SL Linux Support Thread

Well with the hazy future of a linux client that was promised since 1.1 -- we've been stuck using ad hoc solutions much to our chagrin.

So this thread is here to help eachother out, as that is what linux users should be known for. Let's use this thread to cover the issues of getting SecondLife.exe to run under Wine/WineX --

And I'll start with a question!

I hear the newer versions of Cedega will not in fact run SL and so it's been suggested to run it under vanilla Wine with the -ignorepixeldepth option. However, I can't seem to get the darn option to work and it also seems that SL isn't listening to my settings.ini file and is trying to load into fullscreen mode...

Running the latest version of Ubuntu/X.org ... any thoughts?

So the rest of the thread, I leave to you. Let this become a great forum knowledge base for Linux SL users! (LSL... ha)

Alright, obvious checklist:

- Does `glxgears` work? (and secondarily: does it run with more than 500fps?), if you answer no to either of these questions, your going to need to play with your OpenGL configuration, for nVidia, this means installing nvglx (which is part of the nVidia drivers, a reinstall should fix this.), for ATI, your on your own, I cant seem to get ATI 3D working properly in the best of circumstances.

- Are you using WineX 3.3-2? If not, grab a copy through Point2Play (I highly recommend getting a transgaming subscription just for that single tool).

- What hardware do you have? Is it all natively supported?

- Something I neglected to mention in my own guide, but seems to help me: make a copy of SecondLife.exe by the name of newview.exe - for some reason I cant get WineX to startup properly without this little hack.

-Adam

glxgears does work, and yes -- rediculously fast too.

The part about WineX 3.3-2 is a bit of a problem. I tried getting an older version from the transgaming cvs and building it from source, but there is a bit of an issue with it. I will look into a transgaming subscription in the future if there is certainly no other way I can play SL in linux without incurring even more cost.

Yeah, all my hardware is supported. Oddly enough, even my wacom.

I tried the rename hack, but it's obviously not really going to work well until I get a working copy of winex, non?

Your article is great btw Adam. It's just that there's gotta be other solutions than paying money to transgaming... hopefully.

Im also trying to get SL to work in wine, and am having little luck. I got it installed just fine, but when I go to run it, a window pops up that says "can't get pixel format description". At the same time, my screen either goes all black (except for the cursor), or everything gets all tie-dye pink. I tried the -ignorepixeldepth thing, but it did not seem to work. I also tried the -noprobe option, and that didnt help wither. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

I didnt mention this before, but im running wine-20050524 in gentoo. Im using the latest nvidia drivers, and glxgears works well. I subscribed to transgaming for about a year, and in that time 1/5 games worked, and I got no help on the forums, so I dont like them anymore. Also paying money to a group who gives back nothing to the OSS community from which it derived all of its code, is not one of my top priorities. I deleted all my old versions of cedega, and just use wine, which actually works better for some games (starcraft, diablo 2) when compared with cedega.

Someone on slashdot said this game was pretty easy to get working in wine, and since this game gets so much attention on slashdot, I am sure this game is being played by a fair amount of linux users. From what it sounds like, an open client is in the works, but until then, there is no way that im going to set up a windows machine, or buy a new version of cedega, so any help on this would be greatly appreciated

I heartily second the suggestion to get a TransGaming subscription. It's only $5 a month and the tools alone are worth it, plus I'm all for supporting the team. Once you have Point2Play, it's all downhill. I've got the latest Cedega installed, but it's true that SecondLife won't work in it. However, I do run the installers with the latest, but when the installer is finished and asks 'Run program now?' I say NO and then run it myself. The actual program link in Point2Play is told to use WineX-3.3.x, not Cedega. With WineX 3.3.x, it runs pretty much out of the box. I'm running it in Window mode right now with full QuickTime support.

When switching from 1.5 to 1.6, I did have to delete my program launcher in Point2Play before installing 1.6, because it wouldn't update the launcher that already existed and was pointing to newview.exe, but after deleting it and reinstalling it launches SecondLife.exe. (Note: I only deleted the program launcher, not SecondLife itself. I've NEVER had to delete SecondLife and reinstall from scratch, and it keeps all my settings and everything.)

As for QuickTime, I just installed 6.5 (the latest for Windows) with the latest version of Cedega and SecondLife picked it up automatically. I haven't actually run the QuickTime program from Cedega, but I don't have a reason to as long as SL uses it.

As a side note, the attempting to load into fullscreen regardless of settings is exactly what it does under Cedega, at least on my machine. It goes full screen and just sticks at a solid black screen with the only way out being a good old-fashioned Ctrl+Alt+Backspace.

