2nd Life on ASUS EEE

Feel guilty about asking because you have been so patient up until now. I have the client showing enticingly but unfortunately the Surfshak server your link points to to get the correct settings is down. May be temporary. Is there anywhere else I could find them?
Thanks

Albi

Information if you don`t already know they released a larger SSD harddrive and high CPU verion of the EEE.........

That would be the Eee-PC 900 which I have here, and following all the instructions I can get as far as a login screen, but then 1.19.1.4 crashes for reasons that I haven't yet figured out

the only other difference is that the /home partition IS the memory card, so there's no need for all the softlink mapping, I just installed it under /home/user and then created a convenience

ln -s SecondLife_i686_1_19_1_4 SecondLife

I don't know if I have the settings right; that URL for settings.tgz appears to be gone; I set the X11/xorg.conf default color depth to 24, restarted X and then set my ratio to be the widescreen option and SL not in a window -- I've tried both in and not in a window, and both get just as far.

I was originally copying http://mindboosternoori.blogspot.com/2008/06/installing-second-life-on-eee-pc.html but their instructions to add the sources.list didn't work for me, aptitude had a long long list of conflicts that I assume are just not compatible. One suspicious console message says "Compiled against SDL 1.2.5, Running against SDL 1.2.12" but I cannot be certain this is the cause of the crash.

What I get is the splash screen; if I max or fullscreen the window, I see the login form at the bottom. as soon as I enter the login and click connect, I get "setting up fullscreen 800x600" and then it starts creating crash marker files. There are some other messages about "Shutting Down GL..." that may or may not be important (xwininfo says I have the GLX extensions going, but I'll be investigating the above link to the GL instructions).

so I'd say it's close. very close. but sadly no, no SL just yet. Maybe tomorrow?

I edited the secondlife startup script and found some preamble parts that recommend some switches for problem installations -- one of them was for disabling the GL extensions and while it make the view quite plain, I'm able to login and walk around (slowly)

if I then uncheck "run SL in a window" it crashes.

I'm looking into getting one of these Asus Eee's cause the price tag is good and they are so small and portable. I'd like to get it for Linnux versus XP because I know the Linnux versions costs less. Thanks for all this information, its good knowing I can get SL on it if I get it. One question, what is an SD Card and does it come with the Eee itself or do you have to buy it separately? Also if it does come separately, is it a requirement to have in order to run SL on the Eee? Thank you!

This is technically an Eee-pc question and not an SL/Linux question, but since we're really so happy with this little box, I'm going to answer anyway

I don't know about the little older models, but the PC-900 comes with a bit of on-board memory and a 20G SD card; instructions I found elsewhere for running SL on the older Eee's suggests those models kept the SD and the core system very distinct (mounted under a very obviously different path) but the new 900's simply mount that card as /home so all your user-files now live on that card. I have no idea if you can insert larger cards, but it's my guess that you could keep a collection of cards, for example, if you used these in a class-room setting, each student could keep their own SD card and easily share the same machines without conflicts.

Our local vendor did not sell the Linux version cheaper than the XP version, instead it was the same price, but with 2GB more memory. Also, the only colour he could get was black, which while dull and dreary, at least it doesn't look like a Mac

Thank you Chas. Yes I think I am going with the Asus Eee PC since it will work with SL and I will probably go with the Windows XP version since I am familiar with this operating system even if I have to pay more. I don't want to have to relearn a new OS with Linux, plus it is not really supported by most programs.

heh -- that's your choice, of course, but I've never met an OS more incompatible with versions of ITSELF than the many flavours of Microsoft Windows. As for learning an OS, I have this lingering doubt that you don't mean you'll be crafting low level BIOS calls for kernel-space device allocations, which I agree is a huge leap; what intrigues me is why people think that clicking an icon is somehow OS-dependent. I don't fault you, not at all, I'm just curious about the thought processes that tells someone paying extra for nothing more extra than brand-name compliance is a good idea. It's like Nike shoes: no they are not Adidas nor are they Pumas but do they really make you win the game? Some folks seem to really believe so.

I had a facebook message that read, "Can I SKYPE you? I need help with Linux." and what was odd was the source. it was from a woman I know mostly as a singer of traditional celtic songs. Turns out her day-job was in a call centre where they'd said employees could work from home if they provide their own equipment. So she'd bought an Eee-PC 700-series. My Skype rang, she was calling from that Eee-PC. "It won't install, I can't understand it, Linux is so strange ..."

Now, all that was required was a download of the Linux software and then to run it and answer the prompts. I didn't have my Eee-PC, I'd never even seen one up close, so I was just guessing. We went through the process, it didn't work. True, I asked her to check all sorts of weird and arcane unix-y things no one should ever know (and are unknowable in Windows), but alas, none of them worked.

I was stymied. So I downloaded the client and tried to install it on my Ubuntu, and it went through no problems, just as described, run it, answer the prompts, and there it is. We went through the process again, together, step by step. Run this, hit return, hit return, hit return, and now here, type Y to accept the license agreement ....

"Hit 'y'?" Yes, you have to type Y, the default is N. "I was just hitting return." well try 'Y' instead. "Oh, it worked! It's installed. Oh thank you so much! Bye!" and I never heard another word about how hard Linux was. It's been a few months now.

