LL: official help on getting client up under WineX?

We've now heard rumours that the native Linux client which Philip said last year was in the priority queue for appearing in 1Q 2005 has been put on indefinite hold. Rumours have a habit of evolving and getting out of hand ... it would be nice if Philip could simply either confirm or deny it.

If confirmed, it's a pretty poor state of affairs. My guess is that on release and initial announcement on Slashdot, the client would have got thousands of downloads in the first hour. Personally I can't wait to get off this dreadful Windoze box, and 95% of my local group of friends would do likewise.

As a stopgap, if no native Linux client is forthcoming in (say) 2Q 2005, then how about LL liaising with Cedega or with the WineX team to ensure that the Windoze SL client works fully and can be set up easily on a Linux box?

Maybe all that's needed is a good install script, or hell, just a good SL-specific WineX FAQ !!!

I totally agree! About the only thing in the world making me dual-boot for Windows is Second Life!

But I'd rather not, if I don't have to. An SL with Cedega/Wine would be enough as a first step, too.

I totally agree! About the only thing in the world making me dual-boot for Windows is Second Life!

But I'd rather not, if I don't have to. An SL with Cedega/Wine would be enough as a first step, too.

With the introduction of Quicktime to the SL client I think the linux port idea was dropped, at least for now.

Just my guess, tho.

Meow,
Leopard Loveless

Well, QT could work with Wine. But even without video media, it would still rock!

BTW, a message of the day for yesterday was: "Linux? C++? OpenGL -- apply for a job at linden labs" or something like this...

That IS a good sign!

I am with you guys, I want it! But the sims run on Linux correct? I think they just want people for that.....

You could be right, Brian, we can't tell from the adverts.

Philip's usually quite open about such things, and no doubt the other Lindens take a lead from him in that respect so as to be in tune with the boss. We need him to say something about this.

The rumours said something along the lines of "We stopped work because only 10 Linux fans showed up", which of course is patently ridiculous as a reason when you consider what would happen the instant that Linux client availability gets mentioned on Slashdot .... they'd better have some humongous download servers ready for it.

So, my guess is that it's an unfounded rumor resulting from the original 1Q 2005 date having come and gone and no sight of any prototype client nor announcement yet.

OpenGL (the 3D graphical API) is probably not needed on the servers, so I'm not sure in that.

It's possible that display lists for transformed prims are downloaded to clients, so OpenGL might be needed even on the non-graphical server end. Very hard to tell.

More likely though, they probably just want generally capable and widely experienced peeps on the dev team, regardless of the immediate task they'll be doing. I know I would.

SecondLife 1.5 and 1.6 run out of the box on WineX 3.3.x. The only problem I have with mine is an avatar rendering bug which seems to be related to my PCI-X card rather than WineX. It doesn't render my own avatar correctly, since that's apparently rendered client-side and uploaded. But everyone else, and everything else, looks fantastic. It is, however, broken on later released of WineX, or Cedega as it is known now. If we want it fixed, I think we'll have to take that up with TransGaming, not Linden Labs.

I assume that you mean PCIe (PCI Express) --- I wrote an explanatory article on the new PCI standards a while back. PCIe is unrelated to PCI-X.

If by some miracle you've found a graphics card based on PCI-X though, *PLEASE* let me know the make and model. I have some machines with PCI-X slots which I'd love to populate with PCI-X graphics cards, but there don't appear to be any manufactured (there are a couple of erroneous descriptions though, beware). All the newer cards from nVidia and ATI use PCIe.

Oh but that is only necessary when the game manufacturer does not support the idea of operation under Linux. Transgaming then make their money by doing the necessary analysis and/or reverse engineering to adapt WineX to the idiosyncracies of the game

Here though we have a completely different situation --- there is no need for Transgaming to reverse engineering anything, since LL have said many times that they wholly support the idea of a Linux client. What they should do then (if indeed their work on a native client has been halted) is to guide us (FAQ?) through the jungle towards getting a plain CVS WineX solution working, and for good measure to inform Transgaming of what's needed so that Cedega customers can benefit quickly too.

There would be no downside for LL at all in doing that, but lots of happy customers!