261 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
261 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
Second Life - Linux Beta README
|
|
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|
|
|
|
This document contains information about the Second Life Linux
|
|
client, and isn't meant to serve as an introduction to Second
|
|
Life itself - please see <http://www.secondlife.com/whatis/>.
|
|
|
|
1. Introduction
|
|
2. System Requirements
|
|
3. Installing & Running
|
|
4. Known Issues
|
|
5. Troubleshooting
|
|
5.1. 'Error creating window.'
|
|
5.2. System hangs
|
|
5.3. 'Shiny' and client performance
|
|
5.4. Audio
|
|
5.5. 'Alt' key for camera controls doesn't work
|
|
5.6. In-world movie playback
|
|
6. Advanced Troubleshooting
|
|
6.1. Audio
|
|
6.2. OpenGL
|
|
7. Obtaining and working with the client source code
|
|
8. Getting more help, and reporting problems
|
|
|
|
|
|
1. INTRODUCTION
|
|
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|
|
|
|
Hi! This is a BETA release of the Second Life client for Linux.
|
|
The 'beta' status means that although we're still smoothing-out a few rough
|
|
edges, this version of the client is functionally complete and should
|
|
work quite well 'out of the box' for accessing Second Life.
|
|
|
|
We encourage you to try it out and let us know of its compatibility
|
|
with your system. Be aware that although this is a 'beta' client, it connects
|
|
to the main Second Life world and changes you make there are permanent.
|
|
|
|
You will have either obtained this client from secondlife.com (the official
|
|
site) or from a third-party packager; if you encounter any problems then
|
|
we recommend trying the latest official builds from secondlife.com which are
|
|
updated often.
|
|
|
|
Please enjoy!
|
|
|
|
|
|
2. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
|
|
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
|
|
|
|
Minimum requirements:
|
|
* Internet Connection: Cable or DSL
|
|
* Computer Processor: 800MHz Pentium III or Athlon or better
|
|
(recommended: 1.5GHz or more)
|
|
* Computer Memory: 512MB (recommended: 768MB or more)
|
|
* Linux Operating System: A reasonably modern 32-bit Linux environment
|
|
is required. If you are running a 64-bit Linux distribution then
|
|
you will need its 32-bit compatibility environment installed.
|
|
* Video/Graphics Card:
|
|
o nVidia GeForce 2, GeForce 4mx, or better (recommend one of the
|
|
following: 6700, 6800, 7600, 7800, 7900, 8400, 8500, 8600,
|
|
8800, Go 7400, Go 7600, Go 7800, Go 7900)
|
|
o OR ATI Radeon 8500, 9250, or better
|
|
(nVidia cards are recommended for the Linux client)
|
|
|
|
**NOTE**: Second Life absolutely requires you to have recent, correctly-
|
|
configured OpenGL 3D drivers for your hardware - the graphics drivers
|
|
that came with your operating system may not be good enough! See the
|
|
TROUBLESHOOTING section if you encounter problems starting Second Life.
|
|
|
|
For a more comfortable experience, the RECOMMENDED hardware for the Second
|
|
Life Linux client is very similar to that for Windows, as detailed at:
|
|
<https://secondlife.com/corporate/sysreqs.php>
|
|
|
|
|
|
3. INSTALLING & RUNNING
|
|
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|
|
|
|
The Second Life Linux client entirely runs out of the directory you have
|
|
unpacked it into - no installation step is required.
|
|
|
|
Run ./secondlife from the installation directory to start Second Life.
|
|
|
|
For in-world MOVIE PLAYBACK, you will need GStreamer 0.10 installed on your
|
|
system. This is optional - it is not required for general client
|
|
functionality. If you have GStreamer 0.10 installed, the selection of
|
|
in-world movies you can successfully play will depend on the GStreamer
|
|
plugins you have; if you cannot play a certain in-world movie then you are
|
|
probably missing the appropriate GStreamer plugin on your system - you may
|
|
be able to install it (see TROUBLESHOOTING).
|
|
|
|
User data is stored in the hidden directory ~/.secondlife by default; you may
|
|
override this location with the SECONDLIFE_USER_DIR environment variable if
|
|
you wish.
|
|
|
|
|
|
4. KNOWN ISSUES
|
|
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|
|
|
|
These are the most commonly-encountered known issues which are specific to
|
|
the Beta release of the Linux client.
