Friday, October 26, 2018

OpenSim - HyperGrid : Some of the Major Player's Discuss OpenSim Viewers among other Issues regarding OS 0.9.x

By Avatar JayR Cela

     Last weeks OpenSim Developers meeting has some not to surprising opinions expressed about the future of OpenSim based viewers and a downplay on the viability of FireStorm  moving forward. In other words, there has been a loss of faith in FS, and finally some serious discussion about throwing support behind some of the minor players in this shrinking field. You can read the entire transcript here : http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Chat_log_from_the_meeting_on_2018-10-23

    I have below several of the FireStorm comments discussed.

     1.  Have the syntax errors in FS been reported to them?
     2.  good luck with that :p
     3.  you have to write a JIRA
     4.  me? no thanks.. been there.. no more
     5.  for all practical purposes FS is now a department of LL
     6.  like we have to do Mantises?
     7.  im out looking for viewer devs
     8.  if any viewer dev wants to really support opensim, they should talk to us
     9.  just as a matter of interest is there any viewer out there that sort of maybe might be semi-up
          -to-date wrt. opensim?

    This is long overdue in my personal opinion, as I do not care for FS when using anything OpenSim, I much prefer to use the Singularity Viewer, sadly that may soon become a thing of the past as can be witnessed by Siana Gearz  ( creator - maintainer of Singularity ) recent outreach for Patreon funding : https://www.patreon.com/sianagearz/overview
 
    I personally am not a developer, but I do attend these weekly meetings from time to time, when I am unable to attend I keep up with what is happening by reading the weekly Chat Logs located here : http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Office_hours 

JayR Cela

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

OpenSim : HyperGrid : Google + Shutting Down - Damm ! Is AMD eating Intel for Lunch ?

By Avatar JayR Cela

    I have to admit I was caught by surprise the revelation that G+ will be shutting down sometime next year, that's a real bummer. I refuse to use Face Book for any reason, having deleted my account several years ago, and I don't really care for Twitter much. Oh well :_(

    On the hardware side of things it seems to me that we finally have a two horse race again in the CPU - APU side of things with AMD taking the lead this past quarter. This should be great news for most people considering a new Rig for Desktop or Server use. I have not used any AMD products for quite some time, but now with the new Ryzen based Thread Rippers and some really interesting APU's it should now be possible to piece together an affordable powerhouse box, for a considerably lower  price than my usual Intel-Nvidia solution's.

JayR Cela :_)

Monday, August 6, 2018

OpenSim HyperGrid : Using FireStorm or Singularity :

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Ok look here at what we have, two excellent viewers, depending on which version of Singularity you are using, you defiantly want the Alpha-x86_64-1.8.7.6994 release available here.
http://alpha.singularityviewer.org/alpha/

    Let's face the facts, mostly these are the only 2 viewers you should even be using if you are on a Linux or Windows box. Both of them are outstanding examples of what can be done on the OpenSim platform. Personally I prefer Singularity for design and prim building, however I really like quite a bit of the extra functionality built into the FireStorm entry. If you happen to be on a Mac I hear that the Kokua viewer is nice, the Alchemy viewer project has seen no activity for quite some time, and we always have Henry's Cool Viewer, you gotta hand it to Henry, he always surprises us by doing things that LindenLab claimed to be impossible with the Viewer 1 code base.

JayR Cela :_)

Thursday, August 2, 2018

The Ubuntu 18.04.1 point release is out : Should you UpGrade from 16.04.5 ?

By Avatar JayR Cela

    As a long time Debian / Ubuntu user I have to say a definite NO !

    There are so many things that are completely broken at this point in time it is a total waste of your time. Samba is broken, Cpufreq is broken, GKSU has been depreciated and this has led to a number of broken links when you upgrade, then you toss in the fact that the Nvidia-39x series of video drivers are completly screwed up with no way back to revert to the 38x series,  and the list goes on and on. Now I am talking about the Desktop, I have no idea what the hell is going on with the server side, I do know this much though they are still using Mono 4.x instead of 5.x /sheesh

    Save yourself the grief and wait until the end of October when 18.04.2 is released.

JayR Cela

Friday, May 25, 2018

OpenSim : HyperGrid : I Suddenly Realized I Speak USA Slang in the OpenSim MetaVerse

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Wow today something just hit me in the head like a ton of Bricks, right smack up-side my left.

     The fact is there are so many different people from various portions of the planet that are participating in Open Simulator and the Hyper Grid.

     I think it should be called a grand experiment, into how do we as individual races and language barriers express ourselves to one in other properly, and with the correct translations of meaning between the various language barriers that can some times be correctly, incorrectly or explicitly manipulated. I grew up in the Detroit area of Michigan in the United States during the 1960's 70's and 80's and tend to speak what could be considered as SLANG. In other words a mumbo jumbo of proper English. This can and at times present a problem when communicating with various people from other cultures.

    In the past I have managed to stick the proverbial foot in my mouth, and accidentally insulted some of my acquaintances. And as they say, once the words leave your mouth, or keyboard, the damage is already done.

    Oh Boy / So for anyone out there that happens to be reading this I humbly apologize.

JayR Cela :_)

Friday, April 13, 2018

OpenSim Hypergrid : SineWave Space - Sansar : What Do They Have To Offer ?

By Avatar JayR Cela

    Let's talk about reality and some of the more outlandish ideas being put forward as progress in the world of Virtual Reality environments.

     I am going to start with SineWave Space, If you have been there and are a resident then I am assuming that you have a pretty hefty computer CPU and GPU. that goes double for LindenLab and their Project Sansar, not everyone has extra money to waste on a virtual reality world environment. Let's just take a look at the Vive and Face Books Oculus, these items definitely are niche products that are useful for certain purposes. Medical and Surgery, Aero Dynamic Design Principles, but not much else.

