Wednesday, October 19, 2022

OpenSim : Hypergrid : Firestorm Viewer for Linux now available as a Flatpak

By Avatar JayR Cela :     

    If you are a Linux user more than likely your familiar with the Flatpak application distribution method of publishing user applications, along with others such as Snaps and App Images. There are pros and cons to all three methods, my personal feelings favor Flatpaks over the later two, and I recently found the Firestorm viewer available on FlatHub : the Firestorm Viewer page. : https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.firestormviewer.FirestormViewer. This page does list an older and SL specific version of FS, however as is typical with Flatpak apps, the most recent version and with Opensim logins enabled is the one used during installation. It also seems that Vivox voice is working natively in Linux again as I can see the voice indicator  dot operate correctly above my avatars head as I key up the mic. I have not had a chance to test this with someone yet.

And this info is listed in the viewer Help > About Firestorm menu.

 Audio Driver Version: FMOD Studio 2.02.07

Dullahan: 1.12.2.202202071031

  CEF: 91.1.23+g04c8d56+chromium-91.0.4472.164

  Chromium: 91.0.4472.164

LibVLC Version: Using gstreamer 1.0

Voice Server Version: Vivox 3.2.0002.10426 


    If so this would mean no more having to use the Windows version of FS via WINE, just in order to use the voice feature again. Yay :_)

     One thing I need to mention here is the Firestorm team does not recommend the download and installation of their viewers from anywhere other than those linked on the official FS Web site. You have been warned

     My experience using Flathub and Flatpaks via my distributions Application Store over the past two years have been good, problems encountered so far were minimal and minor, also Flatpaks by design are run in a sandboxed environment, so the likelihood of a virus or trojan infecting you system are extremely low. As always do a full system backup before any unrecommended application install, and you should be fine.

JayR Cela :_)