 CPUs (matching the netbook) and the default screen from 800x600 (netbook) to 1360x768 (making it readable on my WIN10 machine).

The initial profile works quite well and is responsive on the machine as set up.  It feels snappy and doesn't use a lot of system resources. 

As you can see above in a shell and Htop it doesn't use a lot of memory when it starts up and I am fairly sure I can tweak the startup to use less by turning off processes I don't want or need.

One of the first tweaks I made is to change the double-click mouse to single-click.  I have been using that for years and that is what I am comfortable with.

Using the Muon package manager was quite easy and is close enough to working like Synaptic that I didn't notice a big difference.  The only difference is when you search.  In Synaptic you type in the word(s) and press [SEARCH] and in Muon it searches as you type.

I did a 'Check for Updates' after install and installed the few updated packages that were there.  The process was quick even in the VM and while it was doing that I launched Firefox and tweaked the settings there while the system updated.  The one package I hoped was there is PaleMoon.  I use that to play Runescape Old School on my other Linux boxes as it still supports the Java Plugin and Firefox doesn't.  Palemoon does have a Linux download option and that is something I need to explore later on and the JRE.  For that I will look at the netbook for the packages I have installed and mirror that setup in the VM.

My next step is to burn a USB stick with the distro and see how it launches and runs on the netbook and my main Linux box.  If that looks good I may convert the old media box from Vista (shudder) to Linux and the wife's laptop also.  AntiX is good, but, so far Lubuntu looks pretty good too.

Overall if you have an older machine this may be a distro to check out if you don't want to go to AntiX..

A new midrange laptop for me and what I use for specific jobs

Some people may think that three laptops that I have are too many, but, I don't.  I have machines for specific tasks.  The netbook is an old machine that I bought years ago on sale and the HP is a refurbished model.  The Dell machine is the only new laptop and I bought it specifically for gaming and to store a lot of digital images.
 

Netbook:

I have the netbook set up with LUBUNTU.  That is great distro for a five year old netbook with 2 gigs of memory.  It allows me access to web mail, Facebook, Twitter and a few other things when I travel and it is very light and the battery lasts about 4-6 hours depending on what I am doing which is great when traveling.  If I am doing light digital editing it isn't to bad, a bit slow, but usable. 

HP Laptop

I picked up a nice mid-range laptop for my every day work at home.  It is a HP EliteBook 8440P.  Eight gigs of memory and one hundred and twenty-eight gig SSD.  I originally had LUBUNTU, but, something in how I did and configured caused the screen to go 'nuts' at times.  I put on PCLINUXOS and it has been rock solid.  This machine is my daily machine rather than my high end gaming system.  It allows ready access to social media (Facebook and Twitter), email and light gaming.  It also is used for digital editing and other daily work.

PCLINUXOS installed a lot of software I don't need and it was easy to remove them. I like the distro and I used it years ago and I see it has gotten better over time.  The desktop is KDE and it is close enough to Windows that anyone accustomed to Windows (up to 7) will be at home using it.  It is light enough on system resources that it is snappier than windows.  As an example this laptop launches in about thirty seconds (including the time for my to type in my password) and shuts down in about five seconds.  My gaming system takes about a minute to launch and about two minutes to shut down.

I am now playing Old School Runescape on the machine and it is as fast in a browser as when I am using my gaming system with the Runescape client software.

Todo

• I transferred my various Bash scripts from the netbook here, but, I had to make minor tweaks due to the difference in terminals and the options used to compile Bash.  My next mini-project will be to look at the scripts and figure out how to rewrite them so that run on both systems without changes.
• Set up and configure the Brother network printer.
• Set up and configure the old scanner to work on this machine.
• Install and configure additional software to play DVD movies.

Dell Gaming system

My high end machine is a Dell.  Right now it is running Windows 10.  I use this for heavy duty gaming and software that runs only on windows (income tax).  This machine has eight gigs of memory and a one terabyte drive.  This is my main machine for all of my digital photos and scanned documents.  Anything I do on the HP for digital images gets transferred here and once a month the files are backed up to an external one terabyte drive.

Main machine upgraded to windows 10

After a few months of waiting and waiting for the bugs to show up & get fixed I finally upgraded my Dell laptop from Win8.1 to Win10.  Since Windows 8.0 is not being supported the writing is on the wall for Windows 8.1.  I figure this is a good time as the 'free' upgrade is still available and the initial bugs should have had a chance to get fixed.

Before I did the upgrade I did a full backup of every file I had on the laptop just-in-case.  The upgrade itself took about an hour and it looks good so far.  The upgrade preserved my settings, but, there are still a few tweaks to go for privacy.

One of the first things I did was to make Cortana an icon on my desktop bar at the bottom, I just don't want it hogging valuable real estate.  The second was to make Firefox the default browser as I never use IE (now Edge).  My anti-virus (Avast) still runs without issue and no glitches so far.

Over the next few days I will be stress testing the upgrade by playing my favorite on-line game (Old school Runescape), my office suite (LibreOffice), email (Thunderbird) and graphics (GIMP & Irfanview), scanner (older model Epson) and lastly my printers (wired laser & wi-fi inkjet).

Update 2016/02/13

True color doesn't work properly.  It is Windows 8.1 only.  First step is to turn autostart off, then true color off.  If you don't do it that way it can't be turned off at start-up.

