The Linux Thread!

[sal_vager]

No idea madlemur, anything in your logs?

[madlemur]

No idea madlemur, anything in your logs?

Sorry, got sidetracked with RL...

Also realized I'd posted in the wrong forum. My install is modded to Khell and back... Basically trimmed down the mods I was using, and added them back slowly until I had a combination of the mods I really want without the lag generation.

[BeafSalad]

Thought I would give this a go as I was reaching the memory limits in win32. Initially what a traumatic experience as I have really never used linux before. I decided on Kubuntu as it starts with a k.

Day 1.

Tying to figure out how to install on a external hard drive.

Problem 1 would not even boot off usb stick. I got the boot menu but then a blank screen. Seems ubuntu does not like Nvidia cards. Finally got this one sorted with nomodeset.

Day 2. Finally got it installed then spent hours trying to find out how to install the Nvidia drivers. Got that done rebooted and the text is so small you cannot read anything. That was another 3 hour exercise to sort out. Next was how the hell do I start ksp, I don't even know to run programs in linux. Well found this tread and voidi's installation script. Ksp still would not run, it seemed to just start and then stop. Turned out to just be a permission issue on the folder where ksp resides.

After all that it seems to be running ok with a s**t load of addons the process taking just over 4gig.

Question is now what to do with my windows ksp install?

[Motokid600]

BeafSalad that is the very reason why it is taking me so long to try Linux. Im scared it'll be just days of trouble shooting. Ive got Nvidia too. Please et me know if the time and effort was worth it. I'm looking for a highly modded RSS/RO Install with RVE and Linux may be the only way to do that. As for your Windows KSP install. Do whatever you like I imagine.. keep it around incase the Linux version turns out to be as mess.

[Yski]

I seem to be having some driver issues. When using the AMD proprietary fglrx (or fglrx-updates) drivers my entire screen freezes soon after clicking "Start Game" in the main menu - the transition plays just fine, the second menu appears, and after that, nothing. I have to reboot the entire computer to recover. Sometimes I can move my mouse around for a while, but usually that too freezes soon after, particularly when trying to move it outside the KSP window. The worst part is, it's not KSP that's crashing, so there's nothing in its log files, and I'm too much of linux noob to find anything else that might be of use.

Here's what I know:

-I'm using Radeon HD 7800, and the driver is supposed to support that.

-It's definitely the driver - the open source variant works just fine, but the lack of anti aliasing is killing me.

-Changing distros doesn't seem to help - I've tried Ubuntu 12.04, 14.04 and Mint 17.1, all of which were 64 bit and fresh installs; all I did was install ksp, swap to proprietary drivers and whisper a silent prayer to the Kraken before starting KSP.

Basically, I have no idea what's actually happening, and my "abandon ship!" strategy to solving it hasn't worked either. Does anyone have any ideas?

Edited January 15, 2015 by Yski

[sal_vager]

It's hard to figure out what's going on on a driver level, maybe it's just that version of the driver and another version will work fine.

[Yski]

I suppose I could try looking for an older version then, I'll give it a go and see what happens. Thanks for the quick response

[sal_vager]

Wish I could help more though, your player log might give clues if it's not the actual driver, but I do know the driver in the repos is often quite a bit older then the one on the AMD website.

[Yski]

Here's my Player.log, nothing unusual as far as I can tell. It's getting late (well, early), so I'll leave the driver experiments until tomorrow, but if worst comes to worst I do have my windows install to fall back to, thought trying to squeeze all the delicious mods into such a small amount of ram is a nightmare

http://pastebin.com/saCbPKe8

[Green Baron]

I seem to be having some driver issues. When using the AMD proprietary fglrx (or fglrx-updates) drivers my entire screen freezes soon after clicking "Start Game" in the main menu - the transition plays just fine, the second menu appears, and after that, nothing. I have to reboot the entire computer to recover. Sometimes I can move my mouse around for a while, but usually that too freezes soon after, particularly when trying to move it outside the KSP window. The worst part is, it's not KSP that's crashing, so there's nothing in its log files, and I'm too much of linux noob to find anything else that might be of use.