|
|
|
|
* VISUAL EFFECTS AND PERFORMANCE - many Linux graphics drivers are not as
|
|
robust as their counterparts for other operating systems, so some advanced
|
|
Second Life graphical features have been DISABLED by default to aid
|
|
stability. See PROBLEM 3 in the TROUBLESHOOTING section if you wish to
|
|
turn these on to possibly enhance your experience.
|
|
|
|
* MISC - The following features are known to not yet be fully operational on
|
|
the Linux client:
|
|
* Movie recording (soon to be deprecated)
|
|
* Full Unicode font rendering
|
|
|
|
* UPLOAD / SAVE / COLOR-PICKER DIALOGS - These only appear when the client
|
|
is in 'windowed' mode, not 'fullscreen' mode.
|
|
|
|
* UPDATING - when the client detects that a new version of Second Life
|
|
is available, it will ask you if you wish to download the new version.
|
|
This option is not implemented; to upgrade, you should manually download a
|
|
new version from the Second Life web site, <http://www.secondlife.com/>.
|
|
|
|
|
|
5. TROUBLESHOOTING
|
|
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
|
|
|
|
The client prints a lot of diagnostic information to the console it was
|
|
run from. Most of this is also replicated in ~/.secondlife/logs/SecondLife.log
|
|
- this is helpful to read when troubleshooting, especially 'WARNING' lines.
|
|
|
|
VOICE PROBLEMS? See the separate README-linux-voice.txt file for Voice
|
|
troubleshooting information.
|
|
|
|
PROBLEM 1:- Second Life fails to start up, with a warning on the console like:
|
|
'Error creating window.' or
|
|
'Unable to create window, be sure screen is set at 32-bit color' or
|
|
'SDL: Couldn't find matching GLX visual.'
|
|
SOLUTION:- Usually this indicates that your graphics card does not meet
|
|
the minimum requirements, or that your system's OpenGL 3D graphics driver is
|
|
not updated and configured correctly. If you believe that your graphics
|
|
card DOES meet the minimum requirements then you likely need to install the
|
|
official so-called 'non-free' nVidia or ATI (fglrx) graphics drivers; we
|
|
suggest one of the following options:
|
|
* Consult your Linux distribution's documentation for installing these
|
|
official drivers. For example, Ubuntu provides documentation here:
|
|
<https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto>
|
|
* If your distribution does not make it easy, then you can download the
|
|
required Linux drivers straight from your graphics card manufacturer:
|
|
- nVidia cards: <http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html>
|
|
- ATI cards: <http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html>
|
|
|
|
PROBLEM 2:- My whole system seems to hang when running Second Life.
|
|
SOLUTION:- This is typically a hardware/driver issue. The first thing to
|
|
do is to check that you have the most recent official drivers for your
|
|
graphics card (see PROBLEM 1).
|
|
SOLUTION:- Some residents with ATI cards have reported that running
|
|
'sudo aticonfig --locked-userpages=off' before running Second Life solves
|
|
their stability issues.
|
|
SOLUTION:- As a last resort, you can disable most of Second Life's advanced
|
|
graphics features by editing the 'secondlife' script and removing the '#'
|
|
from the line which reads '#export LL_GL_NOEXT=x'
|
|
|
|
PROBLEM 3:- Performance or graphical quality are not as high as I expect.
|
|
PROBLEM:- 'SHINY' doesn't work.
|
|
PROBLEM:- I can't turn on Anisotropic Filtering, Ripple Water, or AGP.
|
|
SOLUTION:- Some graphics performance features in Second Life are disabled
|
|
by default for the Linux version due to stability issues with some common
|
|
Linux graphic drivers. You can re-enable these features at the slight
|
|
risk of decreasing system stability. To do so:
|
|
* Edit the 'secondlife' script. Comment-out these lines by putting a '#'
|
|
in front of them: 'export LL_GL_BASICEXT=x', 'export LL_GL_NOEXT=x',
|
|
'export LL_GL_BLACKLIST=abcdefghijklmno'.
|
|
* Now start Second Life. Some advanced performance features will now be
|
|
automatically used, and some new options in Preferences will now be
|
|
available to you; there is no guarantee, however, that they will
|
|
positively affect performance!
