[0.4.14] LinuxGaming2 - A Server for Builders

[Thorton]

Hi! I've dowloaded MT, and facing some sort of error about wrong protocols??

[Festus1965]

Hi! I've dowloaded MT, and facing some sort of error about wrong protocols??

You need the right version MT Client --- a 0.4.x for 0.4.x servers, and a 5.0.0 for 5.x servers ... they are not compatible to each other version

[LazyJ]

Hi! I've dowloaded MT, and facing some sort of error about wrong protocols??

~~~

You need the right version MT Client --- a 0.4.x for 0.4.x servers, and a 5.0.0 for 5.x servers ... they are not compatible to each other version

Howdy Thorton ;)

Yup, Festus1965 is right. The new Minetest 5.0 release breaks compatibility with Minetest 4.x.

Minetest 4.x and Minetest 5.x will not work with each other.

LinuxGaming is still using Minetest 4.14 so you will need a Minetest 4.14, 4.15, 4.16, or 4.17 client to be able to log in.

For anyone wondering when LinuxGaming will be upgraded to Minetest 5.x, my answer is the same as it was when this question was asked a few posts earlier -- I can't say for certain when. Real life has to come first, I have a full-time job and responsibilities at home that I have to tend to as well as keeping LinuxGaming running and online.

For a little insight, LinuxGaming does *not* run the standard engine or game. Both the Minetest engine and Minetest_Game, along with most of the extra mods, have been tweaked. In some cases a little, in other cases a lot. None of it can be upgraded by merely git cloning from the mainstream versions.

LinuxGaming is also a very old server, relative to most other Minetest servers out there. LinuxGaming's world has never been wiped. It is the same world that the sever started with back in the spring of 2013. As a result, LinuxGaming is a museum of builds that were created in those early days with mods and nodes that have since radically changed or no longer exist. Over the years and various past upgrades, I have taken a lot of care and effort to preserve these builds and the nodes that they are constructed of so that when new upgrades are applied, those builds aren't changed into piles of "Unknown Nodes". Upgrading LinuxGaming from MT 4.14 to MT 5.x is going to require the most old-node-preservation code editing of any upgrade before it. That will take a lot of time and double checking, but for me, it will be worth it.

I realize that because LinuxGaming is so far behind in the versions that folks have moved on to more up-to-date, and now MT 5.x compatible, servers.

I'm not overly concerned about that.

I don't run LinuxGaming for popularity or for player count. In LinuxGaming's history there have been periods where I was the only one to login for months at a time. LinuxGaming is a long term project of mine and a long term server. ;)

Overview maps -- It's been a while since I last uploaded a new set. It's been a while since I've been online period.

Around the time of my last post my old hard drive started to rattle itself to pieces. My whole rig in general was wore-out from years of use and abuse so I ordered a new computer. I had to wait a few weeks for my new rig to arrive. I'm still in the process of getting programs configured and files settled into their new homes in various partitions and drives.

Again, because of the full-time/over-time job and the responsibilities and obligations of home and adulthood, the only time I have had to make any meaningful progress on setting up my new rig has been limited to the weekends. If nothing unexpected comes up this weekend, I should be able to get a new set of overview maps rendered and uploaded. I'm excited to see what 32gb of RAM, 500gb SSD, 3tb HD, 12gb nVidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, and a water-cooled, overclocked, Intel i9-7900X 3.30GHz set of processors with hyper-threading can do. :D

[LazyJ]

Update: Overview maps have been updated to 2019_03_08.

[Thorton]

I thought it was the thing.
So can anyone provide link for older version of the game?

[gtest]

Hi Thorton,
what operating system are you running?
if you're running Linux, and you are happy to compile from source code, I can send you a copy of the version that I'm using.

[Sokomine]

LinuxGaming is also a very old server, relative to most other Minetest servers out there. LinuxGaming's world has never been wiped. It is the same world that the sever started with back in the spring of 2013.

That is of very high value for builders. Thank you for all the good work and for keeping the server running!

However, eventually the switch to a newer version will have to be done. It's not urgent but ought to happen in perhaps less than a year. Redcrabs server did last for a long time as well - until the client necessary to connect became so old nobody ran it anymore.

MT 5.0 has some nice features, in particular minetest.override_item(..) and minetest.clear_craft(..). I wonder if it might be possible/worth trying to put all the server-specific changes into an individual mod. That might make it easier to update mods when needed. Some may still pose trouble though (*looking at Moreblocks*).

[LazyJ]

I thought it was the thing.
So can anyone provide link for older version of the game?

Howdy Thorton ;)

I couldn't find a Windows version for MT 0.4.14, so no luck there.

If you run Linux, here is the GitHub link to when the MT 0.4.14 engine source files were released. You just need the engine if you are connecting to LinuxGaming. Since these are source files, you'll have to compile them yourself on your computer. Read through the readme.txt file for compiling instructions.

http://github.com/minetest/minetest/tree/854d9e3745304f5f420805818de99e5e6d1b2596

MT 0.4.15 through MT 0.4.16 will do OK too. MT 0.4.17 is when the player offset and a few other things changed that were noticeable in-game -- still playable, just a little... off.

