Celestia Forums

I have just installed Celestia 1.4.0 from the source distribution on my Slackware Linux 10.0 box with KDE 3.2.2 (nVidia GeForce FX 5600 Ultra card with 256 MB of RAM). I have configured the build with these options:

Code: Select all

--prefix=/usr/local/celestia --with-kde --with-lua=/usr/local/lua

Everything seems to be working fine. But each time I start the program, I get this information dialog:

Something seems to be wrong with your installation of Celestia. The splash screen directory couldn't be found.

Start-up will continue, but Celestia will probably be missing some data files and may not work correctly, please check your installation.

and, not surprisingly, I don't see any splash screen. Is there anything wrong with my setup?

Let me profit by the occasion to thank the Celestia team for this wonderful Christmas present.


Paolo

amoroso wrote:I have just installed Celestia 1.4.0 from the source distribution on my Slackware Linux 10.0 box with KDE 3.2.2 (nVidia GeForce FX 5600 Ultra card with 256 MB of RAM). I have configured the build with these options:

Code: Select all

--prefix=/usr/local/celestia --with-kde --with-lua=/usr/local/lua

Everything seems to be working fine. But each time I start the program, I get this information dialog:

Something seems to be wrong with your installation of Celestia. The splash screen directory couldn't be found.

Start-up will continue, but Celestia will probably be missing some data files and may not work correctly, please check your installation.

and, not surprisingly, I don't see any splash screen. Is there anything wrong with my setup?

Let me profit by the occasion to thank the Celestia team for this wonderful Christmas present.


Paolo

That's easy: Just create a dir named 'splash' in the installation dir (same level as 'data', 'models' etc. Then put in some of your favourite images. They are displayed in random sequence. Another neat feature specific to Celestia-KDE

Bye Fridger

t00fri wrote:That's easy: Just create a dir named 'splash' in the installation dir (same level as 'data', 'models' etc. Then put in some of your favourite images. They are displayed in random sequence. Another neat feature specific to Celestia-KDE

I have checked my installation: that directory already exists, and it contains the file celestia-splash.jpg.


Paolo

amoroso wrote:

t00fri wrote:That's easy: Just create a dir named 'splash' in the installation dir (same level as 'data', 'models' etc. Then put in some of your favourite images. They are displayed in random sequence. Another neat feature specific to Celestia-KDE

I have checked my installation: that directory already exists, and it contains the file celestia-splash.jpg.


Paolo

But then it should just work. I certainly works for me...

Bye Fridger

t00fri wrote:But then it should just work. I certainly works for me...

Indeed. Although I think I have followed the correct procedure, my Celestia installation may have some problems.

I have noticed, for example, that the menus contain few commands and many are missing (e.g. cycle star mode, view manipulation, set time, eclipse finder, etc.). The missing ones, however, can be added by configuring the toolbar.

The missing menu commands were present in the GTK version of Celestia 1.3.2 I previously used. With 1.4.0 I have to use the KDE one because GTK+ 2.6 or later is required, but I only have 2.4.

Is it normal that so many commands are missing from the KDE version of Celestia 1.4.0?


Paolo

amoroso wrote:Is it normal that so many commands are missing from the KDE version of Celestia 1.4.0?

I have just downloaded the source tarball onto one of my KDE machines and compiled it. I always use /opt/celestia as my prefix, so I know that the tarball does not have prefix problems. I did a clean install there.

Your problems are prefix related. The fact that it cannot find the splash screen and cannot find the menu definition indicates that. Both should be in /usr/local/celestia/share/celestia for you.

amoroso wrote:Let me profit by the occasion to thank the Celestia team for this wonderful Christmas present.

We worked hard to make this happen. Thanks for the kudos, and good luck solving the problem.

suwalski wrote:Your problems are prefix related. The fact that it cannot find the splash screen and cannot find the menu definition indicates that. Both should be in /usr/local/celestia/share/celestia for you.

In /usr/local/celestia/share/celestia I find both the splash screen directory and the celestiaui.rc file, which, if I understand correctly, contains the menu definitions.

Having read in the celestia-developers list that an incorrect makefile had initially left out some files, I have downloaded the fixed 1.4.0 sources and rebuilt Celestia with KDE. But the splash screen and some menus are still missing.