|
|
SOLUTION:- If you are not running an official Second Life client obtained from
|
|
secondlife.com, you should consider doing so as you may find its
|
|
performance to be superior to third-party versions.
|
|
|
|
PROBLEM 4:- Sound effects seem to 'lag' a fraction of a second behind
|
|
actions.
|
|
SOLUTION:- You may uncomment the 'LL_BAD_ESD' line in the 'secondlife' script
|
|
to get more responsive audio. However, if you do this then you may
|
|
encounter audio issues or a hang during login, so beware.
|
|
|
|
PROBLEM 5:- Using the 'Alt' key to control the camera doesn't work or just
|
|
moves the Second Life window.
|
|
SOLUTION:- Some window managers eat the Alt key for their own purposes; you
|
|
can configure your window manager to use a different key instead (for
|
|
example, the 'Windows' key!) which will allow the Alt key to function
|
|
properly with mouse actions in Second Life and other applications.
|
|
|
|
PROBLEM 6:- In-world movie playback doesn't work for me.
|
|
SOLUTION:- You need to have a working installation of GStreamer 0.10; this
|
|
is usually an optional package for most versions of Linux. If you have
|
|
installed GStreamer 0.10 and you can play some movies but not others then
|
|
you need to install a wider selection of GStreamer plugins, either
|
|
from your vendor or an appropriate third party.
|
|
|
|
|
|
6. ADVANCED TROUBLESHOOTING
|
|
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|
|
|
|
The 'secondlife' script which launches Second Life contains some
|
|
configuration options for advanced troubleshooters.
|
|
|
|
* AUDIO - Edit the 'secondlife' script and you will see three audio
|
|
options: LL_BAD_ESD, LL_BAD_OSS, LL_BAD_ALSA. Second Life tries to
|
|
use ESD, OSS, then ALSA audio drivers in this order; you may uncomment
|
|
the corresponding LL_BAD_* option to skip an audio driver which you
|
|
believe may be causing you trouble.
|
|
|
|
* OPENGL - For advanced troubleshooters, the LL_GL_BLACKLIST option lets
|
|
you disable specific GL extensions, each of which is represented by a
|
|
letter ("a"-"o"). If you can narrow down a stability problem on your system
|
|
to just one or two GL extensions then please post details of your hardware
|
|
(and drivers) to the Linux Client Testers forum (see link below) along
|
|
with the minimal LL_GL_BLACKLIST which solves your problems. This will help
|
|
us to improve stability for your hardware while minimally impacting
|
|
performance.
|
|
LL_GL_BASICEXT and LL_GL_NOEXT should be commented-out for this to be useful.
|
|
|
|
|
|
7. OBTAINING AND WORKING WITH THE CLIENT SOURCE CODE
|
|
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
|
|
|
|
We're pleased to have released the Second Life client's source code under
|
|
an Open Source license compatible with the 'GPL'. To get involved with client
|
|
development, please see:
|
|
<http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Open_Source_Portal>
|
|
|
|
|
|
8. GETTING MORE HELP AND REPORTING PROBLEMS
|
|
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|
|
|
|
For general help and support with Second Life:
|
|
<http://secondlife.com/community/support.php>
|
|
|
|
For problems and discussion concerning unofficial (not secondlife.com)
|
|
releases, please contact your packager or the SLDev mailing list:
|
|
<https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sldev>
|
|
|
|
In-world help: Please use the 'Help' menu in the client for various
|
|
non-Linux-specific Second Life help options.
|
|
|
|
In-world discussion: There is a 'Linux Client Users' group
|
|
inside Second Life which is free to join. You can find it by pressing
|
|
the 'Search' button at the bottom of the window and then selecting the
|
|
'Groups' tab and searching for 'Linux'. This group is useful for discussing
|
|
Linux issues with fellow Linux client users who are online.
|
|
|
|
The Second Life Issue Tracker:
|
|
<http://jira.secondlife.com/>
|
|
This is the right place for finding known issues and reporting new
|
|
bugs in all Second Life releases if you find that the Troubleshooting
|
|
section in this file hasn't helped (please note, however, that this is
|
|
not a support forum).
|
|
|
|
Linux Client Testers forum:
|
|
<http://forums.secondlife.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=263>
|
|
This is a forum where Linux Client users can help each other out and
|
|
discuss the latest updates.
|