First public demo of Second Life on Linux

I don't run Linux m'self, but I do have to give this a hell yeah.

If only because it resolves the weird contradiction of LL using Linux internally but having no Linux client...

BOOYAH! I'm finally going to be able to ditch windows!

Woot!!! Will be ditching Windows, back to almost 100% (time) Linux at home!

Perhaps one should not plan the Linux client parties till after the port is complete.

While this is great news, a demo does not a released client make... But yeah, hard not to feel a little enthusiasm. Nice catch, Torleykins!

A friend had a very good point. Namely, will Second Life be running emulated in Xfree86, or will it actually take advantage of the Linux base running it? Because people have managed to get it running in Xfree emulation already.


My real concern isn't "if it works." It's "will it be supported properly?"

I'll gladly take the predictable "eh, Kaz is just a pessimist/asshat" flack, but I think the likely answer to that is no, given the very small percentage of users who will actually be interested in trying to run SL in linux.

Not saying its not a worthy cause, just the reality is the vast majority of users are on Win __.

I dunno, a larger percentage than you'd think run SL on a Mac. This is, I suspect, part of the whole "SL is a great big sandbox" meme coming into play.

Similarly, there's an awful lot of techies that use SL; many of these may keep Windows (or something to run Windows stuff) handy for games but would prefer to use their "home environment".

Also, Linux is very popular in places beginning to "computer up" in developing nations, especially China... being, y'know, free. That's a long-term angle to consider.

Yeah, I mean I do know all of that, but I'm just saying on the whole, the majority of users are still going to be running SL from windows pcs.

I have faith in Icculus's ports.

Goodey bye Windows XP!!!

Hellloooooo Xandros Nurse!

Is Openoffice.org 2.0 out yet?

This question doesn't make any sense at all. X11 is a display technology, it has nothing to do with "emulation". Are you mixing up X11 with Wine?

Yep. It's pretty good, though the new file format still has issues talking to 1.x

You're correct. I was referring to X running with Wine emulation, as provided in the link.

Sorry for the confusion.

On the other hand, many are doing it because there's not a lot of choice. In theory, good code should be easily portable anyway, so one hopes the exercise might improve the SL client as a whole, too.

What can I say other than YAY...

I'm one of those "few" users who are running windows almost solely in order to run SL.
I have written to LL about this and they are assuring that they are working on a Linux port, however not much progress has been seen...

I'm pretty sure that if LL decides to release a fully supported Linux client it will attract a large crowd of people running Linux, especially if they feature it on some of the Linux gaming sites.

Thumbs up LL

apt-get install second_life

thats all i have to say

Yes but we would also like to have the vast majority of programmers, artists, inventors, actors, leaders, followers, ( /me names hundreds of "types of people", at a clearly understandable rate, much like medication commercials don't )...

Or if you meant more literally "... majority of Second Life users are on Win __"
Thats because there isn't a Linux client yet.


The day I can MMB click to past text into the SL client, I will give up smoking. Please Linden Labs save my life!

Woot - only two years of demanding an SL client in linux! There really is a light at the end of the tunnel!

Now, onto the next great leap - all hail Havok 2 in 2009!





- Newfie

I am one of those who run this windows *hackspitptui* box simply to run SL ... I already had my other entertainment running under a windows emulator in linux... if I really see a download link for a linux client I am sooo dumping windows.... I HATE windows... argh

I hope they give it to us to break er test soon
Fuzzy

well call me a monkey's uncle...

Since I actually watched the event in person I thought I should share it with all the other SL residents that were not so lucky:

ftp://dewy.fem.tu-ilmenau.de/

here you can download the talks. The ones from 29.12.2005 aren't up, yet. But they should be soon. (i'm not sure if the ftp is ip-address range restricted tho)

I managed to corner Cory after the Talk and wring some answers about the new in world Browser out of him: basically its done and I gather it will enter beta/preview testing sooner or at the same time the linux client starts alpha testing.

