New Linux enhanced viewer: The Cool SL Viewer

I just installed CoolSL on Ubuntu Gutsy, and can't get the Debug Settings Panel to come up with CTRL-ALT-S. All that does is swing my camera. Is this still how to get it as per the main CoolSL page? The viewer comes up saying it is the Cool SL Viewer 1.19.0 (4), so I think I installed it right.

I get the same problem as does Jack with Ctrl-Alt-S. OpenSuse 10.3 It's not a big deal, but I am not sure, in fact, it's ever worked for me..certainly not with the last few Windlights

This is not a problem with the Cool SL Viewer itself, but rather with how some Linux distributions seem to love to carefully cripple the keyboard... Also, depending on what window manager you are running, the control and alt keys may be "redirected".

Try with other keys (some distro might reaffect CTRL ALT to the "Windows keys" for example, regardless if your keyboard actually got those keys).

If you can't find the corresponding key combination, then try reading the manual of your distro, or pose the question on its support forum.

Another way to access the debug dialog would be to activate the "Client" and "Server" menu entries in the menu bar, but this is bound to CTRL ALT D, and will probably not work either with your distro...

You could also edit manually your settings.xml file and add the following entry:
<UseDebugMenus value="TRUE"/>

Then, after starting the viwer, you will see the "Client" and "Server" entries in the menu bar: pull down the Client menu and click on its last entry to pop up the debug settings dialog.

If it's any help, Jack, CRTL Shift Alt D still works just as well as it always did, at least it does on OpenSuse 10.3

Actually, yes, try to add the SHIFT key to the shortcut (it should not be needed, but depending on how X11 got the keyboard configured in your distro, it might be required)...

Also, something I just noticed (because I always keep the debug menus "on" in my viewers): you need to have the debug menu entries showing to be able to pop up the debug settings dialog.

So, if you don't have the "Client" and "Server" entries in the menu bar, first press CTRL ALT D (or CTRL ALT SHIFT D), -then- CTRL ALT S (or CTRL ALT SHIFT S) should work just fine.

now that 1.19.0.4 is official... can i use the coolrelease binaries for 1.19.0.4 when it still was RC ?
or should I wait for new ones?

Thanks, Henri.. that, I now realise, is what confused me.. and possibly others, too. CTRL Alt S works fine for me with the Client and Server entries on. Clearly I'd misunderstood the instructions on the website, and expected it to bring up the debug menu without the Client and Server entries visible; when it didn't, I failed further to investigate the matter.

I just released v1.19.0.5, but I still consider it somewhat experimental as it might contain a few bugs (I will investigate the "push to talk" button issue as soon as possible) and I want to change a couple of my patches to improve it before declaring it a stable Cool SL Viewer.

The Windows 1.19.0.5 version of the Cool Viewer with RestrainedLife is up for grabs. http://my.opera.com/boylane/blog/2008/03/01/cool-sl-viewer-windows-1-19-0-5-with-restrainedlife-v1-10-2

Luv,
Boy

I just tried your viewer patch, but i got the floating point exception, same as WiLLuMPJuH Gausman. I tried the 19.0.5 with your CoolRelease.

My processor is Intel Core 2 duo.

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 4400 @ 2.00GHz

But it's okay, i untarred the 19.0.5 again and that's fine. It's new for me so i am happy with the new features! Still seems to crash sometimes when teleporting ... i was hoping your CoolRelease might fix that.

[Edit] i should say i am on Debian 2.6.18-6-686.

You got me confused, here... Does it work for you, yes or no ?



The spurious logoffs/crashes after failed teleports are alas not (or not only) a viewer side issue: it's also server side and only LL can fix it, I'm afraid...

I just released the new "stable" Cool SL Viewer: v1.19.0.5 release 2, with:

- one bug corrected in my UI patch (the push to talk lock button problem),
- a modified Alt Shows Physical patch (it no more forces the highlighting in Edit mode),
- three new patches by others (two bug fixes, and one new feature: scripts saving/loading on disk)...

Enjoy !

Hi Henri and all others

I have one thing to bite down on regarding these exceptoin problems.

Here is the layout:

Computer 1:
Intel P4 1,6 GHz running Knoppix (the SLLUG harddisk installed) and an old Gforce4 MX (Don't laugh)

Computer 2:
Intel P4 1,6 GHz running Debian etch (recently upgraded from sarge) with a Gforce 7600 (if I remember right)

Computer 1 runs both LL version as well as Cool version flawlessly. (Allthough the Cool is much more stable and well.. the UI )

Computer 2 ran LL up to 1.16, not 1.17 but worked from 1.18 up. LL's 1.19 beta works fine.
But installing the Cool patches 1.18.5 and 1.19 (for the respective LL viewer of course) makes that exception fault mentioned earlier:

./secondlife: line 103: 7133 Floating point exceptionLD_LIBRARY_PATH="`pwd`"/lib:"`pwd`"/app_settings/mozilla-runtime-linux-i686:"${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}" $LL_WRAPPER bin/do-not-directly-run-secondlife-bin -settings settings_coolslviewer.xml -channel "Cool SL Viewer"
*** Unclean shutdown. ***

Now the hardware is the same except for the graphics cards.
And Knoppix is Debian based I think, right?
Still something is different obviously and I can't nail that down. Any suggestions anyone?
It would be nice to get the Cool viewer running on the second computer as well as it's the best viewer

If I were you, I would try with a different Linux distribution on the crashing computer: you could use a CD-ROM based distro (Mandriva One, or Ubuntu, for example) to see if it's a hardware problem (faulty FPU or memory ?) or software based (incompatible libraries: GTK too old ?)...

