Second Life 1.9.0(17) version of Linux client alpha released!

Thank you for your patience while we worked out library issues with the new version! It is now available for download here:

http://secondlife.com/community/linux-alpha.php

Please be sure to review the release notes for major changes in 1.9.0. In addition, my original forum posting for this new version is as follows:

In order to address several issues with Second Life 1.9.0, we have just posted the latest version as an optional update. It will become a mandatory download in the next day or two. For now, we recommend upgrading as soon as possible to resolve the following issues:

Release Notes for Second Life 1.9.0(17) Mar 20, 2006
=====================================
* IMs containing Unicode characters will once again go directly from sender to recipient correctly
* Upload Texture preview once again contains avatar "mannequin"
* Alt-Zoom from vehicle no longer stops scroll wheel from working
* Version number now appears on the Second Life startup screen
* Resolved an issue where only High level terrain texture could be seen in a region
* Added ability to return to region's default sun position in World > Force Sun
* Added Midnight option to World > Force Sun menu
* Resolved several server- and client-side crash issues

Thank you so much Karen! And everyone who worked on the new release! I just installed and checked it out. It runs so fast! On first glance a job well done!

More from me when I gave it a thorough test run.

*happykitty* *mewmew*

So how are we supposed to upgrade?

Are you joking?

Just download the new version. No auto-upgrade!

You can copy the contents of SecondLife/YourUserName and SecondLife/user_settings to maintain your old prefs.

SuSE 10 uses libdb-4.3 in my /usr/lib/ there were several old versions
like 3.1 3.3 but not 4.2 as second life wants...

But open office had libdb-4.2 so I copied it like this
cp /usr/lib/ooo-2.0/program/libdb-4.2.so .../SecondLife_1_9_0_17/lib/

Odd. Not sure what "version" of SuSE 10 you're running. I run the retail version of SuSE 10 and several versions (including 4.2) of libdb were on the DVD.

--Val

No. LL should tell us if we can copy our old settings. I have not see any comments on this. usually there is a file like UPGRADE in a package. We definetly have to upgrade. If there is a way how it is supposed to do I would want to know it. As it is not open source LL has to tell us. i dont want to destroy my settings or make it unusable. I dont want to make my own thoughts if I can not look into the code to see how the software is working. Thats their job, not mine. If I just guess I may make things worse.


Vinci

Keep a copy of your settings.ini and you should be safe ...

But I guess you're just rambling because the thing is closed source I can understand that

LOL While I can understand your points, there's not much chance of the SL client being OpenSource anytime soon.

Would this be a beta or gamma (release) version, your 'They need to document it' point would be valid. Since this is just a pretty sucky, but still, working alpha, you can't hold them up to that level.

I tried 1.9.0.17, and then I still booted back to Windows to logon to SL

It's nice that it even starts up and runs, but it's just missing too many features still (hotkeys, sound, full screen, etc).

Oh, and you can use my installer/upgrader script, it does the job, too. It will even copy your user_settings over, too. It took me about 30-60 minutes or so to write my script.

I believe elsewhere on these forums, someone mentioned that LL is considering eventually doing just that?


Yes, when dealing with alpha software, the standard disclaimer is: "Here's what we've got, do your best with it". I've downloaded alpha software that doesn't even compile yet (and it was listed under "known bugs", which I thought was amusing). Of course, with closed source software, completely unworking code won't do you any good to release, but I digress.



I've found that wine runs SL pretty well. I'm using the Linux client for most daily use though, since it seems to run a good deal faster (and now, textures load at a reasonable rate!)

Yes. It has been stated that going fully open source with the client and controling the world and access to it by defined standards (so anyone can write a second life client) is a long term goal.

I just linked the libdb-4.3 to libdb-4.2, it seems OK. I had to do that sort of thing a lot when installing GNU software on Solaris; a higher version seems to be ok, in most cases And even if not, a WORKABLE version also did the trick, under Solaris

It DOES seem to load textures faster now, especially terrain and trees, and the bandwidth used is STILL phenomenal, when I first log in. Of course, with lots of bad packets if the line is bad...

And my old kludged settings.ini is fine. Since we invented THIS wheel ourselves, I had no hesitation in reusing it.

Alpha Channels seem to be integrated, too! I wonder if thats been ported back to the windows / wine version?

