Linux Support

[niick]

Any 3-D functionality that might exist in nouveau is still unsupported. If you don't mind, you'll have to install the nvidia blob to play the game.

I'm using latest nouveau with a 8800GT and it works great.

[Darin]

Hi, I'm having problems with the game freezing. I bought it yesterday, and it's frozen on me at least 7 times already. First, though, I would like to thank you all for a great game. Thanks for providing a demo (on all platforms), for providing a Linux/Mac version (Especially a Linux version), and for ignoring DRM. Aside from the fact that I really enjoyed the demo, all of those things pushed me to buy it out of support. It's the first game I've bought in 4 years. It's very enjoyable, and the soundtrack is great.

Anyway, now on to the problem. The game freezes. A lot. I can Alt+Tab out of it, but then I just have to kill it. Most of the times it messes up the audio on my system, killing the audio completely (No media plays, no system sounds, etc) - it requires a restart. I can't pinpoint any one thing that makes it freeze... it seems fairly random.

I'm using Ubuntu 10.04. My video card is NVidia GeForce 7200GS, drivers 195.36.24. I've tried the Tar and the Deb - both with the same results. I've tried it with Compiz and Metacity, it doesn't seem to matter. I've also tried switching from OSS to PulseAudio which also doesn't make a difference. I tried switching to VSync, but that made the game slow and choppy, so I didn't test that out for long.

Here is my Osmos.log

Log opened on Thu Aug 19 15:55:27 2010
Commandline: ./Osmos.bin32
Preinitializing game: HEMI version 1.6.0 1314
Localization: using language "en"
Localization: loaded Osmos-en.loc
Arch: AMD Sempron(tm) Processor 3200+
OS: Linux 2.6.32-24-generic (#39-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jul 28 06:07:29 UTC 2010)
Using sound
Showing splash
Using fullscreen mode: 1440 x 900
Not using vsync
Initializing GLRenderDevice...
OpenGL version: 2.1.2 NVIDIA 195.36.24
Initializing game
Initializing GLRenderer...
Loading textures
Loading fonts
Backed up stats to Stats/Backup/Osmos_0008.sta
Initializing SoundSystem...
Initializing OpenAL
Getting OpenAL device list
Found 4 devices:
Device 0: PulseAudio Software (1: USER-SPECIFIED) (3: OPENAL DEFAULT)
Device 1: ALSA Software
Device 2: OSS Software (2: OSMOS DEFAULT)
Device 3: PortAudio Software
Pass 1: attempting device 0: "PulseAudio Software"...
Creating OpenAL context
Opened device "PulseAudio Software"
Device supports maximum 256 sources
Streaming music
Loading pre-splash sounds
Loading post-splash sounds

-------------------------------------------

Anyway, thanks for the help. Awesome job on the game, too. It's fun, challenging, and relaxing. Every element of the game comes together to create a really great mood and atmosphere - I think a lot of developers have trouble pulling that off. Although right now this freeze thing is really killing the mood. Other than that, I'm really enjoying it!

Thanks again.

- Darin

[eddybox]

Hi Darin,

First of all thanks for the great feedback -- much appreciated!

As for the freezing, it's a known issue (http://www.hemispheregames.com/faq-pcos ... nux_freeze), but unfortunately we don't know of a workaround, nor does there appear to be anything we can do about it, as it's a Linux kernel issue.

If anyone from the Linux dev community has news on a fix for this, or even a status update on the state of the bug, we'd *really* appreciate it!

Thanks,
Eddy

[Darin]

Hmmm, that's not good. I seriously doubt I would've purchased this had I known freezing and restarting the computer was essentially part of the game. One of the main draws of this game is the mood and atmosphere, which is destroyed through this.

It's kind of odd to release a game that requires you to restart the computer after only a short time of playing. To me, a final version should never be released with such a bug. It should be noted on the download page before purchasing - it is fairly deceptive.

Anyway, have you all opened a bug report on the kernel bugzilla for this? How do all other Linux games avoid this? No other game I've played on here has had such a problem.

Thanks for the quick response.

- Darin

[Meal Worms]

Hi Darin,

Thanks for your comments. Obviously the game wouldn't have been released if we experienced this issue during development/beta. Thing is, only a very small number of players have experienced a freeze, and you're the first to report a problem that occurs with any regularity.

