Oolite Bulletins

Hello Guys,
Maybe an odd one this, but how do you suppress the background terminal when starting the game? Are there additional 'switches' I can put in the executing path of my desktop menu config?
It's good for debugging/slight cheating (see ship population), but it would clutter my taskbar/desktop less if just the game terminal opened...

capt.Pirk wrote:

Hello Guys,
Maybe an odd one this, but how do you suppress the background terminal when starting the game? Are there additional 'switches' I can put in the executing path of my desktop menu config?
It's good for debugging/slight cheating (see ship population), but it would clutter my taskbar/desktop less if just the game terminal opened...

You can always run it as: '/path/to/Oolite/oolite &' and then close the terminal window...

lucabu wrote:

You can always run it as: '/path/to/Oolite/oolite &' and then close the terminal window...

Sorry if my post wasn't clear. This IS what happens by default anyway...
I am trying to have just ONE window open only -- i.e. the game!

Quick answer - No, the other window is necessary for the game to load - it's the terminal session for the SDL interface (GNUStep).

i think.

You can always make a desktop shortcut (in gnome, right click the Desktop, then choose 'Create launcher', fill in the details (Name: Oolite, Command: oolite) and do not check the 'Run in a terminal' option. Then you won't get the terminal. Of course, you won't get a log either if it crashes (although I expect you can make the command 'oolite > $HOME/oolite.log')

I thought everyone played full screen anyway and wouldn't see that

This is the advantage of using the autopackage I guess... it installs a launcher in the Gnome menu.

If you need the log, I believe most distros already log all error output into a file like Xsession.errors or the like, which is cleared on X restart.

winston wrote:

I thought everyone played full screen anyway and wouldn't see that

I would play full screen, but Oolite crashes every time I Alt+Tab to the desktop or another application. Thus, I play in windowed mode at 1024x768 (which doesn't fill up my widescreen monitor) so that I can easily go to another application if I need to (again, I have to be careful not to minimize Oolite window, because that will also crash the game).

I suspect the crashes have something to do with my dual core processor / WinXP or some other such variant, because it is not only Oolite that crashes this way, but also a certain program called Wings 3D. No other program does this, however...

winston wrote:

You can always make a desktop shortcut (in gnome, right click the Desktop, then choose 'Create launcher', fill in the details (Name: Oolite, Command: oolite) and do not check the 'Run in a terminal' option. Then you won't get the terminal. Of course, you won't get a log either if it crashes (although I expect you can make the command 'oolite > $HOME/oolite.log')

I thought everyone played full screen anyway and wouldn't see that

Cheers Winston
Well, I am operating from a 'remaster in waiting' (chroot) using Knoppix 5.0.1, Gnome desktop only
Yes, I'm sticking Oolite on it too!
As for full screen, I would normally play also (nvtv out on humble Nvidia TNT). However,I've yet to include 3D gfx support but will create a 'nvidia.ko' from a hdd install and copy it over.
Now if could just get the main menu to do the same... (/usr/lib/menu /usr/share/menu)....

A possible fix for the full screen crash could be to reinstall the graphics driver.

On my system whenever anything to do with X is updated, if I don't reinstall the NVidia driver then strange things can happen.

Your mileage may vary.

I used the auto package to install Oolite 1.65 in Ubuntu (dapper 6.06). Yes, I get the background terminal, too. It gives a lot of helpful information, if you care to look at it. But I usually don't care to look at it, so I minimize it or I move it to another desktop. I prefer to play Oolite windowed, so moving it to another desktop is what I usually do. Sometimes I can't resist the urge to see if there are Thargoids in the system, so I look in the terminal log. That's my only beef with the terminal log. It makes it way too easy to see which kinds of ships are in the system. Sometimes I just can't help myself.

When I play Oolite at home on my Windows PC, I also get a terminal window, but it is blank and never shows any information. I just minimize it.

On Windows it logs to a file (stdout.txt, I believe).