I think the largest issue with LL doing this however is the potential for screwing with the Linden money system, not to mention sending data that the sim is not meant to accept and possibly crashing it. If either were open source the odds that something malicious could invade would be huge. Consider all the programmers that inhabit SL, now consider how many of those have no morals and would take the "bankrupting casino table" scam to a new level by having a client forward all money from your account to theirs on login. Who needs a scamming object, you can skip that and rob them blind from the moment they appear in world. o.O;

But the potential for everything being improved is a tasty prospect. I imagine there are at least as many programmers on SL who can honestly say, "I could do a better job than this at rendering!" And you can be sure we'd have sound working inside a month in Linux. >D

Better close up the Firefox code then, I access my bank website with it! Simply being open doesn't make security problems more likely.

libdb-4.2 is on SuSE 10.0 DVD (as package db42) but there are no packages that needs it.
OpenOffice provides its own copy [packaging error]
So it will not be installed...

SecondLife tries to package everyting needed but did forget this one...

Well you'd expect people to do that (and indeed, people DID do that in the modem days of the internet) with a web browser, you wouldn't necessarily expect it with SL. You still see people looking over open source FTP clients and servers and PHP servers for exploits too to crash a computer, and much the same thing could happen against a sim server too. Aside from the sim crashing, I'm sure such a change would only affect a few CVS nuts who must have the most bleeding edge newest clients. But if it affects anyone at all it's too much, and that's what I imagine LL is worried about most.

Yeah, you know, their own client manages to crash their own sims in this way quite happily (1.9.0 unicode IMs!) so what chance does a third-party client have? XD

Well, to send arbitrary data to a second life server you don't need to have the source code to the client or any other special skills. Just use telnet or netcat with the right credentials and you're free to send whatever you like. It's the Linden's responsibility to make the servers immune against attacks like those.

The comparison between Firefox and SL is not possible. Firefox uses a standard protocol and does nothing but display the data coming from the web page. The second life client gets a lot of data we're never going to see, just to update internal status, inventory and avatars next to us. All this information is potentially prone to exploits, so opening this part of the client might result in massive breakage of the game.

What they *could* do is opening up the GUI part of the client, encapsulating the protocol in a librarym shielded from the rest of the program by a proper API. But I don't see this coming for anytime soon. It's a pity, because I know, Linux people would fix the client in a week or less, but I'm afraid there's nothing we can do about it but to apply for an NDA, even though we know that it won't be granted

Apples and Oranges.

Your bank does not publish the API's used to manipulate the money in your bank account. The second life client may be refered to a viewer, but it's not quite the same as a web browser.

I'm pretty sure that important data from client to server is signed and verified, so netcat won't cut it for confusing the server - but client hacks would.

Open Source SL Client WOULD be possible, but only in part, I think.

Splitting into GUI and the rest, for example.

It makes it hard for the Open Source Developers to test, though.

Switching to Open Source is apparently not as easy as it looks at first glance!

I can't say I would have much trust in Code that the developer couldn't test as a unit; and splitting the client means setting up Pseudo framework type harnesses to test the Open Source bits against. This means extremely clear interfaces and division of function; and the framework is not SL itself...

Tricky

I never had a look at the data stream myself yet, so I can't say if there is any verification or signature on it. So it's all speculative, but I agree that a hacked client makes things easier.

Oh I agree whole heartidly to modularization. If they could cleanly cut up the networking portion from the renderer from the caching system (perhaps one with the renderer at this time?) then they could easily say, "here, enjoy the renderer and the cacher, but we keep the networking part. Here's how you use it..." I believe this though is where the problem lies, at first it was a small, "simple" program but after years in operation with all kinds of additions it's become a tangled mass of spaghetti code. It would be easier for all concerned if they just started over. But they can't, because that would mean losing a lot of the existing content.

Looking at is realistically, the linux community at large would not have the client done in a week. Two months tops, one minimum assuming someone somewhere was waiting for someone in the group of programmers A-Z to go to sleep elsewhere in the world to take over on their portion of the CVS checkout. But the community at large WOULD produce a very stable client in short order, simply because there's more people to do it. If LL had a couple dozen linux users on staff dedicated to the client, it'd get done in a hurry too.

1.9.0(17) works on FreeBSD using the Suse compatability layer.

I did have to grab a couple of rpms off of rpmfind, namely db-4.2.52-90.i586.rpm and e2fsprogs-1.35-2.i586.rpm, but only to grab one file out of each. I dropped the libraries in the secondlife lib directory and it fired right up.

SL still doesn't detect processor type or memory size correctly however, which is a big bummer. I really wish there were commandline switches (or .ini file options) that would let you override this until it's fixed (wink wink).

The Avatar Vertex Program still results in an invisible avatar too, but that's easy enough to work around.

Thanx Naedo ....... why do people always think OpenSource means lack of security.... It aint my linux boot option that Im always working my ass off to get rid of the spyware.....