I also attached some Screenshots I made at the Event:

*is drooling*

(but then again, after taken my pills to calm myself, I have slowly learned how "good" LL is at keeping their promises for upcoming features...)

Right now, who exactly are SL's "direct competitors"? Actually, if we look at SL as a "virtual world building tool", there are only a few: OpenCroquet (academic) and Virtual Universes (similar to LL's concept of SL). Then there is a host of open source solutions, many promising virtually everything (double pun here!) but delivering almost nothing, and in various degrees of completeness.

OpenCroquet and Virtual Universes both use Java to accomplish cross-platform use. Why is that so important? Well, at least 1/10 of the world population doesn't use Windows. These are the people that have to stay away from all major virtual world platforms and have to use the very few tools that work under their platform. Not surprisingly, these few will attract an incredible amount of non-Windows users, well and above the usually percentage distribution. That's why Second Life has perhaps 20% Mac users. They have no other choice.

Linux users may be few, when compared to Windows (or even Mac) users. But they are even more limited in choices: it's just OpenCroquet or Virtual Universes for them. On the other hand, when SL hits the Linux community, it will be the most "serious" and "advanced" virtual world-building platform for them — and for free, which is what every good Linux user wants.

What will this mean? Unless by some reason the "competitors" (IMVU, There, TSO, ActiveWorlds...) suddenly "wake up" from their letargy and start porting their platforms to Linux as well (Gwyn's Famous Prediction: forget it. They rely too much upon unportable Windows core development libraries and frameworks), by the end of 2006, Linux users on the desktop will highly likely be split among the choice of finally joining SL or keep going towards the incomplete open source projects. Many Linux users will prefer that approach, of course — reinventing the wheel is a deeply ingrained trend of a Linux user — but I think that many will simply give up and try something that works and is available now.

So it's not impossible that from the 350,000 users at the end of 2006, 50-100,000 will be Mac users and perhaps 10-50,000 Linux users. Both non-Windows user bases will grow more and faster, as the "trend" of virtual worlds keep hitting the media, and the "only" available, realistic choice is joining Second Life. So there will be a very skewed user population in SL, compared to other statistics. This is a trend that all multi-platform developers have often experienced: non-Windows users, with limited options and choices, have few alternatives, so the number of users using multi-platform applications is always higher (and growing faster) than on the average user distribution.

This is a hard concept to explain to a company. They look at the statistics and see things like: of all computer users, 4% use Macs and 0.3% Linux on their desktops. So it's worthless to develop for them? Wrong. When a multi-platform application is deployed, where there is no choice, the non-Windows users numbers grow well beyond the "expected" user base! But this is something you can only experience after deployment.

Another issue is: "why only now?" One possible answer is mostly developer-related, but there is also a marketing one. While Mac users are used to pay for all software they use, Linux users are almost never willing to pay a single cent. While SL was a "paid" software (even if it "only" costed US$9,95) no proper Linux user would get near to it. As soon as LL changed their business model and started offering access to SL for free, everything changed — now Linux is an interesting market as well.

Beyond the OS wars, there is also an interesting, but small, market which is slowly becoming Linux-only: the low-end computer market with recycled spare parts. These are important for schools, libraries, charities, associations, and poor countries. Right now, they have two choices — running an unsupported OS (Windows 9 or Linux. Not surprisingly, a massive switch to Linux is taking place on the low-end platforms — simply because Linux runs on them, giving access to the "latest and greatest" in application software (like OpenOffice 2.0). It's no surprise that even public institutions (government, universities, schools) are doing migrations to Linux with their older computers. And LL certainly wishes to deploy SL on those markets as well.

All in all, a very wise move, and I'd say, it comes just at the right time. I can certainly only applaud it

Gwyn is just a Mac user because she can't waste time tinkering with Linux all the time, and, well, Windows is simply not a professional choice, although it's good enough for many other interesting things

I'm getting an error message when I try that link. Is there a transcript of Cory's presentation available? I see in one of the photos that the M2 was apparently referenced and I'd love to know what was said about us, if anything.

TIA

P2