    As much as I dislike the Windows 10 environment I have to say that Micro Soft has the right idea with the Augmented Reality glasses they are working towards. This will be a truly phenomenal breakthrough for all of mankind if they can pull it off. These toys from Vive and Oculus are nothing but a horrid blip on the map of the state of the human progress into the next realm of awareness. Mostly these over priced items are limited to people that enjoy playing video games.

    Lets get real here, yes the real world can be a horrible place, do you really want to withdraw into a mindless shell of a human being, encased within your headset of a make believe 3D Virtual World ?

    I don't think so.

JayR Cela :_(

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

OpenSim 101 : Your Profile > Picks

By Avatar JayR Cela

    I am getting sick and tired of people whining about how no one attends the event's they announce within their Grids or on the HyperGrid. For one thing the majority of these folks have never bothered to fill out the Profile section properly, where are your interests ( are you just an idiot or do you actually do something positive in OpenSim ? ) / where are your Picks of Favorite places to go ? And why the hell don't you send people a proper LandMark listing the Grid and Sim ?

    Are we all supposed to be some sort of mind readers ?

JayR Cela :_(

Saturday, April 7, 2018

OpenSim HyperGrid : Linux - Mac -Windows, Which One Should You be Using ?

By Avatar JayR Cela

    This is a very easy question to answer that often get's asked, it's simple. You should be using what you are comfortable and familiar with, and in the case of Apple products if you can afford it as well.

    Look I am just going to lay this one right out on the line, I am a Linux person, specifically Debian / Ubuntu forks, I have been using them for about 12 years and to me it is a no brainer. I also build computers as a sideline hobby for friends and acquaintances, some of these folks are very comfortable with the Windows operating system. So it makes no sense at all for me to try and influence them to make a switch to a Linux environment. It is a waste of their and my time to do so.

    Now we come to Macs and whatever they are calling their OS these days. I have never owned any Apple products nor do I wish to, however having worked in the freelance audio recording industry for a number of years I have had the opportunity to use other peoples gear. Personally I do not care for the stuff, but I have a great deal of respect for the people I know that swear by Macs in the Film and Music business.

    All I am saying is, the next time someone cuts down your choice of an Operating System for use in OpenSim, Just grin and bear it. They obviously have no clue as to what they are talking about, because they all accomplish the same thing.

JayR Cela :_)

Friday, February 23, 2018

OpenSim and FireStorm 5.0.11.53634 Major Mesh Flaw and Lousy Performance with OS 0.9.x for Sim Border Crossings

By Avatar JayR Cela

        I have to make you aware of some major flaws in the latest FireStorm viewer, I do not care for it at all, for one thing it is a over bloated piece of work when it comes to using it in OpenSim 0.9.x or 0.8.3.x releases. The biggest nasty flaw has to deal with disappearing and non rezzable  Mesh Content. I recently have been doing quite a bit of work for avatar Kazuko Youshida  on TheKaz Grid in OS for my Open Sim Power Boat Association ( OSPBA ) regions, after installing FS 5.0.11.53634 I suddenly found a number of mesh powerboats were simply gone, and the ones in my inventory would no longer rezz. I also discovered that my junkyard storage area on OSGrid and my personal Sim and OSPBA Var Race course tracks on 3rdRock Grid and the  testing area on OpenSimLife Grid were showing the same problems, luckily an acquaintance I ran into on OSGrid had the answer and sent me a note card titled "Firestorm screwed Open Sim again"

quote :

Affects Firestorm 5.0.11 (53634) rel: Jan 12 2018

Firestorm screwed OpenSim again.    

Take a look around.  You will probably see a bunch of naked avatars (well no complaints there), missing trees, buildings.

How to fix:


Hit:  CONTROL-ALT-SHIFT S     to open debug settings.


in the search box start typing...     FSEnforceStrictObjectCheck
Set to false!

That's it.   The missing mesh should appear in a moment.
 "

    I should have read the FS release notes before installing it, so I have no one to blame but myself, however I rarely read instructions of any kind, and I imagine a lot of other people do not either.

   ( EDIT ) February 23 2018 , :  I had forgot to mention that all of the disappearing Mesh content was due to it being improperly uploaded into OpenSim in the first place. Many thanks to Tampa Powers of Open Sim Virtual for reminding me of this omission.
  

    Now on to the next issue, cross border sim crossings on a standard 256x256 with high speed vehicles SUCK Big Time with both the 64bit and especially 32bit versions of FireStorm, the later rendering your vehicle to act like a Drunken Jackrabbit hopping, stuttering and flailing about enough to make the vehicle completely unusable, in other words it is a complete waste of your time to even bother trying.
The solution I found to work the best is using the Singularity Viewer, preferably the older last 32bit ones, specifically i686-1.8.6.6156 and 1.8.6.6.157 / you can find them on BitBucket here :

https://bitbucket.org/SingularityViewer/singularityviewer/downloads/

    The 64 bit versions seem to have a bit of a problem with the stutter problem, but the 32bit ones will give you a relatively smooth and barley noticeable amount of difficulty.

    I would like to close this post by saying that there is nothing wrong with the FireStorm viewer if you are using it for SecondLife. however for OpenSim I consider it to be ill suited, and over bloated with SL specific features that were never intended to function properly on the OS platform.

JayR Cela

P.S. :  It has been a while since my last post, real life and the recent prolonged slow agonizing death of my father was heartbreaking, thankfully he passed away January 19 2018. I am sure he is enjoying himself in Heaven, and no longer suffering.

     I hope to be back in full swing as soon as we straighten out all the legal paperwork.