development SL Viewer for 2022 Chromebook

[Ardy Lay]

2 hours ago, Aishagain said:

I'm just curious.  Back in 2007-09 I briefly experimented with a text-only SL client that would run on low-powered computers (such as were available in my workplace).  I was essentially computer illiterate back then and I never really got it to work that well.  You could chat and fiddle with inventory but teleporting usually got me disconnected due to the lousy Internet we had there.  I think it was called SLeek or something - anyone remember it?

I remember the name.  I never tried the software.  Back then I was running SL on a tablet that ran the Windows 2000 operating system and on a similarly wimpy desktop that also ran Windows 2000.  After doing this for about 1 month I ordered a Dell XPS 630i.  I think I have told stories about that trash heap elsewhere in the Second Life forum.  GPUs failed, SAS controller in chipset failed, etc.

I have tried and briefly used something called Radegast.  I am thinking it runs on .NET or MONO.

Bet'cha @bigmoe Whitfield remembers SLeek

Edited May 20, 2022 by Ardy Lay

[bigmoe Whitfield]

1 hour ago, Ardy Lay said:

I remember the name.  I never tried the software.  Back then I was running SL on a tablet that ran the Windows 2000 operating system and on a similarly wimpy desktop that also ran Windows 2000.  After doing this for about 1 month I ordered a Dell XPS 630i.  I think I have told stories about that trash heap elsewhere in the Second Life forum.  GPUs failed, SAS controller in chipset failed, etc.

I have tried and briefly used something called Radegast.  I am thinking it runs on .NET or MONO.

Bet'cha  @bigmoe Whitfield remembers SLeek

yep, I remember Sleek (I typed sleet... way more times than I can count until I got the k on the end of that)

[Aishagain]

Oh, so it WAS called SLeek was it?  Well well!

[LittleMe Jewell]

On 5/13/2022 at 7:53 PM, SolomonHawk said:

<snip>

I am saying the developers are talented enough to make a viewer that WILL run on Chromebook Exclusive of the default viewer.

<snip>

I'm saying it can be done and it would be of their financial interest of potential income to be able to do it.

So, you are under the impression that the developers that create viewers for SL make money doing it?

Edited May 21, 2022 by LittleMe Jewell

[SolomonHawk]

@LittleMe Jewell

No, of course I'm not saying that. I know SL isn't a "game" as it's often erroneously referred to that's created by game studios such as ArenaNet, Bethesda or FunCom. I remember when SL began and the premise behind its creation back in 2003. SL has evolved a lot since then.

However there is some evidence rather recently that suggests something akin to it under special developments in consideration which are currently not top priority. It suggests a paid service unlike what we're accustomed to here already. What it is exactly, I'm really not sure with maybe the exception that it seems related to a streaming service.

 

In all serious honesty, those top people who run this, I don't think they do it on a volunteer basis. Otherwise, LL wouldn't exist.

Edit: 

Question for you: 

Do you really think the people who create things such as hair, clothes, avatars (along with that abomination called mesh), and various other things such as breedables and animations are doing it for free? Do you think LL doesn't get a cut of those profits? Who get's the money when you upload things?

Who builds the sims people build on? Who runs those servers? You think they just let people squat on those regions without paying rent? Who does that money go to?

Why does SL have premium account availability with benefits such as a free home? That stuff doesn't just magically materialize out of thin air. Someone has to be paid for doing that work. Do you think programmers who work on the guts of this program work for free?

Do you happen to remember the big court case over "ownership"?

Edited May 22, 2022 by SolomonHawk

[SolomonHawk]

Side Note;

Singular, whole Mesh avatar. Waiting for a rig that will work.

 

Looks like an ordinary, everyday guy.

As you can see here, the rig I built for personal use is somewhat different from the default and bento rigs, although they are the source of my inspiration.

Although more anatomically correct and friendly to movement without distortion and without weighting , it won't work in SL for obvious technical reasons. But it works in Blender.