You make a valid point. I may look into getting a system that runs Linux, especially since its so much cheaper.

another consideration not to be overlooked: the linux community is so eager to have people using the free-software alternatives, they often assist way and above the call of duty when asked for technical support. The Eee-PC comes with a 1-800 number sticker right on the case, but it's my guess if you asked for help from any of the Ubuntu or Gentoo forums people would be just as eager to help. The keyphrase to remember is that the Eee-PC is a "Debian type" Linux (pronounced Deb-Ian for Deb and Ian who started it) and with that bit of information just about any Linux fan can give you a hand if you get stuck.

fwiw, my 10 year old son just spend $30 of his savings on some sort of game-assist gizmo for his Nintendo DS, and a good chunk of the feature set requires an internet connection via USB connections to "a windows PC" (said the box) ... but when installed on our Windows ME machine it caused the Explorer to crash and the machine locked up on an endless loop of something like an "XP shared lib missing" exception ... on closer examination of the documents we find the software is only valid on Windows XP or XP-pro and sure enough, we haven't yet found any available version of Windows that will run this program.

Mind you, the very same thing happened once, 8 years ago with ViaVoice, on Linux, only, in Linux you are allowed to know what the error really means (if you have to, you can read the program source code) and you're allowed to change your software to fix it; instead of being stranded by the upgrade, folks just jammed both versions of the clib libraries into their machines and voila, they were back in business!

Do you know if the new Acer Aspire One, one of the newest mini lap tops, would work with Second Life? It is running Linux as well. The only problem is that it only has about 512 MB of memory, I think it is expandable up to 1 GB or more though and unsure of how fast the processor is. I'm looking into this one because it will only cost about $350. These Eee PC's are becoming too expensive for me. The new one coming out this month is going to be over $600. I think probably the greatest mini PC that is about to come out is the MSI Wind. I believe they will have a Linux version that will be about $400, and a Windows XP version closer to $500. They say it will run Second Life well. Trying to go with the cheapest option yet still have a good mini lap top that can run Second Life. I know it won't run it perfectly, just expect it to run it decently. Any suggestions?

I had two Dell desktops, one with 512M and 700MHz, and while it would run SL, it was far too slow to be anything more than a frustration. Extra memory helps because you can hold all the textures (like clothes) readily in memory, and speed is obviously useful, but the real dividing line is the graphics capabilities. If you can't run some sort of "OpenGL" or other 3D graphics rendering at the hardware level, it's going to be far too slow.

which is not to say it wont' work, and please do let us know if you find out that it will!

as for the MSI WiND, yes it does look inviting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSI_Wind_PC
but also, according to the google results, it seems to be nearly the same price as the $600 Asus Eee-PC 900; I expect it is a comparable machine in most every way.

for those who are looking for a budget-conscious portable SL machine, you might want to watch the eBay listings for the older Eee-PCs; now that the new machines are out, the old ones should drop in price, and while the lowly 2G model wasn't enough to do SL, I have read reviews successfully using the revised-graphics 4G webcam version (which is probably the reason this forum thread was started!

Does not say if it is Linux, only that it appears to be ...

http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/12/dell-e-and-e-slim-revealed-taking-on-eee-and-air-in-one-fell-sw/

The Acer Aspire One is expandable up to 1.5 GB of memory. I think you can get an extra GB of memory for $20. It is yet unknown if Second Life will run on it since no one has tested it. I don't want to be the guniea pig. May just go with an older 4G version of the Eee PC.

Not sure where you read that the MSI Wind would be $600.... They actually already have it ready for you to buy on amazon.com and it's $499 for the 1 GB, 1.6 GHZ processor version that runs Windows XP. It is not technically available yet, will be officially released July 7th. I think I will just save up till mid August to get it because it definitely will be better than any of the other mini lap tops I believe.

Miyamoto Ihnen's very helpful messages starting Feb 28 on running SecondLife in an Asus 701 got me off to a good start: I've put in a 1G ram and worked through the loading procedure he outlines up to a point: that I need file or files from http://www.surfshak.co.uk/sl-eeepc/settings.tgz -- and Surfshak isn't there. There is a May 18 message to effect it's still down (then) and it seems to be still down now. So I've googled around the place on various permutations of Ihnen, Asus, 701, sl-eeepc and settings, and it turned up *nothing*. I'm not that much of a techie to jump out and wing it here. Is Ihnen's Surfshak sl-eeepc settings.tgz file around here somewhere else? Help! Thanks -- Martha T.

P.S. Ihnen's process doesn't need a large SD card to hold the files after unpacking. Mine today amounted to 198 Mb, a 1G flash would do fine. Also, Ihnen doesn't mention that copying the downloaded tar file into flash takes a while -- I'd guess 10 min; and untarring the downloaded tar file once it's in place, seems to take half an hour or more. The current tar file I dl'd was: SecondLife_i686_1_19_1_4.tar.bz2 and next time I untar it I'll use an
-xvf option not the recommended -xf, so it writes to my screen it's doing something.

-- Martha T.