Problem using the Linux viewer

[Phil Deakins]

A friend of mine is brand new to SL. She created an account yesterday or the day before and has to use the LL Linux viewer. She was ok doing the Welcome stuff but now she can't move properly. She can only use the mouse to move. The cursor keys simply move the scene, not the avatar. I thought she was somehow stuck in mouselook but pressing Esc a couple of times, and scrolling the scroll wheel back, doesn't change anything. Apparently she can see her own back which I don't think you can do in mouselook anyway.

Does anyone have any idea what setting she might have inadvertantly set in her viewer that can cause this? In other words, does anyone know how she can get out of it and back to moving around normally, using the cursor keys?

[Solar Legion]

... There is no LL Linux Viewer.

Yes yes I am aware that there is one listed somewhere within the Downloads section. it is so out of date as to be functionally useless.

Singularity, CoolVL Viewer, Firestorm and a small handful of others do have Linux branches, have your friend use one of those.

Yes, TPVs are the only viable option on Linux at present.

Now if by "has to use" you mean the others throw missing dependency errors, you can hit the AUR (Arch User Repository) and track down a TPV there to see what dependencies may be missing. If you mean their hardware is incapable of running an existing, up to date Viewer then there isn't much that can be done to help.

I'd ask which distribution of Linux is being run but when it comes to install/package management by distribution I am afraid any assistance I could give would be quite limited. I've only used Xubuntu and Manjaro.

[Phil Deakins]

Ty for the quick reply, Solar. I know nothing about it myself, so presumably she downloaded what was listed in the downloads section. It works ok except that she's inadvertantly set something that causes the movement problem in that viewer. If anyone can suggest what she might have set, she could unset it. Failing that, I'll suggest she installs one of the others.

[Solar Legion]

2 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

Ty for the quick reply, Solar. I know nothing about it myself, so presumably she downloaded what was listed in the downloads section. It works ok except that she's inadvertantly set something that causes the movement problem in that viewer. If anyone can suggest what she might have set, she could unset it. Failing that, I'll suggest she installs one of the others.

I'm afraid her problems will be far worse than just the movement issue - wish I had a clue on what was causing that - as a lot of backend bits have since been shut down or deprecated since the release of that particular Viewer.

This is the Release Notes for the final LL released Linux Viewer - note the date on that. Sadly one way or the other she's going to have to use one of the more up to date ones.

Hopefully someone comes along who can help with the movement issue so she at least can avoid it going forward.

[Phil Deakins]

hmmm almost 3 years have gone by since then. It does look like it's going to have to be one of the others. Ty, Solar.

[KjartanEno]

As far as the interface goes, Marine's Restrained Love Viewer matches the default LL experience most closely on Linux. It was just updated with the latest code. Kokua offers versions with and without RLV, and it has been updated with LL's most recent code. If she's new, I'd especially avoid recommending the Cool VL Viewer. That leaves Firestorm, which still offers the older Windlight renderer v6.3.9 and the EEP beta v6.4.5. Neither is up to the latest code from LL, but at the same time they are feature complete viewers that run well.

I know of someone who has compiled the default LL viewer for Linux with the latest code, which in my personal experience runs well. However, I understand that there is a reluctance to run some program that doesn't come from the official LL or TPV sources.

[Phil Deakins]

Thank you very much, KjartanEno. I appreciate the reply.

[oOJoselinOo]

could it be that the option to move with arrow keys is disabled?

i know that there is an function for that in firestorm, but i dont remeber where. could have a look when my rl work is done 😃

[Phil Deakins]

Ty, @oOJoselinOo I don't know what she's done but, unfortunately, I don't use the Linux viewer so I can rummage around in it to find out. I've explained that the viewer she's using is years out of date, and given her the details of where to the Firestorm one, so it's up to her now.

It's interesting to know that there is a setting somewhere in some viewer that can turn off moving the avatar with the cursor keys. I'm now wondering if she get move the avatar with the w.a.s.d keys (are they the ones?). I didn't think of suggesting that to her. I will the next time I see her.

