Linux Client a Priority?

Take a look, it can be quite common. Solaris does this by default, as does most BSD's. Some linux distro's also do this.

-Adam

Um, I think a linux client is a waste of time. All of you people posting here already have Windows or whatever they on the apple. So... um, just play on the machine you are playin' on right now. Do you really believe that there is going to be a huge surge of new players with the .05% (or some other insignificant amount) share of the desktop market that linux has? I really don't see that happening. In fact, I'd be intrested to know what percentage of the SL community has even SEEN LINUX RUNNING. I bet it's not that many.

Blasphemy, I say! At least MacOS is sane about /dev/null.

~Ulrika~

I don't know what the desktop penetration of Linux is, but it's not just a matter of pure numbers. It's a matter of what those numbers represents.

Linux people are known as doers, not complainers. If you release device specs, someone is going to write a driver for it. These are people who are used to doing things themselves. They're also known for their generosity. (Linux is free, n'est pas?) Which makes them a great demographic to target.

You want to see more cool content? I know I do. This is one way to attract those kinds of people

PS. Interesting, didn't realize that about /dev/null. My linux boxen think /dev/null is a device, but Solaris thinks it should be a symlink.

PPS. Not buying why Linux performance should be better than Windows yet. You shouldn't really be hitting the disk to achieve good framerates, whether it be VM or file I/O.

With all due respect, and really, there is much respect for your skills on my part... BUT...

If linux people are 'do-ers', why is your linux box broken?
edit: (sorry, I misread that cuzza your lousy typing, my bad.)

One could argue that since all the software is written for windows, all the skilled people are using that already. In any case, it's still a very small number of people we are talking about... people who already use windows at that. All writing another client is going to do is take programming resources away from things that we will actually benefit from.

We've already got a platform. I can understand people rooting for their favorite OS. But just because a few people like Linux better than windows doesn't mean LL should to jump through a bunch of hoops to please them.

Perfomance isn't even an issue, even if all the claims are true. And I'm with you, I'm not at all convinced.

Point 1, meet point 2. Point 2, I'd like to introduce you to point 1.



I'm a heavy Linux user and I can't even come close to looking down on them for shelving the Linux client. Porting game-type software to Linux is usually a dead end and more trouble than it's worth from a support perspective.

Normal people don't want to have to recompile the kernel. Normal support reps don't want to have to walk someone through recompiling the kernel. For $9.95 one time (let's say to start), if they contact support once, that's already a loss.

Having made an almost complete move from win2k to linux in the past week, I now consider this a priority Incidently, I've barely looked at wine, can anybody confirm if somebody witha few days linux experience is likely to get SL working via wine?

I too would like a linux client for the following reasons:

1) gnu/linux is my OS of choice for desktop and development

2) I've got this computer/LCD system that I crammed into an aluminum ZeroHalberton briefcase back in 2003 that was going to be a mobile gnu/linux "demo machine" (the laptops of that era just weren't up to snuff). It is still sitting here (I'm using it now) but it still can't run SL

3) SLoppix Live CD!

4) apt-get install secondlife

5) yet another slashdot event

This year I think it will happen. After 1.7 I hope my schedule to open up enough to actually work on it if we don't already have someone else on it by then.

teh w00t... what other reason does one need?

I heart Knoppix....

Would be nice if the clients they have now weren't riddled with bugs. Maybe in a few quarters.

Nice

Incidently, my one week of Linux experience allowed me to get SL working via point2play and cedega (I'm not confident enough to tackle custom winex builds or anything yet!), I'm sure it's all elementary stuff to you guru's out there, but I posted here if anybody cares to see

All your Debian are belong to us elitists.

Seriously though, I'm dredging this up because I didn't want to start a new thread on the subject. I'd love a Linux port of SL.. I'd pretty much not leave linux then.

Linux is GOD.... Where's my Client?


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Last login: Mon Feb 21 13:58:04 2005 from durango

I voted a big YES for the native Linux client in order to stop paying the Microsoft tax.

The Microsoft tax is not primarily about money, it is about pain.

