I wanted to play a couple of Windows games on my Ubuntu 9.04 system. Both of the games required the Steam client. Steam had no problem downloading or installing the games under Wine. Except once a game was started the game menus were unreadable, this made play time a pain.

The text was unreadable because the Tahoma(Microsoft) font is not part of Ubuntu(Linux). The solution is to download the font from the Microsoft website and install the executable.

Font installation

Download the Tahoma font executable Tahoma32.exe.

wget http://download.microsoft.com/download/office97pro/fonts/1/w95/en-us/tahoma32.exe

From the command line use Wine to install tahoma32.exe.

wine tahoma32.exe

You will have to agree to the license agreement by clicking on Yes. If everything installs without a problem you should see a new windows informing you that Tahoma Regular and Bold are now installed!.

Restart Steam for the changes to take effect.

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StarWind Software released another great tool at no cost. This time the tool is called StarWind Converter which is a V2V converter with support for Microsoft and VMware disk formats. This tool makes virtual machine migration from VMware to Microsoft easier and vice versa an easy task.

From the StarWind website

StarWind Converter is a downloadable V2V conversion tool for virtual machines. You can use it to convert VMDK to VHD files and VHD to VMDK as well as to IMG file which is a native StarWind format. This is a very simple but useful file conversion tool that will convert virtual hard drive images from VMware’s VMDK format into the Microsoft’s VHD format. It is a sector by sector copy operation from one format to the other. It does not modify the source image and will leave it so you can continue to use it.

The unique feature of the free StarWind V2V Converter is that it allows IT administrators to easily migrate any virtual machines from direct attached storage to shared storage on the network in one quick and simple step. Therefore anybody can move VMDK or VHD images safely to shared storage, allowing for virtual server clustering, therefore ensuring high application and VM availability. This also means that system administrators will be able to use advanced VMware features such as VMotion, VMware HA, DRS and VCB now that they moved VMDKs to shared storage.

Related links

StarWind Converter

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• Microsoft to charge Europeans double for Windows 7
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If you are thinking of running pfSense at home then you might interested in knowing about low power and low cost hardware platforms. This might be a better alternative to running a noisy and not so efficient older PC. This post is not about which one is better, but only to inform.

After searching online I found two capable and affordable solutions. One is made by PC Engines and the second one by Intel.

Hardware

ALIX2D3

• AMD Geode LX800
• 256MB DDR DRAM
• 3 Onboard NICs 10/100
• 1 miniPCI
• USB
• Fanless
• Cost $116

What I like ?
Small form factor and fanless makes for a winning combination. Plenty of NICs. Bundle with pfSense and you have a winning combination.

What I don’t like ?
Some operating systems are hassle to install, not really a con.

Intel D945GCLF

• Intel Atom processor 230
• 1×240pin slot (2GB max memory supported)
• 1xPATA
• 2xSATA
• 1 Onboard NIC 10/100
• Mini ITX
• Cost $64.99

What I like ?
Cheap and plenty of processing power for pfSense. Expandable thanks to SATA and PATA.

What I don’t like ?
Limited number of PCI slots, only one.

You still need to provide a PSU, storage and case or enclosure to have a fully functioning system.

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