Edited October 10, 2020 by Phil Deakins

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

The setting is something like "Arrow keys always move me", when set to true you can't cursor to and fro in the chat-bar to correct typos. The other setting you'll want to look at if you're going to try the WASD is "pressing letter keys starts local chat", if set to true then your plans will be thwarted again.

Edited October 10, 2020 by Profaitchikenz Haiku

[Phil Deakins]

Thank you, @Profaitchikenz Haiku

[Liffento Eldritch]

Yea LL hasn't put out an updated Linux viewer for awhile now as I believe they don't have someone that works on them.  There are third party viewers that works on Linux viewers you could try like Firestorm as they do try to put out a viewer with some of the newer features in it that the Official Linux viewer does not have.  

This site shows a list of TPV viewers in it and it also marks which OS they have viewers for.  http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Third_Party_Viewer_Directory

[Phil Deakins]

That's an interesting list you linked to, @Liffento Eldritch. Thank you.

 

[Waialae]

Hiya Phil. I used the Linux viewer for a long time and it worked just fine - movements were smooth using my keyboard's arrow keys. The difference may be in what distro your friend is using (which version of Linux). I was using Linux Mint. It may be that the distro your friend is using has different functions assigned to the arrow keys, so they end up useless when in SL viewer. How to find out: Burn an install DVD of Linux Mint (free download), then reboot with the DVD still in the machine. When it powers up the BIOS will give you the choice to run the normal Linux distro or Linux Mint. Choose Mint, then download and run SL viewer. If the SL viewer works in Mint, you'll know the problem was the distro.

 

[Phil Deakins]

Thank you Waialae. I don't think that will happen though because she has to rely on her husband to do anything like that. The alternative viewer that's been mentioned hasn't been installed yet, so she can't even try it. But she's only using SL come come and play backgammon with me, and since she's discovered a liking for it, Cheesy too. It can be difficult to get a view where she can see the board but she's managing - sometimes with a struggle.

[KjartanEno]

1 hour ago, Phil Deakins said:

Thank you Waialae. I don't think that will happen though because she has to rely on her husband to do anything like that. The alternative viewer that's been mentioned hasn't been installed yet, so she can't even try it. But she's only using SL come come and play backgammon with me, and since she's discovered a liking for it, Cheesy too. It can be difficult to get a view where she can see the board but she's managing - sometimes with a struggle.

This is a common issue, I think. Even I used the camera controls a lot when I was new, and it was a struggle to move the camera around accurately. However, all viewers have the ability to cam using ALT+left-click on any object in a scene and rotate around it horizontally and zoom into it. Using CTRL+ALT+left-click rotates around and vertically over any object. It then comes down to muscle memory with practice, as using the keyboard and mouse in this way is far more responsive than relying on the viewer's camera controls. Pressing ESC key will reset the view to the default view. None of this requires going into settings for more advanced options.

[Velk Kerang]

What distribution does your friend use? This should work regardless. I installed Firestorm and Singularity on mine and I run Ubuntu 18.04 LTS myself. If she has all the dependencies installed properly then she shouldn't have a problem playing once the viewer is installed mate. Hope this helps and good luck.

 

Edited October 30, 2020 by Velk Kerang
Corrections.

[Phil Deakins]

I've no idea what she uses and neither does she. Her husband is the one who deals with that stuff. In the first post I said that she got through the Welcome area ok, so the problem was probably caused by her doing something after that and not knowing what she did. When he installs a viewer again, it should be ok. I've no doubt that the version she's using works fine as long as you don't make changes to things without knowing what you're doing lol. I started the thread to see if anyone knew what she might have done to cause the problem.

She's not in mouselook because she sees her own back. She may well see things normally but the cursor keys don't move her, and she has to use the mouse to move and change her view. That's the problem. The viewer she's using is probably fine. I'll suggest the cam controls to her, but it's not the answer.

