Any Linux software repositories that offer up-to-date SL viewers?

[Mircea Lobo]

Recently, I switched away from Windows to Linux (openSUSE). Although I was able to run the official SL some months ago, the latest version of any viewer crashes at startup and will not work. It's due to some libraries being incompatible or not packed properly... this time it was libfontconfig or something. The issue is being discussed somewhere else however, and debugging it is not the purpose of this thread.

The problem is I frequently get library incompatibilities with software downloaded from other websites, and don't get them with programs I install from my distribution's software repositories. Although the Second Life client is open source, neither it or any custom viewer is available on the games repositories for Linux (at least my distro's). Best way to run SL would be fixing this and running it from a repo instead... but I don't know of any.

Are there any software repositories that offer the latest version of the SL viewer, compatible with popular Linux distributions? I'm looking for one which offers both that and the Firestorm viewer... due to LL's dumb decision to remove OpenSim support from theirs. In my case I use an rpm-based distro, but feel free to link deb ones too for users who have those and get the same problem. Thanks.

[Baloo Uriza]

You might find it easier to use Debian (what the Lindens use) or Ubuntu (a popular Debian-derived distribution) instead.

[Jean Horten]

Hi.

There are Third Party Viewers that include a fix for the fontconfig bug. You could try SIngularity, Teapot, Kokua or Firestorm.

Of course you could also run a (insert name of preferred websearch here) search and find fixes for the fontconfig problem this way, they exist and are easy to do.

Mentioning Open SIm support: No official LL viewer offers this anymore due to pathfinding related licensing issues with the latest physics engine Havok. Third Party viewers still offer  Open Sim support ( or special open sim enabled Viewer versions) though, as they use different versions of Havok

Next thing, installing: Linux is not windows, there is absolutely no need to install a viewer on linux, just download the packed viewer, unpack it and run the viewer startup shell script. this script usually is called (viewername).sh and can be run without previuos installation.

J.

 

 

[Jean Horten]

Debian rocks but is not that easy to setup for newbies, Ubuntu loses more and more credibility withe each new release, the latest versions comes with amazon ads thta are being displayed on your dash( Adware, can be disabled, should be opt-in!)  and with a key logger (Spyware, cannot be disabled) that sends every search term that you enter into your dash search to a server at Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu. Plus: Begging for donations in a so called free system is not the smartest move.

IMHO, Linux Mint MATE is the best distro for beginners these days  and has become much more popular tham Ubuntu after Ubuntu introdiced their new  unpopular, dumb 'one Size fits no form factor' user interface unity.

J.

[Mircea Lobo]

I heard that Firestorm fixed it in GIT, but since the SL viewer is one thing I don't know how to compile I just download the binaries. I'm waiting for their version to be updated. Issue is that for most software, I run it via software repositories, which is also easier to maintain and update. Would have liked being able to do that with SL as well, but I assume this means there are no rpm repos for it.

And yeah, I heard about that licensing issue even if I don't understand it. That and why something like SL ever needs pathfinding support (it's not Grand Theft Auto lol). But I'm past caring at this point... just glad SL viewer is open-source and OpenSim won't suffer too badly from this decision. But yes, it does mean I'll want both the Linden viewer and something viewer 3 based that works with OpenSim.

[Baloo Uriza]

Debian and Ubuntu use the same installer.  If you have an internet connection and have ever installed Windows before, you'll find Debian to be very easy-breezy by comparison.  There's even a handy online installer.

[Jean Horten]

Yay, good luck with installing proprietary graphics drivers under Debian.....

J.

[Baloo Uriza]

sudo m-a a-i fglrx (for AMD chips)

sudo m-a a-i nvidia (for nVidia chips)

You were saying?

[Mircea Lobo]

I'd like to know when the fglrx driver distributed in the free Linux repositories will support 3D accleeration and games Though the proprietary one should work on any distro if packed properly. So far though, I'm very ok with openSUSE and not planning to move to another distribution. Only problem is I can't run SL from a repo like most other software

[Jean Horten]

---

Baloo Uriza wrote:

sudo m-a a-i fglrx (for AMD chips)

sudo m-a a-i nvidia (for nVidia chips)

You were saying?

---

No, seems you're misinformed about  proprietary driver installations under Debian.

For proper nVidia driver install see here: nVidia Driver Debian installation

For proper ATI/AMD driver isntall see here: ATI/AMD Driver Debian installation

 

Both drivers require considerably more effort  than just a single terminal command for a proper installation with all kernel modules etc.

 

Jeannie

 

 

[Mircea Lobo]

Don't know about Debian, but installing the proper ATI driver on openSUSE (and probably any other distribution) has been a nightmare for years. As the package for my distribution from amd.com would never work for me and result in corrupt graphics. Thankfully at this day, someone has a properly packaged version on a software repository, so I simply install that from Yast and restart and it works perfectly well. Still sucks you need a proprietary driver to run 3D games in Linux...