The pain associated with running a horribly inflexible platform which does things as it wants instead of as I want. The pain of exposing me to exploits and advertising each time something changes, even after locking down. The pain of being a dumb consumer at the mercy of Redmond's whims, instead of being in full control of my own machinery and property. The pain of being shackled to a keyboard and mouse paradigm in the name of "user friendliness" (actually user dumbness), when real user friendliness comes from letting the computer do the hard work with minimal user enslavement to hardwired interfaces.

I voted YES because I want to remove a bad thing from my SL machinery. SL doesn't need it (we are told it's highly portable), and I most certainly don't.

has anyone here used the Libranet distrobution?

i have been using linux for a few weeks if you count all the time i have spent using it since i got it a few months ago. this past week it has been like crack for me. one of the major reasons i like it is apt-get. searching the net for programs sucks and searching for free ones sucks even more. apt-get puts them all at your finger tips. that said i probably could never give up my windows comps because its all i have ever used, im a gamer, and im lazy. But once i get this linux computer set up so i can easily run it remotely using vnc or NoMachine NX i will probably be using linux a lot more.

Well, seeing as how Linden Labs has chosen the Quicktime API for some of its new set of features in 1.6, being that it exists on both Mac and Windows and really.. nothing else -- You can all continue to hold your breath unless they decide to either scrap it all, leave the Linux client without, or worse yet try and devote additional resources they don't have to add that support another way for little gain in marketshare.

Personally, I'd rather see the existing clients further developed and polished. It's not as if the Windows client doesn't function under Cedega.

Last I checked, the 1.6 client doesn't function under Cedega. If you've managed to get it to work, I'd love to hear it.

I checked it with the latest cedega (4.1-3) last night, just blank screens. 3.3-1 still seems to be the way to go.

-Adam

I'm failing with the precompiled WineX that's been circulating in the forums -- the same version that works fine with 1.5.

Linux support would be a time-sink hole for the development of SL.

Performance 3D/graphical interfaces in Linux are an unstable mesh of crap, not to mention the constant work necessary on the developer's part to keep binaries linked against the right libraries for the given day. On top of that you have the support nightmare of making Linux a supported OS, which means LL has to try to help you -- and most Linux users don't know what the hell they're doing.

I think if LL decided to provide a supported RedHat distribution of Secondlife, it may work out ok. They'd have a followable single support chain and versioning chain.

However, support of "Linux" as a whole would be a drag on Lindenlab and pull the whole entity that is SecondLife down.

As I understand it, LL already has an entirely separate entity managing the Mac OS X port of SL. I'm not sure how equitable this is to them as a business entity, but I guess that's up to them.

Either way, I don't see this as a feasible priority for Lindenlab proper.

Let the flames of a thousand slashdot fanatics follow...

si Money, work on any version of the client is a burden on the dev team, who have far more work than they can possibly handle on the server end alone. It's a necessary evil since it's required to access the platform, that's all.

The more people who can be given access the better, and the Linux community is now collosal, so providing a native Linux client is an obvious step in expanding their customer base and being seen as generally FOSS-friendly. In any event, the Lindens have said that they are well disposed towards the idea of a native Linux client, and that's what matters most.

And since their code is (we are told) highly portable, it's not a terribly costly step either.

In reality though, the entire client should be open-sourced to remove that burden from the dev team, but that's a different subject really.

Compilation:

Everyone who uses linux wants a linux client.
Everyone who uses windows wants them to work on the windows client
The few who run MACOS want them to work on the MACOS version
Everyone wants LL to work on the OS they use
Cedega does not run latest version of the windows client
Vmware is worthless for any accelerated graphics

Conclusion:

Only those who actually run the OS in question for a port, should vote if they wana see a port for it
We need a linux client!

Steve Fox

The biggest thing that causes lack of performance is drivers, it works fine until you try any hardware accelerated application, but once you install the drivers from the manufacturer (nvidia for me) it works great.



C'mon now, lets not go that far, to be using linux, you have to have some idea of what your getting into, and why.



Thats the plus side. LL wont be supporting "Linux as a whole" but more of the X server, they wont need to deal with every distrobution of linux on the market, all they need to be able to do it get SL to run smoothly from within the X11 server environment, once thats effective, people can run it on any distrobution with proper graphics drivers, and running KDE, or gnome, etc.