Edited October 30, 2020 by Phil Deakins

[Beq Janus]

On 10/30/2020 at 9:29 AM, Phil Deakins said:

I've no idea what she uses and neither does she. Her husband is the one who deals with that stuff. In the first post I said that she got through the Welcome area ok, so the problem was probably caused by her doing something after that and not knowing what she did. When he installs a viewer again, it should be ok. I've no doubt that the version she's using works fine as long as you don't make changes to things without knowing what you're doing lol. I started the thread to see if anyone knew what she might have done to cause the problem.

She's not in mouselook because she sees her own back. She may well see things normally but the cursor keys don't move her, and she has to use the mouse to move and change her view. That's the problem. The viewer she's using is probably fine. I'll suggest the cam controls to her, but it's not the answer.

As others have noted, it is most likely a settings issue (and reinstalling may not help unless settings are wiped)

I would suggest the following (screenshots are form the latest SL viewer windows but I believe should correspond to the ancient version too)

open preferences (ctrl-p )(Me->preferences)

on General. Ensure that "pressing letter keys" is set to "affects movement"

on Move & View "Arrow keys always move me" can be enabled (strictly speaking it does not need to be) 

If this only happens after she has opened a chat then the second item above is almost certainly her issue.

----

To be clear on the Linux position, your friend, or her husband, should almost certainly review the TPV options if she is likely to spend any time at all in SL.

I will try to clarify the status here but @Oz Linden might want to keep me honest on this one and give a more "offical" version to correct or balance my (undoubtedly) biased summary.

Essentially, the lab do not feel that the Linux community in SL is large enough to warrant maintaining a viewer for themselves. At one point the Lab had stated that community contributions were required for them to update their viewer, and in response one of our team (Firestorm) developers sent a number of updates in to help the Lab to bring their distribution up to date and restore support but these were never applied and by now would need to be re-created and re-submitted anyway. The current answer regarding Linux support is only slightly different, and is simply that they (the Lab) don't think that Linux support is worth the effort and that their developer time spent on doing such would by definition be time not available to spend on new features/bug fixing for the majority of users. I can understand that as a commercial and practical decision but it remains true that even a small percentage of users is a reasonably large number of people given the SL user base. 

The result of this is that Linux support falls to those of us in TPV-land (there are a number of options listed on the TPV page earlier in this thread). This runs a longer-term risk that technology choices made by the Lab are not supportable on Linux because, while the lab are not expecting to make such decisions, it can happen in the background; a good example of this is Vivox voice. Vivox dropped Linux support a few years ago and as such Linux voice support is limited to older updates and would be lost forever should the server-side support for that older API be lost.

The LL Linux viewer is so old and out of date that if a TPV were to list it we would be marked down because it does not comply with any of the recent feature updates. These include but are not limited to:-

Bento, Animesh, BOM, and EEP to name but a few.

Anyone running that viewer would have a seriously degraded experience. Ironically, the lab's own support policy means that this viewer is not supported.

https://releasenotes.secondlife.com/supported_viewers.html

It is notable that the downloads page does not appear to give any indication that Linux is unsupported or will give a degraded experience. This is unfortunate and really ought to be fixed.

 

[Phil Deakins]

@Beq Janus Thank you very much for your long and detailed post, Beq. I always thought that she'd managed to alter something, because she made it through the Welcome area ok. She's a rare visitor to SL - only coming in to play a few games against me, but the next time she comes in I'll certainly ask her to change that 'Arrow key always move me' setting, or at least check it. I can't imagine how she managed to change that though, if that's what it is.

I'm sorry that this is such a short response to your post. It deserves more.

 

[Phil Deakins]

@Beq Janus That fixed it Beq! I have no idea how a brand new avatar can manage to change that 'arrow keys' setting but checking it tonight fixed the problem. Unfortunately, I can't give you another 'thank you', or any other form of additional kudos, but I do thank you -  lot!

Edited November 4, 2020 by Phil Deakins