Directory structure for Addons in Ubuntu/Debian

[jackiebean]

Just as a tip to new Linux users: if you are having trouble putting oxz files in the correct directory, or notice they are in red in the manager, they can be safely moved to this following directory in Ubuntu or Debian install:

/home/username/GNUstep/Library/ApplicationSupport/Oolite/ManagedAddOns

it has been mentioned that creating the following folder is a good place to put the oxp files but placing the oxz files in it will cause them to be red in the in game AddOn manager and they will not be update-able:

/home/username/.Oolite/AddOns

Once i moved the oxz files to the ManagedAddOns directory they showed up correctly in the in game manager and can be managed from there after that.

to find out where the directories have been created for oolite, there are a couple of ways to do this:

1. Go to the synaptic package manager and search for the oolite package that is installed, and then check each entry for the installed packages, look at the directories listed for each package when you open the properties window for the package and the directories will be listed.

2. navigate to the directory "/home/username/.Oolite/Logs" and open either of the log files which will list the directories where the addons are contained. The directory list should start soon after the last entry for "GL_ARB" is listed in the log file.

Hope this is helpful to Linux users.

[Stormrider]

Once i moved the oxz files to the ManagedAddOns directory they showed up correctly in the in game manager and can be managed from there after that.

How are you downloading?
If you download an OXZ through the in-game manager it should automatically be placed in the /home/username/GNUstep/Library/ApplicationSupport/Oolite/ManagedAddOns directory and that directory should be created with the first OXZ downloaded.
I tend to put OXZs in the /home/username/.Oolite/AddOns because I do some OXP development when I have time and I have noticed that sometimes the manager doesn't always respond well to manual removal of OXZs.

in my experience oxz files work fine no matter whether in /home/username/GNUstep/Library/ApplicationSupport/Oolite/ManagedAddOns or /home/username/.Oolite/AddOns the only time I get red in the manager is if the same oxz/oxp are present in both the folders.

You can also create a /home/username/GNUstep/Oolite/AddOns directory that only that installation of Oolite accesses so OXZs in /home/username/GNUstep/Oolite/AddOns don't get used by /home/username/GNUstep/Oolite-trunk/AddOns but OXZs in /home/username/GNUstep/Library/ApplicationSupport/Oolite/ManagedAddOns or /home/username/.Oolite/AddOns get used by both installations. This helps when developing OXZs that aren't supported by the current stable version.

Again this is what I have experienced with Linux Mint 17.1, which is based on Ubuntu 14.04 I believe, so I am curious to know if Ubuntu behaves differently
If I may ask which Linux version and which Oolite version are you running?

[jackiebean]

Linux mint 18 sarah

and yes the oxz do work in either directory, but if you already had an install of Oolite on another distro of linux, then you have to migrate everything somewhere if you want the same setup (basically). and this can also save time when you already have the add on instead of downloading a new copy (bandwidth)

if you put the oxz in the add-ons folder instead of the managed add-ons, then the in game downloader and updater will have strange results, like mods being in red even though they are technically installed, that is assuming there are both an oxp and an oxz version available. for testing i can see how this would not interfere since a text oxz would not be in the downloads database yet.

in some rare cases a certain add on will not be loaded and error out in the main menu as the game loads, and it is easy enough to take the unsupported add on, find it in the folder, and either move it or delete it so there are no more errors. that is a really cool feature of Oolite. The add-on errors are straight forward and not cryptic.

[Stormrider]

and yes the oxz do work in either directory, but if you already had an install of Oolite on another distro of linux, then you have to migrate everything somewhere if you want the same setup (basically). and this can also save time when you already have the add on instead of downloading a new copy (bandwidth)

Ah I get you, I think you could even migrate the whole ManagedAddOns directory, I've copy/pasted my AddOns directory successfully from another distro.

if you put the oxz in the add-ons folder instead of the managed add-ons, then the in game downloader and updater will have strange results, like mods being in red even though they are technically installed

I believe this is expected behavior, the manager is just letting you know that the oxz is installed in the AddOns folder instead of ManagedAddOns folder and therefore, as you pointed out, not updatable with the manager.

The add-on errors are straight forward and not cryptic.

I agree, very helpful for development too.