Who has oolite-linux running?

[dajt]

Peole telling me installing it using synaptic (debian/ubuntu) works without a hiccup, but here it does not...
Probably because I installed older versions, and only halfway etc etc...
And now synaptic throws me a 'will not install terminal' unsolvable dependency, huh?
Apt-get install same...

I went through all that, which is why I turfed debian and now build most of what I need from source. My experience with Mandrake was much better than with debian and I got a few libraries and other things via its package manager. But that means nothing because other people swear by debian.

For anything important (GNUstep, GCC, etc) I just build from source and install in my home directory.

It's pretty bad.

[Rxke]

Another missing option in the poll:

"I'm waaaay too stupid/scatterbrained/confused to recognize a perfectly working GNUStep when it's staring me in the eye"



Under Ubuntu it's actually *too easy/simple*, and that got me stumbling.
-> select the packages from synaptic, hit enter and...done.

Yup, done. Simple, eh?

But me of course thinking it was only the beginning, aaarghl, trying to compile already compiled stuff etc.. Doznloading gcc again and again... Lame stuff like that...

And now, out of frustation, I type openapp StepBill.app... To see another errormsg (I thought)

AND IT JUST LAUNCHED, AAAaAAAaaaaaaGhkklghh....

(I should be happy, but instead denting my desk with forehead...)

Should I dare downloading LinOolite, after proving to myself I'm errr... errorprone in my tinking?

[winston]

Will be rooting through the source this weekend to make stations spin the other way though.

You probably don't need to. I suspect the station's rotation is specified in one of the .plist files so all you need to do is modify that file then restart oolite.

[aegidian]

Will be rooting through the source this weekend to make stations spin the other way though.

You probably don't need to. I suspect the station's rotation is specified in one of the .plist files so all you need to do is modify that file then restart oolite.

No, sorry.

It's set in line 851 of Universe.m

I should probably set this to read a value like

Code: Select all

<key>station_roll</key>
<real>0.4</real>

from planetinfo.plist (Done Mac v1.48, Linux r26)

[aegidian]

Done (Mac OS X v1.48, Linux r26)

The station roll value can now be overridden using planetinfo.plist this file should reside at AddOns/Config/planetinfo.plist. If it doesn't already exist, create it and add the following text:

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>universal</key>
	<dict>
		<key>station_roll</key>
		<real>-0.4</real><!-- rotate the opposite way from normal -->
	</dict>
</dict>
</plist>

[Rxke]

cue barrage of posts about how people successfuly hacked together a centrifuge-station, in combination with the billards behaviour to do insane things.... Again!

[aegidian]

cue barrage of posts about how people successfuly hacked together a centrifuge-station, in combination with the billards behaviour to do insane things.... Again!

Yeah, I leave it as an exercise to the reader what happens when the station_roll value is greater than your own ship's (or any other docking ships') max_flight_roll value.

[winston]

The end result is probably somewhat similar to that space station I equipped with a Thargoid laser and made agressive...i.e. an unfortunate docking accident!

[Ian Malone]

Yeah, I leave it as an exercise to the reader what happens when the station_roll value is greater than your own ship's (or any other docking ships') max_flight_roll value.

Well, my favourite docking trick is to counter-rotate to get the right angle
(very useful coming in off-axis), so it might be do-able.

[excalibur]

I have done a complete install of everything on the Fedora Core 3 CD's, downloaded and built the GNUStep libraries and been able to build Oolite-linux !!

However, when I run it I get a couple of problems:

1. The fonts look compressed together on-screen. It think this is because in the startup it complains with "The font specified for NSFont, Helvetica can't be found." Any suggestions on where and how to install that font?

2. I get the initial window for Oolite, with my spinning Cobra, but whatever I type (eg N to the question on loading an existing commander) justs types in the terminal window. I don't seem to be able to activate the Oolite graphical window.

Any help much appreciated!

[dajt]

I have done a complete install of everything on the Fedora Core 3 CD's, downloaded and built the GNUStep libraries and been able to build Oolite-linux !!

Good to hear someone's had some luck with it.

1. The fonts look compressed together on-screen. It think this is because in the startup it complains with "The font specified for NSFont, Helvetica can't be found." Any suggestions on where and how to install that font?

Welcome to the farce that is X11/GNUStep. I solved this by using the "art" backend rather than the "x11" backend for GNUstep. It's fonts seem to be a bit better, once you've found them. I'll post a URL when I get home. Basically GNUstep fonts are a hassle, but once you have them working you can forget about it.

You can also change the font name in the source code from Helvectica to something else that works better. This was my original solution! I don't have any suggestions on what to change it to though.

2. I get the initial window for Oolite, with my spinning Cobra, but whatever I type (eg N to the question on loading an existing commander) justs types in the terminal window. I don't seem to be able to activate the Oolite graphical window.

This one should be easy - ensure the OOlite window has the focus. I have to click in the content area, not just the title bar. Once I've done this is picks up the keystrokes.

This might be different for different window managers. Remember, choice is your friend. I hate X-Windows.

[JensAyton]

The most common clone of Helvetica is (drum roll...) Arial, which is designed to be metric-compatible. There are probably open source or PD fonts which imitate Arial.

[Rxke]

Arial..... Eeeeeeeew.

We have to bring in our papers under strict rules, the use of Arial being one of them. I never do. Say my Apple can't print it, and of course they believe that rightaway. Sometimes another man's ignorane is my bliss

[aegidian]

Arial..... Eeeeeeeew.

Don't worry, Oolite only uses it to figure the sizes for its own internal font which is a snapshot of Helvetica. (asciitext.png)

[winston]

I've never had a problem with window focus, but then again I use the traditional X11 'mousewithin' focus rather than click to focus.

X11 in itself isn't bad; the trouble is we're using a *very* minority toolkit (GNUstep) on probably a GNOME or KDE based window system. I think for long-term portability, NSOpenGLView et al. are going to have to bite the dust in favour of SDL to remove the dependency on the GUI parts of GNUstep (the Foundation and Base stuff is fine, that's just Yet Another OO Library really).

The trouble is is that it will be a LOT of work to get rid of NSOpenGLView and friends, or at least I think it will be (and I don't really know how to go about it at the moment; I've not examined the code too deeply). The good thing about throwing NSOpenGLView and NSWindow away and replacing it with SDL alternatives is that also gives you Windows portability.

I suspect it'll mean a more or less total rewrite of GameController.m and quite a bit of rewrite in Universe.m (since that also uses the gameview).