Edited May 23, 2022 by SolomonHawk

[Wulfie Reanimator]

On 5/22/2022 at 2:10 AM, SolomonHawk said:

Question for you: 

Do you really think the people who create things such as hair, clothes, avatars (along with that abomination called mesh), and various other things such as breedables and animations are doing it for free? Do you think LL doesn't get a cut of those profits? Who get's the money when you upload things?

Who builds the sims people build on? Who runs those servers? You think they just let people squat on those regions without paying rent? Who does that money go to?

Why does SL have premium account availability with benefits such as a free home? That stuff doesn't just magically materialize out of thin air. Someone has to be paid for doing that work. Do you think programmers who work on the guts of this program work for free?

As far as third party viewer development goes... Yes, they do work for free, not profit.

I can't find a way to donate to Firestorm, Catznip has a Patreon making $50 (fifty) per month, Black Dragon gets 285€/mo, Speedlight (JavaScript viewer) is making $988/mo (and acts as a subscription service).

Besides Speedlight, no viewer comes close to making profit for even a single person. It's all volunteers working on their free time. And while Speedlight is the best positioned to profit from its works-on-any-platform viewer, they're not exactly raking it in. They have 140 patrons.

Edited May 23, 2022 by Wulfie Reanimator

[Phil Deakins]

On 5/21/2022 at 6:55 PM, LittleMe Jewell said:

So, you are under the impression that the developers that create viewers for SL make money doing it?

Yes they do. Definitely. The only "developers that create viewers for SL" actually work for LL, and they are paid for their work. Other people who produce viewers merely make modifications to the LL employees' work.

[Love Zhaoying]

9 hours ago, SolomonHawk said:

Side Note;

Singular, whole Mesh avatar. Waiting for a rig that will work.

 

Looks like an ordinary, everyday guy.

As you can see here, the rig I built for personal use is somewhat different from the default and bento rigs, although they are the source of my inspiration.

Although more anatomically correct and friendly to movement without distortion and without weighting , it won't work in SL for obvious technical reasons. But it works in Blender.

Looks good!

[Qie Niangao]

1 hour ago, Phil Deakins said:

Other people who produce viewers merely make modifications to the LL employees' work.

Among 3D-viewing SL clients, the only exceptions I know would be:

• Lumiya — Not really available anymore, but a ground-up re-implementation on Android. It even had a rudimentary VR version at one point. I can't remember now whether I paid for it, back when it was on the Play Store, but it was pretty amazing.
• Speedlight — Until this thread I'd just assumed this to be a Server Side Rendering client in a browser window, but as a javascript browser app it's much more ambitious than that.

In both cases I suppose there'd be some code inspired by that of the Linden viewer, but from what I've seen that would be way more involved than a mere platform port.

[Phil Deakins]

On 5/23/2022 at 3:49 PM, Qie Niangao said:

Among 3D-viewing SL clients, the only exceptions I know would be:

• Lumiya — Not really available anymore, but a ground-up re-implementation on Android. It even had a rudimentary VR version at one point. I can't remember now whether I paid for it, back when it was on the Play Store, but it was pretty amazing.
• Speedlight — Until this thread I'd just assumed this to be a Server Side Rendering client in a browser window, but as a javascript browser app it's much more ambitious than that.

In both cases I suppose there'd be some code inspired by that of the Linden viewer, but from what I've seen that would be way more involved than a mere platform port.

I'll grant you those 2

 

[Monty Linden]

On 5/23/2022 at 2:49 PM, Qie Niangao said:

Among 3D-viewing SL clients, the only exceptions I know would be

And @animats work towards a totally new Rust-based viewer.  (Yes, early days still...)

[Khan Kenin]

On 5/15/2022 at 11:21 AM, SolomonHawk said:

t certainly wasn't any childish demand.

It wasn't. You can use it at a good performance rate a) if you use Chrome Flex OS b) enable Linux c) enable Linux to use your microphone d) download and install Firestorm just like you install Linux on a Debian-based GNU Linux operated computer.

