Celestia Distribution Pack

[BlindedByTheLight]

If you need any help relating to anything Mac-related, I may be able to offer some expertise. Of course, I use the terms "some" and "expertise" very loosely. But I have been compiling and building off CVS for a while now without much problem.

[steffens]

Hey, maybe you could help t00fri building and testing his texture tools on Macs

steffens

[tech2000]

Hey, maybe you could help t00fri building and testing his texture tools on Macs

steffens

Now that would be something. Fridgers, what I think would be awesome, txtools need to be compiled and tested on a MAC system.

Bye, Anders

[t00fri]

Indeed,

my txtools are all ready for publication (since quite a while), except that DW seems busy. So MAC PPC+MacIntel "universal" compilation is still lacking. I may try to even provide a Makefile of Mac compilation in analogy to what DW provided previously for my nmtools.

Volunteers, please

Bye Fridger

[tech2000]

Indeed,

my txtools are all ready for publication (since quite a while), except that DW seems busy. So MAC PPC+MacIntel "universal" compilation is still lacking. I may try to even provide a Makefile of Mac compilation in analogy to what DW provided previously for my nmtools.

Volunteers, please

Bye Fridger

Sounds great Fridger..

So, are there any volunteers out there who feel up to the task to help Fridger finish his great txtools?

(While reading that sentence if feel like a kindergarden teacher)

Cheers, Anders

[Boux]

... The packaging and distribution of pre-release binaries is IMO a separate issue which has a lower priority on my list, but that's just me. I don't want to deter you or anybody else from offering distribution agnostic binaries, I'll help if I can.

OK, thanks for this statement. It is spot on.
We are talking about pre-release binaries or whatever binaries built on current cvs actually.
You cannot speak seriously about the next stable release time-frame. When? End of this year? Next year? "When it's done?"
No packager is bothering with Celestia any longer: not the most popular astronomy software, too long time between official releases, no "glory" to expect from contributing to it and from what I see and hear, so-so friendly community to say the least.
I like the "distribution agnostic binaries" concept, though.

To t00fri: we are not talking about compilation problems.
Buggy software does not mean failed compilation. Eh, you do know that!
I am still keeping the build in my signature - January - available for download because it is the latest/best/more stable from my perspective.
More recent builds have (re)introduced a variety of ugly bugs.
I do agree that Linux is stuffing itself in a dead end: too many distributions and childish religion and egos wars! I will not elaborate further.
About bleeding edge hardware: you are right.
Linux is - has lost? - losing the battle.
More and more key hardware components are inaccessible to Linux: no access to hardware specs, registers, etc. and no interest from the manufacturers. Linux is only relevant as a web-server, gui-less OS, that's it.
Here is the current situation:
- no or bad sata or raid support on most latest popular chipsets - with high mileage variations
- no support of latest mainstream (Xfi) sound cards
- no support of ATI X series by Radeon free drivers
- no out-of-the-box true GBit network support without putting one's hands under the hood
- retarded multihead display support (no SLI and no 3D windows managers on multihead..., Xinerama plague...)
- cryptic control of CPU affinity when it has become a breeze in Windows (any single core user still out there?) when quads will be mainstream whithin 6 months!
- random ACPI support (poor laptop users, good luck for their install of ANY distrib)
- no standardisation of the location of some key libraries in the file system tree
... put your favorite item here

Bah, BOT, I proposed here in January to maintain a sticky with Linux binary downloads and instructions.
I was just dismissed.
End of story.

[t00fri]

Boux,

I am not really sure what I should make out of your post.

Yes, the new Celestia 1.5.0 release seems to be taking its time...

Chris announced to the developers almost a week ago that he was keen to release another prerelease. Right now he is snowboarding, kajaking, climbing...in Alaska . Let's see what he proposes next week.

The rest of us are working hard, of course to make Celestia better

I have been involved with Linux already when a number of users of this forum were not born yet . I don't think that throughout all these years Linux has become more of a winner. To the contrary. Windows (XP) has become a serious competitior. Meanwhile I use Windows in parallel to Linux and deplore the destructive effect of the many Linux distributions that tend to destroy Linux as an "entity". Many features, notably in connection with notebooks simply work better in Windows. The times of "blue screens" seem definitely over. I am strongly in favor of the automatic updating service etc. Linux is trying hard to keep up through this relatively new tool "Smart".

We'll see where it goes. But I am not that optimistic.

Bye Fridger

[selden]

not the most popular astronomy software

What do you think the most popular astronomy software is now?

[Christophe]

Well Boux, just like Fridger I don't know what to make of your "rant".

About the Celestia packaging issue:

There are far more exotic even confidential software which gets packaged and is well maintained on all distributions. I don't think our problem is a lack of popularity or an inconsistent release schedule, OSS with a clear roadmap is the exception, not the norm!