Any clues in /var/log/kern.log or /var/log/Xorg.0.log ?

K.

[sal_vager]

Yeah I'm not seeing a cause in the log Yski, though at a guess it may be anti aliasing or edge highlighting (PPFX), both are causing issues with AMD hardware/drivers, you can disable these in the settings.cfg or the launcher if you can't get to the in-game settings.

[Bender222]

Anyone else seeing artifacts in the Vab when mousing oer icons in staging?

[Robotengineer]

How do I get the Alt key to work on Linux Mint? It's hard to do linear symmetry with out Alt.

[vexx32]

The Alt key (as it is used on Windows) is an OS-specific MOD key that typically defaults to Right-Shift on Linux, as Alt is often used in Linux window managers for various purposes. I think it can be rebound in the settings.cfg if that is required.

[Robotengineer]

The Alt key (as it is used on Windows) is an OS-specific MOD key that typically defaults to Right-Shift on Linux, as Alt is often used in Linux window managers for various purposes. I think it can be rebound in the settings.cfg if that is required.

Thanks, right-shift will work.

[Yski]

Installed the latest beta driver, still freezing. It's really odd though, I can move around the menus and go to the settings just fine, but it always freezes in the menu after "Start Game". What's so different there?

Any clues in /var/log/kern.log or /var/log/Xorg.0.log ?

K.

kern.log has nothing near the time of the crash - I booted the computer, left it for a few minutes, froze everything with ksp and shut down the computer, waited a few minutes and booted it again, and all I see are the times I booted it and nothing in between.

Here's kern.log - I couldn't fit everything to pastebin, so I took the two latest boots. KSP did its thing at 11:37. http://pastebin.com/sTdVqQga

Xorg.0.log has no time stamps I can read, so I can't tell if something there is relevant. Here's the file: http://pastebin.com/pzG9KU3A

EDIT:

I'll be away from this particular computer for a few days, so I can't try anything new until sunday evening. I can still read and reply to messages, but that's about it. Thanks for all the help so far, even if everything is still freezing, at least I know I'm not making an obvious novice mistake here

Edited January 16, 2015 by Yski

[Bender222]

the firs time you run it the van is fine but the second time you get artifacts when you mouseover stages.

[enyecz]

Hi! I'm just migrating to a new notebook with an Intel HD Graphics 4600 graphics card. It has turned out that although 0.25 is OK, 0.9 is a "bit" buggy, e.g. the Kerbal Space Center's textures are black, the assembly building cannot be displayed (background is missing, parts are badly displayed). There is no such problem with my old notebook, which has an ancient, much weaker ATI card with open source driver. If someone has rendering issues with Intel graphics card, try to switch off "Edge Highlighting (PPFX)" at Settings->Graphics. That has solved my issues.

[rabidninjawombat]

I seem to be having some driver issues. When using the AMD proprietary fglrx (or fglrx-updates) drivers my entire screen freezes soon after clicking "Start Game" in the main menu - the transition plays just fine, the second menu appears, and after that, nothing. I have to reboot the entire computer to recover. Sometimes I can move my mouse around for a while, but usually that too freezes soon after, particularly when trying to move it outside the KSP window. The worst part is, it's not KSP that's crashing, so there's nothing in its log files, and I'm too much of linux noob to find anything else that might be of use.

Here's what I know:

-I'm using Radeon HD 7800, and the driver is supposed to support that.

-It's definitely the driver - the open source variant works just fine, but the lack of anti aliasing is killing me.

-Changing distros doesn't seem to help - I've tried Ubuntu 12.04, 14.04 and Mint 17.1, all of which were 64 bit and fresh installs; all I did was install ksp, swap to proprietary drivers and whisper a silent prayer to the Kraken before starting KSP.

Basically, I have no idea what's actually happening, and my "abandon ship!" strategy to solving it hasn't worked either. Does anyone have any ideas?

Id like to add im in the same boat. Using fglrx or fglrx-updates(running an AMD R9-270) Ill get the same exact hard crash you described. Mouse totally locks up and system does not respond to any keyboard input.

