Games: vkBasalt, Ikey Doherty, Crusader Kings II, Sunless Skies

• vkBasalt, an open source Vulkan post processing layer for Contrast Adaptive Sharpening

  This is an interesting open source project! vkBasalt is a new Vulkan post processing layer that currently supports Contrast Adaptive Sharpening. Unlike Radeon Image Sharpening, vkBasalt supports Linux and works with both NVIDIA and AMD. This isn't entirely reinventing the wheel though, as it's partly based upon the ReShade port of AMD's CAS. Still, it's fun to see what hackers are able to do with little layers like this, especially when we don't have official support.

• Ikey Doherty Launches Open-Source Focused Game/Software Development Company

  Well known open-source figure Ikey Doherty who rose to prominence for his work on the Solus Linux distribution and then went on to work on Intel's Clear Linux project is now having his hand at game engine development. Ikey shared with us that he left Intel back in May to begin his new adventure: Lispy Snake. Lispy Snake is a UK software development firm that at least initially is working on a game engine and games. Given Ikey's experience, the firm is focused on leveraging open-source technologies.

• After making Crusader Kings II free, Paradox are now giving away The Old Gods expansion

  It's been a bit of a whirlwind of Paradox news recently and we have even more to share. With a tiny amount of effort, you can get The Old Gods expansion for Crusader Kings II free. This is after Crusader Kings II was set free to play and Crusader Kings III was announced just like I suggested it would be.

• Failbetter Games are upgrading owners of Sunless Skies to the Sovereign Edition next year

  Failbetter Games have announced that Sunless Skies is getting a bit of an upgrade with the Sovereign Edition and it's going to be free to existing purchasers when it's release next year. Part of the reason, is that it will be releasing on Consoles so they're polishing the experience up some more. It's not just a special console edition though, it's coming with a bunch of new content and various improvements to the flow of it. To release on PC at the same time as Consoles, free for existing players.

What To Do After Installing Ubuntu 19.10 Eoan Ermine

In this traditional article special for Ubuntu 19.10 Eoan Ermine you will find my suggestions and recommendations in 3 parts, work (including date/time adjustments, productivity tools), non-work (including extensions, podcasts, RSS, codecs), and system maintenance (including CPU-X, repository setup, auto-backup). I also have suggestion for you wanting Global Menu on this Eoan Ermine OS at the end. Adjust it once and use freely everyday. Finally, I hope Ubuntu 19.10 will be your best tool you could imagine to use without worry. Happy working!

Python Programming Leftovers

• Pylint: Making your Python code consistent

  Pylint is a higher-level Python style enforcer. While flake8 and black will take care of "local" style: where the newlines occur, how comments are formatted, or find issues like commented out code or bad practices in log formatting. Pylint is extremely aggressive by default. It will offer strong opinions on everything from checking if declared interfaces are actually implemented to opportunities to refactor duplicate code, which can be a lot to a new user. One way of introducing it gently to a project, or a team, is to start by turning all checkers off, and then enabling checkers one by one. This is especially useful if you already use flake8, black, and mypy: Pylint has quite a few checkers that overlap in functionality.

• PyDev of the Week: Sophy Wong

  This week we welcome Sophy Wong (@sophywong) as our PyDev of the Week! Sophy is a maker who uses Circuit Python for creating wearables. She is also a writer and speaker at Maker events. You can see some of her creations on her Youtube Channel or her website. Let’s take a few moments to get to know her better!

• Erik Marsja: Converting HTML to a Jupyter Notebook

  In this short post, we are going to learn how to turn the code from blog posts to Jupyter notebooks.

Proper Linux Screen Sharing Coming to Chromium & Electron Apps like Discord

A patch to add ‘screen enumeration’ to the Chromium browser is currently pending merge upstream. Once this fix is accepted Chromium and Chromium-based apps (like Discord) will finally support full screen sharing on Linux in a manner similar to that on Windows and macOS. Not being a multi-monitor user, or someone who shares their screen often, I wasn’t aware of this particular limitation until recently. So I’ll explain.