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Find Yourself in Second Life with Linux

Issue 178

From Issue #178
February 2009

Feb 01, 2009  By Bill Childers
 in
Where open source, collaboration and gameplay unite.
Acknowledgements

Thanks to Second Life residents Neural Blankes and Summer Seale for their help with this article.

Alternative Viewers

Since Linden Labs released the viewer source code under the GPL, quite a few forks of the code have emerged. There is a page on the Second Life wiki that tracks these forks (see Resources), but here are a few of the most popular ones:

  • Cool SL Viewer: Henri Beauchamp has taken many of the outstanding bugfixes in the JIRA bug-tracking system for Second Life and applies those fixes to the viewer before Linden Labs does. The result is an incredibly full-featured viewer that actually may perform better than the official viewer. Available for Linux, Windows and Mac.

  • Dale's SL Viewer: Dale Glass has added some features to the viewer, such as a radar feature that tells you who's nearby, as well as support for 3-D stereoscopic goggles. Available for Linux and Windows.

  • Onrez Viewer: a custom viewer created for a television show (CSI: New York) and Second Life tie-in. Windows only.

  • AjaxLife: Katherine Berry is a talented programmer who's coded a text-only Web interface for Second Life called AjaxLife. Cross-platform support included—it even runs on the iPhone!

Resources

Second Life Home Page: www.secondlife.com

Create an Avatar: secondlife.com/join

Second Life Wiki: wiki.secondlife.com

OpenSimulator: opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page

Alternate Second Life Viewers: wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Alternate_viewers

AjaxLife: ajaxlife.net

Compiling the Second Life Viewer for Linux: wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Compiling_the_viewer_(Linux)

Sun Microsystems (SLURL): slurl.com/secondlife/Sun%20Microsystems%201/128/86/71

Stanford University (SLURL): slurl.com/secondlife/Stanford%20University%20Libraries/159/227/33

Summer (SLURL): slurl.com/secondlife/Summer/106/35/22

Sci-Fi Works (SLURL): slurl.com/secondlife/Thunderbird%20Island/25/237/312

Bill Childers is an IT Manager in Silicon Valley, where he lives with his wife and two children. He enjoys Linux far too much and probably should get more sun from time to time. If he ever finds the time to make it into Second Life, he goes by Bill Deere.

______________________

Bill Childers is the Virtual Editor for Linux Journal. No one really knows what that means.

Comments

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Good to see a positive review.

Jzebus's picture
Submitted by Jzebus (not verified) on Sun, 08/09/2009 - 10:34.

There are a lot of people who like to focus on the negative aspects of SL and forget that, as you have pointed out, even the creation of an avatar is a form of art.
It should be pointed out, however, that as a newby with no Linden Dollars it can be frustrating -- but a little patience and a few chats with existing residents will have you enjoying yourself in no time.

Secondlife is not a game

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 07/31/2009 - 08:05.

"Although Second Life has been dubbed a game"

It would be nice if you stop this, Secondlife is not a game, repeat Secondlife is not a game.

I do not know why people called this thing a game it clearly is not, sure you can play games in it but that does not make it a game.

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