Oolite Bulletins

*excavating thread*
Using v 1.77 without OXPs I just stumbled across the file speech_pronunciation_guide.plist wondering what it does. I thought that maybe in newer versions there are spoken messages yet i read that in earlier versions that was a feature too. I have no in-game-checkbox or something to enable that.
How can i enable this feature?

You should be running 1.82, but Spoken Messages can be enabled on F2 via Game Options.

The repositories have no earlier version, it's v1.77.1. I somehow hesitate to install packages, maybe i should overcome my fear.
There is no options for spoken messages on the Options menu, i just checked. Just sound Volume and Music on/off.

I recommend that you download Oolite from the official website ( http://www.oolite.org/download/) and forget the repositories, which are at least two versions behind.

Could you post a snapshot of your F2->Game Options screen? Spoken messages were introduced at least since 1.7674 if I recall correctly and if you don't see the option, maybe the repository binaries were compiled without speech support (which would be yet another reason to not bother with them and d/l the game from the official website instead).

Edit to add: As a general remark, we can guarantee and support only binaties produced by us. The Linux repos binaries are not under our control and, as a result, our support capabilities for them are quite limited.

Thanks! I will upgrade soon, but i basically installed oolite in hope of improving my understanding of development and implementation so i'll just go with the version provided for now. The fact that i nevertheless played it for countless hours only speaks for the game.

http://fs2.directupload.net/images/150824/886fksnt.png

That is the screenshot.

Yup, your version is compiled without speech support. Also, looking at this page: https://packages.debian.org/sid/oolite, I don't see any reference to the espeak library we use for speech synthesis.

It makes me unhappy to find out that so many Linux users experience the game from the repositores in such a chopped form. I guess there must be many who don't even know about the official website and the current status of the project.

Edit: Looking at the Debian changelog for Oolite, I found this, which explains it all (look at last line):

oolite (1.75.2-1) experimental; urgency=low

* New upstream beta release.
* control: Standards-Version 3.9.2 (no changes)
* patches: src/Core/OOCPUInfo.h to consult sys/param.h instead of an
explicit list of architectures to configure endianness. Should help #614277.
* Updated manpage from upstream debian/ subdir.
* Removed libespeak support because of #591717.

Ok, so that pronunciation file is just remaining from the earlier build.

another_commander wrote:

It makes me unhappy to find out that so many Linux users experience the game from the repositores in such a chopped form.

Atleast archlinux has latest version in repos with full support (afaict) , archbang, antergos and manjaro linux should also have them, as they use many packages from archlinux repos.

I do wonder about the debian / ubuntu packagers though.
I thought it was common practice for distro packagers to notify upstream of bugs and work with upstream to solve them ?

Lone_Wolf wrote:

I do wonder about the debian / ubuntu packagers though.
I thought it was common practice for distro packagers to notify upstream of bugs and work with upstream to solve them ?

Since, for the first time in recorded history, the Debian maintainer for Oolite recently actually deigned to get in touch with us, perhaps you could take it up with him? <evil grin>

I will make an attempt.

@Lone_Wolf: As I don't know the maintainer's jargon and policies I might need some help. I will PM you on that matter if it's OK with you too.

OldThrashbarg wrote:

I will upgrade soon, but i basically installed oolite in hope of improving my understanding of development and implementation so i'll just go with the version provided for now.

You could run both - they'll work happily alongside each other (on Windows they do, anyway).

Getafix wrote:

I will make an attempt.

@Lone_Wolf: As I don't know the maintainer's jargon and policies I might need some help. I will PM you on that matter if it's OK with you too.

Yes, that's fine.

I do have some experience dealing with archlinux maintainers, and have made small contributions/bug reports to other opensource projects.

Thank you for the answers! Let's see...