~~~

Howdy Soko! Long time, no chat! :D

However, eventually the switch to a newer version will have to be done. It's not urgent but ought to happen in perhaps less than a year. Redcrabs server did last for a long time as well - until the client necessary to connect became so old nobody ran it anymore.

Aye, Red Crab's situation has been in my thoughts.

I don't know Red Crab himself or his reasons, but for me, getting LinuxGaming up-to-date means my offline sanctuary, single player world, "U4EA" will also be updated. U4EA uses paramat's Watershed mapgen (LinuxGaming uses mapgen v6) but also uses the same vintage minetest_game and several of the same custom mods that LinuxGaming uses. A lot of the custom mod work I did for LinuxGaming went into U4EA. I don't know if Red Crab had a special singleplayer world based off of his server world but I do and U4EA is part of the reason LinuxGaming is a long term project and long term server. ;)

MT 5.0 has some nice features, in particular minetest.override_item(..) and minetest.clear_craft(..). I wonder if it might be possible/worth trying to put all the server-specific changes into an individual mod. That might make it easier to update mods when needed. Some may still pose trouble though (*looking at Moreblocks*).

Yup, I've using a set of "minetest.override_item" Lua files for the past couple years in LinuxGaming to help with some of the minor updates. Those along with a few recipe-only files and an alias file are part of the bubble gum and bailing wire that makes LinuxGaming's mods work together in ways they don't in their respective upstream versions.

As you say, there portions of mods that "still pose trouble"; there's no getting around it, a lot of code will just have to be worked through line-by-line.

MoreBlocks is at the root of a large portion of work ahead of me. No slight to MoreBlocks, I love the mod and it is a must have for me. Because I so thoroughly enjoy MoreBlocks, I've extended the StairsPlus module (the saw) into a lot of LinuxGaming's mods. All well and good except when mod updates change the names of nodes or nodes from mods get adopted into the official version of minetest_game (MoreTrees and MoreOres, for example). When the version of MoreTrees that LinuxGaming uses was installed, its StairsPlus compatibility was broken. I manage to kludge together a solution that has worked over the years. When MoreTrees' StairsPlus compatibility was eventually fixed, the upstream fix changed the node names of the saw's output. Sooo... almost every MoreTrees' trunk block and wood block and a few minetest_game tree trunks and wood blocks in LinuxGaming (and U4EA) will require a massive table of aliases -- for. each. block. (I'm going to have to use my large French Press and stock up on a couple extra boxes of donuts just for that task.)

OK, one more thing for this post:

Update: Overview maps have been updated to 2019_03_16.

[LazyJ]

Update: Overview maps updated to 2019_03_22.

[Worldblender]

I really wish that I could help migrate this server to Minetest 5.0.0. I asked something similar a few years ago, but I let so much time pass and moved onto other servers. With this recent release, I think now would be a good time to ask again... My coding skills can be improved in the process, and me and other people won't have to use older clients to access this server.

[LazyJ]

I really wish that I could help migrate this server to Minetest 5.0.0. I asked something similar a few years ago, but I let so much time pass and moved onto other servers. With this recent release, I think now would be a good time to ask again... My coding skills can be improved in the process, and me and other people won't have to use older clients to access this server.

Howdy Worldblender ;)

Thanks for the offer of help but my answer is still no. I want to work on LinuxGaming's code my own way, in my own time, to address my own concerns as a server owner/operator, curator, and player. I mentioned in an earlier post that I know players won't be able to connect, that they will be going to other 0.4.17 or 5.0.0 servers, and that I'm not very concerned about that. When I get LinuxGaming MT 5.0.0 compatible, the world and its builds will still be there.