At one point i had netflix going on a second monitor for example, and sound kept playing (though video was completely frozen) really stumped by this one.

Nothing in the KSP log, so like you said.. ya a driver issue.

[Yski]

I am not alone!

So far I've figured out there's nothing in kern.log either, judging by time stamps. That's about it. But hey, at least I've finally found some scary linux logs that are about as useless as their ksp counterparts

[Carraux]

I got some weird problems installing Manjaro and KSP on0.90 an USB 3.0 stick. Most problems solved now but the system has a nasty behaviour: Every 5-6 seconds the video [output] stutters. This affects KSP as well as normal YouTube streaming. I am first term Linux user, my home is Windows so I do not know where to look and fiddle around...

Any ideas?

[Ruedii]

Carraux, well that's not much information to go on.

Some basic system information might be useful.

We would need your video card or video chipset model, your X11 version, your GLXINFO output, and your driver version if it isn't from the X11 package.

As a note, Manjaro isn't the best distro for beginners (it's a great distro, just not for beginners.) I personally would would recommend OpenSuse, CENT, (K/X/L)Ubuntu, or Mint for beginners, depending on the desired use and your computer background. (OpenSuse and CENT are best for people with corporate computing background, while Ubuntu varients and Mint are best for people with home-desktop background.)

I generally recommend against the main Ubuntu branc unless all you are running is a basic desktop. It's nice and smooth for a basic desktop, but not really that good for a development, learning or gaming system. For that you want Xubuntu, or Kubuntu, as they are more flexable.

[Carraux]

Thank you for your answer, Ruedii.

It seemed that Manjaro didn't like to be installed on a USB 3.0 stick (used like an external HDD). It seemed that no Linux distro I tried likes this (well, at least on my system). Curiosly, same stick operates very well under USB 2.0 but that's not the speed I wanted.

Anyway, to get this stick run under 3.0 I had to boot with the fallback option which means that the system was not optimzed for perfamance. Therefore the stuttering. Recently I set up a RAID 0 SDD config for my windows system so I had a spare SSD (120GB) where I did put Manjaro on. Then it liked me. KSP now has only the usual quirks. So: problem solved:

As a note, Manjaro isn't the best distro for beginners (it's a great distro, just not for beginners.) I personally would would recommend OpenSuse, CENT, (K/X/L)Ubuntu, or Mint for beginners, depending on the desired use and your computer background. (OpenSuse and CENT are best for people with corporate computing background, while Ubuntu varients and Mint are best for people with home-desktop background.)

Yes, I see myself as an absolute Linux beginner, but I have 25 years experience as a software developer, so it is not the matter of understanding. But Linux is an absolute different beast than Windows. And while it was not a problem to install 4 different Linux distros and play around with them (either in a virtual machine or on stick), it it took me 2 days to simply set the keyboard to a non-us locale (had to set the keyboard layout on three(!) different locations, and still the login screen has a us-eng layout, arrgh).

[terminalmonky]

I have one for the group. Im running Kubuntu 14.10 with a Nvidia 750m with 345.35 drivers. All runs great but I am getting a weird shader or color depth issue. PLeaes see the attached screen shot. This is not just a KSP issue but allso effect my X session. The KSP screne shot was just the best example. Is this a no brainer I have missed or is this a known thing and I should just carry on?

http://imgur.com/bTb2CO4

Thanks.

[politas]

Id like to add im in the same boat. Using fglrx or fglrx-updates(running an AMD R9-270) Ill get the same exact hard crash you described. Mouse totally locks up and system does not respond to any keyboard input.

At one point i had netflix going on a second monitor for example, and sound kept playing (though video was completely frozen) really stumped by this one.

Nothing in the KSP log, so like you said.. ya a driver issue.

I'm in the same boat with you two, though the crashes seem fairly random. I don't mind an early access game crashing on me, but having it completely lock up my computer is very annoying.

I'm using a triple-monitor setup on AMD graphics (both MB and dedicated graphics card).

On Ubuntu 14.04, which I've found quite a bit more stable than 12.04 was.

fglrx drivers were crashing constantly for me, so I've fallen back to the xorg driver.