openuniverse for Debian ---------------------- Openuniverse is not actively being maintained since the year 2000. In its current state it works in some systems but not in others (see below known issues with some video cards). Openuniverse might be removed from the archive in the future (it was and has been restored) Users interested in Astronomy simulation software are encouraged to use Celestia (https://celestia.space/). Unfortunately, Celestia is not packaged in Debian but Debian packages are available and provided upstream. If you are really interested in Debian providing Astronomy software you are encouraged to work in providing and maintaining Debian packages for Celestia. In order for Openuniverse to work, you might want to tweak /etc/openuniverse.conf to adjust for your 3d video card (it's optimised for a GeForce card). Please send new configurations you create to openuniverse@packages.debian.org indicating the video card you are using. NDIVIA Issues ------------- Some users have reported issues when running with Nvidia cards. Unfortunately, the Debian maintainer cannot debug these issues but it is not all too clear if they are due to a driver issue, to a library OU uses or to Openuniverse itself. Since there is no upstream maintainer developing the software anymore, it is not expected that these bugs will be resolved unless a user contributes patches. The Debian maintainer will not be able to solve these issues and bugs reported from users related to Nvidia (or other 3D cards) will most likely not be fixed. For reference see: - Bug "#101498: Doesn't start" http://bugs.debian.org/101498 - Bug "#107044: starts and dies", http://bugs.debian.org/107044 - Bug "#986176: openuniverse runs with crippled GUI, then crashes" (https://bugs.debian.org/986176) There have also been reports of users with some Ndvia cards/configurations which work ok (reported: nvidia-glx 1.0.2313-1, a TNT2, and linux kernel 2.4.17) If you can help debug out this bug many users would really appreciate it. SCREENSHOTS ----------- Screenshots are taken and stored at /var/games/openuniverse/scrshots. Notice that the Debian package will not provide permissions for all users to write in that directory (and will not make the openuniverse program setgid since it has not been security audited). If you want to let all the users in the system to make screenshots when using openuniverse (and acknowledge the security issues related to the partition containing /var being filled up) do the following: $ chmod a+rwx /var/games/openuniverse/scrshots $ chmod +t /var/games/openuniverse/scrshots (i.e. set it up as a temporary directory where all users can write to) More information in the manpage (openuniverse(1)) in the section "FILES" -- Javier Fernandez-Sanguino Pena Sun, 05 Sep 2021 13:38:16 +0200