[Thorton]

So... Due to the fact I'm unable to find previous version of MT, my linux-based-laptop died in a car accident recently, and I have only Windows - I'm very sorry to say good bye.
It was a pleasure to meet you all, to spend some time in the game.

I regret not being able to see my village one more time, hopefully it will survive my absence? LazyJ?
Maybe someone could post me some nice pics from my in-game little kingdom?

It's funny becs I remember starting with some random shelter. Then rebuilding it into a modern villa, then turning it into medival-timed-mansion and ending up with a cathedral-like building.
In the meantime an underground forrest emerged, and a chapel on water.
Suddenly an idea for a small village in some sort of valley come it was the first "bigger" project. And it eveloved into anything you can see now. It was a nice and creative time.

Even while being called hermit :).

It sounds like a farewell from an exile, well in fact that's what it is.

Thank you all, see you some day maybe.

[Fixer]

One more reason why making custom engine/game is too dangerous, you often end up on ancient dead server nobody plays on (like on redcrab). I hope you find some time to update it, adulthood sucks.

[LazyJ]

I regret not being able to see my village one more time, hopefully it will survive my absence? LazyJ?

Howdy Thorton ;)

As I stated in my previous post:

When I get LinuxGaming MT 5.0.0 compatible, the world and its builds will still be there.

You've been absent for months on end before and your builds were still there when you returned; they will still be there after the 5.0.0 upgrade.

One more reason why making custom engine/game is too dangerous, you often end up on ancient dead server nobody plays on (like on redcrab). I hope you find some time to update it, adulthood sucks.

Yeah, Fixer, running custom stuff does take a lot more work and effort to maintain. It would be much easier to just dump in mod updates as they are but then LinuxGaming's server wouldn't be any different than all the other servers out there. Sure, at first glance LinuxGaming has no spectacular, amazing mod that no other server has. It just doesn't. What LinuxGaming has are mods that are carefully selected and edited to work together so the game feels more unified. When I tour other servers one of the things that often bothers me is the discontinuity of the various mods. At least LG's mods work together and don't feel as much of a hodge-podge of random mods just dumped in on a whim.

Ancient server? Heh, heh,... yup. :D At least by Minetest standards. At last check, out of all the servers listed on the minetest.net servers list, a little less than a dozen servers, including LinuxGaming, have been running for more than four years. With the exception of VanessaE's servers, I don't know how many of that 4yr+ group have been consistently running 23/7/365 during those years like LinuxGaming has.

Dead server that nobody plays on? Again, by Minetest standards, sure but then LinuxGaming has been pronounced "dead" many times over the years yet has out lived many more "alive" Minetest servers. And again, as I've said several times, I don't run LinuxGaming for player count or popularity so those issues don't matter to me. While LinuxGaming is family-friendly, it is not geared toward young children with short attention spans who need to run around in groups players and need constant hand-holding/babysitting. LinuxGaming is more for the older folks dealing with "adulthood" and are looking for a low-stress, slower-paced server to just putter on, by themselves, in peace and quiet. "Dead" for the kiddos but just right for those harried and hassled by the real life of grown-ups.

As for finding time to work on stuff -- a little at a time. I know that won't be fast enough for the impatient; never is, can't please'em all.

~~~

Update: Overview maps have been updated to 2019_03_30.

[LazyJ]

Update: The overview maps have been updated to 2019_04_05, but there is a glitch somewhere in the process and I can't change the posted date of the maps. When I try to post the text changes, I get sent to an almost blank page with "500 Internal Server Error nginx/1.7.12" written on it. The map images, themselves, are linked from my Dropbox account and are the correct ones.

Short version: Overview maps are current, date shown is fubared, dunno why.


~~~


Update 2019_04_06

Looks like I wasn't the only one having trouble:

"Internal Server Error 500"
https://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=22490

Whatever the issue was has been resolved and I was able to change the dates of the overview maps.

Short version: Overview maps correct, posted dates correct.

[LazyJ]

Update: The overview maps have been updated to 2019_04_13.

[LazyJ]

Update: Overview maps updated to 2019_04_20.