Using the latest wine, SL works with the following patch. As far as I can tell after a couple of days, it works 100% fine EXCEPT (and it's a big except) your own avatar's face (and some of their clothes) will be drawn with an incorrect texture (it will look fine to others, but that's no help when creating an av).

That's probably related to the following messages:
INFO GL buffer: Color Bits 32 Alpha Bits 8 Depth Bits 24
WARNING Frame buffer has less than 8 bits of alpha. Avatar texture compositing will fail.

(For the observant, SL quite plainly seems to show that it got an 8 bit alpha channel, but then complains that it didn't. Buh?)

Index: dlls/opengl32/wgl_ext.c
===================================================================
RCS file: /home/wine/wine/dlls/opengl32/wgl_ext.c,v
retrieving revision 1.9
diff -u -u -r1.9 wgl_ext.c
--- dlls/opengl32/wgl_ext.c 12 Jun 2005 11:08:04 -0000 1.9
+++ dlls/opengl32/wgl_ext.c 26 Jul 2005 10:32:31 -0000
@@ -39,7 +39,13 @@
#include "wine/debug.h"

WINE_DEFAULT_DEBUG_CHANNEL(opengl);
-
+#if 1
+#include <stdio.h>
+#define TRACE printf
+#define WARN printf
+#define FIXME printf
+#define ERR printf
+#endif

/* x11drv GDI escapes */
#define X11DRV_ESCAPE 6789
@@ -373,7 +379,7 @@
case WGL_DEPTH_BITS_ARB:
pop = iWGLAttr[++cur];
TRACE("pAttr[%d] = GLX_DEPTH_SIZE: %d\n", cur, pop);
- PUSH2(oGLXAttr, GLX_DEPTH_SIZE, pop);
+ PUSH2(oGLXAttr, GLX_DEPTH_SIZE, pop >= 24 ? 24 : pop); /* SL hack */
break;
case WGL_STENCIL_BITS_ARB:
pop = iWGLAttr[++cur];

I gave Hello Toonie's tips a try; here is my report:

Using wine-20050725 and SL 1.6.9 and Hello's patch, I was able to install and run Second Life (after fiddling around to get the necesary dev packages). Everything was looking pretty good and performance seemed comparable to running under XP. I did not experience the avatar texture problem Hello mentions, but I did recieve the same warning:

INFO GL buffer: Color Bits 32 Alpha Bits 8 Depth Bits 24
WARNING Frame buffer has less than 8 bits of alpha. Avatar texture compositing will fail.

I've also had trouble getting sound to work, but I think this is a problem with my wine installation...

Finally, after working smoothly for awhile, I am now unable to login to SL. Login fails with the message:

Unable to establish a secure connection to the server. Often this means your computer's clock is set incorrectly.

Yet, my clock appears correct.

Argh, to come so close... It is almost worse than no hope at all.

Come on, LL, I know you can make a native Linux client. You know it's the right thing to do! Please, save us from the heartbreak of dual booting a second rate OS!

Success!

I removed my ~/.wine and reinstalled. That somehow got rid of the login problem. Then, using winecfg, I set Directsound hardware accelleration to Emulation and turned on Driver emulation. That fixed the sound.

We'll see how long it keeps working...

Our wish is, apparently, LL's command:
http://icculus.org/~icculus/tmp/screenie2.jpg
http://icculus.org/~icculus/tmp/secondlife-lnx-screenie.jpg
http://icculus.org/~icculus/tmp/secondlife-lnx-screenie2.jpg
(Development shots of native Linux client... no ETA.)

I have gotten SL 1.6.9 running under the 20050725 version of wine with Hello's patch, and I'm very impressed that it works as well as it does. It seems that Hello has problems with the avatar display, while Ben does not. Unfortunately, I am experiencing those problems, and it's hellishly hard to create my avatar and know what it looks like. I'm willing to help debug this with you guys, but I don't know where to begin. What might be the difference? I'd like to solve this instead of having to create my avatar on Windows (which is at least an option) and then live with an inaccurate display going forward. I'm on a tight schedule since I just started the 7-day free trial and want to get this over with so that I can experience the world as a whole over most of the week. Thoughts?

Hmm, now that you mention it, the textures on my avatar are incorrectly drawn _when_ the appearance dialog is open. Otherwise, it appears normal. I have seen this same sort of behavior on my GF's laptop which is running XP but has an ATI Radeon Mobility gpu. My desktop has an nVidia GeForce 6600GT. What cards are you guys using? Also, I am using the nVidia drivers from the Debian Testing dist.