As described on the Osmos FAQ, the problem is kernel-level. I haven't had a case with enough evidence to file a report with sufficient repro that I think won't get shot down by the zealous kernel devs.

EDIT: I should also add, Darin: your issue may have to do with your distribution's kernel, but if you'd like to submit a kernel bug with the mainline kernel bug tracker (https://bugzilla.kernel.org/) regarding your particular circumstances and machine configuration, I'd be happy to help work with you on that. Let me know!

Cheers,
Dave

[Pyxir]

Hi, I bought your nice game a few days ago and downloaded the 1.6.0.tar.gz package to my Archlinux machine.

The game itself runs nicely but there is a bug loading the FortuneCity.ttf Font.
(Similar Topic: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=137&p=1681p1681#p1681)

I tested the .ttf file to see if it is corrupted but the Font itself works nicely in other programs like openoffice etc.

Console output of the game:

Code: Select all

$ ./Osmos
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Log opened on Sat Oct  9 09:18:59 2010
Commandline: ./Osmos.bin32
Preinitializing game: HEMI version 1.6.0 1314
Localization: using language "de"
Localization: loaded Osmos-de.loc
Arch: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU     T7300  @ 2.00GHz
OS: Linux 2.6.35-ARCH (#1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Sep 29 07:17:20 UTC 2010)
Using sound
Showing splash
Using fullscreen mode: 1680 x 1050
Using vsync
Initializing GLRenderDevice...
OpenGL version: 2.1.2 NVIDIA 256.53
Initializing game
Initializing GLRenderer...
Loading textures
Loading fonts
WARNING: error loading font file Fonts/FortuneCity.ttf
WARNING: error loading font file Fonts/FortuneCity.ttf
WARNING: error loading font file Fonts/FortuneCity.ttf
WARNING: error loading font file Fonts/FortuneCity.ttf
WARNING: error loading font file Fonts/FortuneCity.ttf
WARNING: error loading font file Fonts/FortuneCity.ttf
WARNING: error loading font file Fonts/FortuneCity.ttf
Backed up stats to Stats/Backup/Osmos_0013.sta
Initializing SoundSystem...
Initializing OpenAL
Getting OpenAL device list
Found 2 devices:
  Device 0: ALSA Software (3: OPENAL DEFAULT)
  Device 1: OSS Software (2: OSMOS DEFAULT)
Pass 1: no valid device was specified (-1)
Pass 2: attempting device 1: "OSS Software"...
Creating OpenAL context
Opened device "OSS Software"
Device supports maximum 256 sources
Streaming music
Loading pre-splash sounds
Loading post-splash sounds


Latest kernel/driver versions are all installed.

Any Ideas?

[rtcm]

Osmos seems to use the system provided Freetype library. So maybe it's an issue with your Freetype version and Osmos?

I have freetype 2.3.11 on this system and it works OK.

[nix]

As a bright mote in the flood of 'oh my graphics driver doesn't work'... with my ATI HD4870, the latest free xf86-video-ati driver, and Mesa 7.9, the game works perfectly smoothly on a 1680x1050 desktop on my Core i7.

However... if the window manager's idea of the current window changes, the Osmos window vanishes instantly and never returns (all you can do is hit ctrl-c). The Osmos log simply cuts off dead and says nothing new when this happens. For those of us with hidden panels that unfurl when we hit the top of the screen and are always-on-top, this can happen by mistake quite easily. Having the game lose focus for an instant until we wave the mouse over it again is perfectly OK... having the game commit hara-kiri is not.

I suspect that the game's monitoring of mouse position gets confused in this situation, or something?

(My window manager is fvwm 2.5.28, but I suspect this would happen with any wm.)

If there's anything I can do to collect more information, just ask.

[gagern]

Started a new thread about my investigation of this font loading error message.

Code: Select all

WARNING: error loading font file Fonts/FortuneCity.ttf

[nkoehring]

Hello,

I've bought and downloaded Osmos for Linux and it runs niceliy with one big exception: There is no text at all. I see any graphics and logos but the menu consists of simple semi-transparent bars and I never get informed about (or better: never see) level ending.

Some specs:
Samsung Q45 Laptop with Intel Core2Duo, Intel Mobile GM965/GL960 graphics controller
64bit Arch Linux
I don't use GNOME, KDE or such stuff but respective applications are running (eg: I have GTK and QT installed)

What can I do?