OpenAL on Linux: Hint

The demos crashed for me -- not all of them but most. I have inadvertently fixed the problem by installing the openal-dev package. I already had openal, but the dev package includes a symlink that apparently is needed.

I'm just saying.

Yeah. Awhile back there was a post that said not having openAL would
make croquet crash. There were lots of posts of our list about openAL
at nabble forum archive.

Howard Stearns, a croquet savvy guy, wrote the following :

http://www.nabble.com/Who-I-met-this-morning---tf3580015.html#a10043485

This indeed confirms your hint.

Right, but I HAD OpenAL. The debian "openal-dev" package installs a symlink that "openal" by itself does not. You wouldn't think the dev package was necessary.

Historically there has been some issues with the links on Linux in  
various versions.
See, e.g., http://www.nabble.com/Re%3A--croquet--Anyone-want-to- 
Croquet-from-C5-in-Japan--tf3162787.html#a8773185 and lots of others.

I don't know whether the Collaborative distribution is correct now. I  
_think_ so, but I'm not set up to test on Linux.
If it is not correct and someone sends me a tested fix, I'll roll out  
a new version.

-H

On Aug 26, 2007, at 8:57 AM, Søren Renner wrote:

Søren Renner wrote:

> The demos crashed for me -- not all of them but most. I have
> inadvertently fixed the problem by installing the openal-dev package.
> I already had openal, but the dev package includes a symlink that
> apparently is needed.
>
> I'm just saying.

For example, do different platforms need the symlinks in different
places? Is there a universal gestalt mechanism so the installer will
know what platform it is on and make the correct placement of a symlink?
There must be a gestalt mechanism for a developer package. Hmm.

Ok. I'm going to attempt composition on this, not results or claims to
be definitive source, but, as if it were homework.

I believe I had troubles running blender because I hadn't set a symlink
as instructed were I to have used Darwin open source to generate it
rather than someone else
used the Darwin command line to creat a package which I only had to
download.

I looked at prescriptions on Darwin build and it said to set a symlink
in a certail directory, but the fellows who made the package had not
passed that on.

As time went by, though, I saw more was wrong when I tried to launch
from X11 unix command line interface.

I fell into just clicking on the *.app file on my mac and blender knew
where all its stuff was, its help html files, for example.

So, something happens when you package a program : you take
responsibility in posix command lines in code to use relative indexing
to stuff hidden in *.app contents.
Folks using don't have to make second guesses about making symlinks and
such, since you made all the guesses about what made things work right
and checked the guesses.
Checking is hard. Debugging is hard.

Can I stretch to why a developer package or sdk would put in a symlink
for you where a simple openAL install would not?

I tried and it went all over the place and so, I suspect, you found a
bug in the openAL install and should congratulate yourself as being a
contributer to the linux community.

It might be torturous how your discovery gets into FAQ or automatic in
install of openAL.

I have always been excited to get a concept like your symlink work
around. Humans will always make things short of perfect so I will have
cause to be excited getting concepts toward perfection.

This is maybe no bug, it is normally also very easy to find the library
files in your linux distribution, if you use your package software.
Most distributions have one. Debian to. Per default the lib is installed
at /usr/lib (isn't it easy too) but croquet was linked against
/usr/local/lib. Croquet.sh tries to make this link btw.(simply look
into)  Its funny :) Because I never would run it as root. But, so it needs to be.

So, some little thinks and one or two symlinks are included, its no shame to
set it by hand. (The mac-users will kill me). But mostly its less work.
BTW, if you are not satisfied with you debian-distribution. I use
arch-linux, before i used slackware. I never saw a more easy linux than
arch. And it has a very good community.

m.

quoting Paul Sheldon, 27.08.2007 17:24:24:

Why is all this warmed up again? It's been discussed a several times,  
the proper solution has been suggested (use the proper lib name, no  
symlinks), so why is anyone still arguing? Is there any current  
package that is not fixed?

- Bert -

On Aug 27, 2007, at 16:02 , Mathias Krüger wrote:

On Monday 27 August 2007 18:15, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
> Why is all this warmed up again? It's been discussed a several times,
> the proper solution has been suggested (use the proper lib name, no
> symlinks), so why is anyone still arguing? Is there any current
> package that is not fixed?

The SKD installed fine on my current Debian (Etch) installation.