Well... I booted the second computer on the SLUG knoppix CD used as harddrive install on computer 1, and guess what... same error, allmost... It just said 4290 instead of 7133 :-/

Interestingly enough the LL beta viewer works, allthough the cool doesn't on the second computer.

And for further investigations, both computers have same motherboards, same CPU.
What differs in hardware is graphics, network card, amount of memory and the amount of extra cards like USB and Firewire addin-cards. Nothing that should kill the Cool wiewer?

I think I said it, but graphics are on the first working computer are a Gforce MX440 with 64 MB memory, and in the second computer is a Gforce 7600GT with 256 MB. Main memory is 768 MB in the first and 1024 MB in the second, so everything should be better on the machine that won't work...

I'm confused! Why is the LL viewer working but not the Cool one? If neither worked it would have been easier to understand, but one works and one doesn't... ???

[edit]Loomi's Restrained Life 1.10.2 (based on 1.18.5) works as well so it's only the Cool viewer that fails on the second computer[/edit]

The differences between the viewers are not only about the patches, but also about what compiler is used and what optimizations are done. The Cool SL Viewer is compiled with gcc v4.1 and all the optimizations that do matter for speed (-O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -frename-registers -fweb -fexpensive-optimizations -march=i686 -msse -mfpmath=sse,387). LL's viewer is compiled with gcc v3.4 and minimum optimizations.

My guess is that somehow, these optimizations hit a bug in the processor of your second computer (CPUs do have bugs, and especially Intel ones). You could try and update the microcode of your CPU and see if it cures the problem. Else, you could recompile the SL viewer with less optimizations (use the make-SL script, the patches, and the official LL sources). So far, you are only the second person with this kind of problem, so I'm reluctant to make the Cool SL Viewer slower for everyone else...

Regards,

Henri.

Links for microcode: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=N&ProductID=483&DwnldID=14303&strOSs=39&OSFullName=Linux*&lang=eng
http://www.urbanmyth.org/microcode/

First time I have heard of CPU bugs, but with computers nothing is surprising any more.
I *might* try to compile it myself, just to see if I can pinpoint it some how.
Or else I just have to get a better computer LOL
No need to make things slower for everyone else, it's slow enough as it is allready so keep the good work up!
And big thanks for the links as well.
If I can figure it out, I'll post about it here later on.

*hugs*
Jessica

Most CISC (Complex Instructions Sets CPU) processors got bugs... at least in their first "steppings".

Does this ironical motto reminds something to you: "Pentium Inside: Don't divide !"

This was about the first Pentium (later on renamed "Pentium Classic" huge bug: the divide instructions (FDIV) in the FPU unit of this processor was giving false results...

At the time being, the Pentium did not have a way to update its microcode. Later on, Intel added a way to "update" (in fact temporarily patch) the microcode of its processors. Such updates may be performed at the BIOS level or at the OS level (the microcode is patched each time the computer is rebooted). AMD K8 processors also got such a feature (although I never heard about a problematic bug in AMD processors, there are certainly tiny bugs which might get triggered on very rare cases).

The Core2 Duo also got serious bugs, which explains why many "BIOS updates" (in fact microcode patch additions to the BIOS) had to be performed on the motherboards hosting them.

back to the topic at hand... any chance for a 1.19.1 coolrelease?

Not for now. I may even update the Windlight version of the Cool SL Viewer instead of making v1.19.1.0RC available. The reasons are many: for a start, 1.19.1.0RC is probably the worst RC I ever tested: it got almost show stopper bugs (among which a very annoying one with attachments). Another issue is that the code for the media remote controls got heavily modified, and it will force me to redo half of the UI patch for the Cool SL Viewer, which will take time...

I just uploaded one updated build 1.19.0.80799 (with RL 1.10.4) of the very last windlight sources before it went into the awefull 1.19.1 RC. This will be the very last Windlight build. And it will likely take a while until a 1.19.1 version will be availabe according to Henri *smiles*.

http://my.opera.com/boylane

Enjoy!

The Cool SL Viewer Windlight v1.19.0.80977 release 1 is available now.

New in this release: brings the Windlight Cool SL Viewer on par with the v1.19.0.5 Cool SL Viewer (push to talk lock button bug fixed, three new patches added, RestrainedLife updated to v1.10g).

Enjoy !

The Cool SL Viewer v1.19.0.5 release 4 (stable) and v1.19.1.3 release 1 (release candidate) are available for download from http://sldev.free.fr/

New in these releases:

- Much improved UI (more configurable, the volume controls placement is "smarter", new "Groups" button in the toolbar, etc...).

- New "Cool features" tab in the preferences menu, to allow for an easy configuration of the Cool SL Viewer features.

And yes, the good old look and feel of the pre-voice UI is also available in v1.19.1.3 !

Enjoy !

Henri.

...and "save screenshots as png or jpg" is gone again

Only from v1.19.1.3. It is still in v1.19.0.5.

The patch would need pretty much a full rewrite to work in v1.19.1 viewers. Gigs Taggart, the author of the patch, told me that it was worked on with LL for inclusion in the official viewer. I have therefore no intention on spending time working on it myself (no need to reinvent the wheel...).