Here are some screen caps illustrating what I'm seeing:

http://flickr.com/photos/anhalt/29724986/
http://flickr.com/photos/anhalt/29724987/


Hope this helps.

Yeah, I'm seeing the same sort of thing you're seeing in the appearance dialog, but it seems to apply to the normal game display as well, and it also seems to affect other displays of skin (e.g., bare arms) in other weird ways such as white-on-black crosshatches. The messed-up textures also seem to apply to other avatars and not just me, unlike Hello's experience. I've tried an nVidia GeForce3 and an nVidia GeForce FX 5200. I will also try an ATI Radeon 9250 but can't do that until Monday. I am running a slightly old snapshot of Debian testing (just a bit earlier than sarge's release), which I shouldn't upgrade until mid-August when the trial will have expired, but I am using the 7174 nVidia drivers and a 2.4.27 kernel.

If you are having issues with sound or time issues connecting to the server :

Run winecfg
Under the audio tab set hardware acceleration to emulation and check the driver emuolation checkbox. That is what enabled the sound to work for me and stopped the time issues as well.

I'm running wine-20050111 under Gentoo 2.6.11. I have tried the patch published here, but get the following...

ferret opengl32 # patch wgl_ext.c /home/ferret/temp/slpatch.txt
patching file wgl_ext.c
patch: **** malformed patch at line 6: WINE_DEFAULT_DEBUG_CHANNEL(opengl);

Trying to apply it by hand shows that several lines that were there are no longer. Is there an updated patch, or am I missing something here?

I'm trying it in Gentoo here, but I belive you need to pull the source from WineHQ instead of pulling the emerge.

Okay, I'm having problems, probably because my Geforce 4 TI 4400 is set for 24 bit color in X.org. Do I have to force it to 32-bit, or what? Any ideas?

And yes, I put in -ignorecolordepth and -noprobe.

got it running no prob in ubuntu, winex3. everything's happy until i change clothes/skin/hair. then i crash, and strangely enough, can't get past the login screen without crashing until i boot into windows and change back to what i had on before. yer, i tried clearing cache... anyone else seen this?

last thing in log is:
INFO Critical message is current
C:\src\linden_1-6\indra\llrender\llimagegl.cpp(682):ERROR Texture bind failed!

edit:
strangely enough, changing my video card memory back down to 32 in SL preferences (even though my card really has 12 totally fixes this problem...seems like a lame workaround though...

edit 2:
also, i didn't notice it at first as it seems to only affect certain outfits, but some skins and clothing DO look strange on me (especially skins with visible alpha it seems...the alpha parts just look black), and other players standing near me seem to be able to see this as well...i actually created a default blank white jacket earlier and it appears to me and others as a solid black pair of pants, on TOP of any pants i might already be wearing i also have a real pair of pants that i can't seem to make shorter with the sliders. all sorts of goofiness.

Running winex 3.3.2 works just fine, albeit somewhat slow since I only have a GF4 440 Go on my laptop, and its only a p3 866. I ended up being unable to run the installer, so I just copied over the directory from my windows install and ran winex on SecondLife.exe. I've had no problems, except when I try to change the Prefs to run in windowed mode, and I hit apply, it crashes. Might be because I am already running winex in windowed mode, so I am not sure. Other than that, no real problems at all, except it seems to think it crashes every time I hit exit.

Aaron

I think I can see where you're going wrong: real pants cannot be made shorter with GUI sliders. Try using a pair of scissors instead and let me know how you get on.

Same exact problem, tried all the same things. Running with 24 bit color in X.org and a newish Geforce4 something. X.org wont start up in 32 bit color mode.

Did you figure it out? Anyone else have any ideas?

Sorry for the late response - I never got a 'new posting in this thread' message until now, and I don't hang around on the forums generally.

I have some ideas about why this problem exists in the first place, but can't seem to elicit a response from the person who owns this area of the wine code.

Was really hoping that that native client would be beta-able soon and these would become non-problems, but it seems to have taken four or five months so far so hard to predict how much longer it may be.

In the meantime, for people with the 24-bit X.org thingy problem, I might be able to blindly make a patch that helps. Someone with one of those servers needs to post the output of glxinfo for me if they can.

Thanks.

You shouldn't have to put it into 32-bit mode. I'm running with a 24bit desktop myself. Please also email(via forum) me your SecondLife.log after startup fails. Thanks.

Ok, not getting that problem anymore.
Now it's hanging after:



I've attached all the logs, and my glxinfo. 3d acceleration. This is using wine-0.0.20050725-winehq with the patch from this thread applied.