More Windows 10 annoyances

I have been putting off the Windows 10 upgrade on my main laptop and now Microsoft is getting more annoying.  I would like to turn off the 'notice', but, I haven't see any option.  More annoying is they pop up their notice over top of whatever I am working in.  I was lucky in that I wasn't doing anything dangerous in the online game, but, this is something that should not be done for advertising an upgrade.

My Windows 10 upgrade experience

Pre-Installation

It finally happened, Windows had a notice on my netbook that the Win10 upgrade was ready.  First thing I did was to make sure I had a backup of my data just in case.  I wanted to do my netbook first as it is an older, slower machine and if the upgrade worked well on that machine it should work well on my high end laptop.

The machine is an Acer Aspire One D255E.

• CPU - Intel Atom N455 - 1.66 GHz
• Memory - 2 Gigs (I upgraded from 1 Gig last month)
• Storage - 160 gigs

Installation

The process itself was very painless.  Be prepared to spend at least three hours for the upgrade.

Download, Configuration and Installation

Once you click the start it is almost hands off.  All you need is patience.  For the most part it does a good job of telling you what it is doing.  Towards the end it even informed me that it was taking a bit longer than normal which in itself is a nice touch from Microsoft.

The following screen captures is what you should see during the installation up to the point of your customizing the setup.

Custom Install process

Once you get through all of this you can start the final process.  I strongly suggest you pick the custom option.  This way you can turn off the sharing of information and ensure your default browser stays as the default.

Your old password is used

I am not sharing everything with MS

More things I turned off

Here is where you can modify default apps

I turned off a number of apps as I have my own

I like this, they know it is a bit slow & lets you know

When done it brings you to what you are familiar with

I tested out Old School Runescape

It actually seems to run better in Win10

There are other things I will be doing, but, there are online articles explaining this better that I can.  Do a search on 'How To Stop Windows 10 from using your PC bandwith' on how to turn off your sharing your bandwidth for downloading Win10 upgrade.

This blog was written on the Win10 netbook in Firefox and so far I have not encountered any problems.  Avast worked without issue, Irfanview worked without an issue and Runescape runs without a problem.

Update 2015/08/16

So far it has been running very well.  Did an update and it worked well and asked to reboot when finished.  Browser updated without issue and playing OSRS is nice and no lagg there.

Had to do a quick fix to my netbook

I was planning to upgrade my old Acer Aspire1 Netbook.  The machine has an Atom N455 processor and 1 gig of memory and a HD of about 160 Gigs.  It was going to be my test machine on how well Windows 10 would work on it after the upgrade.  I did a lot of cleaning on the machine removing all of the software I won't need and backing up all of my data.  Last Monday the machine showed 0% battery and I thought I left it on and it discharged.  No problem, I would leave it plugged in over night and continue the cleanup.  The next day it wasn't charging and I had a battery that reached end of life and would not charge.

I checked the local big boxes, but, they don't carry a replacement battery for the netbook.  I checked Canada Computers and they had a replacement battery in stock.  A quick call confirmed they had one and held it for me.  While I had them on the phone I asked if they had a 2 gig memory stick for the machine and they also had that and held it for me.  I dropped the laptop off at the store about 16:00.  I had them install the memory as I know that it is a bit of a job taking apart the machine and replacing the memory.  The technician thought it would take several hours and he would call me when it was done.  They called me back at 18:00 and the machine was ready to be picked up. 

I picked up the machine the next day and did a quick check to verify that everything was good and then paid for the upgrades.  Battery cost me $50, memory $20 and the technician was $40 (money well spent).  They even took the time to clean out behind the keyboard and the keys that were a bit sticky are working great now. 

The machine is running very smoothly now and I think the browsers (Firefox & Google) are launching a bit faster and running faster as they have another gig of memory to play with.  Running Runescape Old School seems to be launching and running a bit better to due to the additional memory.

All I have to do now is wait until the Windows 10 upgrade is downloaded and installed and I will see how it works on an old Netbook.

Right now I am happy as there is a local company who does stocks parts for older machines and technicians who know what they are doing.  The big box stores may be fine for the new stuff, but, they can't beat knowledgeable geeks who love 'playing' on computers.

Got the Windows 10 offer

I have been getting a few questions if the Windows 10 upgrade offer on their screen was legit.  I let them know that Microsoft will be upgrading Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 machine towards the end of July.

The screen would look like the following that appeared on my netbook.

I will be doing the upgrade on the Netbook.  It is an older machine, 1 gig of memory, slow processor and small screen.  If the upgrade goes well then the newer machine will get the upgrade.  I didn't convert the netbook as it was the only box that would play Old School Runescape in Windows and it will not run in Linux.

For anyone thinking upgrading all I have to say MAKE A BACKUP.  Save all of your important documents on a drive that is not attached to the machine being converted.  I would also recommend:

•  Do a scan for viruses just-in-case;
• Check the drive for errors;
• Clean out any crap you don't want;
• Make an inventory of the hardware you have in the machine.

Once the netbook gets converted I will see if I can make a backup of the Win10 image like I made for the 8.1 machine.  After that I will be checking out how the O/S runs and the big one is see if Old School Runescape still runs.  If there are problems I will be looking at one of the various light Linux distros and see what one wll run Runescape.