Open metaverse viewer is a project aimed to package the Second Life(tm)viewer for Linux distributions, its primary goals are :-

  • To only use opensource components and to remove any non-free dependencies
  • Correct operation on 32 and 64 bit Linux
  • To get the viewer included within Linux distributons
  • To improve stability of the viewer

The project originaly started as just building the viewer for linux, this progressed in to 64bit linux and it soon became difficult to maintain binary compatability across multiple distributions so I focused more on Debian and Ubuntu. As the viewer developed it became openmetaverse viewer it grew, it got new features we used top git. As the viewer sucked in more dependencies it became impossible to keep compatability between binary versions of Debian and Ubuntu due to the versions of packages, my main repository I host was still debian and we started up a launchpad project as well for ubuntu.

As time went on and my involvment with Snowglobe increased and an abundence of alternitive viewers appeared the place for omvviewer changed, snowglobe packages were added to the repositories and the project is now focusing back on its core roots, to provide a free GPL compatable viewer that runs out of the box on Debian and Ubuntu (and other distros as become possible). I’m not specificly adding features directly to the viewer builds here anymore as I’m working directly on snowglobe, but early patches and features may well be released on my releases well before offical LL snowglobes get them.

The project has been directly helped over the years by the following people :-

  • Aleric (Debian/topgit/bugfixes)
  • Terrex (Ubuntu)
  • Lanny Bikcin (Arch)
  • Techwolf Lupindo (Gentoo)