My opinion is that packaging Celestia is just a difficult task. You have to take into account the fact that three independant GUI versions are to be packaged, that they have to be made installable on the same system and rely on the same data files. This is an unusual requirement and I think a deterrent to would-be packagers. And you can take my word for it, I maintained the Mandrake packages from 1.2.4 to 1.3.2, and now maintain one for Ubuntu.


About Linux in general:

Linux quite unlike Windows is not controled by a single entity/company, it is made up of a complex network of inter-dependant, co-operating but often also competing interested parties. This comes with its pluses and minuses, but I don't see the point in ranting about the bad sides since there is no-one responsible for all of your pointed out defects.

Of course I agree Linux is not perfect, otherwise everybody would be using it, it is even inferior to commercial offerings in some aspects as the ones you pointed out, but to me this is of little importance, the very concept of OSS makes it far more desirable to the commercial alternatives.

In addition, considering my usage paterns, I really have no incentive to using a dumbed down system like XP or OSX. Maybe I'm lucky but I've more often run into hardware compatibility issues on Windows than on Linux, although that's probably just because I'm confused by the "smart" way Windows does automatic driver installation, I usually end up trashing the system... The unix way of doing things is so natural to me that I can't get much done under Windows until after Cygwin has been installed.

Oh, and I don't own/use/want a laptop. A cellphone is alienating enough!

As a side note, CPU affinity might be more difficult to set under Linux (although taskset doesn't seem like rocket science to me), but I've yet to run into a scheduler or driver bug that required me to fiddle with CPU affinity

[LightTanis]

Please visit the forum in http://celestiauniverse.ce.funpic.org/index.php

Register and had fun for some time while we prepare the first torrent of the distribution.

I included today the forums for Earth and Mars, wich I think should be the firsts to be discussed due to the amount of addons available for them.

Thanks in advance!

[t00fri]

Please visit the forum in http://celestiauniverse.ce.funpic.org/index.php

Register and had fun for some time while we prepare the first torrent of the distribution.

I included today the forums for Earth and Mars, wich I think should be the firsts to be discussed due to the amount of addons available for them.

Thanks in advance!

Well...do you really think it is a good idea to assemble a Celestia distribution from a "Motherlode mix" , obviously NOT selected by texture experts? As someone mentioned and was certainly right: the really good textures are often NOT to be found on the Motherlode.

Same for your two initial texture departments: Earth and Mars.
Why defocus from where the action AND the expertise is to be found??

Of course this is all up to you .

Bye Fridger

[LightTanis]

I hope some "texture experts" to suggest the "really good textures" in the forum, so if BMNG is not good enough for the distribution, we can include the "really good one".

The fact of starting with Earth and Mars is because this is not an expert project (obviously). The mission is to have a well packaged, bigger version of the one we always can download. Why begin with Earth and Mars? I don't know any other reason than the information amount one. As soon as the suggestions are made, and we have a final addons list, we move to other one, and so on.

I thought starting with our solar system, but i'll love to add other forums if you think there are other ones you'd like collaborate with (or if you think people will be more receptive with).

Thanks.

[t00fri]

I hope some "texture experts" to suggest the "really good textures" in the forum, so if BMNG is not good enough for the distribution, we can include the "really good one".

Wuff, that's completely besides the point.

Of course, for Earth one ALWAYS takes BMNG as the RAW texture.

But in the context of Celestia, there are sooooo many mistakes to make on the texture front! The Motherlode is FULL of these mistakes since MANY uploads are from beginners, who have never learned about texture manipulation techniques and neither know about the "inside" of Celestia. There is NO quality control on ML whatsoever.

Let me ask you --as a check-- how is the central meridian defined in Celestia textures? Did you check in your great "distribution" whether all textures have the correct definition?

The final surface rendering in Celestia arises as overlay of a number of textures with completely different functions. It requires a lot of insight to correctly balance their mutual effect, as to colors, contrast etc.

Did you make sure that the textures in your distribution were created by people who really know about these crucial subtleties??

Next come the all-important noise and smoothness aspects, e.g. of normal maps. What's the modern format to support? What's the difference between DXT5nm and DXT5? Why not taking DXT1 for normal maps? Did you examine all these crucial issues when composing your distribution? How to minimize noise? Did you make sure that the normalmaps in your distribution are as noisefree as possible. How about all the other possible optimizations? How about the high latitude problems with VT's.? Did you select polar-optimized VT sets in your distribution?

Just to name a few /simple/ issues...

What sense does it make to have a new forum, a new distribution and a moderator all being new to Celestia??

What is your motivation to publicise yet another distribution that is not worth the effort?


We have highly knowledgeable, professional designers here and in CelestialMatters, who know all the "tricks of the trade" and Celestia's peculiarities "inside out". They have proven their expertise in form of beautiful work. Why do you want to open yet another site that has really nothing to offer?

Once more: what do you want to do better?
Once more: of course, it's all up to you

Bye Fridger

[LightTanis]

Understood