Paolo

amoroso wrote:

suwalski wrote:Your problems are prefix related. The fact that it cannot find the splash screen and cannot find the menu definition indicates that. Both should be in /usr/local/celestia/share/celestia for you.

In /usr/local/celestia/share/celestia I find both the splash screen directory and the celestiaui.rc file, which, if I understand correctly, contains the menu definitions.

Having read in the celestia-developers list that an incorrect makefile had initially left out some files, I have downloaded the fixed 1.4.0 sources and rebuilt Celestia with KDE. But the splash screen and some menus are still missing.


Paolo

It is crucial that you do a fresh 'make install'. But save you old textures first!

Bye Fridger

amoroso wrote:Having read in the celestia-developers list that an incorrect makefile had initially left out some files, I have downloaded the fixed 1.4.0 sources and rebuilt Celestia with KDE. But the splash screen and some menus are still missing.

The Makefile issues were with the tools directory that contains, among other things, perl scripts. The Makefiles were altogether non-existant, so the scripts were not being packaged. But that has nothing to do any of the code that is actually built and installed.

I would delete the present installation,

by typing

>make distclean

and then configure /only/ with

>./configure --with-kde --with-lua

This configuration is certainly known to work (I use it all the time) and installs the celestia directory in /usr/local/share while 'make install' (never forget) puts the executable into /usr/local/bin

Since compilation only takes a few minutes (on my machine) it might be worth a try. Your /usr/local/celestia prefix is very unusual!

Bye Fridger

t00fri wrote:I would delete the present installation,

by typing

>make distclean

and then configure /only/ with

>./configure --with-kde --with-lua

I have tried that--with the only difference that I provided a path for Lua, which is installed elsewhere on my system. But I still have missing splash screen and menu entries.

t00fri wrote:Your /usr/local/celestia prefix is very unusual!

Indeed. But I do that because it's simpler to remove a Celestia installation by just removing a directory tree, and because I have more storage space in /usr/local. By the way, configuring Celestia 1.3.2 with:

Code: Select all

--prefix=/usr/local/celestia

worked fine.

Thanks,


Paolo

amoroso wrote:Indeed. But I do that because it's simpler to remove a Celestia installation by just removing a directory tree, and because I have more storage space in /usr/local. By the way, configuring Celestia 1.3.2 with:

Code: Select all

--prefix=/usr/local/celestia

worked fine.

I am at a loss. Essentially nothing has changed in the KDE code between 1.3.2 and 1.4.0 that could do this. And it works for others.

I'm inclined to think it's your environment.

Try starting it with a specified root:

You can also try substituting KDEHOME instead of KDEDIRS.

suwalski wrote:

amoroso wrote:Indeed. But I do that because it's simpler to remove a Celestia installation by just removing a directory tree, and because I have more storage space in /usr/local. By the way, configuring Celestia 1.3.2 with:

Code: Select all

--prefix=/usr/local/celestia

worked fine.

I am at a loss. Essentially nothing has changed in the KDE code between 1.3.2 and 1.4.0 that could do this. And it works for others.

I'm inclined to think it's your environment.

Try starting it with a specified root:

Code: Select all

KDEDIRS=/usr/local/celestia /usr/local/celestia/bin/celestia

You can also try substituting KDEHOME instead of KDEDIRS.

Amoroso (sounds sexy),

I agree with Pat. I have used that configuration almost on a daily basis, hundreds of times! It must be your installation environment.

Bye Fridger

suwalski wrote:Try starting it with a specified root:

Code: Select all

KDEDIRS=/usr/local/celestia /usr/local/celestia/bin/celestia

You can also try substituting KDEHOME instead of KDEDIRS.

Holy planet, this works! Now I get both the splash screen and all the menus.

By the way, Celestia only works with KDEDIRS. When setting KDEHOME, it crashes with errors about denied permissions and not being able to create local folders in /usr/local/celestia/share/apps/, which of course doesn't have write permissions for a non-privileged user.

As many thanks as the atoms in the universe.


Paolo

t00fri wrote:Amoroso (sounds sexy)

Well, it's nothing fancy, just my--Italian--last name

Thanks to you and Pat for your help.


Paolo Amoroso