Then you will see it is working. You may want to visit YouTube as well where you can see relevant videos.

Best wishes.

[Arthur Raleigh]

On 10/20/2022 at 11:58 PM, Khan Kenin said:

It wasn't. You can use it at a good performance rate a) if you use Chrome Flex OS b) enable Linux c) enable Linux to use your microphone d) download and install Firestorm just like you install Linux on a Debian-based GNU Linux operated computer.

Then you will see it is working. You may want to visit YouTube as well where you can see relevant videos.

Best wishes.

I've found that the latest couple of Firestorm releases crash during startup due to a missing dependency which I can't track down. Kokua, OTOH, seems to work flawlessly and gives better performance on slightly older hardware.  Installation process on ChromeBook's Linux VM is pretty much the same as for Firestorm.

[Love Zhaoying]

20 minutes ago, Arthur Raleigh said:

I've found that the latest couple of Firestorm releases crash during startup due to a missing dependency which I can't track down. Kokua, OTOH, seems to work flawlessly and gives better performance on slightly older hardware.  Installation process on ChromeBook's Linux VM is pretty much the same as for Firestorm.

That pretty impressive, that you got it to work on any Chromebook at all! Thanks for letting us know!

[JeromFranzic]

2 hours ago, Arthur Raleigh said:

I've found that the latest couple of Firestorm releases crash during startup due to a missing dependency which I can't track down. Kokua, OTOH, seems to work flawlessly and gives better performance on slightly older hardware.  Installation process on ChromeBook's Linux VM is pretty much the same as for Firestorm.

Is there a terminal app for the Chrome book you can run? Try running Firestorm from a terminal. That will give you output messages and you can then track the missing dependencies that way.

ETA: simply type the word firestorm in the command line to run. If your Chrome OS runs sudo system wide, you may need to type it like this from your non root account:

./firestorm

Edited October 26, 2022 by JeromFranzic
Added directions for running fs in command line of terminal app.

[Arthur Raleigh]

9 minutes ago, JeromFranzic said:

Is there a terminal app for the Chrome book you can run? Try running Firestorm from a terminal. That will give you output messages and you can then track the missing dependencies that way.

ETA: simply type the word firestorm in the command line to run. If your Chrome OS runs sudo system wide, you may need to type it like this from your non root account:

./firestorm

Yes. Been there. Still can't track it down.

 

[JeromFranzic]

On 10/26/2022 at 9:24 AM, Arthur Raleigh said:

Yes. Been there. Still can't track it down.

 

Ugh, that sucks. Curious, which Chromebook are you using? I've looked at a bunch and prefer the Intel based ones if I got one, though the ARM64 models aren't too bad.

[Arthur Raleigh]

26 minutes ago, JeromFranzic said:

Ugh, that sucks. Curious, which Chromebook are you using? I've looked at a bunch and prefer the Intel based ones if I got one, though the ARM64 models aren't too bad.

Lenovo C340-11. It's replaced my MacBook as my workhorse when I'm away from the office. It would benefit from a bit more RAM, but it was a decent spec. when I got it a couple of years ago.

I *think* the error is sound-related and I'm loth to mess too much with the Linux VM because last time I did it broke...badly. Fortunately, I had a backup so could get back to a state where LibreOffice was working properly again.

 

Edited October 28, 2022 by Arthur Raleigh

[Istelathis]

I wonder how well wine would run a viewer on ChromeOS, I have seen a tutorial of how to install wine which seemed simple enough, although I don't have a Chromebook handy to check it out for myself.  

[Arthur Raleigh]

17 minutes ago, Istelathis said:

I wonder how well wine would run a viewer on ChromeOS, I have seen a tutorial of how to install wine which seemed simple enough, although I don't have a Chromebook handy to check it out for myself.  

I suspect it would be pretty compromised. The Linux environment is stripped down and sandboxed already.